The current state of the screen industry, defined more often than not lately as “tumultuous” and in a state of “correction,” was dissected in a panel on day one of the Banff World Media Festival (BANFF).

Titled International Media Leaders: Charting the Course Forward and moderated by Elaine Low, staff writer at The Ankler, the panelists discussed grappling with the impact of the pandemic, content streaming, the retraction of the business after ballooning to more than 600 shows, and the fallout from last year’s Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes.

The speakers included Bing Chen, CEO and co-founder, Gold House; Sandra Dewey, chief operating officer, Media Res Studio; Lisa Kramer, president, international TV licensing, Paramount Global Content Distribution; Asif Sadiq, chief global diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Warner Bros Discovery; and Cori Wellins, partner, scripted TV, WME.

“Every day that we’re a day further beyond the strike, it’s getting a little bit healthier,” said Wellins. “But it is a moment in time where I think we’re all trying to figure out business models that work for everybody.”

“I would say that for us, it’s been a period of adaptation,” said Kramer. “So when you’re talking about contraction and pandemics and the effect that that has on our diverse written content, it certainly does affect the work that we do on short, but the pressure doesn’t stop.”

She added that this period was not the first challenge to distribution, citing the rise of streaming. “In that case, where our distribution was changed and we started working together with our streaming organization, we adapted then, but the revenue pressure didn’t stop. We just had to find new ways to make it.”

“I think there’s definitely a reckoning that’s happening,” added Dewey. But she’s choosing to look at the business through a more positive lens. “I think we still see really clearly that audiences [remain] so hungry for great content that’s been made in the last five or six years. It’s as big as ever.”

She cited Netflix’s Baby Reindeer as an example of a show that broke through in a major way and on a global scale. “And I think the platforms and networks and buyers are hungry for it, too. There’s a cautious approach, but you can feel the engine grabbing.”

Another big topic was the sheer volume of scripted shows on air and streaming, with over 600 reported in 2022. Everyone on stage agreed it wasn’t sustainable, not should it be.

“The truth is we were in a bubble,” said Wellins. “We called it a bubble. We knew it was a bubble. The bubble has burst. But I think there’s a happy medium and I think we’ll get there.”

When the subject turned to diversity and inclusivity initiatives, the speakers were frank. “People want to see themselves, their culture, their representation, their countries, and I think that’s leading to a lot of real content in different countries that’s doing really, really well,” explained Sadiq. “And when you think about growth markets, [such as] Africa, Asia, these countries have real trajectories of growth in the next couple of years.”

“I think the one misstep is we gave opportunities without backing that up with support and training,” said Wellins. “We’ve now swung very far to the other side. Writing and producing a television show is a skill and you have to learn it, and without the people there to teach you, you will fail. If that’s how we were setting these people up in the long run, how are we really helping them? So I think it’s evolving.”

“At Gold House, because we invest in the next generation of creators and independent media companies across the Pacific, we are of two minds,” said Chen. “As someone who’s part of one of these minority diasporas I think if we look at this as DEI, or just as a relegation of representation matters, we fail from day one. One of the first questions we have to ask ourselves is, is this even good creative? And is there even a system set up for this? The second: is this even commercially viable? Can we actually manage these budgets in more clever ways? The conversation has to start there.”

Technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), inevitably reared its head during the session. But Chen for one is a big believer in AI for investors and content creators both, revealing that Gold Group’s venture fund portfolio is nearly half AI companies. He said that his company is excited by how AI could be complicit in accelerating the production process or reducing costs.

One company Gold Group is invested in is Genai Pixar, an AI start-up that has figured out a way to reduce costs and production of special effects and animation by three to six times. “I’m excited about this because for companies like ours, for emerging creators that don’t have $250 million budgets on the production side, they can benefit from this tool and produce something that may still look like a Marvel or Pixar,” he said.

Partnerships are the secret sauce to success

On Monday (June 10), the panel Dealmaking and Investment Post-Correction: Implications for M&A, Private Equity, and Value Creation in Content Businesses, got serious about money.

Moderated by Sam Sniderman, senior consultant and advisor, the panelists included Xavier Kochhar, CEO and general partner, XKE Capital; John Morayniss, CEO of Blink49 Studios; and Kerry Tucker, strategic advisor and board director, Vice Media.

For the panelists, growth always comes down to one word. “Partnership, partnership, partnership,” said Kochhar. “It is super, super, super important to surround yourself with people that are not like you. And when I say that, I don’t just mean diversity, like the way we think about standard diversity, but I’m talking about diversity of thought. It’s not the worst thing to have a financial-minded person on your board because the checks and balances are super important.”

Blink49’s Morayniss spoke about his company’s deep relationship with anchor investor Fifth Season. “They’re selling most of our series right now in the market, and they’re doing a great job, because they help us fund those shows,” he said. At the same time the studio is also working with smaller companies and closed their first M&A deal by acquiring B.C.’s Front Street Pictures, which produces TV movies.

“Our whole thesis was from a foundational business and a base in Canada, we can grow global business with the help of a lot of people,” he said. The studio began with five people, and now has a staff of thirty-two.

The Front Street acquisition gives Blink49 access to other areas of the business including service producing and owns distribution rights. “So now we’re building more volume, we’re building a library. And then guess what? We talked to Fifth Season about distributing a bunch of those movies, and that’s in process,” said Morayniss. “So again, it’s all about the partnerships, some through owned businesses and some through relationships, some through deals, and some just ad hoc. I think that’s important, especially in Canada.”

The talk then turned to Vice Media, which was acquired by Fortress Investment Group for $350 million in 2023 after filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. “I think the Vice story is sort of notorious now in content and in media, and kind of changed the game. We could all argue Vice was pretty disruptive when it was launched and it’s a cautionary tale,” said Tucker. “It scaled ridiculously well and fast and took a ton of investment from companies all over the world.

“But at some point, when you take such great risk, you also have to remember the responsibility to those that you take money from, to the audience, to the employees, to shareholders, all of it. And I think Vice is a good example of a content company, a media company that was so incredibly exciting, but didn’t necessarily manage it in the way that it needed to be managed responsibly.”

This month it was announced that Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith is back in the newsroom and will be a correspondent for Vice News, as well as hosting a podcast for Bill Maher’s Club Random Studios Network called Vice News: The Truth.

Tucker previously worked for Martha Stewart Living, which did an IPO above a billion dollar valuation, and Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, which sold for a US$900 million valuation. “I think the common denominator in all of those companies is that there was a brilliant founder behind each one of them who did something completely disruptive, something that people said couldn’t be done, and took enormous risks in some of these cases,” she said.

Their advice for emerging producers and prodcos? Focus on the brand.

“At the math level, you’re building a business that hopefully has revenue and earnings and some kind of consistent growth, and that obviously has value,” said Morayniss. “If you’re a production company, presumably you have a creative approach to what you’re making. So it’s about building a brand. Because sometimes the brand, in of itself, even if your earnings are fluctuating or maybe even losing money, has value.”

Photo by Kristian Bogner Photography; Pictured (L-R): Bing Chen,  Sandra Dewey, Lisa Kramer, Asif Sadiq, Cori Wellins and Elaine Low