In the wake of the London Screenings and leading up to MipTV in Cannes next month, C21 has been taking the temperature of the independent distribution business. With broadcasters and streamers cutting back on original commissions amidst economic strife this could be a great time to be a distributor, with acquisitions being used to stock schedules. However, if broadcasters aren’t greenlighting new programming, where does a sales house get a pipeline of content for 2025 and beyond unless they’re part of a large production group such as Banijay, Fremantle or All3Media?

Paul Heaney, CEO, BossaNova Media
(Slate newcomers: The World’s Biggest Cruise Ship, The Push, The Infinite Deep: Stories of Lost Submarines, Mysteries of the Museum)

How tough are you finding the market?
It was tough last year for many producers and channels and the BossaNova team have tried very hard to greenlight content. This year is looking very positive for us again but more importantly the industry has woken up at last. It won’t be the same as before but it’s good to be writing this in any case.

What new financing models are you using to fund programming?
It’s the proper era of the co-production, but don’t let that rather haughty term put you off, we’re only talking about getting the projects funded through pre-sales. Sometimes soft money, ie local funds, are being used, sometimes a single commission with a substantial gap. It’s what BossaNova does all day, every day, and we’re not the only ones now.

How is your role as a distributor changing?
For some of last year we felt part agony aunt, part management consultant to many but it’s good to return to what we do best: creating and helping to develop content we think the buyers will be interested in, testing those buyers’ needs with our Development Days and still, at the core, is having as many solid trusted relationships with platforms and channels that we sell our slate to, as before.

With fewer originals being commissioned it may be good to be a distributor now, but will the pipeline of content for your catalogue be a problem in 12/18 months’ time? How are you addressing that?
We’ve had a much-reduced line up of new or returning shows over the last six months but our revenue has increased at a faster rate. What does this tell you? It has made us – the hyper focused sales team – realise that perhaps there is a blend, a happy medium, where you have way less to launch, more time to pitch, less clutter for the business to cut through. We have certainly found that our licence fees are very competitive according to our suppliers. Less is more perhaps.