#27: How do I retain the rights to my project?
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Okay, on to today’s question, one I receive regularly in various forms. Most people want to know how they can raise their own money for a film or show so they can retain their rights and keep all or a good chunk of the back-end profit. To quote Chris Rock, “um…slow down.”
In this post, I am going to speak to the television business model. For filmmakers, just know you can replace “networks” with “studio distribution arm” and “advertisers” with “financiers,” and you will have pretty much the same answer.
Whoever distributes your project to its audience is going to want rights to that project so they can make money from that project. Distribution is the space the broadcast and cable networks occupy for TV, and they are not interested in sharing the profit from that when they are the ones doing the distributing that garners the audience that attracts the advertisers who pay the money.
Even if you funded your project entirely, if you want a network to distribute it, they are going to want all of the distrib rights, including syndication, foreign sales, etc.
How do you get around this? Distribute it yourself.
Hard to do for a television project, right? Of course! That is why the nets make a nice dollar - they control most of the means of distribution. Or, at least, they did until new media. That is the core of this WGA stand-off, the upfront craziness the past two years and many more battles to come. (Clearly, we learned nothing from
Napster. Okay, Steve Jobs did. But seriously, no one else in the industry seems to have caught that clue.)
With new media, a producer can bypass the network middlemen and distribute straight to your audience. From there, you can take those hard-won audience stats to advertisers and keep all the ad money for yourself.
But wait! you say. I don’t have the money or knowledge to build a Web site! I’m a producer, not a marketer. I don’t know how to find my audience, convince them to come to my site - and how would I pay for all of that site promotion? Plus, I don’t have the personal contacts, staff or infrastructure to go solicit advertising and track the numbers and report to my clients. I just want my show to be seen!
That is the network’s argument EXACTLY. If they are going to establish and utilize the distribution infrastructure, deliver their core audience and pay to build a bigger one, throw a marketing team behind it, build an ad sales team to bring in the ad dollars, draw on their Madison Ave. relationships to get it paid for, manage the numbers and reporting, stand behind those numbers if they fall short and make it up to the advertisers…then they should be the ones making ALL OF THE MONEY for those necessary efforts.
In short, the nets don’t demand all of the profits from your show because of what it cost to PRODUCE it (that is part of the equation, but not the biggest). They expect that money because of what it takes to DISTRIBUTE it. And they are pretty much the only distribution game in town.
There are some ways to get around this, all of which require a SUBSTANTIAL CASH OUTLAY on your part. But you would not expect great reward without great risk and great investment because…well, you have read all the posts on this blog and my books. So on to the real question underneath today’s topic:
HOW DO I KEEP EVEN A SMALL PIECE OF MY PROJECT?
1) ATTACH STAR TALENT (small piece). If you know Barack Obama, and have something on him that forces him to agree to doing a behind-doors reality show about his campaign, then get a firm deal memo with Mr. Obama and start shopping. When you two demand a piece of your show, you will get it. Not ALL OF THE BACK END, mind you…not 50% of the back end…not even 25% of it probably, because someone else is paying for distribution.
Your Costs: Extraordinary legal fees plus production fees for a sizzle reel to prove the level of access you are claiming and show how it is different from the 24/7 Obama-rama we all can access on his site, You-Tube, our cell phones, etc.
2) SELL DIRECTLY INTO SYNDICATION (big piece). Hey, NATPE is every year in Vegas (Google “NATPE” if that’s new to you, everyone). So go ahead and shoot your series and take it straight to the buyers on the floor of the convention center. It’s a tough road, but it’s an independent one! Why isn’t it the whole piece, you ask? Because you will still need a distributor to deliver your product to the station groups around the country (Oprah works with King World, for example).
Your Costs: Full production costs of multiple episodes, legal fees, booth and promo at NATPE (that is in the 10s of thousands alone).
3) GO STRAIGHT TO THE ‘NET OR MOBILE (whole pie). The money you spend trying to circumvent network ownership, I strongly assert, is far better spent building a new media presence for your project. Bring that audience into a room to pitch it AFTER you’ve built it, and you are having a different discussion entirely.
Your Costs: Building a company, including Web developer(s), production team, ad sales, marketing & PR, support staff, etc. With the right hires, that’s only a handful of very savvy, very driven people. Hint: Look for network escapees/burnouts.
Final thought. Definitely read my books on how to sell reality shows (or screenplays), and read EVERY POST IN my blog (it’s free!). Get comfortable with the fact that you are not going to print up an enormous profit on one foray into the biz, especially your first. As I once told a horrified producers’ roundtable, “Hollywood is not the lottery with pretty canyons.” Reality TV, in particular, is a long-term, quantity-driven business model - that people oddly/incorrectly/insanely believe is the easiest way to get rich quick in the biz.
Instead, jump into the industry at whatever level you are qualified to participate (remember, selling your own project is the TOP OF THE GAME). Give yourself time to get established, learn the profession, make relationships, learn every angle of making television (each genre is a wildly different beast), then try to inch towards profit. You will see results from that effort.
My good friend JM says, “Why is everyone in Hollywood so busy trying to be the exception when there is so much money to be made just following the rules?” I wrote my books so people could learn the rules and get busy playing by them so they can begin their entertainment careers.
Go get ‘em!