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Channel 21 International | April 2020 | Issue #301

UPFRONT

The show must go online

I

n an age of social distancing, social activity online has skyrocketed, as millions of people holed up inside their homes use group video conferencing and chat services such as Zoom and Houseparty to keep in touch with friends and family.

Of course, viewing of TV and streaming services like Netflix has also shot up as the act of staying in has gone from being a lifestyle choice in early March to a government order by the end of the most astonishing month in living memory.

Hopefully, if there are any silver linings to this crisis, one may be that the debate about the value of public service broadcasters becomes void – pubcasters around the world are helping keep populations informed, educated and entertained.

But do traditional broadcasters and streaming services that only offer video-on-demand risk being caught off-guard by the live-streaming services and apps that are providing entertainment-hungry audiences with a direct link to performers?

Since the pandemic began, musicians worldwide have been making use of the previously unloved live-streaming feature on Instagram, bringing fans into their living rooms for acoustic sets, while everything from workouts to Shakespearean performances are being streamed live on YouTube.

It’s true broadcasters have been airing plenty of live programming themselves, with rolling news updates becoming the bedrock of many channels’ schedules in such an uncertain time. But what happens to entertainment in a world temporarily without sport or studio audiences, or even guests?

The BBC may be exploring its own virtual arts festival, dubbed ‘culture in quarantine,’ to give British culture an audience that can’t be there in person, but it’s as-yet unclear how much of this content will be made available live.

Netflix has no experience in live content, having distanced itself from live sport and seen mixed results with near-live shows, such as its axed Chelsea Handler talker, in the past. Amazon, however, is primed to benefit from the live-streaming surge via its ownership of Twitch, one the biggest players in the game.

As Adam Harris, global head of Twitch’s brand partnership studio, says in this issue’s feature on the relationship between video games and TV (page 8): “Even formats like VoD retain much of the experience of traditional TV. Instead, viewers are looking for a ‘pull’ experience that offers full interactivity.”

For as long as social distancing has to be observed – and who knows for how long that might be? – any form of entertainment that offers the viewer the chance to be entertained by something live and authentic is going to be lapped up.

We’ve seen pubcasters lose ground while wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not to engage with audiences on third-party platforms over the past few years. With culture and entertainment migrating into people’s homes more than ever – and the chances of reaching them better than ever – broadcasters would be missing a trick if they ignored the unique opportunity live streaming now presents.

Nico Franks

CONTENTS

6 8 15 17 23 34 39 42 44 47

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Online distribution With coronavirus devastating the line-up of live TV industry events this spring, we consider to what extent virtual markets could replace them. .

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Video games & TV Execs from Twitch, the Entertainment Retailers Association and GlobalData discuss the potentially lucrative relationship between games and TV. AHEAD OF THE CURVE: BBC’s next DG As BBC director general Tony Hall prepares to stand down, what issues should whoever fills his shoes tackle?

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Off-SVoD distribution As licences for the first batch of streamer originals expire, are we set to see the emergence of an ‘off-SVoD’ market?

SCHEDULE WATCH: Canale 5 The drama comeback on Mediaset’s Canale 5 in Italy is moving into a new phase, as it eyes international copros.

NEXT BIG THINGS: 5G & TV How will 5G wireless technology change things for the entertainment industry?

SCHEDULE WATCH: National Geographic Nat Geo’s Geoff Daniels on how becoming part of Disney is affecting his company’s commissioning strategy.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime Should true crime broadcasters and producers be asking whether their work risks inspiring the very horrors it depicts?

NEXT BIG THINGS: Fun natural history Animal Impossible creator Doug Hope reveals how the BBC’s Natural History Unit is moving into fact ent.

SCHEDULE WATCH: BBC BBC drama acquisitions chief Sue Deeks on the rise of international drama at the pubcaster and the opportunities ahead.

THOUGHT LEADER: Andre Renaud BBC Studios’ Andre Renaud discusses the continuing global appetite for UK formats and the impact of streaming.

BACKEND Fledgling prodco Studio Airlift reveals its Development Slate and Herbert L Kloiber discusses his Three-Year Plan.

PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE As the coronavirus pandemic grinds on, C21 editorial director Ed Waller explores its impact on the industry.

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Online distribution

Moving markets online

Channel 21 International | April 2020

With coronavirus devastating the line-up of live TV industry events this spring, we consider to what extent virtual markets could replace them.

By Tim Dams

T

he cancellation of MipTV in Cannes over coronavirus fears in March quickly prompted many distributors to organise ‘virtual markets’ for buyers via video conferencing. Companies talked of switching meetings that were booked in for the market to video conference calls, with distributors flicking through their catalogue on the screen with buyers.

This response to a major market cancellation neatly underlines how technology is readily available to link up buyers and sellers remotely, while demonstrating that people still really like to interact in person when they are buying and selling TV content.

This reality also highlights both the opportunities and challenges facing the fledgling online distribution market. Meanwhile, the Swedish concept of ‘flygskam’ (flight shame) could provide a boon to online distributors as the industry becomes increasingly aware of its own carbon footprint.

For several years, transactional platforms such as US outfit RightsTrade, UK-based TRX, Singaporebased Vuulr and the Middle East’s Mena.TV have sought to disrupt long-established ways of doing business in the distribution market – promising to dramatically cut the cost, time and complexity of buying and selling content. Other platforms, like ProgramBuyer, act as aggregators, allowing buyers to browse in one place – but not to buy – content from dozens of different distributors.

Vuulr, for example, acts like a traditional online marketplace: it’s free to use for buyers and for distributors to list their catalogues, and levies a 10% commission on the seller upon a successful sale. Launched globally in January after debuting in Asia in 2018, it has content from the likes of Sony, Banijay Rights, Warner Media, CNN and Toonz Media Group. In all, the platform says it has over 30,000 hours in 70 different languages.

RightsTrade, meanwhile, claims to field enquiries from over 5,000 vetted buyers. Sellers pay a subscription to be part of the service, priced according to the number of titles they list. Packages begin at US$195 per month for listing up to five titles. Buyers can access the platform for free.

TRX shifted from being a transaction-based service to a subscription model in 2018. The platform says that sellers can generate leads from more than 1,000 buyers from around the world and that it has content from over 110 distributors, including BBC Studios, All3Media International, StudioCanal and Beta Films.

Since launching a year ago, ProgramBuyer has content from more than 120 distributors, who pay a monthly fee based on the amount of content they list. The UK-based platform says there are more than 75,000 hours of content available for screening, with 800 buyers onboard.

NEXT BIG THINGS: Online distribution

Channel 21 International | April 2020

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Cannes market MipTV was cancelled last month

Vuulr co-founder Ian McKee says an online distribution platform can dissolve geographical boundaries, providing opportunities for both back catalogue and premium content to find buyers, particularly when distributors may not have the time and workforce to service all the buyers in all the countries around the world.

“Other industries have already been transformed by the very simple concept of an online digital marketplace, which is up and running 24 hours a day and is accessible from every corner of the globe,” says McKee. But not, he notes, the TV industry.

RightsTrade MD Jaime Otero pitches the platform as more of a complement to existing ways of doing business, rather than a way of overhauling TV industry practices. “As companies of all sizes look to expand their licensing efforts and reduce their cost of sales in an increasingly competitive landscape, online marketplaces are natural complements to the traditional tradeshow model,” he says.

Certainly, no platform has managed to disrupt traditional ways of working in the distribution market, which has seen even more events offering face-toface meetings added to an already packed industry calendar.

Indeed, TRX – despite hefty investment and the backing of the well-connected David and Matthew Frank – stumbled at the end of last year. In October, it was announced that the former RDF executives were stepping down from the online licensing platform, leaving a question mark over its future. But in December they agreed a new deal with TRX that they said would secure its operations into 2020 and beyond.

C21 approached TRX for comment but nobody was available. It is understood that new plans for the service may be about to be announced soon.

Within the industry, there is widespread acknowledgement that distribution will become increasingly automated – one day. “My firm belief is that the model will succeed,” says one executive who has used the platforms. They argue that there is a huge opportunity to capitalise on technological advances to help distributors to cut costs and streamline the way they do business. “However, bringing it together in such a fragmented marketplace is the biggest challenge.”

Top: ProgramBuyer’s Edwina Thring and Roz Parker.

Above: Nina Bareta and Ian McKee

Another observer says buyers are often happy to browse the sites but are reluctant to transact business online because of the complexity of the rights they are trying to acquire, and will often then go direct to the distributor to do so. It’s one reason why TRX switched to a subscription model, suggests one exec, because it struggled to make enough money from transactions. Indeed, many say that the challenge of transacting complex TV rights is a real stumbling block. “There are so many different variables,” says one.

Other issues facing the platforms are that many distributors have invested heavily in their own platforms that allow buyers to search for and to screen content. “Distributors are not having the easiest time, which means that many don’t want to give away any commissions to platforms that they don’t need to.”

A distributor who has used one of the platforms says there was initial excitement about its prospects

for generating business, but that “the deals weren’t coming in to a degree to make it exciting.”

Perhaps most importantly, TV is an industry where people like to do business face to face. “You’d be amazed at how traditional broadcaster buyers in some countries still are in terms of how they like to do business,” says one exec. “There’s still a very old-fashioned mindset about buying programmes for some channels around Europe.”

Another adds: “You need to understand the marketplace. It’s very different to selling widgets or shampoo. Two shows on paper may look exactly the same but could be very different because of, say, a star or how it is made. There are lots of things that you can only really convey via conversations.”

ProgramBuyer co-founders Roz Parker and Edwina Thring, former colleagues at National Geographic Television International, say before launching they polled buyers and sellers about what they wanted from an online platform, which led them to eschew the transactional route for their service.

Parker says: “The unanimous verdict from buyers and sellers was they wanted to continue negotiating and doing deals face to face, but that it would be very useful to have an aggregation portal, which is what we have created.” She says ProgramBuyer works in a similar way as popular property platform Rightmove, allowing buyers to find a property they are interested in but negotiating deals directly with their agents.

