Playback‘s Spring 2024 cover story looks at how Canadian producers are raising financing in a tough local commissioning market. Part one examines the current state of the Canadian market, while part two, below, explores how producers are getting creative with global partners.
More than ever, international financing has become a critical lifeline for Canadian producers. But with the international market facing its own financial pressures following disruption from the dual U.S. writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, the Canadian creative community is having to adapt to stay competitive.
Vanessa Piazza (pictured right), CEO of SkyMed prodco Piazza Entertainment, says the relationship between Canadian drama producers and the U.S. market has shifted. “The U.S. commissioner is often part of a larger company that is also looking for global rights. In the case of SkyMed, we sold the show to Paramount in the U.S., then Paramount Global Content Distribution came in as the distributor.”
Paramount, says Piazza, has been “an amazing partner” on SkyMed. But the new paradigm requires Canadian producers to think through the pros and cons of working with streamers. “The fact that streamers want global rights could be an inhibiting factor for some Canadian companies,” explains Piazza – particularly those looking to build a content library. This needs to be weighed against the simplicity of a global deal.
Several producers are benefitting from the growing number of programme distributors taking on a quasi-commissioning role.
Within Canada, a good example is Boat Rocker Media’s partnership with Shark Teeth Films with factual series such as Secrets in the Ice (pictured above), Secrets in the Dark and Discovered by Disaster. The partnership allows Boat Rocker to greenlight series without a broadcaster, then secure presales in the international market as the global rights holder.
Meanwhile, Go Button Media has built a formidable slate of unscripted shows by partnering with international distributor-commissioners including BossaNova (Mysteries Of The Ancient Dead) and Autentic (Deadly Science).
Go Button’s model has developed a kind of territorial agnosticism, where the goal is to find an initial partner that can trigger a financial domino effect. “We had one project [A World Without NASA] where the initial greenlight came from streamer Curiosity Stream, with distributor DCD coming on board next,” says co-founder and executive producer Daniel Oron (pictured left). “In another case [Forgotten Frontlines], Australian broadcaster SBS started the domino effect and then Off The Fence joined in.”
As the model has matured, Go Button has expanded the cohort of firms it works with. Recently, it secured a co-commission from Germany’s ZDF Studios and Canadian pay TV channel Super Channel, entitled Into the Universe: The Secrets of the Cosmos Uncovered.
While foreign funding is key to getting shows made, Oron makes another salient point about the emerging model. “Under the traditional model, it can take years to get a commission – and that pace just doesn’t work for us. What we like about this new set of relationships is that we can get a yes or no almost immediately.”
BossaNova co-founder and CEO Paul Heaney says Canada’s combination of tax breaks, content funds and broadcaster acquisition fees (at both the national and regional level) means the country’s producers are particularly attractive to work with. But he also agrees that there is a kind of muscle memory when it comes to Canadians and content exports. “They have been working internationally for decades and do it without complaint,” he says. “There is rarely ever a cause for concern in terms of the quality they deliver.”
Heaney says there is not much Canadians need to be taught about how to make the distributor-commissioner model work for them. “They understand what it takes to make a show work for the international market.”
In terms of how Heaney likes to operate, he is not prescriptive about what indies should bring to BossaNova. “I typically look at their development slate and tell them what is likely to gain traction among international broadcasters. Often, I encourage producers to lean into their core expertise, work within the areas they understand and enjoy.”
A Heaney innovation that Canadian creators are able to take advantage of is BossaNova’s Development Day, when producers are invited to pitch ideas directly to the company’s buyer contacts. “Our last Development Day was held the Thursday before MIPCOM and had around 40 buyers in attendance,” he says. “We’re expecting that number to increase for the next event.”
Canadian pay TV broadcaster Super Channel has played an increasingly significant role in supporting this evolving distributor-led financing model by providing a bridge back to Canada. Super Channel president and CEO Don McDonald (pictured right) says his company has been able to pivot its content strategy in a way that benefits both Super Channel and producers with global ambitions. “Originally we were a traditional-style pay TV channel with a focus on movies. But that model became harder to sustain – especially after Netflix arrived.”
For Fuse, one of Super Channel’s four services, the answer has been to explore factual and reality series in genres like true crime, history and mystery.
“Canada has a lot of tax refunds and incentive programmes, but you need a Canadian broadcaster to trigger them,” says McDonald. “So we started getting approached by producers that had an international sale, but needed a partner to unlock additional funding from the CMF. For us, the result has been successful returnable franchises like Cruise Ship Killers from Farpoint Films.”
Such is the significance of this model that Super Channel extended its output deal with Farpoint, which will see the outfit produce 150 hours of both unscripted and scripted television for Super Channel over the next year. Upcoming titles include I Died… And Came Back (13 x 60 minutes), Fishing For History (14 x 60 minutes) and One Way Mirror (26 x 60 minutes).
One outfit that has pulled all of the above strands together into a 360-degree model is Blue Ant Media, which has domestic and international channels, as well as global production and distribution. Following the absorption of marblemedia, one particular area of growth is format sales, says Blue Ant’s Bishop. “Best In Miniature has been adapted in multiple territories. Soon we will be able to announce an adaptation of Race Against The Tide.”
Bishop says there is no accident to the way Blue Ant Media has been built, with the company’s co-founder and CEO Michael MacMillan perfecting a model that worked so well during his time as executive chairman of Alliance Atlantis. “The way we’re structured means there are many approaches we can take to content investment in this rapidly-evolving global market.”
This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Spring 2024 issue