Cathy Payne knows the distribution market as well as any exec in the international business.
She headed up Southern Star International, which was bought by Endemol in 2009. It merged with Shine in 2015 before Banijay acquired Endemol Shine in 2020. Payne is now CEO Banijay Rights, the distribution arm of that huge business, which has a catalog of more than 200,000 hours including Black Mirror, Big Brother and Survivor.
“We’re big, but we want to keep that feeling we always had when we were small,” she says. “I’ve always worked in companies where production and distribution were integrated. When we started off in Australia, we always had to think about how we were going to get anything funded, we always had to find a way.”
Payne has been part of the evolution of the international TV business and has seen seismic M&A deals from the inside. She speaks to Deadline during a trip to her native Australia, before heading back in time for the London TV Screenings.
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“We’ve gone through the recalibration of the streamers but we’re still working through a lot of big corporate consolidation,” Payne says when asked about what’s shaping the international industry. She notes that distributors are waiting to see the consequences, at a buying level, of the Skydance and Paramount Global merger, and the impact of NBCUniversal and others separating linear and non-linear assets.
Banijay Rights response to the industry change? “It’s been a very challenging market. It becomes about your strength as an organization to come up with creative solutions that can help make things happen that may not have happened otherwise.”
Drama’s New Reality
With money tight and commissions thin on the ground in many places, making things happen in high-end scripted TV is a puzzle. The UK especially is feeling the pinch. Many projects are in limbo; they have been commissioned but cannot square off their funding.
Payne acknowledges it’s tough out there but spies some green shoots. The question, she says, becomes how to make shows with the money that is available.
“It’s about how do you find a different production model. Not every show has to cost a fortune to be successful. I was really pleased to see a show like Baby Reindeer, putting aside any controversy. It wasn’t expensive, it was just a really good show. It spoke to the audience.
“We just have to find a way to make things work because we can’t complain about what we had. The market is what it is.”
Banijay prodco Mam Tor is making Half Man, Baby Reindeer writer and star Richard Gadd’s new show for the BBC and HBO. Payne’s team will take it to market. With the London Screenings kicking off, the distributor’s key scripted titles include a contemporary take on detective classic Maigret, and a new version of vintage British series Bergerac. Banijay bought Caryn Mandabach Productions last year and Banijay Rights shops Steven Knight’s ever-popular Peaky Blinders internationally.
“There will always be those shows that people really want, but I don’t think there’ll be a big influx of new money for co-productions,” Payne says of the wider drama scene. “I don’t think we’re going to wake up and find it’s 2021 again.”
Distributors are being asked to fill bigger funding gaps in return for rights, but ultimately, the numbers need to stack up.
“There are certain shows where you might take a longer-term view, but at the end of the day you can only invest what you think you can make back,” is Payne’s take. “I really like content; I like to read it and I’m very passionate about it. I also like the sales process, and the sales process is sophisticated and creative.
“Distribution can’t invest to fill the gaps and then lose money.”
Scripted Gloom, Unscripted Boom?
The swings and roundabouts of the international business mean that when drama production is challenged it can mean an uptick in unscripted. But that part of the business is facing its own tests.
“There hasn’t been as much of that mid-price-point factual entertainment commissioned from the UK, but there have been more formats commissioned,” the Banijay distribution boss says. “For us, the entertainment formats, especially the well-known titles and the franchises continue to do well; our MasterChefs and Survivors.
“How they’re rejuvenated is part of their success, how you work out different production models that mean you can make Survivor for a market like Hungary and also make it for a market like Australia. We’ve got some MasterChef deals where we’ve never sold it before, there are still new markets being broken.”
Payne says the Discovery channels are ordering less, which is an issue. “There used to be a lot of factual programming commissioned from there, especially from a lot of UK producers, where a distributor like us would put up the rest of the money. A lot of that commissioning has just stopped. It’s been very difficult for some of those producers. They’re really reliant on royalties from catalog deals to help them sustain.”
With a deal for Mythbusters outfit Beyond International, Banijay Rights added 8,000 hours to its own catalog and Payne says size matters. “In distribution, it’s either the big or the boutique, but the middle is expensive. If you’re boutique, you can have really low overheads. Once you start getting into that mid range, the overheads between a company turning over 250 million and 150 million are not that much different.”
Having an enormous library also opens up direct-to-consumer opportunities for distributors, such as rolling out FAST channels. It’s an area Banijay Rights has been moving into. The most attention-grabbing launch has been a Mr Bean: The Animated Series channel.
The London Look
Banijay was one of the quartet of distribs behind London TV Screenings. What started as a moment to capitalize on BBC Studios bringing buyers to town for its Showcase event has grown into a must-attend fixture in the calendar.
Banijay rolls into the Screenings with the aforementioned Maigret, a doc on the 7/7 London Bombings and a new dating format, 30 Dates 30 Nights, among its key priorities across drama, factual, entertainment.
For Payne, the February get-together with buyers “is more than a trade market.” She adds: “People come and sit and take time. Like the LA screenings, you’re actually watching shows.”
Signing off, the Banijay Rights boss reflects on her roles atop the distribution biz and running Banijay Rights. “I want to make sure that it’s set up for good succession, someone else will lead the business at some point.” That is something for Payne to ponder, but not for a while yet, she is quick to add: “Not that I’m intending to go anywhere right now.”
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