Sphere Abacus’s Jonathan Ford, Rocket Rights’ Cat Davie talk buy-out; BBC Studios’ Cecilia Persson on kids and YouTube; David Pujol and New Regency’s Marco Arabit on Genesis

We've just reported on the deal that you've done.

Why don't you tell us about the sort of origins and thinking behind that to get us going, I guess?

Yeah, sure.

I mean, as you may know, Spear Abacus is now just over six and a half years old.

And as we're looking at the next space for growth, we're conscious that we've invested in a lot of good, strong programming.

We've acquired some interesting libraries like Flame and taking over the Bell Media Library, etc., And, you know, we were conscious that Titus were coming out of our first run windows, our second run windows, and the next sort of real area for monetization was the digital space.

Whether that is through AVOD and fast sales, through YouTube channels, through our own owned and operated type of channels and social media, et cetera.

And being a newer distributor, we weren't necessarily able to advance as fast as we wanted to in those spaces.

So our view was to look around at the markets who we thought were the experts and the expertise sat for that.

And obviously what's now called Rocket Booster, that was Rocket Rights and Rights Booster before, have been an early adopting distributor in that digital space.

When they first launched, they were really targeting the digital side as well as the traditional TV sales side.

And so it made sense to have a conversation.

And those conversations lasted a little while, as they can do.

And, you know, then the acquisition was made.

And so what's now called Rocket Booster will become the digital focus unit, the expertise within Spira Abacus

as a group.

How's it all going to sort of mash together and work? Kat, what's your sort of role in all of this?

I'll be managing director of Rocket Booster, so reporting into Jonathan.

So we'll be handling anything that's revenue shared deals.

So looking across this Verabica's catalogue, the Bell catalogue, our existing catalogue, we'll still be going out and acquiring new content.

We're really trying to kind of give Jonathan and his team a 360 perspective.

kind of distribution capacity so that, you know, when rights holders come to us, we can really fully exploit and monetize their catalog and extract every piece of value out of every available window and platform.

And look, we also sort of, you know, recognize the growth of YouTube as a revenue platform and other social media.

So, you know, we're looking at the IP that we manage and how we can create channels around the IP or channel brands that contain different types of IP that are part of the group.

And I think it does give us more of a 360 distributor profile, which is interesting for one, when we're pitching for new programming from producers, but also interesting in talking to both producers and other parties about managing their libraries or buying their libraries potentially.

We've just reported on the deal that you've done.

Why don't you tell us about the sort of origins and thinking behind that to get us going, I guess?

Yeah, sure.

I mean, as you may know, Spear Abacus is now just over six and a half years old.

And as we're looking at the next space for growth, we're conscious that we've invested in a lot of good, strong programming.

We've acquired some interesting libraries like Flame and taking over the Bell Media Library, etc., And, you know, we were conscious that Titus were coming out of our first run windows, our second run windows, and the next sort of real area for monetization was the digital space.

Whether that is through AVOD and fast sales, through YouTube channels, through our own owned and operated type of channels and social media, et cetera.

And being a newer distributor, we weren't necessarily able to advance as fast as we wanted to in those spaces.

So our view was to look around at the markets who we thought were the experts and the expertise sat for that.

And obviously what's now called Rocket Booster, that was Rocket Rights and Rights Booster before, have been an early adopting distributor in that digital space.

When they first launched, they were really targeting the digital side as well as the traditional TV sales side.

And so it made sense to have a conversation.

And those conversations lasted a little while, as they can do.

And, you know, then the acquisition was made.

And so what's now called Rocket Booster will become the digital focus unit, the expertise within Spira Abacus

as a group.

How's it all going to sort of mash together and work? Kat, what's your sort of role in all of this?

I'll be managing director of Rocket Booster, so reporting into Jonathan.

So we'll be handling anything that's revenue shared deals.

So looking across this Verabica's catalogue, the Bell catalogue, our existing catalogue, we'll still be going out and acquiring new content.

We're really trying to kind of give Jonathan and his team a 360 perspective.

kind of distribution capacity so that, you know, when rights holders come to us, we can really fully exploit and monetize their catalog and extract every piece of value out of every available window and platform.

And look, we also sort of, you know, recognize the growth of YouTube as a revenue platform and other social media.

So, you know, we're looking at the IP that we manage and how we can create channels around the IP or channel brands that contain different types of IP that are part of the group.

And I think it does give us more of a 360 distributor profile, which is interesting for one, when we're pitching for new programming from producers, but also interesting in talking to both producers and other parties about managing their libraries or buying their libraries potentially.