CANNES: Right from the hit series Breaking Bad to the new show on the block, Outlander, Sony has been in the middle of it all. And taking the centre stage for the first master keynote at MIPCOM 2014 was Sony Pictures Television president Steve Mosko.
He set the right tone for his keynopte by saying, “Our buyers have doubled due to the digital feed.” With business spanning around TV channels, production and distribution, where does he fit? Answered Mosko, “When people think of Sony, they think of multi-platform. On TV we have found that our independence has helped us in the US. People say, you cannot exist as a standalone. We have 30 original shows on air with 14 networks. Internationally being a lean aggressive company has helped us.”
Mosko believes that a number of great ideas come from the smart creative development people. “World is becoming consolidated and this also increases work in order to put everything together,” he opined.
Delving on piracy he said that while one cannot control piracy but can minimise it. “We have done a couple of things to minimise it. So we have instilled tight controls, where we do the dubbing, subtitling et or a show.”
Sony, from a business solution point of view, is working with its partners across to ensure that the shows are aired closer to the US telecast dates. “We cannot limit pirates, we just have to minimise it,” he added.
Mosko during his keynote also spoke about selling shows to new digital buyers globally. “Added competition makes everyone better. We have seen our buyers double around the globe, in the past five years,” he said.
Mentioning the growth of Netflix he said, “The platform has gone from zero to where it is today. Media companies are observant of what is happening in the US, for us, all this given us more buyers and makes us more creative.”
He is firm believer of the fact that it is the content that drives platforms. Talking about Sony Pictures within Sony he said, “There has never been a time when different parts of the company have worked so closely. Within the company we are working closely to maximise the business.”
Sony Pictures currently is doing big budget TV shows on playstation “and the budget is equal to what we are doing on cable TV. We have been working towards making the model work,” he informed.
Mosko said that everyone takes pride in being in the TV business. “TV experience is great now. Sony is making investments in 4K to enhance quality of content. This goes a long way to convince people to be in the TV business,” he said.
During his keynote, he pointed out that tax benefits to shoot in different countries act as a great booster.
Talking about the millennial kids, he said that they are not obliged to watch content when they are told to watch. “There is more opportunity to watch content today,” he said, adding that TV viewing is going up because of the great content.
