EXCLUSIVE: Critical Content, the production company behind Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia and Sylvester Stallone documentary Sly, is at a crossroads.
Deadline understands that the company has put a number of its television staff on furlough. Some employees have been largely out of work since the end of March but the company has been offering a few paid hours to “keep up appearances”, one source said.
Critical Content, which is also behind NBC’s Celebrity Game Face, Discovery’s Survive The Raft and MTV’s Catfish, is not the first unscripted-focused company to “rightsize” its business in a challenging environment and insiders at the company said the hope was that it would be able to bring back these employees.
There has been talk within the unscripted TV industry that Critical’s parent company SK Global, the film financier behind Crazy Rich Asians, has been considering selling the business.
But the company denied that there was any “sales process” happening. “Critical Content is a proven leader in premium unscripted storytelling. It’s a cornerstone of our diverse investment portfolio, and we intend to keep it that way. We are not in a sales process. We are fully committed to fueling its next chapter—expanding its creative edge, scaling its reach, and solidifying its position as the go-to studio for bold, culture-shaping content,” an SK Global spokesman told Deadline.
This news comes after Jenny Daly, who was President of Critical Content, joined A. Smith & Co. Productions as its President. Daly is set to bolster the Tinopolis-owned company’s growth into the formats world and international business.
Daly has spent much of the past twelve months growing Critical’s global business, striking a slew of global deals with the likes of Australia’s Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia, Korea’s Something Special, Singapore’s Refinery Media, Dubai’s Blue Engine Studios, Belgium’s Be-Entertainment and France’s ITV Studios France.
Critical Content is also behind series such as, Oxygen’s Deadly Waters with Captain Lee and A&E’s New House, No Debt as well as Netflix’s Get Organized with The Home Edit, which was produced with Reese Witherspoon and Emily Sims.
SK Global is also behind Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell rom-com Anyone But You, Jeff Bridges’ Hell or High Water and Brad Pitt’s Moneyball. In January, it promoted former CFO Matt Aragachi to President with Beth Bednarski coming in as chief financial officer. It also promoted Chloe Dan to EVP, Television, and as Deadline revealed, hired former Participant exec Elizabeth Haggard as SVP, Feature Film reporting to Head of Features Mark O’Connor.
It bought Critical Content in January 2022 from Anchorage Capital Group. In September 2022, SK Global, which was formed by a merger between Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Ivanhoe Pictures, sold a majority stake to private equity firm Centricus.
In November, SK Global endured layoffs with around 20 employees in various divisions impacted.