Thring describes the platform, which recently hired its first head of sales in Nina Bareta, as a resource for the industry. “For sellers, it is another route to reach the many platforms and streamers that are cropping up every day that they can’t always see at every market or on territory trips. But we are not trying to replace anybody’s existing relationships or websites.”

How the online distribution sector develops remains to be seen. Many believe there is space for at least one platform to thrive and that rights trading will become increasingly automated. But platforms are likely to complement the industry’s existing relational way of doing business rather than replacing it altogether. For now, it seems, annual trips to the south of France look set to remain a permanent feature of the industry calendar.

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Video games and TV

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Henry Cavill in Netflix’s The Witcher. Below: The game on which the show is based

GAME ON Execs from Twitch, the Entertainment Retailers Association and GlobalData discuss the often tumultuous, but potentially lucrative, relationship between video games and TV. By Inigo Alexander

T

he video game industry has come an incredibly long way since Atari’s simple pixellated table tennis game Pong, the first commercially successful title, was released in 1972. comme These days, some homes boast as many games consoles consol as they do VoD subscriptions, and gaming has become a global entertainment and financial be juggernaut. jugger Having Havi generated an estimated US$152bn last year, the global gaming industry is expected to t reach the US$300bn mark by 2025, according to data analytics and consultancy firm GlobalData. a Meanwhile, consumer spending on video games Meanw is expected to grow from US$164.6bn this year exp to US$196bn by 2022, according to games and US eSports eSpo analytics firm Newzoo.

IIn the UK, the gaming industry is now worth more than the video and music wo sectors combined. The Entertainment se Retailers Association (ERA) calculates the R British gaming sector to be worth £3.86bn B (US$4.85bn), making up more than half the ( UK’s U entire entertainment market last year.

“Gaming is the greatest entertainment success story of the digital age, not just in its s sheer scale, but also because of its influence s in i terms of the gamification of so many other sectors,” explains Kim Bayley, chief executive s of ERA in the UK. “Its challenge to TV, as to so much of the th entertainment industry, is the share of attention it takes.” att

Nonetheless, the two industries have been known to cooperate in their quest for consumers, and plenty of video game adaptations have found varying degrees of success on big and small screens.

The 1990s saw theatrical adaptations of ‘beat ‘em ups’ Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter – the latter movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme – while the noughties brought us more than one adaptation of Tomb Raider and gave birth to movies based on zombie game series Resident Evil, the most popular video game film franchise of all time.

However, many game adaptations have been flops. The 2016 film versions of Assassin’s Creed and World of Warcraft were originally ordered with plans for multiple sequels, before poor box-office performances forced studios to scrap the projects.

“From a film production perspective, they see video games as a big market, but one they don’t fully understand and don’t quite know how to make the most of,” says Ed Thomas, research director at GlobalData.

A game’s success by no means assures a screen adaptation will be a hit, with Thomas noting there is a degree of risk involved in adaptations, describing them as “a real challenge” for prodcos.

“There’s always a lot of ambition there but actually translating things – coming up with a story that works for a film or a TV series, something that appeals to both fans of the source material and also to people who’ve never heard of it – is tricky. It’s often a big leap to make,” he says.

One of the recurring obstacles Thomas identifies

Channel 21 International | April 2020

is the difference in n storytelling methods between the he two industries. “Take Street treet Fighter, for example,” e,” he says. “You just fight ht one person and then en you fight another person. rson.

There is a storyline in the game but, ultimately, y, you are just progressing through hrough a series of matches, and d that isn’t really something that works in a film context.

“You have to come up p with something, and often that can be either hugely ely complicated backstories or very convoluted storytelling rytelling that get in the way of doing what you actually ally want to do,” he states.

Thomas argues the shifts in viewing habits brought about by the streaming treaming giants mean TV is now better suited to video deo game adaptations than feature-length films. “The nature of streaming, where things are consumed med slightly differently and you can set it up much h more episodically, means it doesn’t have to fit into a two-hour narrative.

You can also consume itt in big chunks the way you might play through a game. me.

“As via the internet becomes ecomes the primary way by which people consumee their television and they move away from the traditional way of viewing, that makes the link between etween the two industries more likely.”

A clear example of that is Netflix’s recent Henry Cavill-fronted live-action remake of The Witcher, which the streamer has already commissioned for a second season. The streamer also produced an animated adaptation of the Japanese video game Castlevania, is set to premiere a 2D animated adaptation of Devil May Cry later this year, and is developing an original series based on the Resident Evil franchise.

Additionally, Street Fighter is getting a second bite of the cherry as a live-action TV show, while Sony Pictures Television has partnered with Hivemind, the prodco behind The Witcher, to develop a live-action series based on the hugely popular Final Fantasy games. The property’s original developer, Square Enix, is also on board.

“Television is the ideal medium to capture the extraordinary depth, sophisticated themes and unparalleled imagination of Final Fantasy and its multitude of unique and fully realised characters,” claims Jason Brown, Hivemind’s co-founder and co-president.

Meanwhile, HBO announced in March it was adapting popular apocalyptic game The Last of Us alongside PlayStation Productions, marking the latter’s first foray into television. And last but not least, the eagerly anticipated TV adaptation of Halo is finally set to see the light of day after years in development hell when it comes to Showtime in the US next year.

PlayStation Productions is not the first example of a gaming company establishing a TV production arm. French game developer Ubisoft started

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Video games and TV

A series based on Halo is coming to US cablenet Showtime

Ubisoft Film & Television in 2011 and recently developed gaming-inspired series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet for Apple TV+.

Gaming giant Activision Blizzard, meanwhile, created Activision Blizzard Studios in 2015 and is working on an adaptation of the smash-hit Call of Duty franchise, while UK gaming outlet Rebellion channelled US$100m into the creation of its own film studio in 2018.

Rebellion founders and owners Jason Kingsley (CEO) and Chris Kingsley (chief technology officer) created Rebellion Productions in 2017 to develop and produce film and TV based on the firm’s comics and games IP. The move was aimed at capitalising on a scenario where demand for original production in the UK from streamers was outmatched by the country’s studio space.

“The new studios will help relieve some of that pressure while also adding to the growing figures of people employed in the UK film and TV industry, which has increased by 20% in the last five years,” Kingsley said when launching the company. “Our creative industries are appealing to other markets for our talent and generous tax reliefs, and we must ensure we have the studio space and infrastructure to keep furthering this ongoing growth.”

GlobalData’s Thomas, however, is sceptical about the need for game developers to set up their own production outlets. “Why set up your own studio, really? Why not just license the intellectual property and get a big studio to make it on your behalf?” he asks.

X

Gaming is the greatest entertainment success story of the digital age, not just in its sheer scale, but also because of its influence in terms of the gamification of so many other sectors.

“

Kim Bayley Entertainment Retailers Association

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: VE: Video eo e og games am a mes es and and n TV

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Michael Fassbender in the film adaptation of Assassin’s Creed

HBO is bringing The Last of Us to the small screen as a drama series

Viewers are looking for a ‘pull’ experience that offers full interactivity. They want to be able to shape content and form their own narratives. Games lik like Fortnite and League of Legends offer users user a far deeper and personalised more personalise experience than passively viewin viewing a television programme.

“

Adam Harris Twitch

“I can see the reasons why a studio would want to be involved in the production as well, but setting up your own studio doesn’t seem to have been a model that really has a huge amount of impact over the long term,” he states.

Instead, Thomas predicts the gaming industry will shift directly towards the streaming world and establish its own VoD services in due course, with eSports being one potential focus point. “We do expect some games companies to launch their own streaming channels in the future,” he notes. “[Chinese tech firm] Tencent already has its eGame service, which broadcasts lots of sportsrelated content. But for the likes of Activision Blizzard, EA and Epic Games, there’s potential for them to launch their own streaming services.”

The GlobalData analyst points out that eSports streaming would allow traditional broadcasters to establish a bridge between the two industries and bolster their chances of securing younger consumers. This strategy is being pursued by the likes of TV2 in Denmark, while kids giant Nickelodeon and Finland’s YLE are among those to have incorporated eSports into their programming.

As the most popular live-streaming platform for gamers, Amazon-owned Twitch is leading the way when it comes to satisfying young audiences’ appetite for all things gaming. Millions are tuning in to watch others play video games, lapping up the unpolished, authentic content in real time.

“Broadcasters will desperately want to get into the market, and eSports is a good gateway in, but it’s not going to be easy because of the limitations of broadcast,” Thomas says. “One of the things people enjoy about watching Twitch and YouTube is the interaction. It’s a two-way relationship with the streamer, rather than just watching the action.

“For eSports, it’s a good thing because it will help

them build their audience outside of the niche of people who use Twitch and YouTube and are devoted gamers. If that industry wants to grow, it needs to be on more mainstream channels.”

Offering a warning to those looking to take advantage, Thomas continues: “Broadcasters have to think very carefully about their approach to this, rather than assuming they understand how the gaming industry works and what its audience wants. If you messed up your approach and tried to appear younger and cooler than you actually were, it could have a really damaging impact.”

Both industries have worked hand in hand before, and though the outcome might not always have been critically lauded, their relationship will only get stronger over time, according to the analyst. “As the industry grows and game developers become more powerful and more able to set their own terms, that will change things,” he adds. “Whether it will mean adaptations become more successful or just become more faithful, I don’t know – but this industry will become much more mainstream.”

For Adam Harris, global head of Twitch’s brand partnership studio, the TV industry hasn’t capitalised on digital developments enough to maintain the interest of younger viewers. “Twitch is an integral part of a video games industry that has seen huge success providing Gen Z and millennials with the viewing experience they want.

We know that for these digital natives, the idea of having content impersonally pushed at them isn’t particularly appealing.

“Even formats like VoD retain much of the experience of traditional TV. Instead, viewers are looking for a ‘pull’ experience that offers full interactivity. They want to be able to shape content and form their own narratives. Games like Fortnite and League of Legends offer users a far deeper and more personalised experience than passively viewing a television programme,” says Harris.

