The world’s # 1 independent company had a great March after the first virtual “The London Screenings”, the announcement of major VOD deals and superlative growth in digital revenue in Latin America, while continuing to increase its content catalog, which already exceeds 100,000 hours.
Last year the purchase of Endemol Shine by Banijay was one of the most anticipated and talked about news in the industry. The two merged companies reached 90,000 hours of multi-genre programming, but in the last six months that number has already passed 100,000 hours, distributed globally by Banijay Rights.
In Latin America, it restructured its operations with Michelle Wasserman, SVP for the region, Brazil and USA Hispano at the helm, with responsibilities in cans, formats, co-productions and digital. She added five executives to the team, including Ivania Zamora, VP, whose incorporation aims to grow the business throughout the region.
Banijay Rights is focused this year, among other things, on monetizing its ready-made properties and all local versions of its large formats on VOD platforms of all kinds. Recently, it announced a 320% growth in revenue, after launching 26 digital channels: ‘We work closely with our office in Sao Paulo, Endemol Shine Brasil, with whom we put together a business plan that allows us to monetize the content we have in bookstore, as well as those produced in different versions that are on the air in the region since we generate brand value and cross promotion. And the added value is not only for us, our clients also win, Wasserman told PRENSARIO.
YouTube, Instagram and Twitter were the main protagonists, but not the only ones: ‘We closed agreements in different modalities of VODs such as Pluto TV Prende TV, Amazon Prime, Discovery +, HBO Max and Paramount +, among others. It’s a win win for everyone, » Wasserman summed up.
And on enriching experiences, she mentioned The London Screenings (March 1-12), the traditional event that this year was virtual for UK distributors including in addition to Banijay Rights: All3media, ITV, Fremantle, and eOne. Each company presented content through their own virtual platforms. As it is not a classic event for Latin American buyers, we made a personalized management for the call given the new modality in Private Function format that Banijay Rights organized and we managed to get many of them to access live and exclusively to the premiere of our two new series: RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service, by Endemol Shine Banks for Seven Network (Australia) and Viewpoint (5x’60), by Tiger Aspect in alliance with Unstoppable Film & TV for ITV. We invited pan-regional OTTs and Pay TV, as well as free-to-air TVs from key markets, and we had great attendance such as Chile, Mexico, Colombia and the US Hispanic, » he explained.
Wasserman stressed that this’ personalized ‘action, together with those carried out by all the global divisions of Banijay Rights, achieved massive attendance at the event:’ We had 2,000 screenings at our event on March 3, which lasted just over 2 hours (screenings + interviews with talents) and the time spent on site was more than 1,020 hours. This call also led to the subsequent doubling of traffic on our site. It was a great strategy for our marketing team, ’he said.
Although finished fiction, or fictional formats, are not what clients in our region demand the most, participating in The London Screenings allowed Banijay Rights Latin America to expand the scope and show its new strength of content. ‘It is key for us that our clients know that the contents of Europe are immediately available for their territories, simultaneously to the rest of the world. It is a great step towards a greater internationalization of our IPs. ‘
‘I was surprised as the days went by and I saw how the list of registrants from Latin America grew rapidly. Virtuality has allowed many of them, and a large part of their teams, to attend events of this type. I think it is a positive leap in the relationship, and a format that will be used more and more in the future. This allows teams to have direct contact with first-hand information, quicker access to it, and streamlines communication and work processes. In my 27 years of experience in the industry, I can proudly say that I have a great work tool, such as the sales / pitching platform that we have and that I have long yearned to have, » he stressed.
‘The London Screenings have been a wonderful proposition. We are thinking of replicating the format and new ideas for next year, adding more interaction with the participants, seeing their reactions and knowing more about their needs. The two fictions were the «hook» for the platforms to participate, but then there was good visualization of other genres such as factual, formats, etc. We wanted to offer a different experience within this new reality starring the virtual and we managed to reach the goal, » he added.
