Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Marilyn Kynaston
Partner and Director of Sales
Picture Box
Canada

What are your acquisition strategies?

Picture Box's acquisitions strategy is to target producers, rather than specific shows. We look at the shows we'd like to be representing and then forge relationships with those producers. It takes a while to build that relationship, but it pays off. We attend MIPTV and MIPCOM, some of the smaller markets and in Canada the Banff Television Festival is very important for acquisitions. 

X-Weighted

What products are you looking for?

We normally pick up Canadian and American programs because of our relationships with producers in North America, but we would certainly look at shows from any territory if they met our acquisition criteria. We're looking for high quality, preferably HD-produced, lifestyle & factual series and children's and youth programs. Specifically, lifestyle series with a format that works with multiple seasons, such as "Style by Jury" or "Til Debt Do Us Part". What still works best is highly dramatic transformative series. Within the factual genre we love content that is smart but also "sexy" like "Guinea Pig". In other words, very topical. In the youth arena we would love a new live action or animated teen series. We have had great success internationally with programs in this genre such as "Edgemont" or "Sons of Butcher".

What were your key acquisition deals in 2007?

Our key acquisition deals in 2007 were some of the new seasons for our highly popular series "X-Weighted" (39 X 60), "Guinea Pig" (14 X 30) and on the youth side "Sons Of Butcher" (26 x 30).

What are your plans for MIPTV?

Our plans for MIPTV are to look for the above-mentioned programs but also to get a feeling for the zeitgeist in television. What is hot right now and what looks like it has staying power? MIPDOC is also really helpful for the factual programs.