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A TV crowd tuned into a conversation that was in large part about indie film finance models at Iberseries & Platino Industria, Thursday. “TV finance plans are looking more like independent film finance plans,” Creativity Capital co-founder Patrick Fischer, told a packed room. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing because there’s opportunity.”
A sell-out crowd at the Madrid confab for a session on the future of financing demonstrated that TV folk need to find different ways of getting their projects financed. That is becoming a necessity given the TV drama biz has cooled. A commissioning broadcaster plus distributor advance, or even backing from a streamer, will no longer guarantee the budget is covered in TV drama.
Fischer was asked to compare-and-contrast the ways finance and lending work for indie film and TV drama: “In film, we’re often relying on one, two or three producers to really deliver. With TV companies, we’re talking to the CFO, the CEO. Let’s face it, TV is a bigger industry that allows for bigger companies with more value, which is great for a lender.”
Jacaranda Group invests in film and TV for VCs and private clients. Speaking on the Deadline-hosted panel, its founder, Elisa Alvares, said that when evaluating TV projects “the key question is, what’s left in terms of territories.” Magnetic Labs’ Tyler Gould agree and said the indie film finance model can apply to TV if there are rights left on the table.
Magnetic Labs, formerly 141 Entertainment, has a new fund and is lending against film and TV projects, ideally ones that come packaged with script, director and some recognized talent.
“The film finance model does translate to TV to a certain extent, I think the main differences are the cost of TV, and that there is often an anchor broadcaster,” he said. “To the extent that you can find an anchor broadcaster, and then you can leave as many territories open as possible [for sales], there’s a gap in the market, with a kind of indie model to fill that.”
With TV buyers, especially the traditional broadcasters, often not able to fully fund big-ticket drama, and budgets remaining high, there is a space for financiers. “If you need two broadcasters, you need your distributor, and maybe you have some gap and you need to get someone to put money against additional sales, that’s what we look at,” Fischer said.
The TV drama business boomed as the SVODs drove demand for premium projects in a race for subscribers, but the market has now shifted. “We’re back to reality,” Fischer said. “Fine, the big party’s over, but we still have work to do, and we have great stories to tell. There’s money out there and there’re people who need the stories.”
That was heartening news for a TV crowd keen to find new ways to get their shows over the line.
