“The entertainment sector is going through a fundamental shift,” said Ron Thomson, CEO of Canada–based Liquid Media from Cannes during MIPTV, where he was promoting blockchain technology to aid independent producers.
Blockchain was created in 2008 and is defined as a growing list of records, typically linked together by some cryptographic code. They are commonly accessed through publicly-distributed ledgers on any of a number of peer-to-peer networks.
To aid in Thomson’s quest, Liquid Media utilizes a family of five acquired companies operating in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, and two partnerships, including one with Eluv.io, a Berkeley, California-based blockchain ledger focusing on audiovisual content.
During a Zoom interview, Thomson (pictured above) pointed out that his company will further grow through acquisitions. “We have a buy versus build mentality,” he specified.
Liquid Media Group was founded in 2018 by Joshua Jackson, the company’s chairman, as a publicly traded company on NASDAQ and headquartered in Vancouver, with offices in Toronto. Thomson, an expert in securing capital for companies, joined Liquid Media as CEO in 2021.
Thomson said that Liquid Media is a B2B company that provides independent content creators with end-to-end solutions to package, finance, and monetize their content. To assist in their quest he called upon Canadian production and distribution veteran Nat Abraham, who joined the company as a senior advisor to Liquid’s team in structuring its sales and distribution unit.
As far as financing, Thomson clarified that Liquid Media “provides the last-mile financing: the last capital. We never fully finance anything.” In addition, through a partnership with New York City-based analytic company Slated, they can advise producers as to how a production will perform when it’s still at the script level.
But the next big thing for Liquid Media is the opportunities that blockchain is offering. “It’s the next interaction,” said Thomson. “We have digital and now blockchain,” which, according to the executive, will be able to offer a variety of services to independent producers. “For example,” he said, “we have two films from our company iNdieflix that were launched on blockchain and we also sold NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) digital products.”
As far as their business model, Thomson said that they have a complex model tailored for each of the services offered on the blockchain. Nonetheless “it will be more like a revenue-sharing type of operation.”
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