Paul Heaney of BossaNova Media on slate curation and the overblown fears around C4’s in-house production plans

Paul Heaney index

As buyers descend on the UK capital for Showcase, London TV Screenings and Mip London this week, Broadcast International speaks to Paul Heaney, chief exec and founder at BossaNova Media, about the key trends and challenges facing the business.

What was the single biggest challenge for your business in 2025?

Making sure we stick to our business principles, curating a slate rather than simply building a catalogue.

What are your top three growth priorities for 2026?

Diversify, diversify, diversify.

Streamers have struck some eye-catching deals directly with YouTube creators over the past year. What do you make of this trend and do you see it impacting your business?

Only positively. Less inverse snobbery over budgets possibly. We now have a breadth of budgets which sit side by side on platforms

Broadcaster-streamer IP pacts have also become popular across Europe, in particular the TF1/Netflix deal starting this summer. How will such arrangements affect your business; will we see a similar deal in the UK; and, what do they mean for the future of second windows?

Second window, third windows, co exclusivity, they’re all alive and well and thriving.

How will Channel 4’s nascent in-house production (and IP ownership) strategy affect your business and the broader distribution sector?

Not nearly as much as people think, there’s been some hysteria in the market, think it’s unfounded.

If we gave you £2m to invest in a show of your choice with a view to getting the biggest returns within five years, what kind of show would it be?

It would be the kind of show that had great characters/cast and was returnable, repeatable, scaleable and sustainable….oh and with spin offs. Easy!

Tell us about your key title for London TV Screenings and what makes it stand out?

Sorry not cheating, just answering it like a politician… can I have two? Hunting Outback Gold and Secret of the Lost Grail. Both series use adventure, mystery and history to tell the stories, with a great host in one - professor Alice Roberts - and great characters in the other.

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