OTTAWA – Fox Network Group’s Prentiss Fraser on Thursday told anxious producers looking for a map into the global content market they must seize on local formats which they can adapt beyond the Canadian market. And vice versa, for that matter.
Content is an international game, after all.
"Use your Canadian passports to grow your business here," she told the Canadian Media Producers Association Prime Time conference in Ottawa Thursday morning.
Fraser (pictured), who left Entertainment One Television International in 2014 to become first senior vice president of global entertainment sales at Fox International Channels, based in London, pointed Canadian content creators to where ideas could be found overseas.
Despite working for a American media giant, Fraser is a Canadian who knows the industry here, having joined eOne in 2008, helping steer TV sales and acquisitions activities at the Canadian company's foreign sales arm. She knows that content on her Fox- and National Geographic-branded channels for example, comes from all over the world, not just Hollywood.
Fraser said Fox International Channels has only 250 hours of English-language scripted programming from North America that drives an overall product library that totals around 20,000 hours. "We have 500 of pre-school programming coming out of Israel, and 8,000 hours of content produced in Latin America, and the National Geographic catalogue, which is around 11,000 hours today," she explained.
And as Fraser took Prime Time delegates on an around-the-world-in-40-minutes tour of where FIC programming is hatched and made, before it is sold around the world, she was keen to tell Canadian producers that they needed to add to her 20,000 hour library with their own ideas and series.
At one point, she even told delegates to get out their smartphone cameras to capture an image on giant screens behind Fraser. "I'm doing something no one ever does. I'm giving you every contact email from every commissioning editor at Fox and National Geographic," she announced.
"I asked them before I did this, so don't worry. And they said, yes, that's fine, this is exciting, we'd love to have partners in other countries," Fraser added.
Canadian content makers need those foreign partners too, she argued, not least to fill market gaps. An example is Canadian celebrity chef David Rocco appearing opposite Chinese colleague Nicholas Tse in the cooking challenge show Celebrity Chef: East vs. West on Fox Life Asia.
When she first came across the show and Rocco Fraser asked who was the Canadian co-producer. There wasn't one, Rocco told her. He'd been hired on as on-screen talent.
Now, however, as the Fox Life Asia series heads towards a second season, Fraser recommended a Canadian producer step up and propose a collaboration where, for example, six episodes is spent with a Canadian chef running through Asian markets in search of prized ingredients to cook with, while another six episodes has an Asian chef moving through St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, or elsewhere in Canada, to find local ingredients for their own creations.
"There's some amazing formats being created around the world, and it would be great to work with you guys and try to connect the dots." – Prentiss Fraser, Fox
The bottom line, she said, is Canadian producers need to look for IP opportunities beyond their home market.
"There's some amazing formats being created around the world, and it would be great to work with you guys and try to connect the dots," she told conference delegates.
Fraser also recommended content makers consider streaming platforms outside Canada as they line up a local broadcaster. On that note, she also warned Canadian producers about ignoring local broadcasters because, first, they have money to invest, and are eyeing their own overseas expansion plans as they look to claim international upside on content.
"If you think about a broadcaster being based in just one country today, in three years they may be in several other countries and can bring more money to the table,” she explained.
She also told delegates to think co-productions, and work closely with a distributor.
"They know people all over the world, you probably do too. But they also know people who are working on different projects and try to work together with them," Fraser said of today's global collaborative model for content creation.
Prime Time in Ottawa runs through to Friday.
