Sony’s Garvie: warehousing has led to loss of serendipity

Media companies warehousing content for in-house streaming services has led to a loss of “serendipity” for viewers, according to Sony production chief Wayne Garvie.

Speaking to Broadcast during the LA Screenings this week, Garvie said that many streamers’ “front of house [pages] are not what they should be” and are limiting the range of programming on offer for consumers.

“We’ve lost that serendipitous moment when you discover something that you wouldn’t normally have come across,” he said. “The loss of serendipity in the modern age is rather sad.”

Sony Pictures Television International Production president Garvie added that the return of the LA Screenings, after a two-year hiatus due to the global coronavirus pandemic, has demonstrated the demand from buyers to satisfy audiences who are looking beyond traditional US fare.

The slate offered by Sony, one of the last remaining independent major US studios, includes US shows Monarch and Accused – both for Fox – and Spectrum original Panhandle, along with Globo’s Brazilian series Rio Connection, ITV/Spectrum’s A Spy Among Friends and Left Bank’s Amazon Canadian original, Three Pines.

“The US market is changing; the traditional network model has kind of gone. So consequently, at Sony we are thinking in different ways. Our biggest title [in LA] is A Spy Among Friends, which comes from our American studio, but is a British co-production,” he said.

“There is definitely a change in the kind of programmes that are being pitched, not just by Sony but by all the studios in Los Angeles, and there’s much more international content.”