Disrupting old habits, introducing new practices:

Analysing public broadcasters' acquisition practices in an internationalising and converging media environment

Karen Donders (VUB) & Hilde Van den Bulck (UA)Brussels, June 2 2015

Key questions

How do recent changes in television industry (esp. non-linear alternatives to traditional

broadcasters) affect acquisition policies and opportunities of traditional broadcasters?

How are public service media affected?

Theoretical framework (1)

Programme acquisition in the post-linear era

Theoretical framework (2)

PSM’s long & strong position in acquisition future proof?

Method

• Desk research

• Semi-structured, in-depth interviews with PSM acquisition departments

• Focus on small countries/regions– Flanders– The Netherlands– Ireland– Sweden– Denmark– Norway– Basque Country

Findings

1. ≠ types of contract relations

• Output deals– Mostly US distributors (e.g. RTE with Disney)– Rare because:

• Competition with commercial broadcasters • Insufficient BC hours - reluctance to shelve

– Sub-licensing from commercial BC (VRT, SVT, DR)

• Volume deals– BBC WW preferred contract (with VRT, RTE,…)– From large deals (portfolio of first option series, documentaries, children’s

programme…) over number of soaps to one soap

• Individual contract for one product (some pre-buy)– Majority (n, not ≈ money) of PSM contracts with all distributors

2. Relevance acquisitions for PSM

• Relevance acquisition for BC schedule varies:– Between 7% (NPO) and 44% (SVT)

• Majority of budget spent on small number of distributors– 40-90% of budget for 7-10 distributors– US-majors, BBCWW, All3Media, Endemol, Freemantle– 100+ small distributors

• Mutual dependence between PSM and BBC WW – PSM on BBC WW for public service content– BBC WW on PSM to buy content commercial BC do not

• BBC Worldwide is a distributor that behaves like all other distributors

3. Challenges in ‘post-linear’ market

• Programme sellers (e.g. BBC WW) under pressure to raise revenues

• More competitive market– commercial BC, pay-tv, tv distribution Co, Netflix – International acquisition with big budgets

• Evolution towards sellers market

• Strict and linear windowing dwindles

• PSM position as first broadcaster under pressure

• Small PSM dwarfed by ‘large’ neighbours’ buying behaviour

Conclusion

• Primacy principles international sales/acquisition market undermines– Universality (content first available pay-per-view/subscription)– Long-term genuine creativity (focus export on ‘typical British’ drama)– Diversity (majority acquired content from US and UK)– Quality standards (reluctance to discontinue series failing PSM quality benchmarks but

popular in the international market)

Thank you