Fox Entertainment Global CEO Fernando Szew talks international markets

Ahead of next week’s Mipcom Cannes Film Festival, Fox Entertainment Worldwide CEO Fernando Szew spoke with Axios about bringing the company back to international markets.

Why it matters: Fox is getting back into a business — international content licensing — that many of its competitors have shunned in favor of keeping content on its own global streaming platform.

• Fox sells most of its studio business to Disney in 2019 has been quietly rebuiltFox Entertainment Global is its newest business.
• Fox will bring three upcoming series to Mipcom: “Krapopolis,” “Grimsburg,” and “Animal Control.”

Why he is important: Szew was brought in last year when Fox acquired his TV and movie studio, MarVista Entertainment.

Walk me through the reasons for starting this new business for Fox.

• [We’re] Focus on creating a two-way flow of content with international partners. We are very eager to engage with the international community, not only to monetize and launch our content, but also to be a partner who is very willing to reach out to the international community.

Your competitors have largely moved away from international content licensing to keep them on streaming services with global ambitions. Does this give you an inherent advantage?

• Don’t have to be thankful for keeping everything for yourself – we think the global market is very welcoming of this strategy.

We’re in a post “squid game” world where foreign language programming could be a huge hit globally. How will this change or inform what you can do with these international partners?

• The globalization of content creation and content distribution is exactly the intersection we want to be involved in.

Fox Entertainment Global will debut next week at the Mipcom Cannes Film Festival. What do you hope to get out of this?

• We will sell and license [content]so it goes without saying that this is one of the criteria for measuring success.
• The other is mainly a test of the paper, that is, are we going to get out of the woods and really think we’re building long-term relationships with like-minded platforms around the world or in different parts of the world can really think about, how do we create content? …I think that’s going to be the measure of success. Can we build sticky relationships with international buyers?