BBCS targets international M&A and reality push

BBC Studios is looking to acquire more production companies outside of the UK as it attempts to drive revenues, while pushing into reality and fact-ent genres.

Chief exec Tom Fussell, who has been leading BBCS’s Showcase over the past two days, told Broadcast International at a splashy evening event in London last night that growing the company’s global studio footprint further is on the cards.

BBCS has spent more freely over recent years having had its debt facility raised to £600m in 2024, with £255m invested to take full control of streamer BritBox, alongside acquisitions of Werner Film in Australia and Brutal Media in Spain.

“We’ve bought in Spain, the Nordics, we’ve organically set up in France, we’ve bought in Australia and one of the key planks of our strategy is to grow our studio internationally. Some of that will be inorganic,” he said.

Fussell, who declined to reveal which countries were of interest, was joined by BBCS Productions chief exec and chief creative officer Zai Bennett, who suggested that acquisition activity would err towards unscripted, with investment in backing talent more likely on the scripted side.

“The full range of possible investments is on the cards, and we could look at buying established [scripted] companies if we wanted to – but I’m not sure there’s anyone right now [in the UK] who we’d be super-interested in,” Bennett said.

“Probably our investment is more about individuals and creatives, while making sure existing companies have the resource and people they need.

“There needs to be a pipeline of new shows coming through, but I don’t see us needing to add [more UK scripted companies]. If I look at the suite in scripted - we cover most of the types of shows we want to make, we have all the flavours sitting there already, so I’m not looking for a gap to fill.

“When I look at entertainment though, we do have a gap - we don’t make any reality or much fact-ent, so that’s why we have Samphire [Sophie Leonard and David Hodgkinson] and Karl [Warner], so we are working on that.”

Revenue raising

Pushing into new growth areas looks necessary if BBCS is to hit its revenue target of £3.2bn by 2028, an ambitious leap given that last year’s figure dropped to £1.9bn. Fussell pointed to shows such as Clerkenwell’s Baby Reindeer, House Productions’ movie Conclave and hit kids animation Bluey as examples of the reach of his company.

Walking With Dinosaurs and Wild Cherry, meanwhile, are among the key launches being pushed to buyers at Showcase, where a giant dinosaur skeleton took to the stage yesterday evening, accompanied by a booming sound system.

Fussell said he wants BBCS to “invest for long-term growth” which he believes sets his company apart from competitors.

“There are definitely short-term issues in the market right now but what we’ve been doing is resetting various slates, making sure we are identifying the right shows with the right partners and getting shows away,” he explained.

He pointed to the value of partnerships and highlighted BritBox, originally launched with ITV Studios, and UKTV, which was co-owned with Discovery until 2019, as examples of playing the long game.

“People follow trends, but some have short-term mandates. We have a long-term mandate for growth and creativity, born out of the BBC. And we have a different set of values.”

Fussell added that using the “ability to invest in the longer term means we can get the right shows to the right markets” and doubled down on the value of BritBox as a revenue generator but also a production partner.

“We have Liz Kilgariff with Firebird making Outrageous: she produces that, we distribute it for UKTV, which we own, and it goes to BritBox, which we own. So, we have some advantages there.”

Bennett added that, having been in the role for barely three months, he is focusing on “maintaining creative momentum”. The former Sky man said BBCS ordinarily has at least 100 productions on the go at any one time, and, when it comes to scripted, the key is range.

“Scripted is about having a slate across our companies of lots of different shows working for a lot of different people,” he said.

“One might be for the BBC, but we’ll put in the whole deficit – as we did with Wild Cherry – and then we’ll sell it to market. We might have another show of a different size and shape, that one could be good for a worldwide sale, so let’s take it straight to Netflix. There is every permutation in there.

“We’ll look at every possible way of making a show work and that is a major advantage of being a vertically integrated studio. Sometimes, it might be with BritBox, sometimes it might be with distribution, sometimes distribution might fund things we don’t make.”