Neither David Kirsch nor Geoff Suddleson started their careers planning to enter the unscripted business. Suddleson, a self-described “baby of the industry,” started in the motion picture division at Universal before jumping to MTV Networks during the reality boom of the early 2000s. Kirsch’s story is even less expected, a Hollywood leader who put himself through college as a mortgage broker and entered entertainment by representing musical artists for CAA.
But its their ability to pivot that’s landed them where they are today as the Co-Heads of Unscripted TV at UTA, two leaders spearheading Hollywood’s slow embrace of creators.
It’s not all Kirsch and Suddleson. UTA’s unscripted team works closely with the agency’s creators division to take clients from social media to the television screen. A leader in creator representation, UTA is home to some of the biggest names in the space including Alex Cooper, Kai Cenat, Alix Earle, Jake Shane and Mr. Ballen.
In many ways, Kirsch and Suddleson’s dealmaking represents the industry’s future. Suddleson was the executive responsible for Beast Studios’ ongoing partnership with Amazon as the streamer prepares to launch “Beast Games” Season 2. The mastermind behind Amazon’s most-watched unscripted series of all time is Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, a creator with over 449 million subscribers who’s often considered to be the biggest name on YouTube.
As for Kirsch, he’s been behind Alex Cooper, Matt Kaplan and Unwell Productions’ push into more traditional television. This summer marked the premiere of the podcast “Call Her Alex” on Hulu, a deep dive into the life of a podcaster who averages 10 million listeners an episode. Unwell will also be producing the upcoming Netflix reality show “Let’s Marry Harry” and the Hulu dating series “Overboard for Love.”
“The challenge for David and I on a daily basis with our teams is to educate and help prepare more traditional producers to work with creators,” Suddleson told TheWrap, noting that though most of the creators they work with have their own production studios, there are projects that require traditional distributors and producers.
“Two different languages are being spoken, but essentially the same stuff is being made. You have to figure out how to take two different things that have to exist inside the same ecosystem,” Suddleson explained.
It’s an educational challenge that cuts both ways. Creators looking to broaden their reach and revenue streams by partnering with traditional media need to learn the complicated nuances of Hollywood. But at the same time, these networks and streamers are learning in real time that creators don’t operate like the talent they’re used to.
“These creators have done things their way. They’ve never been noted. They’ve never had to do anything at the direction of another producer or a network,” Kirsch told TheWrap. “They know their audience, and they know how to super-serve that audience. With a network wanting to be in business with them, they need to understand that. It can’t be ‘We’re going to fit you into the model that currently exists.’”
Kirsch likened each deal to a fingerprint. Unlike the copy-and-paste deals of the past, each negotiation needs to be crafted to best fit the aspirations of UTA’s clients, how those clients want to build their own production companies and the needs of the networks and streamers looking to partner with creators. There’s also the bonus challenge of partnering creators looking to hire Hollywood insiders with the right executive for their needs.
“Why do buyers buy projects and distribute them? Because they want to find audiences and monetize based on getting those audiences. It’s the reason why the creator universe is finding its way to more traditional media,” Suddleson said.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of my conversation with Suddleson and Kirsch.
TheWrap: What’s it like being in a space where you’re focused so much on creators as this industry is really taking off?
David Kirsch: It’s a really interesting time for creators. I work very closely with Alex Cooper and Matt Kaplan and their company Unwell, and they’ve had an incredible run over the last year. We sold “Call Her Alex” to Hulu in the bidding war … It was a relationship we’ve been nurturing with Disney for several years before that sold. It also led to their first unscripted series sale with “Overboard for Love” to Hulu — 10 episodes straight to series. It was through that process that we wound up also selling “Let’s Marry Harry” (to Netflix).
So in a year where a lot of traditional media companies are having a difficult time selling, being out in the marketplace with projects that are on brand with an influencer or a podcaster is a very ripe, robust market. … You’d be hard pressed to see a company coming out of the gate in the first year selling a major premium documentary series in two big broadcast caliber formats.
Geoff Suddleson: Similarly, I have had the pleasure of working alongside our colleagues on the creator side with MrBeast. What’s interesting is seeing what he and Beast Studios were able to do in setting up a more traditional unscripted competition series because of the power and control they had based on the audience they’ve commanded over these last few years. It was a fascinating experience for an entity that had essentially no traditional content experience, and yet the power in what they have been able to pull off in their sector of distribution and more traditional platforms — I say traditional because Amazon is closer to more traditional. It is amazing to see the power of their audience and how much Amazon wanted to piggyback off of that.
As you’re having conversations about your clients and trying to make these deals a reality, what’s the overall climate in Hollywood towards content creators? Has it shifted in the past couple years?
Kirsch: The pendulum has very firmly swung back, and a lot of platforms are looking to be in business with content creators overall. Netflix is probably making the strongest push into that space. Hulu is making a pretty strong push into that space. It’s a little bit different just from a volume perspective because Netflix buys 10x what anybody else buys, so it just looks a little bit different. [Netflix] is also connecting it within their various divisions between unscripted, kids and live sports.
Like any other area, they’re wanting to go after the biggest names. They’re wanting to go after the talent who they believe is going to be able to drive an audience the way that Jimmy drove an audience to Amazon.
Suddleson: Make no mistake, there still has to be that. You still have to exist at a certain level in order to translate. That stays in line with how networks and distributors have always treated wanting to be in business with talent.
Looking ahead at the next two years in the unscripted space, what trends do you think are going to emerge?
Kirsch: Realistically, we’re looking at five areas of growth right now: broadcast television; sports; premium documentary and documentary series; live; and the last thing is brand-funded content.
While we’ve all been navigating this landscape for several years and some brands have stepped into funded content, it’s still more the exception than the rule. As we look out one, three, five years, we believe that’s going to be more significant.
But with all companies, whether you’re talking about creator-led companies or traditional production companies right now, every company has to have a bespoke approach to the overall market and really understand the key growth areas that they want to focus on. It’s not a one-size-fits-all business. And it’s not the more volume you have, the more you’re going to get. You want to be very specific and targeted in your approach. There are several projects we have set up recently where we’ve purposely had one pitch.
Suddleson: We view ourselves as a Swiss army knife at the agency. We’re able to shift when trends shift.
One of the good things for us is that our more traditional clients — like us — probably started in a more traditional sector of of representation, and they evolved. There’s already an ability to shift to the challenges of the businesses.
