Fox Entertainment CEO tells Mipcom Crowd: ‘We have our checkbook’

CANNES – Fox’s newly formed senior entertainment team arrives Mipcon Have a checkbook on hand this year.

Three executives who gave keynote speeches at the International Content Conference on Monday night bluntly told the crowd that they had come around the world to make some new friends and strike some deals. The company is bucking the trend in media and moving to a direct-to-consumer subscription platform. Fox is devoting its resources to content and IP that can be distributed around the world and adapted in many forms.

“While other people are trying to hide their content behind paywalls, we’re doing the opposite,” says Rob WadeWho is Promoted to CEO of Fox Entertainment this month (“I have 10 days left on my job,” he pointed out with a smile on stage). “We see potential to work with (external) networks, producers and distributors to be able to spread our content further.”

Fernado Szew joined Wade’s group, CEO of the newly formed Fox Entertainment Global division, and Michael Thorne, Fox’s president of entertainment, focused on scripted content and animation. Following the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, the trio outlined areas of focus for the company they created in 2019.

When asked what was on his wish list on the Côte d’Azur this week, Wade said: “Flexible, smart production deals.” To back this up, he observed early in the half-hour session, “We have our Checkbook.”

Szew joined Fox Corp. late last year when the company Acquired his Los Angeles-based production company, MarVista Entertainment. The trio of executives stressed that Fox is looking for assets and projects that will generate a range of entertainment for the Fox Broadcasting Network, the company’s Tubi ad-supported streaming and Fox local stations.The recently acquired TMZ television and digital businesses and Gordon Ramsay’s Studio Ramsay aim to expand these brands by

“We’re very focused on like-minded people on the creative side and distribution side,” says Szew. “We are looking for formats and international partnerships.”

The benefit of the new Fox, Thorn stressed, is that it has a large share of the TV ecosystem — shows like “9-1-1” and “Lone Star: 9-1-1” still bring in more than 10 million viewers income. Man of the week – but able to act like a boutique when launching a new collection.

“When you consider some of the other platforms we compete with in the streaming space, they’re maybe 15 series less per month, and we’re doing a lot less than that in a year,” Thorne said. “So each of our shows is a favorite kid, not just one of many shows. We think the care and attention across the company is very unique.”

Wade, a former Fox alternative programming executive who was promoted last month after his predecessor Charlie Collier left the company for a new role at Roku, emphasized that one of the benefits of rebuilding a leaner media company over the past three years is being able to Avoid the pitfalls of precedents, contract templates and internal studio obligations that complicate TV deals. He cites an example of how Fox’s production arm is now using in-house resources to make documentaries for Tubi and Fox Sports.

In Thorn’s animation and scripting world, the same eagerness for a quick start can be a slow development process. “We’ve started to choose a lot of materials ourselves that we can have and build in an international way,” Thorne said.

All in all, the meeting with the Fox trio reinforces how much the moment has changed for the media brand that pioneered the concept of vertical integration between online platforms and studio production in the 1980s. The new Fox is more of a free agent in the 21st century ecosystem.

The mantra is “Find the best ideas. Produce them at the most favorable cost with the best producers and the best business model,” Wade said. “Our goal is for everyone to win.”