Streamers eye US indie TV model

Streamers are increasingly likely to tap the US indie TV market as they look for more efficient ways to finance shows, according to the chief exec at Echo Lake Entertainment.

Piecing together financing from multiple commissioners and a distributor, in addition to soft money and tax credit schemes, is commonplace across Europe but has been little used in the US to date.

But Doug Mankoff, whose firm is behind Hulu hit The Great and soon-to-launch comedy Sunny Nights, told Broadcast International here at SeriesFest in Denver that the model – similar to that used by the US indie film-making industry – could be set to thrive in a post-peak TV environment.

Mankoff has most recently been shepherding Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden comedy Sunny Nights to screen, with the show – which originated as a US-based series – being moved to Australia, where it was commissioned by local streamer Stan.

Aussie producer Jungle Entertainment is also attached, with the company’s Trent O’Donnell, who was behind Colin From Accounts, directing.

The show also made use of soft money schemes in New South Wales and a distribution advance from Cineflix Rights, and Mankoff said he expects such financing to become more popular in the US, where the series is now being shopped to domestic buyers.

“It makes sense to me,” he said, pointing to streamers moving away from a period in which they were “spending tons of money on lots of shows – and I’m fortunate to know that because they spent a lot of money on The Great.”

“Now, those same streamers are really having to tighten up their budgets,” added the Echo Lake chief, who was in town alongside creators Ty Freer and Nick Keetch for the first public screening of Sunny Nights.

“They realise they have to be much more fiscally responsible so they’re buying fewer shows and they’re spending less money on each one.”

Mankoff continued: “Hulu or Peacock or Netflix can buy the US rights for, frankly, a fraction of what they’d have to pay if they made a show like this in the US, so this type of model makes sense to me.

“More of their programming will come out of the independent television market, I suspect, but we’ll see because part of [the challenge] is that [the execs] have to kind of get their heads around it.

“There’s a culture in the TV industry where the executives are used to controlling everything right from the get-go, including the development of the scripts.

“Having a show land on their desks that’s ready to go that maybe conforms to someone else’s vision and in which they didn’t get to get theirs in there as much, that can be challenging.

“So it may be a process and be a little bit of time before they start to accept that this can be a norm.”