CANNES – With CTV giving Shaftesbury's The Listener a 13-hour fifth season order, the homegrown drama will now get to 65 episodes. You'd think that would be enough for Shaftesbury CEO Christina Jennings to talk syndication, as 65 episodes allows a show to rerun five days a week and go 13 weeks before repeating.
But 65 episodes is not the magic number in today's increasingly global TV world, the veteran TV producer told Cartt.ca at the MIPCOM market in Cannes. "65 is only the U.S. number," Jennings said Monday while promoting The Listener to foreign buyers here.
The international market now wants 100 episodes or more as syndication may involve day-long marathon screenings of a series, or re-runs promoting a debut episode. "We know now that in the international market they want more than five seasons. We're finding they often want a The Listener night. They want a couple of repeats with the new ones," Jennings said.
She's not alone in going beyond the U.S. market to embracing an increasingly integrated and interdependent Canadian and overseas TV markets. The benefits of an increasingly global TV business including being able to snag new series financing and audience internationally, say Canadian producers. But the downside includes the risks and uncertainties of inviting too many broadcast partners to the table to keep a series on air.
"You have to make sure all of the partners have the right creative alignment and vision for the project. Because the last thing you need, as you get into development and then production, is having conflicting views on what the project should end up being," David Fortier, executive producer and co-president of Temple Street Productions, argued.
Fortier and Temple Street partner Ivan Schneeberg had recent success with Orphan Black, the sci-fi thriller that airs on Space and BBC American stateside and is distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide. Fortier expects similar international backing for Temple Street's latest sci-fi show, the 10-parter Killjoys from showrunner Michelle Lovretta that will also air on Space and was being shopped at MIPCOM this week.
Even Canadian series talent is mindful of the need to sell a show internationally to secure the financing and cast required for a homegrown show to stack up well with Canadian viewers against U.S. and other foreign content the primetime dial. "Each market has their own needs and there's different things they (broadcasters) like and don't like," Brooke Nevin, the top psychiatrist in the CBC cop procedural Cracked, said as she and co-lead David Sutcliffe help international distributor Beta Films shop the White Pines Pictures drama to additional foreign buyers.
Both Nevin and Sutcliffe have had face-time in Cannes with Canal +, which airs Cracked in France, and with other prospective European broadcasters. "Being here and hearing all that, it helps gives me some perspective on making the show. It's important for White Pine and the CBC that we sell the show internationally," Sutcliffe said as Cracked looks to follow Flashpoint and Rookie Blue as Canadian cop dramas to conquer world market.
Of course, world sales of Canadian series still depends in large part on an early U.S. deal to whet interest among foreign buyers. "The fact that we got an American sale will propel us into another realm," No Equal Entertainment's J.B. Sugar, who executive produces Bitten, the Canadian werewolf drama, after it was developed by Bell Media for Space and then recently sold stateside to the Syfy channel.
The push for international sales is even coming from Quebec TV producers, who traditionally relied on co-productions with France, Belgium and other European partners to complete their series financing.
Sylvain Parent-Bedard, president and CEO of Montreal-based QuebeComm Group, said his company shot a two-hour Celine Dion concert TV special in front of 60,000 fans on the plains of Abraham in Quebec City. He added the TV special, while a major event for broadcasters in Quebec and France, has achieved surprising and unanticipated world sales this week at MIPCOM.
"This is the first time we've shot a show and produced it for TV. And we're going to be around the world with it," Parent-Bedard said after securing sales of Celine – Une Seule Fois to Japan's Wow Wow channel, Canal Plus in France, RTVF in Belgium and TSR in Switzerland.
He's also in early discussions with broadcasters in China, Brazil, Argentina and Latin U.S., and deals for Italy and Germany are also in the works.