“Another key factor is TV has all but lost one of the crucial elements which these audiences crave – the live, never-to-be-repeated viewing experiences that are simultaneously experienced and, therefore, shared by a community. This type of experience is all but reserved for sports viewing on television. However, it is thriving in video games.”

So, with the gaming industry making more money than video and music combined, how is the sector likely to impact the TV industry in the future? “We are talking about the ‘attention economy.’ Video gaming has only existed for four generations and has now overtaken film, music and television, which are all a century old or more,” Harris says.

“As the technology becomes more immersive and creators continue to develop new, innovative storylines, video games will be a staple for all future generations, further eating away at the ability of traditional TV to attract attention.

“The cultural impact of gaming is already so significant that TV shows are being born from games rather than the other way around. The Witcher has been a hugely successful TV series, but it was a popular game first. Henry Cavill, who plays [main character] Geralt of Rivia, even said he took acting cues from the game.”

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AHEAD AH A HEA EAD OF THE CURVE: BBC’s next director general

Channel 21 International | April 2020

The Beeb’s needs Tony Hall

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ndrew Harries, CEO of UK-based prodco Left Bank Pictures and an executive producer of Netflix hit The Crown, recognises that the BBC is in “a complex place” at the moment.

Harries believes the Beeb should prioritise its relationship with local talent to strengthen the broadcasting business as the streaming wars rage on. “I’m a hugely passionate believer in the BBC, it’s absolutely critical to our business,” he says, adding there is a need for “a British-based broadcaster that is going to continue to champion not just British issues but British talent.” Like everyone else who contributed to this article, he was speaking before the coronavirus outbreak took hold of the UK. “The streamers rely on British talent and it really punches above its weight across the world, and that’s great. But a lot of that has traditionally been because of the fertile ground the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have provided. It’s important that this is not swept away in the excitement of streaming.”

Harries also points out that the shift in viewing habits would require the BBC to “psychologically” change its approach to its main source of funding: a licence fee payable by everyone who owns a television set.

“The TV licence fee shouldn’t be called a TV licence fee as a start, because so few people watch programmes on their TV anymore, so psychologically ly we should start changing that,” claims the exec.

For Jane Root, the CEO of factual-focused ual-focused indie Nutopia and former controller of BBC2, her focus would lie on addressing changess in scheduling brought about by shifts in viewing habits. bits. Root believes consumers have grown accustomed to binge-watching

The streamers work at such an incredible pace and move with the times, but I don’t think traditional broadcasters are at that speed yet.

“

Zygi Kamasa Lionsgate UK

As Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general, prepares to stand down this summer, industry figures suggest the issues they think should be top of mind for whoever fills his shoes at the UK public broadcaster.

By Inigo Alexander – something the corporation has helped encourage with its pioneering iPlayer service.

“Streaming has become pretty much the model on which a huge amount of consumption of television is based. The schedule has been the thing that has dominated terrestrial television for a really long time. When I worked at the BBC, we spent such a long time worrying about whether we could put this new comedy after that drama show, and the hours of excruciating deliberation over those things are just all gone.

“Audiences want to consume in a way that fits in with their lives and it’s really hard to move from a schedulebased slate to a streaming-based consumption model,” she warns her former employer. em Zygi Kamasa, CEO of Lionsgate UK, describes himself as “a big supporter of the BBC,” but agrees with Root that the t BBC needs to move at a quicker pace to keep up with a changing industry.

“The industry indust is moving so fast the BBC has to be more agile in the way it works because there’s a pace issue with wit the traditional broadcasters. The streamers work at such an incredible pace and move with the times, but I don’t think traditional broadcasters are at th that th speed yet,” he says.

Of course, with the UK and much of o the rest of the world in crisis as a result of coronavirus and the BBC at re the th heart of the UK media industry’s response to the pandemic, Hall re may m very well decide to prolong his tenure for the time being. te

Andy Harries of Left Bank Pictures

Jane Root of Nutopia

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AHEAD D OF T THE HE C HE CURVE: UR U RV VE E: O Off ff-SVoD distribution

Selling the crown jewels I

t’s eight years since Netflix, Amazon and Hulu got into the business of original scripted programming. The triumvirate of US streamers commissioned an array of flagship titles in a bid to shape their own distinct identities as competition with each other and the traditional TV industry took off.

For Netflix it was House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, while Amazon started out in comedy before moving into drama with Transparent, Bosch and The Man in the High Castle. Hulu also focused on laughers early on until The Path came along, but it was really The Handmaid’s Tale that put the streamer on the map.

While the selling power of House of Cards has been diminished by star Kevin Spacey’s fall from grace, to some extent Netflix found a replacement with its first UK original. The Crown was one of the most expensive TV dramas ever made, with Claire Foy accepting the mantle of Queen Elizabeth II for the first two seasons, Olivia Colman taking over for three and four, and handing the sceptre to Imelda Staunton for the fifth and final instalment, in the works.

Other series, like Narcos, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, helped shape Netflix early on but the latter pair from the Marvel universe were always on borrowed time once Disney decided to launch of its own rival SVoD service.

The Crown is among Netflix’s most distinctive early originals, one with broad brand recognition and, arguably, the greatest appeal in the broadcast space – certainly in the UK, where the BBC and ITV complained of being “blown out of the water” when the US streamer outbid them for the project from Sony Pictures Television (SPT)owned Left Bank Pictures.

Olivia Colman in The Crown

T TV distribution business is used to dealing in off-network and The off-cable programme rights, but is ‘off-SVoD’ next, as licences for the o ffirst batch of streamer originals expire? By Jonathan Webdale So, with such a prized asset in its armoury as Disney+, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock row back rights to licensed programmes and prepare their own SVoD originals, it might come as some surprise that TV rights to The Crown will soon be made available to international buyers.

That’s according to SPT president of worldwide distribution Keith LeGoy, who revealed to C21 ahead of last year’s Mipcom in October that the company would have the opportunity to take the show out and make it available to broadcasters around the world “in the not too distant future.”

BoJack Horseman “This is pretty much the first time a Netflix original is going to be available for global syndication in a linear global TV market,” he said, describing the move as “extremely interesting” for the industry and predicting it would become a regular occurrence.

As he pointed out, it’s “pretty much” the first time a Netflix original will be available to third parties, since Lionsgate retained broadcast rights to Orange Is the New Black, and not counting its originals for children, which tend to have shorter exclusivity windows holding them back.

“It was an early show for Netflix and we ended up selling it in 15 to 20 countries,” says Lionsgate president of worldwide TV and digital distribution Jim Packer. “It was a difficult presentation because people didn’t know what the performance was like. They knew it was X

The audience has been educated to watch these kinds of shows, not everyone has seen them and broadcasters are going to be open to playing around with them in different ways.

“

Chris Ottinger MGM

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Belgian crime drama The Break

popular because Netflix and everybody talked about it, but it wasn’t like a network TV show with Nielsen ratings that they could point too. So, it was a little bit of a learning curve.”

Lionsgate struck a similar arrangement for BoJack Horseman, the Netflix animated comedy from Michael Eisner’s Tornante TV, syndicated to Comedy Central in the US through its Debmar-Mercury subsidiary and taken out to the international broadcast market through the global distribution unit.

“We got a lot of networks to pick it up that already have things like South Park or The Simpsons,” says Packer.

However, SPT’s The Crown is another proposition altogether.

“The Crown is a giant, high-profile, super-premium, bestof-the-network Netflix original,” says MGM president of worldwide television distribution and acquisitions Chris Ottinger, who believes the show is “orders of magnitude” ahead of Netflix’s previous offerings. “The market exists right now for stuff coming off SVoD. The one thing I will say is as long as that show is on Netflix, The Crown will never appear on another SVoD service. That I know.”

MGM is behind The Handmaid’s Tale, the series adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel that’s become synonymous with Hulu and is soon heading into a fourth season. The streamer commissioned the show before joint-venture shareholders AT&T and Comcast agreed to sell their stakes to Disney as part of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Hulu now plans to go international, but MGM retains rights to sell the show globally and has found huge success in doing so, says Ottinger. This experience speaks to the market opportunity for The Crown and other big-ticket streamer originals, he notes.

“The market doesn’t look remotely like it did four or five years ago, when free-to-air was dominated by CBS and NBC procedurals. Those output deals are mostly over, broadcasters are still looking for the hit procedural, but they’re also looking for mini event programming,” he says, highlighting the growing popularity of six- to 10-episode series.

“The right kind of off-SVoD series can fit into that and we saw it with The Handmaid’s Tale. It hit a cultural moment that probably isn’t repeatable, but I would never have thought it was going to be successful in free TV as it’s the epitome of an SVoD-type show and we saw it work really well in a lot of markets.

“The audience has been educated to watch these kinds

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Off-SVoD distribution

of shows, not everyone has seen them and broadcasters are going to be open to playing around with them in different ways, so Sony is going to have some success bringing out The Crown.”

SPT also retains international distribution rights to House of Cards through a deal with producer MRC and there were reports several years ago the company was approaching cable and broadcast networks for expressions of interest in reruns. That was prior to the show becoming tarnished, however, by Spacey’s downfall.

But there are plenty of other streamer originals that are poised to start doing the rounds “in the next three years,” according to Federation Entertainment’s head of international, Monica Levy.

Federation was behind Netflix’s first French commission, the Gérard Depardieu-starring Marseille, and others including horror series Marianne plus Italian drama Baby, via a majority stake in Rome-based Fabula Pictures acquired 18 months ago.

Free TV rights to the first season of Marseille became available in January and the second season will follow in January of next year. But Levy notes: “The SVoD rights remain with Netflix.”

Each deal is different, stresses the exec, but Marseille, along with The Crown, was among Netflix’s first international originals, greenlit six years ago and at the time the streamer paid a premium to take all rights, including an eight-year window on SVoD and extended holdback on linear.

While the latter has now come to an end, Levy is concerned Federation’s present lack of on-demand rights to Marseille will limit its appeal, given that many broadcasters have developed their own catch-up services in the intervening years. “Because we cannot necessarily grant the VoD rights to the linear channels, maybe we are not able to sell Marseille so well in the world – only in countries where they’re they re not as developed with the SVoD platforms, which pretty much excludes Western Europe,” she says.

