Content London: Banijay launches sports division; Netflix on content rights; WBD UK commissioning plans

Marco Bassetti

Banijay is making a “significant push” into the world of sports, while Netflix revealed it owns less than 25% of its European content and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) UK shared it is seeking longer-running returnable titles in news coming out of Content London this week.

Production and distribution giant Banijay is launching a new division, Banijay Sports, which it said would help it to broaden its efforts in ‘sportainment’, documentary and digital, via new partnerships, content investments and M&A.

The move, which will not venture into broadcast and streaming rights, was announced by CEO, Marco Bassetti, in a keynote at Content London yesterday.

“In having a centralised division, we have further capacity to deliver on partnerships, carve greater volume, mobilise digital opportunities, and ultimately, fulfil our ongoing goals to scale the group,” said Bassetti.

Also speaking at Content London was Lina Brounéus, Netflix EMEA’s director of acquisitions strategy, who revealed that the streaming giant owns less than 25% of the rights to its European content.

Brounéus told the audience that Netflix is open to a range of models and, despite popular belief, does not want to take full ownership of all European content that it invests in.

“If you look at it on a whole, we own less than 25% of the IP rights for our European content,” said Brounéus, which she called a “big evolution” from Netflix’s strategy when she first joined in 2018 and the streamer was seeking to own as much of its library as possible. “There are no set limitations on how we do things. We want to build relationships that are win-win,” said the exec.

Elsewhere at the event, Clare Laycock, SVP and head of content, networks and streaming at WBD UK & Ireland, reiterated that the company is actively commissioning shows, and has been for more than 18 months, following a “pause” to review next steps after the Discovery and WarnerMedia merger.

“During the merger, we did have a commissioning pause because we couldn’t commission while we were putting the companies together. That’s well and truly over,” said Laycock. “We are still commissioning a lot across a broad portfolio of channels, said the exec, sharing: “We’re looking for things across at least three free-to-air channels for next year, and Discovery+,” particularly longer-running returnable titles for the linear channels.