The first thing you’re struck by when you enter Simon Lloyd’s office are the white boards hanging on his wall – each covered in neat rows of colored ink, warding against the chaos that accompanies a 250-hour-strong slate. And it’s not just a volume thing. Lloyd, who serves as president of programming for Cineflix, also finds himself juggling the demands of a global production lineup and partners around the world. Short a whip and a chair, sometimes white boards will have to do.

Since 2000, Cineflix has grown from a small Montreal-based indie into an international concern, with offices in Canada, the U.K. and Ireland – Cineflix Productions and post are anchored in Toronto, head office and administration in Montreal, and international sales/distribution and development in two London-based offices. A Dublin office handles distribution contracts and administration. The company has plans to make its first footprint in the U.S., with an office opening in New York this fall. In total, Cineflix employs about 400 people.

Although the producer/distributor continues to reach outwards, gathering more contacts and customers internationally, more often than not it is using its new-found leverage to bring expertise – and money – back into the Canadian industry. It’s all about creating ‘those virtuous triangles,’ as Lloyd describes them; production alignments that serve the needs of both the show and the international partners, while still allowing the company to take advantage of Canadian expertise and funding sources.

‘It is about where the talent is,’ Lloyd observes, ‘how best to staff it, and who the lead broadcaster is.’

With such a high volume of production constantly churning, retaining in-house talent is a priority. Cineflix employs two full-time production talent co-ordinators (one in Toronto and another in London) to staff shows.

‘We grew very quickly for two years,’ says Lloyd. ‘Our job now is about production recruitment, and that means most of their time is spent retaining people – looking at people’s contracts and saying: ‘You finish on that show six weeks hence. What would you like to do next?’

‘Once you’ve got people, you don’t let them go. Those two jobs might sound like a luxury, but when a show starts up, producers can spend their time concentrating on it. And it also means people feel they have a real career path in the company.’ Lloyd estimates that 80% of his production staff have worked on more than five consecutive shows for the company.

When it comes to attracting new talent, he admits that it helps to have a distribution arm providing a constant cash flow, even in recessionary times when commissions are harder to come by. And the company has added some high-profile international names to the roster lately – including a new EVP programming in Charles Tremayne, a new director of coproduction/exec producer in Ian Russell, and an SVP of programming in Joe Houlihan. (See sidebars.) That security is a key selling point, notes Lloyd: ‘They are not going to walk away from a nice stable job and have to go and get commissions immediately because we’re living hand to mouth.’ Lloyd should know, having joined the company himself in 2005, after leadership positions at London’s Outline Productions, Wall to Wall Scotland and English/Welsh concern Prospect Pictures.

INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK

Cineflix takes the same approach to its partner and client list as it does with its staff, dedicating resources to retention while looking for strategic growth.

One of the most notable of the white boards in Lloyd’s office offers an expansive list of broadcasters the company is partnering with – and has targeted. Being able to offer potential partners access to internal distribution and Canadian funding resources helps Cineflix table ‘a hell of a deal when money is tight,’ admits Lloyd. ‘The fact that we are a Canadian company really allows us to be more aggressive in terms of price points in America and Britain.’

In a recession, that offer might be too good to pass up. In fact, Lloyd notes that the last five green lights have been led financially out of the U.S. or Britain, with much of that investment coming back into Canada.

Leveraging Canadian talent and resources is key to the company’s success. The series Property Virgins, for example, was an HGTV U.S. commission shot in America but entirely staffed by Canadians. While the Cineflix production topper notes that sometimes it’s impossible to determine where you shoot, there’s often flexibility in the talent used, and the editing in post. That’s where the Canadian connection helps.

Because of the many variables, Lloyd says there is no such thing as a ‘standard financing model.’ Sometimes Cineflix does straight 10-point projects – like Conviction Kitchen (fall pickup for Citytv), where all the talent is Canadian. Sometimes coproductions will dictate local versioning with foreign shoots and talent, as is the case with a show like The Unsellables.

‘None of us come into TV saying ‘We’re going to be businessmen.’ We’re all program makers,’ says Lloyd. ‘[But] because Canada has copro treaties with so many countries, unlike Britain and the U.S., people are very entrepreneurial here about finding ways to finance new shows… There really is a strong culture here of making financing models work.’

In evidence of that, Cineflix is about to do its first Brazilian copro for an eight-part series called Nazi Hunters for History.

