Industry

Julie Bristow, formerly CEO and president of Bristow Global Media, has launched a development and funding company focusing on content developed, delivered and designed by women and about women.

The Content Catalyst Fund (CCF) aims to catalyse the creation of stories for what is believed to be an underserved global market: stories made through a female lens. Based in Canada but with an international reach, the CCF will develop and invest in unscripted and scripted content, with an initial focus on unscripted. It will help female creators to find an audience for their work byinvesting both funds and end-to-end strategic support in viable female-led projects.

In 2013, Bristow launched Bristow Global Media Inc. (BGM) to create, package and produce multi-genre, multiplatform content for the international marketplace. Under her leadership, BGM grew into a global entertainment company, with an international reputation for premium factual content. In 2017, Kew Media Group acquired BGM, which was subsequently bought by Quebec-based Datsit Sphere in late 2019.

Prior to founding BGM, Bristow was the executive director of studio and unscripted content at CBC Television, where she helped to create and monetise many of the Canadian public broadcaster’s most successful programmes, including Dragons’ Den. Her international credits as a global executive producer include 100 Days to Victory (Foxtel, BBC Scotland, History), 9/11: Control the Skies (National Geographic International, Bell Media) and Canada: The Story of Us (CBC).

Bristow has brought in long-time colleague and collaborator Mona Minhas as chief financial officer. Minhas, has extensive media and entertainment-industry experience, specifically in finance, strategy and M&A. She served as vice-president of finance at Rogers Communications, where she oversaw the financial management of the Canadian communication giant’s media division. During that time, she presided over the financial strategy of Sportsnet’s launch of NHL enterprise, The Shopping Channel (TSC), as well as having financial oversight around content acquisition strategy and all of Rogers’ digital content. For the past few years, Minhas has also provided financial and business-strategy support to several high-growth technology, e-commerce and media ventures, where she has also been supporting companies in their capital raising efforts.

Julie Bristow said: “There are no end of amazing female creators out there — and no end of audiences hungry for stories told through the female lens. The problem is women working in the content industry do not enjoy the same access to influence and capital, despite market data proving conclusively that female-driven content is profitable. The CCF intends to change that. We believe there has never been a better time to rethink and redesign the way women make content for women. At CCF, content will always be queen.”

CCF has been seeded by Bristow and a small circle of like-minded investors. In the first instance, the fund will invest in a robust pipeline of original IP from female creators, while helping to finance the development of promising projects. The longer-term objective is to seek out projects with the potential for equity investment.

Bristow’s new business launches within the context of increased interest in content made for and by women, accompanied by an explosion in demand for original programming across all genres. In the past decade, global spending on TV, film and sports content has increased by 65%, according to Ampere Analysis. Most of that growth has occurred in the last five years, as competition intensifies between the new generation of streaming giants and the legacy broadcasters. At first, this content arms races focused on drama; now, attention is turning to unscripted entertainment.