“Since Marseille, we have become much moree prolific in the way that we negotiate the deals. Money, perhaps, is less important tant than the VoD rights that we managee to retain, to be able to sell to linear at a later time. It has become a huge part of the negotiation.”

Federation on will regain rights to a number er of other titles currently on Netflix such as Belgian crime dramas The Break and Unit 24, plus Finnish ish thriller Bordertown n from this December.

Ottinger says that in the casee of The Handmaid’s ’s Tale, which came X

The multitude of new streamers will invest heavily to differentiate themselves from each other. As a result, they will need to explore other types of commercial deals available to boost their finances.

“

Bo Stehmeier Red Arrow Studios International

Netflix’s first French commission Marseille

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20.02.20 00:27

Channel 21 International | April 2020 020

Hulu made its name with award-winning dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale

Catch AHEAD OF THE CURVE - How to get ahead of the curve and find where the money is to be made Keep reading online and smarten up your programming strategy at c21media.net/department/ ahead-of-the-curve

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Off-SVoD distribution

a little later in the evolution of such agreements, MGM was “able to preserve sufficient on-demand rights for the broadcasters to buy the show and try it out.”

Where he has encountered challenges is in the badging of streamer originals, however. “What is the Netflix branding on The Crown when it goes up?” he wonders.

“My experience with broadcasters is they’re not putting a competitor’s logo or channel ID on their network, period.

I don’t know how they’re going to thread the needle on that.”

While MGM is moving into a fourth season of The Handmaid’s Tale with Hulu, Federation is lining up a third and final one for the US streamer of teen drama Find Me in Paris, coproduced with Germany’s ZDF Enterprises.

Both Ottinger and Levy concur that even though Hulu is now aiming to go global, the deals they set up several years ago remain the framework for arrangements that allow each to continue selling their respective shows – the latter having landed with broadcasters in more than 80 territories.

Where both feel positive about the market moving forwards is that as streamers’ exclusivity on rights to their originals reach maturation, they will have to renew if they wish to retain the brand association or face the prospect of seeing some of their most distinguishing shows being made available to an expanded array of competitors willing to snap them up.

“It seems like the future of the return on our investment will be on the SVoD renewals,” says Levy. “Hopefully the competition worldwide will make it so that renewals will have a higher value than just half the price of what they originally paid. All of a sudden we have a lot more options out there and so I feel like we’re in a in a stronger position.”

Rod Henwood, chief strategy officer at The Ink Factory, maker of The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl, agrees producers are now in a much more powerful position, given the proliferation of streaming services.

“We’re still living in a variegated landscape where there’s the chance to make money from the rights that are being created and that ability still sits with the original creator and is not being surrendered completely to streamers,” he says. “The truth is that we’ve always operated in a programming ecology where there have been different windows linked to different economic models. I suppose this is generation three.

“Generation one was streamers being in for the second window rights in a broadcast-dominated ecology.

Generation two was the streamers taking the primary window and being perceived as taking all rights, and we’re now going into a third generation which is that some of those early originals coming out of what seemed like very long primary windows.

“It’s quite early days in all of this but there’s obviously

a secondary market for rights to streamer-commissioned shows that is going to play out.”

Red Arrow Studios International president Bo Stehmeier says this is already happening and it’s a trend he expects to grow. The company’s sister US prodco Fabrik Entertainment is behind Michael Connolly crime drama Bosch for Amazon, which was recently renewed for a seventh and final season.

“We are seeing certain streamers enjoy secondary rights in some territories, as it gives them titles that are already recognisable and known by their audiences, such as the acquisition of Bosch by Mediaset in Italy,” says Stehmeier.

“Linear broadcasters can get access to great content that hasn’t been available before. With Bosch, for example, Amazon has the first window, but after a period of time, each season becomes available for secondary exploitation across pay and free-to-air.”

Other broadcasters that have acquired Bosch include HBO Nordics, SBS in Australia, TNT Serie in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and France 3.

Stehmeier even believes that as the streamers increasingly build up their own production facilities and talent lock-ins, they might, over time, start selling rights to a growing slate of truly in-house shows.

“This could happen. We are entering a competitive phase where the multitude of new streamers will invest heavily to differentiate themselves from each other to win and retain their core audiences. As a result, they will need to explore other types of commercial deals available to boost their finances,” he says.

Former Netflix VP of international originals Erik Barmack is more sceptical, however. “Global streaming companies are going to want to hold on to their key shows across most territories, if not all, and build out their libraries,” says the exec, who has now set up his own prodco Wild Sheep Content.

He can’t talk specifics of his time at Netflix but notes that there were “transitional deals” that predated the streamer’s global roll-out and questions whether the one done for The Crown would happen today.

“However, people are realising that to be great as an SVoD service, you need deep catalogues and there are deals being done now that are coproductions and cofinancing, where those rights may go back to the studio or producer,” says Barmack. “The big picture is that the world is becoming more complex.”

Amen to that.

We’re still living ving in a variegated ted landscape where there’s ke the chance to make money from the rights ghts that are being created eated and that ability still sits with the original creator and is not being surrendered completely to streamers.

“

Rod Henwood The Ink Factory

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SCHEDULE WATCH: Canale 5

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Rekindling the flame

Indigo Films’ Non Mentire

I

talian commercial broadcaster Mediaset has been revitalising its drama originals strategy at flagship generalist network Canale 5 following a prolonged period of under-investment.

An advertising crisis that continues to bite in Italy saw Mediaset progressively withdraw its investment in original drama to the point it had lost its identity and distinctiveness. By 2016, its drama output had a share of just 12% (2.8 million viewers), roughly three points below Canale 5’s average.

The alarm bells went off, with senior execs acutely aware the country’s principal commercial broadcaster could not opt out of this key area of programming. This was especially true given the fact pubcaster Rai has become a fiction powerhouse.

The turnaround began with a change in leadership at its fiction division and the arrival of Daniele Cesarano at the end of 2016. Cesarano was head writer on innovative series such as Sky Italia hit Romanzo Criminale and Netflix’s first Italian series, Suburra. Moreover, Cesarano has a long-standing association with Taodue, the Mediaset-owned prodco behind many of Canale 5’s previous hit drama series.

Recruited to relaunch fiction on Canale 5 – the flagship channel is Mediaset’s only destination for locally produced drama – Cesarano’s strategy produced its first results with last year’s drama slate.

“We worked on two fronts to get things moving again,” explains Cesarano. “The first was to revitalise and consolidate popular storytelling capable of establishing a strong relationship with the network’s audiences. With the second, we wanted to re-establish the innovative drive Mediaset has always had in fiction by returning to forward-looking productions.

“Looking back, especially between 2000 and 2009, Mediaset was the principal innovator of Italian fiction series through Taodue, and from where most writers and directors emerged to go on and work for other non-generalist players.”

The exec is referring a period in which Canale 5 was responsible for hits like crime series Distretto

landscape for audiovisual product has become far more complex. It’s increasingly the case viewers no longer look for certain types of content on generalist TV but go to other platforms to find them, above all OTT services.”

If Canale 5’s audience rejected legal thriller Il Processo, on the plus side the series was acquired

By Anna Rotili

by Netflix.

Mediaset does not consider the major global di Polizia and I Ris – Delitti Imperfetti, historical love platforms, such as Netflix, Amazon and, launching story Elisa di Rivombrosa and comedy-drama Il soon in Italy, Disney+, as direct rivals because they don’t compete for advertising, and it is currently Bello delle Donne.

Last year saw the launch of the first productions strengthening its production partnerships with them. under Cesarano’s watch, aiming to offer as varied a Mediaset and Netflix have begun a copro slate as possible to reach a wide variety of audiences. partnership on seven TV movies, which are set It included a range of genres and formats, from long- to launch first on the streaming platform and air running serials to short-run closed-episode series. on Mediaset’s services after a year. Elsewhere, The outcome me has been a mix of “light and shade,” Mediaset sold Taodue’s fashion-driven fashion-drive series Made says Cesarano. in ano. “Stories in the mainstream i Italyy to Amazon and the two are now tradition, such partnering ch as L’Amore Strappato, p rtnering on a new project. pa project Rosy Abate Another significant sign is the sale of e or L’Isola di Pietro, generated the Mediaset dell’Acqua, e best and most consistent M diaset series Il Silenzio Me Silen results. It has inspired ITV’s as been more mixed forr i spired by UK broadcaster in broa titles looking Broadchurch, to pubcaster France g to break with tradition,, Br pub though. Non Télévisions. n Mentire and Il Silenzio o Télévisions. dell’Acqua both worked but Canale Mediaset has said that this year it e t 5 audiences didn’t appreciate them.. will maintain its fiction ctio investments “Such inconsistent at consistent results for a similar levels or marginally less conventional increase ntional product obligess increase them. This Thi chimes with us to reflect the group’s decision to double ct on how to balance e decisi traditional with innovative elements, down on original productions in elemen nts t , and to better primetime across etter understand acros its generalist how to continue channels. ntinue making high-quality content that “In trying to rekindle doesn’t displease innovative content, we’re please our audience too focusing on building oo much.

It’s not a setback product with a strong w but we’re pausing identity, knowing that we ausing to k reflect on the face Rai as a principal he next titles to put competitor and fiction ut into competit production. battleship, and giants battleshi “We’re also such as Netflix or a aware thatt the Disney+ on the X Mafia drama Rosy Abate

Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset’s drama comeback on flagship network Canale 5 is moving into a new phase, with international coproductions in its sights.

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SCHEDULE WATCH: Canale 5

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Medical drama Oltre la Soglia (above) and legal drama Il Processo (left) failed to pull in the expected share

innovation front,” observes Cesarano. “Our job is not simple but we will have to find our place.”

Despite the fact not everything in Mediaset’s new fiction slate hit the bullseye, or the fact it has yet to deliver a global series on a par with Rai’s My Brilliant Friend or Sky’s y Gomorrah, the commercial broadcaster has once again become a signifi sign cant drama player in its home market as well as abroad.

