36 shocks? Due to the advent of streaming? VideoAge contacted 13 acquisition executives from 11 countries to find out. The Journal article offered five ways that buying a car has changed, and four of them could apply to content buying: 1) Slim pickings, 2) Higher prices, 3) Fewer lease deals (or, in this case, fewer creative deals), and 4) More expensive used cars, which, for our purposes, could be changed to “More expensive nonexclusive deals.” “I actually don’t think licensing movies or series is harder than in previous years”, said Dermot Horan, director of Broadcast and Acquisition for Ireland’s RTE. “What is harder at present is finding new U.S. programming because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes. This means we buyers are looking across other territories to source English-speaking drama and comedy.” He continued: “After a couple of years of keeping programming to themselves for their own On Demand services, the [major U.S.] studios are making this material available to us again. And they are offering (in the main) the digital VoD rights we now need to accompany our linear rights.” However, he admitted, “It is true to say that much of what we are now being offered is non-exclusive. In that case we study what other platforms it would be on, and make a judgement call.” According to Peter Andrews, head of Programming for SBS Australia, “Audiences have never had so much content to choose from, but securing great content for your audience as a network has never been tougher.” He also explained, “In the competitive market, fuelled by the rise and proliferation of streaming platforms, and content deals often tied up with studios, it’s about working smarter.” He concluded with a message: “It’s important that producers and partners understand what we’re trying to achieve, are aligned with that, and ultimately want to be a part of it.” Mike Sneesby, CEO of Australia’s Nine Network, on the other hand, provided the reasons for the return of a more traditional business model: “[Because of] the evolving landscape of content creation and distribution, content creators and studios looked toward direct-toconsumer distribution over licensing to retain greater control over the commercialization are experiencing more challenges. Dianne Bissoon, founder of Cable & Wireless’ LimeTV, which covers 16 Caribbean islands, had this to say: “It’s expensive and very difficult to find new, unique content. Even older library titles and series have become super expensive post pandemic. In addition, the market seems to be saturated with documentaries and docu-series. During the pandemic this genre would have been inexpensive to produce and yet it is still expensive — even for non-exclusive rights. I have found that post-pandemic audiences are looking for more entertainment, action, fantasy, and comedy titles. However, with a shortage it’s become very difficult to become creative in doing such deals. The rise of streaming and FAST channels also makes it very challenging in the linear space. The increasing costs of live sports content have also driven up the demand and cost for sports documentaries.” Moving north to Puerto Rico, Jimmy Arteaga Grustein, president of Programming, Promotion and Production at WAPA-TV, reported: “Unlike the vehicle market, today the situation of our industry is different. The studios have found that the [streaming] platforms were not as efficient as they were projected to be and have slowly begun to restore the sales relationship they had before 2019.” However, Arteaga added, “Acquisitions of movies and TV shows became more difficult before the pandemic when the platform race began. The problem for the studios today is that on our side of the coin, as in the ’90s, free-TV had to increase local production with the effectiveness of ratings and corresponding [ad] sales, and the cable channels started with their own panregional productions. The traditional business knew how to survive.” He continued: “Today the problem no longer is necessarily the lack or excess of available product, but rather survival against streaming. Cable channels are the ones that have been most impacted since free-TV still has the benefit of being local.” He continued: “However, with the appearance of multi-viewing, the new generation hardly sits down to watch television as before, which has had an impact on free-TV. Finally, the FAST channels is the race of the moment, but we will have to wait to see how this new wave that not everyone understands well, develops. Different from the automobile market, ours has evolved and changed so fast in the last years, sometimes back, and sometimes forward. The of their content. This created a period where content supply became more limited for networks that relied on licensed content and with this came upward pressure on pricing.” He then explained: “Building scaled distribution through direct-to-consumer streaming has proven to be challenging and very costly and in many cases content creators and studios have realized lower returns than the traditional models of licensing to third parties. Today we are seeing a shift back to more traditional distribution and licensing as well as hybrid distribution models and business partnerships.” To Maria Carola Arze Torres, an independent acquisition consultant who has held previous posts at Bolivia’s Red Uno, ATB, and Cadena A, “Streaming affects acquisitions due to the fact that the audiences have been more selective, and now they decide where and when.” But she indicated other problems, as well: “Content acquisition has become a more complicated task since there are many variables to consider [including] the economic situation in our country, and the fact that investment in the few timeslots devoted to canned content is subject to obtaining low prices, which restricts the options to acquire more successful content and new releases.” Similar problems were experienced by Pedro Lascurain, Content Acquisition director at Mexico’s TV Azteca, “Prices are much higher than before. This is due to the fact that platforms are not doing well (at least in Latin America) and the studios are raising the product prices to compensate for their losses. For us it is becoming very difficult to close new deals with them. Plus, there is very little good new product, so we are acquiring many reruns and still they are more expensive than three years ago. We are looking for new distributors around the world to see if we can get good product for better prices.” Even territories that have traditionally had to be creative in their buying strategies Buying TV Content (Continued from Cover) (Continued on Page 38) October 2023 “Today the problem no longer is necessarily the lack or excess of available product, but rather survival against streaming.” — Jimmy Arteaga Grustein, WAPA-TV Maurizio Colombo, head of Programming and Acquisition Planning, Mediaset Mike Sneesby, CEO, Nine Network Australia
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