Brand funded content is the key to saving Australia’s TV production companies
As TV’s traditional funding sources continue to dry up, long form production companies have been forced to search for new sources of income. Essential’s Chris Hilton’s recent experimentation with brand funded content proved an eye-opener into the burgeoning Australian market.
Pure production companies – as opposed to agencies – usually finance their content production budgets through traditional funding sources – licence fees, distribution advances, tax credits and third party investment.
However, as any long-time Mumbrella reader will know, the funds available from these sources are now in serious decline. In order to offset this, TV production companies need to find alternative funding models for some of their content.
Many long form production companies have historically refused the opportunity to dilute their goal of serving audiences first by also having to serve the needs of clients with different objectives.
Yes the market has matured but as the owner of Production Company who has a successfull Show running in this space it’s not just about aligning goals. We have found that the majority of Producers from traditional long form TV production backgrounds miss the mark in a number of key areas.
Client service in particular, understanding a client expects and rightly so to have a say on the final product. The ability to seamlessly blend brand goals and story is in itself a unique skill. Then comes the short form edits for Digital, another skill set.
So yes agree, there is opportunity but it’s a tricky road to travel with a lot of education still to be done both client side and Production side.
Each brand or backer wants their pound of flesh. You end up serving way too many masters – each one wanting to be at the top of the list. It ends up like ‘management by committee’ – a mess.
I’ve had 65+ episodes of branded TV air in oz. including the first ever brand funded prime time series (8.30pm Tuesday CH 9 — way back in 2007 — which rated 1.5m)
I don’t think the market has matured, I just think too few people have the right training, knowledge and experience. Unless you’ve worked both in complex brand strategy and as a head of development with programmers as clients – you’re not going to keep both masters (brand and audience) happy.