All3Media is gearing up to splash out in the scripted market now that the £1.15B ($1.5B) RedBird IMI acquisition is complete.
CEO Jane Turton said at MIPCOM that the Fleabag and The Tourists super-indie will likely unveil new label acquisitions or launches over the “next few months or years,” and that these will be in the scripted space.
All3, which has around 40 labels, has been quiet in the acquisitions market of late following a lengthy sales process that ended with Jeff Zucker and Gerry Cardinale’s company RedBird IMI splashing out on the firm.
Turton pointed to the new All3Media-backed label formed by Lupin scribe George Kay as a textbook example of what could be to come.
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“There’s not a thinning of the herd [in terms of buyers of content] and the herd feels just as numerous as they always did, and it is very competitive,” said Turton. “So you try to do deals, bringing in irresistible talent like George Kay. The commercial success of his shows is obvious.”
“Platform for growth”
All3’s biggest buy in the past few years has been natural history producer Silverback Films. In our deep dive into the sleeping giant earlier this year, sources close to the company said former owners Warner Bros. Discovery and Liberty Global’s recent reluctance to back acquisitions had been a source of frustration for All3Media. Its other scripted labels include the like of Fleabag outfit Two Brothers Pictures and 1917 maker Neal Street.
Speaking today, Turton said “it is a lot nicer being out of the [RedBird IMI sales] process,” which she described as “exhausting.” In her view, RedBird IMI was attracted by All3’s “opportunity for growth” and “range and breadth” of labels.
“You don’t buy something to watch it plateau,” she added. “The Americans love to call it a ‘platform for growth,’ where if you put capital back in, you’ll get more than your capital back out.” We recently revealed that RedBird IMI had given All3 a cash injection to the tune of around £90M.
On the formats side, Turton said “organic investment” will be ploughed into trying to unearth the next The Traitors, which was created by All3-backed IDTV and produced by Studio Lambert in the UK and U.S. It is still one of the market’s biggest sellers.
Turton said distributor All3Media International “has become a co-producer almost,” getting involved earlier on in the creative process. While selling shows to the U.S. is crucial, Turton stressed that All3 creatives are not trying to “reverse engineer” shows to be American. “I don’t know if a producer is sitting there trying to make it American,” she added. “That’s the ‘Europudding’ problem, or ‘Anglo American pudding’ in this case.”
Turton was speaking at MIPCOM prior to Warner Bros. Television Chair Channing Dungey and outgoing Sony Pictures Entertainment chair Tony Vinciquerra on day one of the market.
The post All3Media Boss Teases Scripted Label Acquisitions To Come & Says Recent Sales Process Was “Exhausting” — MIPCOM appeared first on Deadline.
