Who Gets Sales Profits?

[adamclark83]

Today I've been wondering about sales of titles and who gets the profits.

With companies such as Disney and Paramount, they make and distribute their own titles so they do all the creative work (package design and content) AND get profits from sales. But what about when the discs are made by one company but distributed by another? For example:

Doctor Who and Red Dwarf:
- Artwork and Content by the BBC
- Released by Roadshow

Thunderbirds Are Go
- Artwork and Content by ITV
- Released by Roadshow

[StrayButler91]

The distributor buys the content from the producing company.

So for something like Doctor Who or Red Dwarf, the BBC would sell the distribution rights in various territories for broadcasts and physical media.

It can happen one of two ways. The most common one is distributors outright buying the content for a flat fee, so the parent company gets their dosh upfront, and then the distributor gets all profits from the physical media sales. The other way is a partnership. So let's say that because the distributor bankrolls the production of the discs and ships them out, etc, they would get like 70% of the profits and the company producing them gets 30%.

This kind of stuff also occurs for motion pictures. A lot of independent companies actually bankroll their productions from the sales of foreign distribution rights. Expendables 3, for instance, was only made because it was shopped around, and the budget was set accordingly once all rights were sold off.