Distribution download: how to find the right partner with Clapperboard Studios’ Mike Benson
Distributors are the new commissioners. Here's how to work with them.
When you’re tasked with getting a drama from blank page to an air date over the course of 12 months, you tend to think long and hard about the right business partner.
For Clapperboard Studios managing director Mike Benson, who is often tackling a yearly turnaround for his slate of shows for 5 and parent company, Paramount UK, distributors have become the linchpin behind a rapidly growing scripted slate that includes The Good Ship Murder, The Ex-Wife, Girl Taken and the just-announced The Day starring Minnie Driver.
The disruption to the traditional role of the distributor who has gone from handling straight international sales to navigating complex deficit financing models, editorial input and even commissioning has characterised the better part of the last decade. But their role in a challenged market for drama makers is unparalleled.
“Our relationships with distributors are as important as our relationship with channels,” says Benson, who established unscripted indie Chalkboard Productions in 2013 before setting up Clapperboard in 2020 for scripted commissions. “Distributors, in the current climate, are taking more risks than ever.”
That’s largely because producers can no longer rely on plum sales into the US, and this has had deep ramifications for the level of minimum guarantee (MG) distributors are able to offer (in scripted, a robust US sale used to constitute 40% to 50% of an MG, says Benson). A sluggish American market means “it’s increasingly important that you’re developing something that’s aligned with what the distribution market is telling you they can finance and sell on,” notes the exec.
It also means that choosing the right distributor for your project is paramount. Clapperboard, which is part of France’s Studio TF1 (formerly Newen Studios), works with a range of different distribution partners for its scripted projects, from boutique operators to larger superindies. There are, Benson says, pros and cons to both ways of working.
This week, the Clapperboard boss shares his tips on choosing the right distributor for your project.
Read on to learn:
· The various models of developing with distributors
· Why boutique outfits can have an edge on the superindies
· How a challenged US market is affecting distributor minimum guarantees
· Why talent attachments can give you a head start with distributors
· Why the industry can no longer afford to make limited miniseries
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