Like anything in life, you get what you pay for.
One of the truest aphorisms around, but a lot of folks go through life thinking otherwise.
International program distribution is no different.
A lot of producers think they can do it all themselves. They think the distribution game is easy. How hard can it be compared to producing? It’s just sales, right?
So our story begins with that guy, a talented and enterprising Producer with a really terrific new [special/series/documentary]. We would like to handle the distribution for him and make some money for us both, but he decides he can do it all by himself. So he spends a few hundred dollars to design and print a snazzy flyer, buys a round-trip plane ticket to Nice, France, and registers as a Participant for MIPTV or MIPCOM. He shows up with a Participant’s Badge and an iPad and a shoulder bag full of four-color flyers and DVD screeners, ready to set the world on fire. He schedules a few meetings in the Participants’ Club or the Buyer’s Lounge and hey, what do you know, our Producer is doing business in Cannes! On the Riviera! How cool is this!
Our Producer scatters his flyers around the Palais des Festivals in all the right places and hopes they’re seen by the executives who have budgets to spend. He even spends a few hours putting the flyers in all the buyers’ mailboxes in the Buyer’s Lounge (not realizing that the buyers don’t even know they have mailboxes in the Buyer’s Lounge and wouldn’t go there to check them if they did know). Because maybe by now our Producer realizes that Sellers at MIPTV and MIPCOM need a Stand to sell from (complete with tables to sit at and a chairs to sit on). That the Buyers roam the hallways of the Palais and cannot be found at their own network’s stands (because that is where their own network’s Sellers spend their days). Maybe our Producer even realizes by now that the Buyers don’t really want to meet with Producers… in fact, nobody does. The Buyers want to meet with Distributors they know and trust, and the Distributors want to meet with the Buyers they know have budgets and checkbooks, so as to make their obscenely expensive investment in renting a Stand at MIPTV or MIPCOM pay off.
So perhaps by now, five thousand Euros later, our enterprising Producer with the really terrific new [series/special/documentary] has it figured out. It wasn’t so easy after all… but no, wait, our Producer returns home to find a few emails in his inbox requesting screeners of his [series/special/documentary], and even an actual offer, from a Pay-TV channel in Belarus (for $400)! (“I can do it all by myself!”)
Well… in order to close that deal, our Producer realizes soon enough that he will need to spend $500 to talk to a professional consultant on the phone who will tell him if he is getting treated fairly or not (or he’ll spend hours on the web trying to figure it out on his own). He realizes he needs a lawyer at $750 an hour to evaluate the 20-page contract (but he’ll try to do this himself too). Then he realizes that he needs to spend a few thousand dollars to get music cue sheets and transcripts done (he’ll try to hire unpaid interns to do this too). Finally he realizes that he needs to bring back the editor and use the editing room again to get the textless material placed properly at the end of his texted masters, and maybe his audio tracks aren’t configured the right way, and oh yeah, he need to spend thousands more to get his master videotape(s) or file(s) converted to PAL. And what’s this about E&O insurance?
Our story ends here…
And so, this is why we do business the way we do.
This is why our fees are what they are, and why our contracts and our promotional and marketing expenses are structured the way they are. Because we have been doing this for two decades, and we know how to do it.
You can try the distribution game yourself. Or you can probably find other distributors who will pay a higher royalty than we do. Some won’t even recoup promotion and marketing expenses. Many will never even ask you if you have all the deliverables they will need to service a deal. Just remember…
You get what you pay for.
But if you don’t want to be that guy, and you believe your content deserves to be handled by a professional worldwide program distributor with two decades of experience, and one of the best in the business, please give us a call.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Deliveries have been made, contracts signed, but where’s the money that was promised to be wired this month? Don’t be fooled. Collection is a vital role of the distributor that should not be overlooked. The distributor handles the cash flow to keep deals rolling and invoices flowing… money in, money out. It’s a tough market and getting paid is when the story ends.
Great point! Thanks for adding…
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for the great article. I would not like to be that guy, indeed. Is it possible to get in touch with a couple of independent filmmakers who worked with you (producing documentary, if possible)? Thank you!