Global TV Market Reboot: A New Second Window Blows Open
SCOOP: Amazon is now selling some of its biggest shows to buyers in territories where it already streams, and other deal earthquakes at the L.A. Screenings
I cover int’l TV from London. I wrote about the U.K. company behind Netflix’s Adolescence, Ireland’s “conveyer belt” of unscripted production and how the U.K.’s Studio Lambert mints reality hits like Squid Game: The Challenge and Traitors. I’m at manori@theankler.com
My social feeds this week were a heady mix of film execs sipping rosé in Cannes and TV execs schmoozing with the likes of Donnie Wahlberg and Shemar Moore on studio lots in Los Angeles. Same same, but, um, different.
My focus today is on the L.A. Screenings. I’ve written extensively about how transformative the last five years have been for international TV markets, and the studios’ annual L.A. confab for global buyers is likewise changed. In fact, some might argue it’s become unrecognizable. That doesn’t mean, though, that it’s any less of a lifeline for the studios, which still rely on strong international sales to fund their TV slates. Just look at Sony, which was out there brazenly wooing buyers with a S.W.A.T. spinoff that doesn’t even have a U.S. home, three months after CBS canceled the original S.W.A.T. for the third time.
But when the majority of studio-owned streamers launched in 2020 and 2021, many buyers wondered if this event would even survive. A “walled garden” approach combined with global expansion plans don’t exactly engender much confidence among internationals around what shows they’ll actually be able to purchase. “One year, we were like, ‘Are the L.A. Screenings actually going to happen?’” recalls Melanie Rumani, global head of acquisitions for British commercial broadcaster UKTV and parent group BBC Studios.
Reason prevailed, studios reacquainted themselves with lucrative licensing revenue and the L.A. Screenings soldiered on. “When I started doing this, there might have been 60 to 65 pilots commissioned by the U.S. networks, of which they might then order 30 new shows consisting of 20 dramas and 10 comedies. Then we’d all fly out, and literally those pilot episodes would be shown to us,” says Dermot Horan, director of acquisitions and co-productions at Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, where he’s worked for 31 years.
You could spend close to a whole day in movie theaters on a studio lot, screening pilots of network dramas and the latest crime procedurals, with the odd cabler offering thrown in. Now, buyers are contending with hours-long presentations where some studios don’t even show a full-length episode, but instead lean heavily on trailers and lengthy clips and talk up their returning shows. I asked one buyer how they’re expected to actually bid on a show without watching a pilot, but the reality is that they’re used to it: It’s not unusual to pick something up from scripts alone. Plus, I’m told some studios hold more screenings in the fall months, when more content is ready. But most buyers agree that the loss of full pilot episodes at the L.A. Screenings isn’t ideal. In place of creative discovery, it’s pure conference vibes.
In this edition, I’ll break down:
How drastically the format and feel of the L.A. Screenings have shifted
The pressure on global buyers feeling the squeeze — less inventory, smaller budgets, more competition
The stand-out series that buyers are talking about
Why Sony TV’s S.W.A.T. spinoff is seen as a “punt” and a risky proposition — but could surprise with international appeal
Scoop! Amazon’s bold sales play, and the two big Prime Video originals being sold to global buyers
How Amazon MGM’s distribution arm became a buyer’s best friend
Why even Trump can’t kill the appetite for U.S. network shows internationally
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