V I D E O • A G E OC T O B E R 2 0 1 1 42 International Film TV Sales Hindered By Dubbing Costs Dubb i ng ’ s New B i z Mode l s Since the introduction of international TV program sales –– well before the invention of globalization –– dubbing has been crucial to the business. It fulfilled its function extremely well as foreign TV sales became a critical part of the global entertainment business. Now, however, dubbing has gone from being an asset (since it allows foreign sales) to being a liability –– especially for independent companies. Indeed, thousands of good programming hours lie dormant in storage because of financial issues with dubbing. The problem is that costs of dubbing — like production costs — have increased, while licensee fees in many cases are decreasing. Under these circumstances, small and medium indies can only afford to dub if a program is sold first. But in a real catch 22, the program often cannot be sold if it’s not dubbed first. Additionally, at times, potential buyers ask to check the quality of the dubbing even before committing. This chicken-eggstalematedoesn’taffectlarge U.S. studios since they automatically dub all content themselves, but it is becoming a huge problem for indies who are unable to monetize all their library material. Obviously, this dubbing problem exists mainly in regions where Spanish, French, English and to a lesser extent, Portuguese are spoken. The fact that they represent large territories magnifies the problem to the point that a new business model is needed. VideoAge went on a quest, interviewing program distributors and dubbing houses, to find the problems that these various sectors are confronting, and to possibly pinpoint new alternatives. We all know thatmaking a decent dub track is an extremely costly endeavor. Anna Dunn of Rome-based dubbing studio Cine Dubbing estimated 20,000-80,000 euro (U.S.$28,500- $113,700) as a standard price range for a feature film dubbed over in Italian — that’s a lot of money to lay out with no guarantee on return. One common solution, said Deeny Kaplan, of Miami, Los Angeles and Caracas-based The Kitchen, is for distributors to get a demo made of part of their product, so they have a sample to show acquisitions execs. “At the major markets, like MIPCOM and MIP-TV, companies come to us and ask for a [dubbed] demo and record maybe 10 minutes or one episode, if it’s a series in various languages, so they can show buyers.” Last MIP-TV, The Kitchen produced 67 demos. Said Kaplan, “Very seldom do [indie distributors] do a whole series [on spec]. It would be crazy to do that.” Roberto Mendoza, who in addition to consulting on translation also works as a voice talent, said he is often called on to make demos. Companies pay him to do on-the-fly simultaneous translations of segments of their content, on the condition that if the product sells, he will be employed on the larger project. This type of demo dubbing is much cheaper than casting and mixing a complete track. “But there are some trade-offs for doing it this way,” explained Mendoza, “you only get one voice for all the characters, and the diction, synchronicity and performance may not be as good.” For distribution companies, there are many benefits to dubbing. Miami-based Lisette Osorio, of Colombia’s Caracol, said that her company has started using dubbing on programming in Africa, and subsequently, the whole territory has opened up for them. “It’s a pretty good solution to be able to provide a finished product with dubbing,” she said, adding that it has helped Caracol programming gain exposure in the region and increased demand. Osorio conceded that having a dub track makes it a costly endeavor, but has no alternate business model to suggest. “You have to think of it as an investment,” she said. “You can get your money back, or even more, but you have to distribute it to a lot of channels.” The situation is complicated where rights are concerned, said Cine Dubbing’s Dunn. “Each country has different laws,” she said. “For example in Italy, two different rules apply regarding ownership of the dubbed track. One is that the company that has commissioned a dubbing automatically gains ownership of that track provided that it has paid the dubbing studio in full for that particular dubbing.” But until payment is made for each dubbing, Dunn said, the rights will belong to the dubbing studio. If payment to the dubbing studio is overdue when the program is being aired, the dubbing studio has the right to order the broadcaster to stop airing the program. Conversely, at The Kitchen in the U.S. and Venezuela, Kaplan negotiates a price upfront that includes all rights. “When I quote a client the price, they own all the rights,” she said. “We pay our talent and it’s done.” Such varying approaches and interpretations of rights ownership can cause disputes since, up to now, the industry has not been able to create a common business framework. Challenges notwithstanding, at least on the technical level, the future looks less problematic for the dubbing industry. “When I Love Lucy came out in the ’50s, it took five decades for it to be dubbed into every language. Today everyone around the world is watching the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy in every language, sometimes the very same day it airs in the U.S,” said Kaplan. On the economic front, TV sales could increase for indie companies if their entire pertinent inventory could be dubbed. Right now a good portion of potential content sales lie on shelves. It’s clear that in order to monetize those dormant assets, the dubbing and distribution sectors have to come up with a new business model where both sectors can share costs and revenues. The advent of worldwide digital broadcasting channels will require an enormous amount of dubbed content. Just for Latin America, it was estimated by VideoAge Daily at NATPE 2011, the some 600 digital broadcast stations will require some 7,000 hours of compounded programming per day, which adds up to over 2.5 million hours of content a year. This compares to the current terrestrial use of 700,000 hours of programming a year. Perhaps the answer lies not in a twoway split, but a new three-way business model, where the digital broadcaster is also involved in sharing costs and revenues. Another business model idea came from Miami, Florida-based NewsProNet’s John Cuddihy who advises distributors to give dubbing houses the licensing rights to one territory (such as Venezuela or Colombia) in exchange for dubbing costs. For the Santa Monica, Californiabased former president of MGM International Distribution, Gary Marenzi, the best way for indies to solve the dubbing problem is to partner with news streaming and digital media (such as Netflix and Amazon) where they would pay for dubbing costs in exchange for streaming rights, while the distributor would retain broadcast, cable and other rights. Finally, Ken DuBow, president of Tarzana, California-based international film distributor Opus, lets his subdistributors pay (or arrange) for dubbing, with the understanding that, ultimately, Opus gets the dub’s rights. “No... what I distinctly said was ‘you are the biggest ASSET in our organization’ ” Problems with accents
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