‘Allo Insiders, Jesse Whittock here. The sun is scorching out there in London today (I promise you this does happen occasionally), but I’ve stayed just cool enough to bring you a rundown of this week’s biggest stories.
Mountains Of Content In Canada
Rockie return: A bleary-eyed Max Goldbart here fresh from touching down at Heathrow Airport after an action-packed three days at the Banff World Media Festival. Set against the backdrop of the beautiful Rockie Mountains (in the towering castle-like Fairmont Hotel) some of the most important people in the world of TV both in front of and behind the camera spent the early part of this week taking meetings and speaking to the interested public on all things television. As is customary these days, talk of Netflix’s travails dominated the chatter — it really was ever-present in the buzzy mid-panel conversations — and the streamer’s Head of Global TV Bela Bajaria’s keynote was by far the most subscribed. “Back to basics” for Bela, the exec said, as she pushed what feels the company line that Netflix is focusing on what matters: commissioning the best stories from the best talent in the wake of lower-than-expected subs growth that has sent shockwaves through the industry. More analysis coming from yours truly in coming days on the buzziest of Banff topics.
Canadian battleground: However, Netflix isn’t having the best time in Canada. The home of Banff Fest is currently pushing a bill through parliament, known as C11, that would require the SVoD to commission a certain amount of local content in the nation, in a similar vein to European territories such as France, while following government-imposed Canadian Content (known as CanCon) rules. Netflix is against the bill and has pushed back by repeatedly stressing the work it is already doing in Canada, which would only be hindered by cumbersome quotas. Under new Head of Scripted Series Peter Friedlander, Canada-based commissioners Tara Woodbury and Danielle Woodrow have spent the last year travelling the length and breadth of the country, meeting producers. “The last thing we want to do is come here and upend the market,” Danielle told an extremely interested crowd Wednesday morning.
Best of the rest: Elsewhere, major talent deals were on the mind for both John Morayniss’ Blink49 Studios, which Deadline revealed partnered with The Walking Dead: World Beyond EP Ben Sokolowski, and Blue Ant Studios, which forecast some imminent annos. Universal Group Chairman Pearlena Igbokwe used her keynote to propose a blueprint for successful reboots (look away now Saved by the Bell fans), Participant CEO David Linde was encouraging on the industry’s drive for social change and check out this in-depth interview with Lionsgate TV Chairman Kevin Beggs, in which he talked 42 investment, international productions and recent successes. Oh and he weighed in on the Netflix debate, of course. Until next year.
Plimsoll Fits For ITV Studios
Rewriting natural history: ITV Studios has been carefully building out its international producer portfolio for several years now, stocking itself with premium drama producers, factual companies and entertainment specialists. However, a dinosaur-shaped hole remained. The production and sales arm of British broadcaster ITV splurged nearly £103.5M ($126M) on Hostile Planet producer Grant Mansfield, giving it an in-house division that can stand up to the legendary BBC Studios Natural History Unit. Plimsoll isn’t a one-trick pony and does make other types of factual but there’s no doubt a company with wildlife commissions for Netflix and AppleTV+ helps ITV Studios better compete and draw nearer to full completion of its content jigsaw. ITV had been circling Bristol-based Plimsoll Productions since at least May, when the story first emerged in UK trade Broadcast, and will now hope the Plimsoll deal represents a good fit. Here’s more.
Spacey In Court
Bail granted, just don’t bail: Kevin Spacey — or ‘Mr Fowler’ as a magistrate chose to call him several times yesterday referring to his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler — was formally charged with four counts of sexual assault and another charge earlier this week in the UK. A media circus sprung up when it emerged he would appear at a hearing in Westminster on Monday morning. Our intrepid International Editor-at-Large Baz Bamigboye, some years ago a crime reporter, sharpened his elbows and entered the ruckus, as Spacey emerged from a limousine before the court session. Once he’d made it through, Spacey was granted unconditional bail, with his legal rep Patrick Gibbs successfully arguing that his co-operation up to this point showed there was no risk of him avoiding trial by fleeing and that is his U.S. work and life, including his “nine-year-old dog,” could not stop ahead of the trial. Read an account of the morning from Baz and me here. Next up in this sorry tale is a hearing on July 14 at Southwark Crown Court. Spacey will almost certainly plead not guilty when prompted, as Gibbs noted he “strenuously denies” all charges and wanted to “establish his innocence.” With Britain’s legal system in post-pandemic backlog meltdown, the trial may be some way off.
Unexpected Exit At Paramount
“Effective immediately”: A shock came during a broadly positive week for Paramount Global, during which its Indian joint venture signed the IPL cricket rights and Paramount+ launched in South Korea. Paramount International Studios President of Networks and Streaming Raffaele Annecchino was unexpectedly placed on leave and replaced by regional lieutenants JC Acosta, Maria Kyriacou and Mark Specht. The short, terse statement that Paramount issued surely betrays a larger story that may yet emerge but for now, the fact is one of Paramount President and CEO Bob Bakish’s top allies has mysteriously been moved aside, with neither Annecchino or Paramount currently saying anything. More here.
Indian Cricket Beats British Soccer
IPL of a price to pay: This week, Indian Premier League cricket officially became more valuable than English Premier League soccer. Only the NFL is now worth more than India’s megabucks tournament. While cricket is only really played in a handful of countries (more should adopt the game — it’s awesome, by the way), India’s population is nearly 1.4BN people now and almost every one is obsessed by the quirky bat-and-ball sport. That’s why Viacom18 paid a whopping $2.6BN for the streaming rights to the IPL between 2023-27 (and another $420M for further games) and Disney another $3BN to take Indian TV broadcasts at this week’s e-auction, which had the internet buzzing. The total auction value (more than $6.2BN) means that an IPL match — and not necessarily even one featuring Indian megastars like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma — is now worth $13.8M, compared with the $11.6M per English Premier League soccer game (the NFL remains out in front at $17M). In cricket parlance, you might say the IPL is winning by an innings.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot one: The UK’s Channel 4 ordered two-part doc The Kardashians: Billion Dollar Dynasty. Max had this one.
🌶️ Another one: The Trial Of The Chicago 7 outfit Cross Creek Pictures and animation specialist Zag will develop and produce ten animated, live-action and hybrid format features, most of which will be musicals.
🌶️ Getting hotter: ZDF ordered a local adaptation of Australian mini-series Safe Harbour named Liberame – Nach dem Sturm.
🌶️ Burning: I revealed SonyLIV’s “most expensive and ambitious” original show: a drama series adaptation of Indian independence book Freedom at Midnight.
🔥 Call the fire department: Jenna Coleman (The Serpent) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Invisible Man) have been cast as co-leads of Amazon Original drama series Wilderness, from Firebird Pictures. Denise Petski broke the story.
🚀 Launching: Andreas had the news Troika co-founders Michael Duff and Conor McCaughan are behind UK rep firm Maison Two, which debuts with Michaela Coel and Karen Gillan on the books.
🤝🏿 Done deal: Matt Grobar revealed Top Boy star and executive producer Ashley Walters has signed with Range Media Partners for representation.
🤝🏻 More deals: MUBI bought rights to David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future in Latin America, Turkey, India and Malaysia.
🚚 On the move: Katrine Vogelsang of Danish broadcaster TV2 is to be the CEO of Nordisk Film Production, with incumbent Henrik Zein moving over to a COO post.
🚚 Also moving: This morning, I had the news Netflix Director of Scripted Series in the UK Chris Sussman is leaving the streamer.
❌ Banned: Eli King’s film The Lady of Heaven is now banned in Morocco as controversy continues to swirl.
Max Goldbart contributed to this week’s Insider