Marco Bassetti Says Banijay Has Spent $1.1B On “Creativity” In Four Years But Warns U.S. Giants Must Reward European Producers

Banijay Entertainment CEO Marco Bassetti has revealed a €1B ($1.1B) spend on “creativity” over the past four years, but has warned of trouble ahead if Hollywood studios don’t provide better “rewards” for European producer.

The Italian-born exec outlined the spend, which is a significant outlay for an independent producer, during a session at Rome’s MIA Market, and noted the France-based giant had made 110 shows for streamers just last year. A Banijay rep clarified the €1B figure includes everything from production costs and scripted TV deficits and cash unlocked from incentives and funds.

Bassetti was on fiery form during his fireside chat, calling out streamers for not sharing back end and calling on European producers to demand better terms of trade to avoid remaining simply guns for hire. He pointed to an unnamed Italian film Banijay had made for a streamer that barely returned any cash to the producer.

“Nowadays private TV and public broadcasters invest very little in creativity. Who invests in creativity? It’s us independent producers,” he argued. With various European countries calling on streamers to better compensate for their productions, Bassetti said his “personal view” was there should be “compensation for creativity.”

He also downplayed the effectiveness of European audiovisual law that forces streamers to pay a portion of local revenues on original shows because the levels were set country-by-country.

He pointed to the terms of trade system in place in the UK and France, where rights usually revert to the producers, and said this was why the likes of Banijay, new Hello Sunshine owner Mediawan and All3Media, which is now merged with Banijay, had become global powerhouses.

Bassetti said simply increasing local funds and incentive systems was noe enough and needed to be structurally built into budgets and agreements with streamers. “Can we increase our incentives to 60%? Of course not,” he added. “There must be a reward if someone makes something extraordinary. If you do not give creative people incentives to come to you, why would they come? They will go somewhere else.”

Banijay was in Cannes last week unveiling its new look business following the All3 merger, which saw Banijay Group and RedBird IMI talking 50% stakes in an enlarged business that is now the largest independent producer in the world. Bassetti and Banijay Entertainment chair Jeff Zucker both pointed to U.S. scripted as a growth area for Banijay in coming years.

This created a group with a library of 265,000 hours through the likes of The Traitors, Survivor, Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, Peaky Blinders, Race Across the World and Midsomer Murders, and producers who make the likes of the Culpables streamer trilogy and the upcoming Beatles movies.

Today, Bassetti was in Italy to talk up the importance of rights retention for independent production groups, and warned streamers must find other ways to remunerating producers should they strike global deals with production costs rising.