• The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 12:08 AM

It's not just about selling individual shows to foreign broadcasters that keeps the Hollywood majors hopping around the globe to mint money. Their international channels are starting to bring in big bucks -- and rode out the recession better than many other sectors of the biz. Fox Intl Channels, NBC Universal and Sony are focusing on co-financing high-profile content with their foreign offshoots.

Think "The Walking Dead," which Fox Intl Channels smartly parlayed around the world on Halloween, and "Haven," which NBC Uni beamed out on Syfy outlets around the world simultaneously. NBC Uni channels abroad also pooled financial resources to help fund (and to jointly air) several other shows, such as "Rookie Blue" and "Fairly Legal," in just the last two years.

"We're now, with 70-odd channels around the world, of the size and scale that we can invest ourselves in original content. And this is happening at the same time U.S. producers are stretched financially in what they can afford to make," said NBC Uni's London-based channels head Roma Khanna.

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