VERSIONING AND PITCHING

Perpetually finding new financing models and new partners is a complicated business, and it is not without cost. Lloyd says Cineflix shoots a sizzle reel for about half the pitches they make. (‘It’s very hard in America to pitch off paper,’ he explains. ‘In L.A., people don’t even take paper pitches.’) Last year, when they spent more time knocking on familiar doors, they had a pitch success rate of about one in eight. Because they have targeted new broadcasters this year, including seven broadcasters they have never worked with before, that has dropped slightly to about one in 11.

When it comes to pitching, it’s obviously a huge advantage to have a library of 1,000 hours to draw upon (roughly 700 hours of original productions and the rest acquisitions), both as evidence of production competency and as pitch material. For example, when Cineflix initially pitched the BBC on the idea for The Unsellables, the broadcaster passed. The format went on to be commissioned by HGTV in Canada, and has since been picked up by both HGTV in the U.S and the Beeb.

‘They saw the Canadian show, with the viewing figures, and they loved it,’ says Lloyd of the British pubcaster. ‘I think it’s the first ever time a factual Canadian format has been made in Britain and America as well, certainly simultaneously.’

Working with international partners does add new layers of complication. Lloyd notes that with traditional factual docs, the lion’s share of the versioning work is done at the scripting stage, fine-tuning the script for local tastes, and then edits are split normally, with each partner getting their own version of the show.

When it comes to factual entertainment, it gets more complicated. Cineflix tries to do fewer copros in the genre, as pacing and other factors play a larger role. ‘We try to have one very strong partner and then bring in junior partners,’ says Lloyd, ‘and then try to make local versions of the show. But copros in fact ent are trickier. There are universal themes and universal talent, but the key is in splitting the edit as soon as possible.’

It might be getting easier as viewers become more savvy, however.

‘In terms of the pace of the show,’ observes Lloyd, ‘in all three countries, there is much more of a convergence now because we all watch American TV, Canada gets British TV as well as Canadian TV, and everything cross-fertilizes. That’s how genres become more and more meaningless and redundant.’

CANADA CATCHING UP

Until recently, Canada has lagged behind much of the world when it comes to viewer acceptance and production competency in the world of factual entertainment; something Lloyd believes is a reflection of the country’s strong film and documentary upbringing.

‘I think the documentary tradition in Canada has meant that Canada wasn’t as accepting of reality and factual entertainment as Britain and the U.S. were. In the U.K., television was always a bigger industry than film. And because of the nature of funding with the BBC and Channel 4, the fact ent model kicked in early. In the three years that I have lived here [however], I have noticed a massive sea change in the programs made.

‘You can see a lot more Canadian shows in the fact ent and reality area punching their weight with British and American shows. That you didn’t see a few years ago.’

In fact, he believes Canada is perfectly placed to be a leader in the factual world, as producers can tap into the U.S. and British markets and have financing scenarios unavailable to others.

‘We can create formats here,’ he asserts. ‘The Dutch do it. The Swedes do it. The Japanese do it. It’s not just Britain.’

But it will take broadcasters willing to take risks. ‘One of the problems in developing primetime formats for Canada is that there isn’t the willingness to try to create a dynamic format here. It is too easy to go ‘Oh, we’ll buy it off Simon Fuller [chief executive of London’s 19 Entertainment and co-creator of So You Think You Can Dance], and we’ll do exactly what they say.’

‘But that’s reductive. The only people making money on some of those shows are 19.’

Lloyd (understandably) offers high praise for Rogers and Citytv for taking a chance and investing in Conviction Kitchen, bringing it to a level where it can play against any big American show in primetime. He calls the approach ‘the gift that keeps on giving,’ as the investment has created a format whose rights can be exploited in the U.K. and U.S.

‘I think when you talk about Cancon, people shouldn’t just pay lip service to it,’ he says. ‘I think the conventional channels here do have a duty to not just license other formats – that’s not what Cancon is about.’

So what’s next for the producer/distributor? After two years of frenetic growth, Lloyd is looking for more conservative, sustainable growth – with an emphasis on bringing on new broadcast outlets and international copro partners. (One of the reasons Russell was brought on was to copro with France and Germany.)

And is he worried about the economy? ‘I think the market, long term, will be fine,’ he notes. ‘Long term, these channels are really healthy.

‘In a recession, cable is the last thing people get rid of because it is a cheap night’s entertainment.’