The announcement of the Starz, LLC partnership with the BBC to co-produce content for their respective networks was hinted at in this interview with John Penney, EVP of strategy and business development, of Starz at the 2011 Connections™ conference. He was a keynote speaker at Connections™ and one of the things he spoke of is the continued high cost of making television programming. He said that there are overhead costs that continue to make scripted television expensive.
He explains that the typical $100M investment in a 24 episode season has to be recouped in multiple ways and that multiple streams of income – windowing – is the way that producers expect to get a return. He stresses the importance of having consistent streams. Penney says that, “Now, is the moment to take the last 5 years of learnings [regarding new technologies] and apply them.”
