The new buyer is the audience
Here’s how a new generation of distributors and studios are reaching audiences faster and getting paid for it.
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“There is a new buyer here at MIPCOM. It is the audience.”
A year ago,
and I sketched this podcast on a rosé-soaked rooftop. This week, we recorded it live at MIPCOM with Filmhub’s Alan d’Escragnolle and Vortex Media’s Justin Rebelo. Proof that in media, the path from idea to audience can move fast when you just … start.One theme cut through our conversation with Alan and Justin: if you want your films seen, stop waiting for platforms to buy. Start using them to sell your films to a new kind of buyer: your audience.
Filmhub saw that opportunity early on. It handles 500 to 1,000 titles a month, automating everything from ingest to royalties. The logic: once your first-window deal ends, get your content everywhere (Tubi, Amazon, Roku, YouTube etc.).
Vortex Media runs that exact play. Canada first window, then stack non-exclusive licenses instead of locking the library for years. Discovery beats exclusivity. Their horror title Dream Eater was made for $50K, went viral on TikTok and now hits 1,000 theaters under the Eli Roth Presents label. Success is no longer a succession of traditional windows. It follows audiences’ logic and tastes.
We’re out of the push era. People seek, search and share. You don’t wait for gatekeepers, you program for how audiences already watch.
Listen to the full conversation to hear the playbook in the guests’ words, then steal it for your own slate.
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That’s it for today but before you go:
Great insight on the shift from exclusivity to discovery. The Filmhub model of getting content on multiple platforms like Roku after first-window deals reflects how the economic calculus has changed. The stacking of non-exclusive licenses makes more sense now when audience fragmentation means you need presense across platforms to maximize reach. The Dream Eater example shows how viral discovery can drive theatrical success in reverse of traditional models.