EXCLUSIVE: Australian producer WTFN has reshuffled its administration pack.
Co-founder Daryl Talbot has moved out of the CEO seat on the 22-year-old firm to turn into Government Director, with COO Wes Criminal rising to interchange him. Steve Oemcke, the opposite co-founder, stays Chief Artistic Officer and Derek Dyson is Chief Industrial Officer.
WTFN is finest recognized for Australian unscripted exhibits equivalent to Bondi Vet, Sydney Harbour Power, The Hunters, Emergency and House Invaders, but additionally operates in worldwide distribution by means of subsidiary Fred Media and digital vendor Radar. The 2 gross sales companies merged in September final 12 months.
Talbot, a former 9 Community producer and information reporter, launched WTFN with former gameshow host Oemcke in 2003, and so they have gone on to construct one in all Australia‘s most prolific unbiased manufacturing and distribution operations. The Sydney-based firm owns a library of greater than 2,000 in-house hours, a sizeable quantity together with quite a few multi-season returners, and expertise company Empire Expertise, and has workplaces in L.A. and London.
This shuffle is among the many most vital administration switches on the firm so far. “We have now been by means of some restructuring,” Talbot advised Deadline. “The trade isn’t standing nonetheless and you’ll’t be left behind. The brand new construction provides me headspace to consider our technique and our worldwide focus.”
Talbot stated that whereas there’s “no denying from a macro-economic place that the previous few years have been fairly powerful for everybody,” WTFN begins 2025 in “most likely the strongest place we’ve ever been in.” He predicted the corporate will expertise double-digit digital progress this 12 months, and added, “It has been a journey to get right here and navigate the adjustments within the trade, together with Covid. To come back out of all of that and be very well positioned is nice.”
Final 12 months, we revealed WTFN had engaged a financial institution to discover a sale or new funding with distribution progress in thoughts, however nothing has materialized but on that entrance and it stays privately owned.
Talbot declined to remark when requested concerning the course of this, however was eager to speak up how the corporate had constructed up worth by means of what WTFN calls a ‘whole distribution’ technique after realizing that manufacturing alone wouldn’t preserve the enterprise alive. This comprised figuring out the necessity for a global gross sales enterprise greater than a decade in the past, and launching a digital enterprise that features FAST channels and social media content material.
“We went from constructing homes to constructing homes, proudly owning them and renting them out,” stated Talbot. “That has allowed us to construct out personal library and given us choices going ahead. We’ve bought a robust recurring manufacturing enterprise that constantly does a job for the networks, and we’re on the market pitching new exhibits, however proudly owning and controlling the content material is vital to the longer term. It’s important to have the industrial mannequin that lets you suppose up these new exhibits.”