Ralph Lee Paul Dempsey BBC Studios
In its 43rd edition and its eighth year in Liverpool, BBC Showcase Studios 2019 that receives more than 700 buyers from around the world and presents 4,000 hours of content, is an integrated activity for the first time.
“We are capable of maintaining exhaustive conversations with our clients regarding the whole array of what we can do: from acquisitions to show commissions. Producers have always been part of our business, but now we work closer, representing our in-house producer community, as well as all the independent producers we work with,” explained Paul Dempsey, president of Global Markets at BBC Studios.
Consulted on what he feels are the challenges for 2019 in Latin America, Dempsey said that the main thing is to find a panregional society. “The challenge in Latin America is that we haven’t yet found these pan-regional alliances that allow us to work closer. We hope to have great pan-regional conversations this year because we are ready for that,” he said.
Ralph Lee, Content director at BBC Studios Productions, who joined the company in October to direct what used to be the BBC’s in-house production unit, now BBC Studios Productions, was also present in the talk. “This means that the content we make, both for BBC and for clients worldwide is represented under this umbrella,” commented Lee.
“We are very proud of the Showcase. Each year it is bigger. The reason why we are satisfied to see the numbers growing is that our clients are telling us that it is an event they care about. And part of it is because it is an event that is constantly changing. For our traditional clients, it continues to be relevant, but we recognize that the business is changing and many of our clients want a deeper engagement, they want to talk with us about the show and creative ideas in an earlier phase of the process. They want to talk not only about licensing the show, but about co-productions, and for that reason, we are thrilled to announce that for the first time, the Showcase is an integrated activity,” expressed Dempsey.