Last year Canale 5 established C a fiction slot o on Sunday evenings and a second weekday slot on weeks. Between January alternate weeks and May, the fixed Sunday slot advantage of the absence took advan of Rai Uno fiction, which had replaced by talkshow been rep Tempo Che Fa. However, Che Temp autumn, Rai Uno had by the au restored its Italian fiction to Sundays.

Sundays Mediaset’s drama was moved to Fridays, as mo well as an alternating slot on Wednesdays.

We Of the nine new fiction

titles launched by Canale 5 in 2019, L’Amore Strappato (6x50’) came top. Produced by Jeki Production and inspired by a real case, it follows a mother struggling to find her estranged daughter following a false accusation of harassment by the father. The series aired last spring over three evenings, growing from a 15% share to over 19%.

Another hit appeared last autumn with a second season of Rosy Abate (5x100’), a mafia drama starring Giulia Michelini that proved popular among younger audiences. The Taodue series, a spin-off from Squadra Antimafia – Palermo Oggi, follows in the best tradition of the prodco’s criminal drama productions.

Experimental titles that aired over the year also included Non Mentire (6x50’) from prodco Indigo Films, a timely #MeToo-inspired drama adapted from ITV’s hit UK series Liar, about an alleged rape. It generated a respectable 15% share average but has not been renewed.

Canale 5’s other innovative drama was crime series Il Silenzio Dell’Acqua (8x50’), from Vela Film, in association with Garbo Produzioni, which aired last spring. It generated a satisfactory 14-15% share and a second season is due in the coming months.

However, Canale 5’s more sophisticated dramas,

In trying to rekindle innovative content, we’re focusing on building product with a strong identity, knowing that we face Rai as a principal competitor and fiction battleship, and giants such as Netflix or Disney+ on the innovation front.

“

Daniele Cesarano Mediaset

among them medical drama Oltre la Soglia (12x50’) and Il Processo (8x50’), proved a disappointment, with neither able to exceed a 10% share last fall.

Oltre la Soglia (12x50’), from prodco PayperMoon and broadcast over six evenings, is set in a psychiatric department run by a psychiatrist who has herself experienced schizophrenia. The series attracted a loyal audience but not enough for a generalist network. The same applied to Il Processo, from prodco Lucky Red. It follows a public prosecutor who ends up dealing with a murder that tests her personally as well as professionally.

Canale 5’s titles launching over the coming months will be playing it safe. They include new drama Cuore D’Acciaio; comedy series Fratelli Caputo, about twin brothers separated at birth who reunite as adults; and crime drama Scomparsi, featuring a police squad specialising in missing persons.

Also in the works is family drama Buongiorno Mamma (12x50’) from Lux, which is set to replace another Lux production, L’Isola di Pietro. The family crime drama bowed out with a third season last November on a 14% share. Due later this year is crime drama Giustizia per Tutti (12x50’), produced

by Showlab and RB Produzioni.

Canale 5 is also lining up Made in Italy for this spring. The drama, set in Milan’s fashion scene in the 1970s, became available to Canale 5 following its run on Amazon. A second season is now in the pipeline, with Amazon a possible coproducer.

The two have also agreed to coproduce comedy Tutta colpa di Freud, based on a past Mediasetproduced movie, with Amazon taking the first window and Mediaset airing it in 2021.

For sales enquiries please contact: sales@beyonddistribution.com www.beyonddistribution.com

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C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

BOTSWANA - AFRICA’S LAST WIDLIFE PARADISE

AUTENTIC GMBH, DIVISION AUTENTIC DISTRIBUTION Grünwalder Weg 28D, 82041 Oberhaching, Germany T: +49 (0)89 673 469 797 E: sales@autentic.com www.autentic-distribution.com Equipped with a wide-range of factual productions, Autentic Distribution offers a diverse portfolio to satisfy the demands of a changing international market. We cater to the public and private commercial broadcasting sector, VoD services and other relevant platforms with a comprehensive range of quality.

BERLIN 1945 3 x 50’, 1 x 180’, 2 x 90’ mins History Berlin 1945 time-travels with never before seen archival footage into the city’s most fateful year through the eyes of those who experienced it: the German population and Allied soldiers.

BOTSWANA - AFRICA’S LAST WIDLIFE PARADISE 52’ mins Nature & Wildlife Botswana holds a diverse range of animals who are primarily unknown to the rest of the world - but we bring them into the spotlight. Filmed in HFR at 50 frames per second, the wildlife footage takes the viewer on an exhilarating safari.

THE MEADOW – PARADISE LOST? ALBATROSS WORLD SALES Chopinstraße 8, 04103 Leipzig, Germany T: +49 341 44282450 E: info@albatrossworldsales.com www.albatrossworldsales.com Albatross World Sales is an independent international distribution company delivering award-winning and high-quality documentaries for television, home entertainment and new media worldwide. Our catalog includes a range of unique documentaries and factual programs in the genres Nature, Science, History, Travel, Culture and Current Affairs.

THE MEADOW – PARADISE LOST? 44’ or 90’ mins, 4K Nature & Wildlife Follow us on a journey that leads you… just around the corner!

What at first glance seems like an untended pasture is revealed through the lens of a camera as a vibrant and colourful universe.

GORILLAS UNDER STRESS 52’ mins, 4K Nature & Science This film takes the viewer into the breathtaking nature of the world’s last wild mountain gorillas and explores urgent questions about species protection and the coexistence of humans and animals.

UNKNOWN CARPATHIANS HIDDEN TREASURES OF ROMANIA 2 x 52’ mins People Places The unknown border regions of Romania, Banat, Crisana, and Maramures are some of Europe’s best kept secrets.

Each region holds a unique characteristic that can’t be found anywhere else.

DEATH OF VENICE 52’ mins Current Affairs In the night between the 12th and 13th November 2019 80% of the old town of Venice drowned.

We reconstruct the tragedy with hundreds of photographs, real footage and witness interviews that were shot during the emergency, and we look back to 50 years ago when it all started.

BLACKROCK – THE UNSETTLING POWER OF A FINANCIAL INVESTOR 90’ mins Current Affairs They say that money rules the world, and nobody has more money than the US financial investor BlackRock. Renowned experts see the size of BlackRock as a threat to free competition and the stability of global financial markets. Discover the hidden power of BlackRock in this eye opening documentary.

GORILLAS UNDER STRESS LAND OF THE FAR NORTH 2 x 52’ mins, 4K Nature & Wildlife Above the Arctic Circle eternal light and everlasting darkness take turns to challenge all animal and plant life, making this region one of the most extreme, yet remarkable, environments on the planet.

OUT OF EUROPE – A NEW STORY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION? 52’ mins, 4K Science & History For the last hundred years, human evolution was explained through the “Out of Africa” theory. But now fossil findings from Europe are challenging that.

DARWIN IN TIMES SQUARE – THE SCIENCE OF URBAN EVOLUTION 52’ mins, 4K Nature & Science We live in the age of cities. They eat up natural habitats, sending plant and animal populations in worrying decline. How does nature react to this loss of biodiversity? Could cities also harbour a possible solution?

ON THIN ICE 52’ mins, HD Nature & Science In the Russian Arctic climate change is happening, now and at a worrying pace. Gripping imagery and stories from one of the remotest areas of the world.

C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

DCD RIGHTS Winchester House, 259 – 269 Old Marylebone Road London, NW1 5RA T: +44 20 3869 0190 E: team@dcdrights.com www.dcdrights.com

JAMES MARTIN’S ISLANDS TO HIGHLANDS

EMERGENCY RESCUE: AIR, LAND & SEA THE BONE DETECTIVES

AUSSIE BULL CATCHERS

HOW TO MAKE…

DCD Rights is one of the UK’s leading independent television programming distributors representing over 3,200 hours of content across a wide range of genres including drama, factual entertainment, documentaries, lifestyle, and music.

THE BONE DETECTIVES JAMES MARTIN’S ISLANDS TO HIGHLANDS 20 X 60’ mins James Martin travels around the UK, seeking out the best food stories and top local producers, while cooking up some mouthwatering brand new recipes on mountain sides, sea shores and beaches. From the Scilly Isles in the South West, up to the Shetland Islands in the North, James takes the fabulous local produce and creates something magical in every place he visits, accompanied by some chef pals including Raymond Blanc, Monica Galetti and Paul Rankin.

THE BONE DETECTIVES 8 X 60’ mins Every week archaeologists uncover bodies.

Sometimes individuals but more commonly they find groups of people buried together.

From tales of battles, of misdemeanours, of disease, of tragedy or tragic accident Tori Herridge, assisted by mortuary technician Carla Valentine and archaeologist Raksha Dave, attempt to piece together the lives behind these bones, what happened to these people and how they came to be where they were found.

EMERGENCY RESCUE: AIR, LAND & SEA 10 X 60’ mins With exclusive access to the UK’s Maritime Coastguard Agency and Mountain Rescue Teams, this series follows the stories of elite teams of extraordinary men and women who are putting their own lives on the line to save members of the public on the wild mountains and coastlines. On call 24/7, these astonishing teams answer over 3,000 emergency calls a year, to carry out ‘against the clock’ rescues of holiday makers, tourists, hikers, bikers, missing persons, climbers and cavers.

HOW TO MAKE… 3 X 60’ mins Material Scientist Zoe Laughlin takes us on a joyous journey of wonder and revelation as she challenges herself to make her version of some the most iconic and best-loved everyday items that we all use.

Working at the interface of science, art and product design, each episode Zoe focuses on a specific domestic item to build, trainers, toothpaste and brush, and headphones.

AUSSIE BULL CATCHERS 10 X 30’ mins Every year, during Australia’s dry season, a handful of brave men and women make a living catching feral bulls and buffalo. One of the most dangerous jobs on earth, it’s highrisk, high-reward work, with a hell of a lot of deal-making. This is a place like nowhere else on earth, and welcomes you to a world you’ve never seen before – the world of Australia’s Outback Bull Catchers.

