Licensing TV rights- Foreign distribution.

F

flean

Active member
Does anyone have any tips or would like to share their experience with selling their film to foreign market? Let's say Europe for exemple, what can a filmmaker expect (money, VOD, number of runs, ect...) for selling TV rights of a documentary? What are the standards?
 
It depends on who's in it... oops missed documentary... still asleep... the only thing since I don't have a clue about docs... only narratives... do what we always do... keep your markets separate... so if makes money in Germany and it doesn't in France they can't take the losses out of your German profits...
 
my question is about offer(s) to foreign broadcasters for a doc. Usually they give you a flat fee for x amounts of runs and x numbers of year (typically 3 years). Now, what is considered a typical offer (e.g the French market or German market or UK market) is my question....Only people who have been thru this stage of licensing their TV rights to foreign broadcasters would know the answer. And, I am wondering if someone on this forum could share their experience or have any information about licensing and typical offers for foreign distribution. thanks
 
I would suggest you join a forum called Film Specific. It is owned by a former foreign sales agent who knows the business. You can join for as little as a month for something like $8. I joined last year and found it very helpful.
 
flean said:
my question is about offer(s) to foreign broadcasters for a doc. Usually they give you a flat fee for x amounts of runs and x numbers of year (typically 3 years). Now, what is considered a typical offer (e.g the French market or German market or UK market) is my question....Only people who have been thru this stage of licensing their TV rights to foreign broadcasters would know the answer. And, I am wondering if someone on this forum could share their experience or have any information about licensing and typical offers for foreign distribution. thanks
Click to expand...

There really isn't a 'typical' other than subject matter and star power. If you have a doc about a hot-button topic (that hasn't been overplayed yet and has foreign appeal) and you have stars in the doc (either as interviewees or a narrator) then you'll be likely to get more money than if you have a doc about an issue not many people care about w/o

For example, a few years ago Looking for Lenny (the doc in my sig) got UK distribution (SkyArts channel) and we got a few grand for it. On one hand we had a laundry list of famous people in the doc like Robin Williams, Roseanne Barr, Hugh Hefner, Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters, Lewis Black, Chris Titus, Richard Lewis, Orland Jones, Henry Rollins, Jon Lovitz, Lisa Lampanellietc, etc., but on the other hand there really isn't big demand overseas for documentaries about dead, American comedians (no matter how revolutionary they were).

Also, indie docs are a dime a dozen these days. It's a golden age to make docs, but not a golden age to get paid for making docs.


-Andrew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top