Opinion: The power of good distribution

Siobhan Crawford

TBI’s resident format expert Siobhan Crawford wonders why distribution has a bad name in some circles and explores how the format biz is changing.

We have spoken about this before but we are going in hard this time: Distribution. Specifically today – in this economic climate and mythbusting.

A friend of mine believes ‘distribution’ it is a dirty word in the media world, it is said in hushed tones.

Not revered, not mentioned when it comes to employment statistics and perhaps not understood. Can it be true that this part of our business, that has evolved and matured in the past 20 years, is the black sheep in the industry?

Today

Today, in this financial climate, where there are so few new launches and the groups control the big brands and the recommissions, distribution is harder than it ever has been. Fact. The consolidation in the market makes access to content harder than ever – even historical libraries and singular titles.

Larger companies are able to use their resources and get to content quicker or have personnel in more countries to have better oversight.

In this climate creators are looking for advances or have deficit holes to fill – this does not come from your friendly neighbourhood distributor, too much risk or not enough resources.

Then comes streamers, who are making what we do harder by the day purely based on their business model. When commissioners choose to commission the big brands it does not just put the indie producers at risk but the distribution ecosystem.

How much is too little to share? And when a creator believes their show is the best idea ever (it’s not) and they start putting minimum number of deals on distribution contracts… 2, 5… will the indies be able to retain rights so when the market ‘rights’ itself they can continue the effort they have put into these titles in harder times?

Mythbusting

It was inferred (straight to my face) that distribution is easy as “all the emails and contact details are available online”. Burn baby burn. Are you kidding me?

It takes years to cultivate relationships, to know who to trust, who fits a genre best, what terms are standard in a territory, maintain that priceless contacts list (that no sales person will ever share in its entirety).

I challenge anyone to be a format distributor. These people are programmed to think in six month windows, launch seasons, markets… they have inbuilt stressors when content is not ready by an unsaid deadline. They cringe visibly when a format looks too close to another, rather than plough on and claim it is not their job to know others people’s shows.

And this art is visible when you look at the deals we do. When a producer comes along – after a deal has been done – and they say they have long standing pre-existing relations with the client you just closed a deal with YET they either did not think to or could not do a deal with that person to sell their format.

Yeah, people can claim all sorts of bullshit but I am raising my glass to distributors on a job well done. Good distribution is the effect Destination X had on the market. Bang. The Traitors had in society. Boom. The Mole had in straddling linear and SVOD simultaneously. Pow.

So when someone says to me they can find the contact details – god speed!

This is us

Can distribution keep going in this industry? Probably not as we know it but people are going hella try!

I am running Glow on my dime, in an economy that supports the groups more than the indies, but does it stop the smiles? No.

Have you met Tanja at All Right? Most positive distributor ever. And Matthieu Porte at Can’t Stop, one of the few who can launch big primetime studio shows to compete with a group’s big brand.

And Sergio at Phileas, who generates more news ideas per market than some of the groups. We can’t be everything, we can’t do everything, we have to be specialists and we have to manage expectations properly, and perhaps we have to launch fewer higher quality titles. And you have to know that what we do can take 18 months (sweet spot) or four years and we can’t perform magic to all titles.

I always love the reaction a factual/tape person has of a format person “how can you do formats – isn’t it really slow?!”. And the Format to the tape people “yuck”. Why? Because we are not the same people. But we are all distributors and our super power is we know the people, not just the email addresses.

So when you want to underestimate us distributors… God speed!

Siobhan Crawford is co-founder of Glow Media and has worked in the format business for almost two decades at firms including DRG, Zodiak, Banijay and Primitives

Check out Siobhan Crawford’s recent columns:

MIPTV – The one that got away

OOO in the sunshine of Cannes (eat that London)

Why this London TV Screenings’ theme will be ‘oldies but goodies’

Hello from the other side, I must’ve called a thousand times…

Reflecting on the relentless hustle of 2023 & why next year will be better…

TBI Weekly: Reliving the ’90s and the ‘everything that came after’ in Formatland

Opinion: ‘MIPCOM 2023: The One Where We All Got Together & Didn’t Buy Anything’