Cathy Payne Opens Up On Banijay Rights & The Future Of Distribution — London TV Screenings

deadline.com:

Cathy Payne knows the distribution market as well as any exec in the international business. She headed up Southern Star International, which was bought by Endemol in 2009.

It merged with Shine in 2015 before Banijay acquired Endemol Shine in 2020. Payne is now CEO Banijay Rights, the distribution arm of that huge business, which has a catalog of more than 200,000 hours including Black Mirror, Big Brother and Survivor. “We’re big, but we want to keep that feeling we always had when we were small,” she says. “I’ve always worked in companies where production and distribution were integrated.

When we started off in Australia, we always had to think about how we were going to get anything funded, we always had to find a way.” Payne has been part of the evolution of the international TV business and has seen seismic M&A deals from the inside.

She speaks to Deadline during a trip to her native Australia, before heading back in time for the London TV Screenings. “We’ve gone through the recalibration of the streamers but we’re still working through a lot of big corporate consolidation,” Payne says when asked about what’s shaping the international industry.