Distribution in Focus: Federation Studios’ Guillaume Pommier

With buyers flocking to London TV Screenings and Mip London this week, Broadcast International speaks to Guillaume Pommier, co-head of distribution at Federation Studios, about selling streamers’ shows, the benefits of cofinancing and the dour documentary market.  

The market is complicated. In a way, it’s still finding its footing, with many broadcasters facing budget cuts and having to make tough decisions about their investment portfolios. We can see that kids content distributors are heavily impacted, as are those in documentary. For now, fiction is somewhat spared, but there’s less and less room for ‘smaller’ series with controlled budgets, without star casting or based on known IP. Formats, however, remain a promise of future revenue, especially in this market moment where everyone is seeking reassurance and where IPs are at the center of (almost) all our clients’ searches. 

Don’t get discouraged! We must continue to prospect and maintain the broadest possible ecosystem of broadcasters worldwide. Despite the current market challenges, we’ve seen at Federation that we have built relationships with (very) many clients and that we can rely on them. We doubled our number of deals in 2024 and we will continue to do so in 2025.

Big projects and library content. There is still room (which comes at a high cost) to develop, invest in, and distribute very large projects that will make an impact. And library content has become the driving force behind many clients’ searches. It’s the surest way to secure consumer engagement and bet on already established brands. The (positive) corollary to this is that channels and platforms are much more open to buying non-exclusive catalog rights so that content can exist on multiple platforms simultaneously. The (negative) corollary is that prices are decreasing depending on territories, meaning we need to make more sales to achieve the same turnover as before.

There are fewer and fewer pre-sales, and they are becoming harder to secure. The US market has (somewhat) reopened, especially for acquiring Library titles. But once again, we seem to be a special case at Federation since 2023 appears to have been a very challenging year for everyone, 2024 as well, and yet, we have never made so many deals nor achieved such good turnover.

We will continue to nurture our current clients across all genres and prospect for new ones. One of our strategic priorities is to maintain our position in the market as one of the (very) few companies capable of putting together international co-productions as prestigious as Around the World in 80 Days, for example. And there are of course the English series in which we have enthusiastically invested over the past few years and which we have been successfully selling for the past six months - I’m thinking of Miss Austen, Curfew, I Jack Wright (which we will present at the London TV Screenings), Sherlock & Daughter.

We are perfectly positioned for the period that began some time ago, namely: streamers are moving away from the era where they took perpetual global rights. In France, with the regulations, we can already distribute series produced for Netflix, Disney or Amazon three years after their initial release. But what we’re also seeing is that streamers are approaching us to co-finance new seasons of shows that they previously funded entirely on their own. And to support them - which ties into my point about setting up international co-productions - we are the best positioned.