At the 60th annual L.A. Screenings, the Italians came back during the indie section of the event at the Century Plaza Hotel following many years of absence. One company making its debut was Publispei, a 50-year-old Italian film and TV production company that has made international content distribution its new strategic thrust.
To expand on this strategy, Verdiana Bixio, president of the Rome-based Publispei, invited VideoAge to lunch at Eataly in the mall near the Century Plaza, together with Ilaria Pagano, Publispei’s PR manager.
Bixio is the daughter of Publispei’s previous president, Carlo Bixio. Over some pasta (al dente) and pizza, Bixio explained that, when her father died in 2011 at age 69, she was catapulted into a role that required her to “swim or sink” quickly, as she had only been with the company for six years.
Publispei was born in 1972 as a made-for TV event company. Carlo Bixio, who founded a music company in 1960 (Edizioni Musicali), acquired 50 percent of Publispei in 1980 and took full control in 1986.
As of 2023, Publispei has produced over 1,000 hours of primetime content. The company began producing dramas in the 1990s, starting with A Family Doctor, a remake of the Spanish TV series Medico de Familia, and I Cesaroni, another Spanish TV remake (Los Serranos). In 2008, the company expanded its production slate to include comedies and dramedies (e.g., Crazy About Love), and in 2022 went into historical dramas, biopics, young adult fare, and crime series.
Verdiana Bixio has fond memories of many of these productions, but especially the RaiFiction co-production of the psychological thriller Flower Over the Inferno, starring Elena Sofia Ricci, which was screened in Los Angeles at the Chinese Theater in March 2023, as well as the crime series, Redemption, which was broadcast on Rai in Italy, on Channel 4 in the U.K., and on Roku in the U.S.
Over lunch, Bixio explained that she’s moving Publispei away from the traditional Italian business model of ceding distribution rights to the Italian broadcast network that commissions or acquires a production. “The aim of the company,” she explained, “is to expand its footprint and became more and more international. That’s the reason I’m often in the U.S., in order to create new alliances and partnerships, develop remakes of our IPs, distribute the ready-made products and co-produce new projects that have a strong and ‘glocal’ identity.”
With all the other major Italian-founded production companies now in the hands of foreign groups (e.g., Lux Vide owned by Fremantle, Groenlandia owned by Banijay, Cattleya, part of ITV Studios, etc.), Publispei is said to be the only remaining large Italian-owned entity. These foreign-owned entities keep the international distribution rights of the Italian content they produce, while smaller companies tend to cede the rights to the distribution divisions of the broadcasters, often in exchange for some extra transmission fees, which renders them unable to build up a library to license internationally.
Bixio also explained that, “in 2022 the company made a strong internal change, hiring new talents coming from different fields. We’ve diversified our collaborators coming from different sectors, including design. Our diversity is now our strength and, thanks to this new team and its ‘contamination of ideas’ we created new disruptive products, not only scripted, but also documentaries, podcasts, unscripted, and feature films,” she concluded.
During lunch, Verdiana became particularly emotional recalling the contributions of both her father and grandfather to the Italian entertainment industry. “Carlo Bixio was the son of Cesare Bixio, one of the most famous Italian music composers and lyricists,” explained Pagano later. “[Cesare] was the author of the soundtrack of the first Italian sound film in 1930 and founder of the Bixio Publishing Group, a music publishing house [that’s important] in the annals of Italian pop music. In 1980, Carlo Bixio, together with music producer Gianni Ravera re-launched the Sanremo Festival, Italy’s most popular music festival, [which still garners up to 70 percent of share on broadcast TV].”
Pictured above, Publispei’s Ilaria Pagano and Verdiana Bixio during the L.A. Screenings
Congratulations Dom ,l’articolo e impressionante molto di aver portato nella luce Italo mondiale. Con un saluto caro a voi tutti ,vi abbraccio da Rochester NY
Già Vice Console O Ditalia
Thank you so much Dom! Grazie per questo articolo così personale, sei stato capace di interpretare tutto il mio entusiasmo e la forza che metto nel mio lavoro!
Thanks a lot Mario Daniele for your words ????????