Turner Laing: ‘Collaboration the new world order’
October 6, 2015
Colin Mann @ MIPCOM
Seasoned TV executive Sophie Turner Laing has declared a ‘Golden Age’ of television, suggesting that technology, rather than threatening the content industry, is enabling more to be seen by more people.
Delivering a Media Mastermind keynote speech at MIPCOM, Turner Laing – CEO of global production force Endemol Shine – highlighted the formation of Icon, a joint venture with YouTube personality Michelle Phan as an example of how forming partnerships with different types of media would enable the TV industry to continue to thrive. “Collaboration is the new world order for engaging fans, viewers, and customers. Working with new creators from different media and disciplines are the new types of partnerships that will make us successful.”
“As content creators, we’ve never had it so good,” she said. “The appetite for content has never been greater, and there has never been a better time to be in story telling. Relative newcomers such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are often painted as disruptors, threatening to topple the old media establishment, but they’ve also provided new opportunities for talent, more windows in our distribution chain, and most importantly, more opportunities for viewers to watch their favourite shows and to discover many more. Clearly, they are having an impact on the funding and distribution models that we’ve all been used to,” she noted.
She said that demand for content had never been so strong, whether snacking on mobile devices, or losing whole weekends at a time on binge-watching. “So it’s not technology that is the threat, nor is there ‘too much good television’.”