Tom Lynch and Fireworks find upsides in long-format

Tommy Lynch, CEO of The Tom Lynch Company in Los Angeles, has partnered with Toronto, Canada's Fireworks Entertainment to co-produce six two-hour prime-time movies, some of which will target a family audience. This is Lynch's first step into long-format projects, which he says have more upside these days. Lynch plans to use the movies as a testing ground to see which projects have series viability. In addition, cost-effective two-hour formats are in hot demand right now, Lynch explains, since buyers have fewer dollars with which fill their long kids programming days. 'On the series level, there are things I can't afford to do right now,' he says. In fact, Galidor was almost shelved because of its high price tag, with the half-hour pilot costing around US$2 million.