THE LADY KILLERS 10 X 60’ mins Men kill in rage, to control, to steal, to exert power…so why and how do women kill? So often, it’s about lost love, a desire for wealth, revenge. This true crime series investigates the stories of the women who kill... how they kill by fire, poison, hiring a hit man or with guns or knives... often different but sometimes chillingly like male homicide.

A WORLD WITHOUT NASA 2 X 60’ mins When most people hear NASA, they think of rockets and universe exploration. In fact, much of daily life is fuelled by the results of space race technology. From AI in dating apps to GPS, food safety to self-driving cars, tracking endangered species to fire safety, NASA has impacted our lives in ways we can’t even conceive. This series explores technologies we take for granted, tracing their roots back to the quest for the stars, and imagines our world had it never happened.

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C21Screenings Showcase

NEW DOMINION PICTURES, L.L.C. 1000 Film Way, Suffolk, Virginia 23434 T: 1 757 923 1300-102 E: kristen.eppley@newdominion.com www.newdominion.com New Dominion Pictures has produced and distributed more than 800 hours of dynamic nonfiction programming in a wide array of genres to broadcasters and media platforms in more than 180 territories worldwide. Offering new and original content, New Dominion Pictures currently has fifteen (15) award-winning series available for licensing.

Channel 21 International | April 2020

FANTOMWORKS FANTOMWORKS 70 x 60 mins HD - Reality FANTOMWORKS restoration expert Dan Short and his team only have a heart for those who genuinely love their cars. Every car has a story, but if you can’t prove to Dan that you truly care about your car and want the job done right then he won’t accept your business. Dan’s busy shop, FantomWorks, is the largest automotive restoration shop in America. With years of automotive restoration experience in addition to the qualities of discipline and

TRIMATES CBC & RADIO-CANADA DISTRIBUTION 205 Wellington St. West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5V 3G7 T: +1 416 205 6502 E: saida.ali@cbc.ca distribution.cbcrc.ca CBC & Radio-Canada Distribution is the international content licensing arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - Canada’s national public broadcaster. Driven by the experiences and perspectives of some of the world’s best storytellers, our catalogue of festival selected and award winning titles offers a cinematic journey unlike any other.

TRIMATES 2 x 52 mins Over 50 years ago, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas embarked on remote, lonely journeys into the bush to live with our closest ancestors, the Great Apes. Decades later, they’ve made history, endured tragedy and inspired a generation.

NATURE’S CLEAN UP CREW 1 x 52 mins A look at nature’s most efficient scavengers and the many ways they work to keep our environments clean and safe.

MURDER ON THE FRINGE 6 x 52 mins or 3 x 90 mins Investigating three of the most notorious homicide stories of the last thirty years including the Moka Dawkins case, the Cobra Killer and Bruce McArthur.

A HAUNTING precision Dan acquired in the military, the FantomWorks team runs a busy production pipeline in order to thoroughly refurbish some of America’s favorite rides.

Every week-old cars come with new obstacles including irate car owners, personality clashes, cost over-runs, parts problems and walkouts.

A HAUNTING 105 x 60 mins HD - Docudrama Between the world we see and the things we fear… there are doors. When they are opened... nightmares become reality.

These are the true stories of the innocent and the unimaginable.

Through mesmerizing firstperson accounts and dramatic recreations, A Haunting delves into the true and horrific events that plague innocent people when spirits–determined to have a final say–invade their lives to inflict unimaginable horrors. By the end of each story, audiences experience a lingering sense that life–and death– are much stranger than anyone could have possibly imagined.

NATURE’S CLEAN UP CREW FEED THE PLANET 2 x 40 mins or 1 x 72 mins Exploring the state of global food security and what agriculturalists are doing to transform our relationship with the Earth that feeds us.

THE RECKONING 1 x 52 mins or 1 x 78 mins Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein denies charges of sexual misconduct and harassment spanning 30 years, but exclusive interviews with his accusers paint a shocking picture of life in Hollywood. In March of 2020, the 67-year-old was sentenced to 23 years in prison for first degree criminal sexual act and third degree rape. Learn how it all starts.

MURDER ON THE FRINGE FEED THE PLANET

THE RECKONING

C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

BANIJAY RIGHTS Gloucester Building, Kensington Village, Avonmore Road, London, W148RF T: +44 (0)20 7013 4000 E: sales@banijayrights.com www.banijayrights.com

BÄCKSTRÖM

Banijay Rights represents quality, excellence and experience in the business of television and ancillary sales across all platforms.

It is one of the world’s biggest independent distributors, with a catalogue of more than 20,000 hours of globally best-selling content across all genres. 50% of the catalogue is third party programming from independent producers.

THIN ICE

BÄCKSTRÖM 3 x 90’ / 6 x 45’ Yellow Bird, ARD Degeto and Film I Vast for CMore / TV4 Based on Leif GW Persson’s novel Can You Die Twice? and He Who Kills the Dragon, this series revolves around the murder detective Evert Bäckström, who is famous for having solved 99 percent of all the cases he has taken on. But when a skull pierced with bullet holes is found on an uninhabited island in the archipelago, Evert Bäckström is faced with a more inexplicable mystery than even he could have imagined. Can you die twice?

THIN ICE 8 x 60’ Yellow Bird in co-production with Sagafilm for C More, TV4, France TV, DR, NRK, YLE and RÚV. Supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Lumière, Creative Europe Media, Swedish Film Institute and Icelandic Film Centre Suspense thriller dramatizing the burning issues of climate change, Arctic exploration and international geo-politics. Thin Ice tells the story of an inevitable conflict. The dispute over the interests buried under the arctic ice.

Interest so severe, that for the sake of peace itself, the world still avoids to address them.

WE GOT THIS 8 x 60’ Jarowskij and Film I Väst for SVT and Viaplay George English, an American living in Sweden, stumbles onto an unlikely solution for his debt – a 50 million Swedish Crown reward for solving the 30-year-old murder of the former prime minister Olof Palme.

Together with his closest friend, a not so intrepid journalist who wants nothing to do with the case, a whacky conspiracy theorist and a former police officer, they follow the case into a web of conspiracy.

EXTREME ACNE 1 x 60’ Firecrest Films for Channel 5 Acne is a modern epidemic. It’s causing selfharm, dangerously low self-esteem and even suicide. But there is hope for acne sufferers and their journey will offer insights to all of us, whether we struggle with full blown acne or just the occasional spot. This shocking and heartwarming programme follows three acne sufferers as they try to get to the bottom of the condition that is blighting their lives, and find a cure.

BOSTON ART HEIST 1 x 60’ Matchlight for BBC Four When John Wilson, an arts journalist, received a tip-off that $1 billion worth of stolen art was about to be recovered, he was determined to document the journey towards the discovery. What promised to be a fast turnaround story has instead drawn John into a labyrinth world of dangerous gangsters and criminals. In this murky world John discovers that it’s not just the criminals who are threatening the safe recovery of the art, but the FBI, the Garda, lawyers, politicians and rules of immunity.

HOW TO CURE YOUR MIGRAINE 1 x 60’ Firecrest Films for Channel 5 Three of the most severe migraine sufferers in Britain explain how migraines have ruined their lives and undertake cutting edge treatments including botox and cold water swimming to see if they can help stop their symptoms. Dr Dawn Harper (Embarrassing Bodies) also challenges some of the most common myths about the condition.

EXTREME ACNE

WE GOT THIS

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C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

RABBIT FILMS Panimokatu 2 A, 00580, Helsinki, Finland T: +358 50 590 1231 E: formats@rabbitfilms.com www.rabbitformats.com

BATTLE RANCH Competition Reality Format, 10 x 60 mins Are you ready for the ride of your life?

Welcome to Battle Ranch!

Battle Ranch is an epic competition-reality series featuring 12 fearless contestants, who all believe they have got what it takes to be the Chief of the Ranch. Set on a real farm in the picturesque countryside, this show is far from quaint! The contestants will be taken through a series of extreme challenges that will test their strength, speed and smart.

OVER THE ATLANTIC

Rabbit Films is an intependent distribution and production company from Finland.

Each episode features one Group Challenge and an Elimination Challenge. The 2 weakest contestants will then face the Ranch Committee to see who gets eliminated.

In the end, only 1 will be left standing as the Chief of the Ranch.

OVER THE ATLANTIC Reality Format, 8 x 60 mins Six celebrities are given a once in a lifetime challenge to sail across the Atlantic Ocean.

In this groundbreaking show, a top-notch sailor is leading a team of celebrities with zero sailing experience to become masters of the sea. Week after week they learn how to sail, how to work as a team and how to fight the harsh ocean.

Most of all they are on a journey of selfdiscovery. Who they are and who they want to be as human beings. The ocean has no mercy, they just have to find a way to survive to reach the ultimate goal.

C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

ALFRED HABER DISTRIBUTION, INC. 111 Grand Avenue, Suite 203, Palisades Park, New Jersey 07650 T: (201) 224-8000 E: info@haberinc.com www.alfredhaber.com

The Alfred Haber Group of Companies – Alfred Haber, Inc., Alfred Haber Distribution, Inc. and Alfred Haber Television, Inc. – together form one of the world’s largest distributors of U.S. network annual events and music specials, and are leading independent distributors of primetime reality series, specials, and documentaries.

Please visit www. alfredhaber.com

TOP 20 FUNNIEST

LET’S GO CRAZY: THE GRAMMY® SALUTE TO PRINCE

63RD ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS®

ELVIS ALL-STAR TRIBUTE

SHALLOW GRAVE 63RD ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS® – CBS – New! Running time: 1 x 210’ mins Genre: Music/Awards Show It’s all about the music on “Music’s Biggest Night®” – the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards®, the world’s most prestigious televised music awards show. The industry’s biggest names will be on hand once again as the 2021 event promises a dazzling combination of performances, awards and once-in-alifetime “GRAMMY Moments.”

