Content Acquisition Manager

About Us

Our organization operates on a global scale, delivering premium digital products, media, entertainment, and customer experiences across a variety of markets. Collaboration occurs across diverse teams including Content, Product, Marketing, Editorial, Legal, Commercial, Technology, Partnerships, Operations, and regional groups, all dedicated to creating compelling and commercially valuable content portfolios.

Role Overview

We are looking for a seasoned Content Acquisition Manager to lead initiatives in content sourcing, licensing agreements, partnership development, negotiation processes, portfolio planning, and acquisition operations. The ideal candidate will pinpoint high-value content prospects, appraise their commercial and audience potential, negotiate contracts, manage rights and licensing requisites, and ensure content complies with strategic goals and delivery standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Formulate and implement content acquisition strategies that align with company objectives, audience needs, and market trends.
• Locate and assess top-tier content opportunities spanning various genres, formats, regions, and platforms.
• Establish and nurture a robust pipeline of potential content, creators, studios, publishers, distributors, rights holders, and production partners.
• Perform market analysis to track audience behaviors, content success, competitor movements, and new opportunities.
• Assess content for relevance to audience interests, strategic alignment, commercial value, brand compatibility, availability, and rights clarity.
• Prepare acquisition proposals, financial models, business cases, and investment strategies.
• Lead negotiations over licensing fees, minimum guarantees, revenue sharing, exclusivity terms, territories, distribution windows, contract durations, and usage rights.
• Collaborate with Legal and Commercial teams to manage licensing and acquisition contracts.
• Verify that acquired rights are appropriately defined concerning platforms, territories, languages, formats, and distribution channels.
• Conduct thorough commercial and rights due diligence prior to acquisition approvals.
• Evaluate content ownership, chains of title, exclusivity clauses, restrictions, clearances, and contractual commitments.
• Manage acquisition budgets, forecasts, financial obligations, and decisions regarding portfolio investments.
• Monitor acquisition expenses, anticipated revenues, audience value, return on investment, and overall portfolio profitability.
• Coordinate acquisition priorities with Programming, Editorial, Product, Marketing, and regional teams.
• Develop market expansion plans targeting new audiences, platforms, and content categories.
• Oversee content availability schedules, renewal timelines, rights expirations, and contract windows.
• Lead renewal and extension negotiations for high-performing content.
• Identify underachieving, expiring, or strategically misaligned content and recommend appropriate adjustments.
• Maintain and strengthen long-term strategic relationships with key content partners.
• Participate in industry conferences, events, markets, and screenings to discover new content opportunities.
• Analyze competitor content acquisitions, licensing strategies, programming decisions, and market positioning.
• Evaluate options for exclusive and non-exclusive acquisitions, suggesting suitable commercial frameworks.
• Coordinate content delivery needs with technical, operations, localization, metadata, and publishing teams.
• Ensure content meets agreed technical, editorial, quality, and delivery standards.
• Manage localization efforts including subtitles, dubbing, translation, artwork, metadata, and regional adaptations when necessary.
• Collaborate with Legal to recognize copyright, intellectual property, regulatory, contractual, and compliance risks.
• Guarantee that acquisition activities adhere to relevant laws, corporate policies, and ethical guidelines.
• Maintain comprehensive records of acquisitions, rights, contracts, financial data, and content inventories.
• Create dashboards and reports to track pipelines, expenditures, rights status, performance, renewals, and portfolio value.
• Analyze post-launch content performance to inform future acquisition strategies.
• Set standardized acquisition processes, approval procedures, evaluation metrics, and documentation standards.
• Identify and implement improvements in acquisition efficiency through process automation, data analytics, technology, and clear decision-making frameworks.
• Manage relationships with external agencies, consultants, brokers, aggregators, and other partners involved in acquisitions.
• Resolve issues related to commercial terms, contracts, delivery, and partner relationships.
• Support strategic projects such as new product introductions, market growth, partnerships, and platform expansions.
• Prepare and deliver executive-level presentations and recommendations on key acquisition opportunities and investments.
• Lead and mentor the acquisition team, fostering their growth through coaching, feedback, and knowledge sharing.

Key Performance Indicators

• Revenue contribution from content acquisitions
• Compliance with acquisition budgets
• Cost efficiency in content acquisition
• Return on investment across content portfolio
• Value of content acquisition pipeline
• Conversion and deal closure rates
• Negotiated cost reductions
• Performance under revenue-sharing and commercial terms
• Audience reach and engagement levels
• Content consumption metrics
• Utilization rate of acquired content
• Acquisition of new audiences
• Accuracy of performance versus forecasts
• Effectiveness of exclusive content acquisitions
• Renewal rates for high-performing content
• Rights utilization and contract precision
• Efficiency in contract turnaround and acquisition cycles
• Readiness for content delivery
• Acceptance rates for technical and editorial standards
• Partner and rights-holder satisfaction scores
• Growth of strategic partnerships
• Expansion into new markets and territories
• Diversity within content portfolio
• Accuracy of acquisition forecasts
• Compliance and rights clearance effectiveness
• Efficiency of acquisition processes
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Overall portfolio valuation

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Extensive expertise in content acquisition, licensing, media partnerships, programming, entertainment, publishing, digital platforms, or related commercial content operations.
• Deep knowledge of content acquisition, licensing, rights management, and commercial negotiations.
• Experience sourcing content from diverse creators, studios, publishers, distributors, aggregators, or rights holders.
• Strong commercial insight to evaluate potential content investments effectively.
• Proficiency in negotiating licensing fees, revenue sharing, exclusivity, region-specific rights, distribution windows, and contract terms.
• Comprehensive understanding of intellectual property, copyright laws, and licensing frameworks.
• Awareness of content market dynamics, audience trends, and competitive landscapes.
• Skilled in developing financial models, business cases, acquisition proposals, and investment assessments.
• Adept at building and maintaining relationships and partnerships within the content ecosystem.
• Experienced in overseeing acquisition budgets, contract management, pipelines, and portfolio analytics.
• Familiarity with content and rights management software, CRM, analytics tools, and financial systems.
• Strong analytical capability to utilize data in guiding acquisition decisions.
• Excellent negotiation, communication, presentation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Meticulous attention to detail in contract and rights documentation review.
• Ability to manage multiple acquisition projects, negotiations, deadlines, and stakeholder groups simultaneously.
• Experience collaborating with international and dispersed teams.
• Fluency in English, both written and spoken.
• Valuable understanding of both regional and global content markets.
• Effective leadership skills paired with a commercially oriented and audience-focused approach.