Inside the Global TV Machine: Greg Johnson on Relationships, Risk, and Betting on Stories

Greg Johnson is Executive Vice President, Americas and Asia Pacific at Cineflix Rights, the UK's largest independent TV distributor, where he sits on the senior leadership team. His career spans Disney-ABC International Television in Asia Pacific, BBC Worldwide Americas, and ITV Studios, where he helped close deals for Vanity Fair, Victoria, and Poldark, before joining Cineflix in 2024.

In this episode, Greg sits down with Belinda to talk about what it actually takes to bet on a story before the world knows if it works: the relationships behind every deal, the risk built into how television gets financed, and the moments that taught him when to walk away.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How deficit financing actually works, and why a distributor ends up carrying the risk on a show before it airs

• What it means to pitch a series that won't finish filming for five years, and why that's normal in this business

• The real difference between how BBC and ITV Studios operate, and why so many people misunderstand it

• Why Greg says “I like to cut through the crap as much as I can,” and what that looks like in a high-stakes negotiation

• The line Greg lives by when a deal isn't going to happen: “A quick no is the second best answer”