SHALLOW GRAVE – Crime & Investigation UK Running time: 8 x 60’ mins Genre: Reality On this gripping Crime & Investigation UK series, murders have been committed elsewhere, with the victims’ bodies transported and left at a “the deposition site,” or shallow grave. It’s the most difficult crime puzzle of all – but can the police put the pieces together and crack the case?

LET’S GO CRAZY: THE GRAMMY® SALUTE TO PRINCE – CBS (1 x 120’) New! Tentative Broadcast Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 9-11p ET/PT Running time: 1 x 120’ mins Genre: Music It’s the stunning tribute to the artist who will forever be known as…Prince! An incredible mix of both new and legendary talent gather to pay tribute to the “Purple Rain” artist who taught the world how to party like it’s 1999, including GRAMMY Award-winning artists Beck, Gary Clark Jr., Foo Fighters, H.E.R., Juanes, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Chris Martin, Usher, and many more.

TOP 20 FUNNIEST - truTV - Available now!

Running time: 49 x 60’ mins Genre: Reality Laughter is the best medicine… and it makes for a great television show, too! The extraordinary international success of Top 20 Funniest continues to grow as comedic commentary charts the best viral videos, home movies, surveillance clips, event footage and news bloopers, while we count down to the week’s most hilarious video.

2021 27th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD® AWARDS – TNT/TBS New! Live! Sunday, January 24, 2021 Running time: 1 x 120’ mins Genre: Awards Show It’s a night filled with excitement, drama, laughter, and entertainment’s biggest stars as actors vote solely for actors! Those honored at this year’s 26th annual show included Joaquin Phoenix (Joker).

2020 21st ANNUAL LATIN GRAMMY® AWARDS – (1 x 120’) Univision – New! Specially Edited 2-Hour English International Version Running Time: 1 x 120’ mins Genre: Music/Awards It’s the specially edited, 2-Hour English International edition of the world’s most extraordinary salute to the ever-growing, popular world of Latin music.

ELVIS ALL-STAR TRIBUTE – NBC Running Time: 1 x 120’ mins Genre: Music/Variety Top superstars Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Blake Shelton, and more, celebrate the 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s legendary 1968 “Comeback Special” that helped him reclaim his crown as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

HELP! MY HOUSE IS HAUNTED! – UKTV Running time: 12 x 60’ mins Genre: Reality From Zak Bagans, it’s the spine-tingling series that follows expert investigators who stop at nothing to help families reclaim their homes from unwelcome spirits.

ALOHA FROM HAWAII – (1 x 60’) (Specially Remastered) Available Now! Running Time: 1 x 120’ mins Genre: Music/Variety It’s the specially remastered, 60-minute edition of the record-setting, 1973 Elvis event that was the first worldwide live satellite concert featuring a single performer.

ELVIS: ’68 COMEBACK SPECIAL – (1 x 60’) (Specially Remastered) Available Now! Running time: 1 x 60’ mins Genre: Music It is the legendary, specially remastered, NBC Elvis: ’68 Comeback Special, which put Elvis Presley back in the music world’s spotlight, back at the top of the charts, and back on his throne as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

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ALL3MEDIA INTERNATIONAL Berkshire House, 168-173 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7AA T: +44 (0)20 7845 4350 E: international@all3media.com www.all3mediainternational.com all3media international is the distribution arm of the all3media group. We promote and license a catalogue of award-winning TV programmes and formats to broadcasters and media platforms across the globe. Our catalogue contains over 15,000 hours of content across all genres, and we work with over 1,000 broadcast, DVD and digital platform clients from more than 200 countries.

Channel 21 International | April 2020

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL Our scripted portfolio continues to thrill and delight, offering a wide range of new and exciting content such as All Creatures Great and Small, which brings to life James Herriot’s classic novels across a heart-warming series. Russell T Davies takes us through life in London during the AIDS crisis in Boys (w/t), while The Deceived thrills with its gothic mystery steeped in mistrust, and some of our muchloved detectives return in brand new series of Baptiste and Mystery Road.

THE FANTASTICAL FACTORY OF CURIOUS CRAFT

Non-scripted takes us around the world, from Paul Hollywood’s ultimate foodie adventure in Paul Hollywood Eats Japan, to Gordon, Gino and Fred’s Road Trip taking on America and Mexico in series two, and more couples, partners, and friends taking on the ultimate travel challenge in a new series of Race Across the World.

Weddings are saved from the brink of disaster in The Wedding Fixer, while creative juices flow in The Fantastical Factory of Curious Craft.

Our formats continue to push boundaries, from interactive format Thriller Game which invites viewers to solve a murder, to The Hustler, a high-stakes game show built on collaboration and deception. It’s a battle of the brains in Quizmaster, while Just One Night puts couples at commitment crossroads to the ultimate test, and The Search brings an innovative twist to singing competitions, as one of the nation’s best loved bands creates a new group to open for them on their next tour.

C21Screenings Showcase

Channel 21 International | April 2020

JAPAN PROGRAM CATALOG BY BEAJ Kandabashi PR-EX Building 2F, 1-17-5 Kanda-Nishikicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan 101-0054 T: +81 3 5577 6511 E: contact@beaj.jp www.japan-programcatalog.com

Japan Program Catalog is the largest Japanese TV content showcase. Over 1,000 titles, including dramas, anime, and formats. Online screening is available for a large number of recent programs. Japan’s enchanting culture, current trends, cuisine, and must-see sites are just a few clicks away.

Buyers can also contact sellers directly.

CODE BLUE

vs KIDS 30’ Format Can former top athletes beat the kid champions in the same sport?

“Of course, no sweat!”, you’d think, right? But can they REALLY? Let the serious matches begin!

An Olympic swimmer, a golf champion, or a professional bowler ... they confront the super-kids as challengers. This program pits an ex-pro from a certain field against a current young star of the same field. See how the pros get dead serious to win the next generation stars. Superb skills and excellent techniques – the level of competition is surprisingly high... and the rivalry very close! Whether the pros win or lose, vs KIDS is a fun watch and carries persuasive weight, that only comes from a serious challenge!

Int’l Sales: TV Asahi TIME IS MONEY – THE CELEBRITY LIFE HACK SHOW Format / Game Show / Lifestyle Time is Money is the crazy Celebrity Life hack show from Japan with top all-star banter, big shiny floor studio action and some top family gameplay. It’s the show that actually improves your life as you laugh along! Meanwhile, ordinary folk get the chance to show off to the celebrities and beat the Star Hack to take home a cash prize!

CODE BLUE 32 x 54’ Drama The best drama that grippingly depicts an air ambulance team on the front lines of medical care!

With over a decade of experience, these doctors have reached the point where they must face their own lives, both professional and private, and make their own path. With new comers who joined the emergency unit, the doctors grow personally and professionally as they experience traumatic medical situations, deal with personal ambitions and witness the fragility of life.

Intl Sales: Fuji Television Network, Inc. YOU! ANSWER!!

60’ Formats / Entertainment It‘s the fastest finger first quiz. But there is a catch...

In front of each of the 5 contestants, there are 4 buttons. However, none of these buttons correspond to that person. Instead, they are for the other 4 people. In other words, when a contestant presses a button, one of the other contestants will have to answer. In this “battle of pushing responsibility onto others”, the contestants must fight to make their opponents answer the questions. In order to win this game, a winning strategy and unwavering mental fortitude is required.

Intl Sales: Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. Intl Sales: Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation

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NEXT BIG THINGS: 5G & TV

Channel 21 International | April 2020

5G force F

The consumers are the biggest winners, for sure. They’re the ones who are going to benefit from all the increased time and speed. Viewing is going to be seamless and there will be way less of a lag.

“

Alissa Miller Akin Gump

lashy new technology tends to get massively hyped up as the TV business is encouraged to adopt the latest new developments. Pity the poor documentary producer who has only just got round to buying 4K cameras now that 8K is the next big thing.

But there’s often a pretty big gulf between the level of impact we’re told new technologies will have on our industry and what eventually materialises. Just look at 3D television.

We’ve only just entered a new decade and we already have the latest tech development that we are told will revolutionise the industry: 5G. Fifth-generation wireless networking technology has stirred up quite a bit of excitement and the potential uses for 4G’s successor are attracting creatives’ attention.

Depending on what you believe, it will either herald a new era of content consumption and network connectivity or simply mean less buffering when you’re streaming Netflix.

The initial signs, however, are that it will change consumer behaviour radically, particularly when it comes to viewing on mobile devices. That’s music to the ears of mobile-only companies such as Quibi, which launches in the US on April 6. It hosts high-end content featuring stars such as Idris Elba and is designed to be viewed on the go, with episodes of less than 10 minutes long.

5G should run circles around its predecessor, providing data speeds 100 times faster and 100 times greater network capacity. This would allow the connection of up to a million devices in a square kilometre, while 4G can connect only a few thousand.

Black Mirror’s interactive episode Bandersnatch

How will 5G wireless technology change th things for the entertainment industry, b beyond giving us faster access to tthe internet?

By Inigo Alexander

An obvious advantage that 5G’s increased connectivity offers is the speed at which longform content can be downloaded. With 5G, a two-hour ultra-HD film takes a matter of seconds. So long, loading wheel of death.

“The consumers are the biggest winners, for sure,” says Alissa Miller, partner at the entertainment division of law firm Akin Gump. “They’re the ones who are going to benefit from all the increased time and speed. Viewing is going to be seamless and there will be way less of a lag. So it’s just going to be a much more seamless experience once 5G is fully rolled out.”

Simple as the change may seem, it could allow creators to present consumers with far more content, with video expected to make up 90% of 5G traffic.

Verizon Media’s head of 5G for EMEA and Latin America, Mark Melling, puts it simply: “With the ability to download content almost instantly, consumption is going to go up, which means there’ll be more production, more investment in the medium and just better content.”

The combination of higher download speeds and lower latency would also make new forms of content consumption previously thought to be a bit of a novelty more accessible. For example, 5G would allow virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR) experiences to come into their own, Melling believes.

The 2018 interactive episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror, Bandersnatch, was a landmark representation of how the line between traditional viewing and video game-style engagement could be blurred. VR and AR integration would take that a step further, allowing users greater interaction with the content they view.

