Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Sandra Carter
Executive Vice President, New Business Development for Lightworks Program Distribution incorporating Sandra Carter Global
United States

What are your acquisition strategies?

We are looking to acquire specific areas of content – short and long form novellas, children's animation, children's educational programming that is non-violent, lifestyle and entertainment. For the first time this year, we are venturing into dramas as well. In addition, we are always looking for content that concentrates on the arts with a focus on music.

What products are you looking for?

The primary focus of our programming acquisition strategy is lifestyle content. We're known for delivering programming that targets the female demographic with a focus on gardening, beauty, shopping, cooking and home decor, etc. This year, we're really going to be developing this area because of the international demand. We'll be producing at least two new lifestyle series later this year, one of which is called "Smart Women." We also have a new cooking series, "Easy Indian," which will be expanded to "Easy Asian" and different areas of the cooking around the globe. People around the world like to watch shows about home decorating, luxury living, high-end fashion, and beauty because it allows them to imagine and fantasize. I call this vicarious living!

Our second focus is entertainment. We want to be known as suppliers of Hollywood content to our global partners starting with "The Hollywood Reporter.com", "Red Carpet Reporter," and "Hollywood Cafe." We are also looking to acquire additional entertainment shows in order to be known as the "go-to" supplier of entertainment content. We will also be supplying short form online entertainment content to websites around the world. A new area of focus for us is international novellas, spanning 4 to 30 episodes. We are now representing high quality shows from Russia that are action-oriented, period dramas, historical dramas – one specifically being "Moscow Saga," a series that chronicles the life of a family from communism to capitalism. These are distributed by us and the Italian company, Baby Gang.

This year, we're really interested in finding undiscovered programming from Russia, Brazil and Spain.

What were your key acquisition deals in 2007?

In 2007, our major acquisition strategy was to develop a relationship with Caldecott, a Singapore production company who specializes in beautiful, HD docs. We really want to move forward with them to new levels of production based in Asia. We've also created a strategy to develop our own product with shows like "Red Carpet Reporter" and additional sports, biography and lifestyle programming.

What are your plans for MIPTV?

For MIPTV, my focus is to shop for new content in a variety of genres and look for co-productions that make sense for all of the Lightworks divisions.