V10 Entertainment has added three veteran sellers ahead of MIPCOM, per Deadline: Michelle Payne, Matt Vassallo and Poh Lin Ho, all in strategic partner roles and all on the ground in Cannes. Payne leads sales in EMEA out of London, Vassallo works out of Los Angeles, and Ho, per Deadline, has worked as a senior media executive for more than 35 years across acquisition, regional syndication and media investment. The hires land under two weeks before the market opens.
For buyers, that timing is the story. A distributor expanding its sales bench right before a major market is telling you what it plans to sell, and where. V10 is bringing America's Funniest Videos, America's Funniest People, Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project with Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger, and MotoAmerica's live races to Cannes. Here is how to read the move — and what to do about it if you are buying, selling, or watching the distribution business.
First, the practical read: check the hires against the territories. Studios staff up by region, and this one did it in a legible pattern. Payne's brief is EMEA. Ho's career — three decades at Malaysian content group Vision Plus Entertainment before exiting her CEO post in 2023, per Deadline — points at Southeast Asia. Vassallo's L.A. base and acquisitions background covers the U.S. side of the table. If you are negotiating territory rights with V10, expect the local-market fluency to be real, not a press-release line.
Who are the three hires, exactly?
The résumés matter because they map to what a buyer will encounter at the negotiating table. Payne was most recently a consultant for Fox while it built its international distribution arm, and before that a Senior VP at ViacomCBS, the Paramount predecessor, overseeing EMEA sales, per Deadline. That is a seller who knows both the incumbent-major playbook and the build-one-from-scratch playbook.
Vassallo spent 15 years in TV distribution, acquisitions and co-production. He was most recently Head of Series Acquisitions & Distribution Strategy at Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, and before that EVP of International Distribution at MGM Studios, prior to Amazon's acquisition. A buyer pitching a series to V10 is dealing with someone who has sat on the acquisition side of that exact conversation.
Ho is the regional specialist. Per Deadline, she has more than 35 years across acquisition, regional syndication and media investment, with well over three decades at Vision Plus Entertainment. For anyone selling into or buying from Asian markets, she is the hire that signals V10 is not treating those territories as an afterthought.
What does a "strategic partner" role actually mean?
The title is loose, but the structure around it is not. Samantha Cooper and Josh Vodnoy remain V10's co-Heads of Global Licensing and Distribution and continue to lead the sales operation, per Deadline. The new hires sit alongside that core team, not instead of it.
Cooper framed the buildout plainly: "As V10 continues to expand its footprint across every major market, we're bringing on world-class executives who understand the nuances of local audiences and platforms." Vodnoy said the hires "accelerate" V10's efforts ahead of MIPCOM, which he noted begins in under two weeks.
Practical takeaway: the existing leadership is unchanged, so existing relationships still route through Cooper and Vodnoy. The new partners are additive coverage, not a reorganization. If you had a deal in motion with V10, the people who signed off on it are still in place.
What is V10 actually selling — and does the slate match the hires?
Match the sales bench to the shelf. V10, founded in 2022, comprises Venture 10 Studio Group, Fishbowl Media, America's Funniest Home Videos maker Vin Di Bona Productions and Clip Tiger, per Deadline. It holds a comedy content library of more than 3.1 million digital assets and produces over 250 hours a year for 44 owned and operated FAST and digital channels. In April last year, it acquired digital rights management and production company Towerhouse.
That is a volume library business — clip formats, live sports rights, one marquee documentary-style project in Hooligans. The hires are regional sellers, not creative executives. The commercial logic: a 3.1-million-asset library only pays if someone is actively licensing it territory by territory, which is precisely what a distributed sales bench does. Readers who want the underlying mechanics of licensing a library out to other platforms can see how the model works in Why Studios License Their Libraries to Rival Streamers.
How should a producer read this before MIPCOM?
Three concrete checks, all grounded in what the reporting establishes:
- Match your territory to the hire. If your project needs EMEA buyers, Payne is the named contact with decades of EMEA sales experience. Asian markets route through Ho. U.S. series acquisitions conversations sit with Vassallo's background.
- Check the fit against the slate. V10's Cannes lineup is clip formats, live racing and one racing-project title with Reeves and Hollinger attached. A prestige drama producer should calibrate expectations accordingly; a format or unscripted producer should not.
- Time the approach. Vodnoy tied the hires directly to MIPCOM. A distributor that staffs up weeks before a market wants meetings booked in Cannes. If you are pitching, the window to get on the schedule is now, not after.
For context on how these pre-market staffing moves fit the bigger picture, the economics of licensing slates and territories run through the same logic as Output Deals Explained: What Streamers Pay for Movie Slates — a seller with regional coverage can commit to more markets at once.
What the evidence does not establish
Keep the caveats clean. Deadline's report does not state the financial terms of any of the three appointments, whether the roles are exclusive or consulting arrangements, or what specific territories beyond EMEA each partner covers. Cooper's quote about expanding "across every major market" is V10's own characterization of its plans, not an independent confirmation of market share anywhere. None of that changes the practical read, but a careful buyer prices announced ambition and signed coverage differently.
The next checkpoint is MIPCOM itself: which deals V10 announces coming out of Cannes, and in which territories, will show whether the three-hire buildout converted into sales. Watch the territory list on those announcements — it should mirror the map this hiring pattern just drew.