“Linear TV and lean-back experiences will always have a place, but what 5G will do is open the door to more interactivity with content,” Melling says. “I picture a day in the near future when you can choose to experience a film either in a linear way or to actually move into the film and experience it in a different environment.”

VR and AR would consequently offer hefty financial rewards. According to market research firm Ovum, adoption of VR and AR content will generate over US$140bn in cumulative revenues between 2021 and 2028. The firm predicts 5G will increase the global media market over cellular networks from US$170bn in 2018 to

NEXT BIG THINGS: 5G & TV

Channel 21 International | April 2020

a whopping US$420bn by 2028. Additionally, consumer spending on mobile video, music and gaming is expected to double by 2028 to US$150bn globally.

“5G provides the massive data throughput that you need for good VR and AR experiences. The very low latency means that they’re very responsive, which is very important in both, and makes them seem like ideal use cases, so people have talked about it a lot,” says Ovum’s chief entertainment analyst, Ed Barton.

Miller echoes Ovum’s findings and explains that adding AR and VR experiences to established IP would provide creators with greater opportunities to monetise content.

“Because you’re expanding the viewership and the different ways that you can consume, it will increase the monetisation cycle and allow for different monetisation of different methods of viewing, whether it’s VR, AR or whatever else comes out of 5G,” she says.

Another aspect of television that 5G could upend is live broadcasting, claims Melling, with sports broadcasting set to be the main beneficiary. “If you combine 5G technology

with other technologies that we have – for example, cloud computing – you can send vast amounts of data in real time back and forth from the cloud to be rendered, then you can start creating content in more efficient and effective ways.

“In a 4G world, there’s massive amounts of data that needs to be sent to farms of servers to be rendered in order to be created for a consumable experience, it just can’t be live. With 5G, the potential to do all that in real time becomes a very real thing for consumers and it can really add to the content experiences they are currently having,” says Melling.

Ovum’s Barton adds that the next-generation network is most likely to bolster the tech industry’s heavy hitters, as they were the ones who got the most out of 4G. “The people that benefited the most from 4G were basically the gigantic digital platforms. They’re now bigger and more powerful and you would expect that the organisations best placed to capitalise upon the connectivity are probably companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google,” he says.

X

C21’s NEXT BIG THINGS - The people, programmes and businesses that are about to change the game.

Keep reading online and smarten up your content strategy at www.c21media.net/ department/ next-big-things

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NEXT BIG THINGS: 5G & TV

From top: Ovum’s Ed Barton, Tim Davie of the UK’s Creative Industries Council and Verizon Media’s Mark Melling

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Melling encourages companies large and small to board the next-generation connectivity train before it passes them by.

“If you’re a business waiting until 5G does hit the masses it’s almost too late. The technology that 5G will supercharge is already here: AR, VR and artificial intelligence. If 5G comes in and makes these experiences consumable in real time, starting to build a strategy around it at that point will probably be too late.

“There should be an urgency around 5G because I predict that consumption is going to get a lot faster and it’s going to be driven by the consumer.”

As with any new tech development, there are reservations surrounding 5G. One of the main doubts is about its current availability. The UK, for example, is still struggling to guarantee 4G coverage nationally. Concerns have also been raised by citizens’ groups about the possible health effects of radio-frequency energy transmitted by 5G base stations.

The UK government recently approved a £1bn (US$1.3bn) plan to banish signal dead zones, with telecoms firms EE, O2, Three and Vodafone banding together to pledge 4G coverage to 95% of the UK by 2025.

Additionally, it has created a £30m investment fund to channel into 5G exploration within the creative industries.

“5G offers innovative opportunities right across the sector, from film and TV to games, music, fashion and advertising. We have been advocating a funded competition along these lines as an exciting opportunity for UK creative companies to develop innovative products and services using this transformational technology,” says Tim Davie, co-chair of the UK’s Creative Industries Council and CEO of BBC Studios.

Miller at Akin Gump acknowledges the concerns about availability and also points out that the extortionate price tags on 5G phones and products are deterring the spread of the network. “It’s just been a bit slower to roll out than we anticipated. There’s a pretty spotty 5G network. The big issue right now is that the devices are too expensive to buy. But I think that’s going to change, because nobody really wants to buy those devices when the network isn’t available. Once the network becomes available the devices will decrease in price.”

Ovum predicts 5G will realise its full potential by 2022, although Miller is slightly more conservative in her estimates and suggests 2025.

The territories leading the way in 5G adoption are the US, South Korea, China and Switzerland, with Melling pointing out that over 20% of Korea’s mobile data usage is already being carried across 5G networks.

Barton appreciates the positive effects 5G could have on viewing experiences, but warns: “It’s not going to be transformational. You’re going to be watching YouTube or Netflix except you’ll have a better chance of being able to watch it in better quality. Maybe the audio is not going to be compressed so much but there’s not going to be a sort of ‘wow’ moment.

“We don’t know that there will be some kind of revelatory only-possible-with-5G consumer experience, so the effects will be undramatic and incremental.”

He believes 5G may not usurp wi-fi in most homes and offices, as current broadband offerings tend to be solid enough to make a hefty investment in the next-gen network unnecessary.

“Currently there’s not a screaming use case that springs to mind for which they would need 5G connectivity rather than just a fixed broadband connection. In terms of the connectivity, it depends on what’s available, where you are and what the pricing would be. In some cases, 5G might present excellent value if the fixed infrastructure is pretty bad, but if you’re in a major metropolitan, mid-tier broadband area then chances are the fixed connection is going to be better value.”

Although 5G has been touted as heralding a new age for VR, Melling recognises that product design may play a key role whether or not the new consumption methods take off. “Look at VR headsets. The second that someone puts a headset on, let’s face it, they kind of look a bit silly. Human beings spend a lot of time every day trying not to look silly, and trying to base a medium around a headset that does is tough,” he says.

Despite the technological changes, shifts in consumption habits and profitability that 5G could bring about, is the next-gen network destined to suffer the same fate as 3D TV sets and fail to grab the consumer’s – and thus the industry’s – full attention?

Melling is hopeful for the network’s future. “This is an exponential change in the power of technology that will have a profound effect on the way that we live, work and play. I don’t see it going any other way.”

“What the future holds is targeted programming within a particular household, so 5G will really help that move forward. It’s going to be pretty spectacular once it’s fully rolled out,” Miller agrees.

Barton, however, has a slightly less optimistic view, believing that 5G may offer a solution to a problem that doesn’t necessarily exist when it comes to TV. “Certainly, we haven’t seen an explosion of VR and AR apps and services. But it could well be the industry has found an answer looking for a question,” he says.

BANIJAY_THIN ICE_C21_AW.indd 1

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SCHEDULE WATCH: National Geographic

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Whole new world Running Wild with Bear Grylls featuring Brie Larson

F

ew execs are better placed to examine what a place in The Walt Disney Company portfolio will mean for factual brand National Geographic than Geoff Daniels.

Now executive VP of global unscripted entertainment, Daniels has been part of the yellow-bordered network since signing up as director of development for National Geographic Television and Film in 1998. Over the following 20 years he became senior VP of development and production for Nat Geo Channels International, general manager of Nat Geo Wild and president of original programming and production at National Geographic Channel following the departure of Tim Pastore in 2018.

He was quickly promoted to his current role ahead of the buy-out of assets belonging to 21st Century Fox, including Nat Geo, by Disney and is now commissioning for both the linear channel and Nat Geo’s section on the new Disney+ streaming platform.

“I’ve worked at Nat Geo for 20 years and I have never been more energised, more thrilled or felt more supported to take creative swings in terms of the stories we can bring and the platforms we have to get them out into the world,” he says.

His responsibilities include oversight of specials, tent-pole events and franchise series including the second season of Nutopia’s blue-chip doc series One Strange Rock, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted from All3Media-owned Studio Ramsay and The

National Geographic’s Geoff Daniels reveals how becoming part of rev Disney is affecting his company’s Di commissioning c strategy.

By Clive Whittingham

World According to Jeff Goldblum from National Geographic Studios.

“I don’t think about what platform I’m commissioning for, it’s an agnostic approach,” he says of the new strategy. “Is it a great National Geographic show? Does it have something that continues to build on our creative ambition? When we look at pitches that are coming in we start with, ‘Does it excite us? Is it offering something new and fresh?’”

The channel is currently rebooting its classic series Brain Games and has a reality show in the survival space in the works with executive producer Bertram Van Munster, titled Race to the Centre of the Earth, but Daniels says even these more traditional shows can speak to the ‘fresh, new’ mantra.

“Those are both projects that are taking familiar genres and bringing an innovative and entertaining Nat Geo edge to them. They could very easily be an SVoD offering, or linear, but ultimately they’re Nat Geo shows with broad-based audience appeal.

We look first at the values it represents and X

I don’t think about what platform I’m commissioning for, it’s an agnostic approach. Is it a great National Geographic show? Does it have something that continues to build on our creative ambition?

“

Geoff Daniels National Geographic

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Channel 21 International | April 2020

the storytelling, then later where it will be able to engage the best audience and we make that final decision in process and in partnership with the Disney+ team.”

The idea of looking for something at 21.00 on a Sunday is over for this particular outlet. “It’s no longer about slot-based development,” Daniels confirms. “We’re thinking much more closely about the audience we’re trying to appeal to – what are their passions, what are their affinities, what are the programmes we have currently commissioned and are rolling out in linear and non-linear? It’s not about the slot or time, it’s about the audience’s attitude and their ambition and what they want to connect with us on.”

Needless to say, the audience for Nat Geo on Disney+ skews significantly younger than for the cablenet, but Daniels and his team aren’t commissioning one thing for the younger group and another for the older.

“The cable audience is ageing and narrowing in some ways, so having a streamer like Disney+ or Hulu and other ways to get the content out is great,” he says. “We see it as an opportunity for the extraordinary and wonderful shows we’re doing and having real success with – Running Wild with Bear Grylls, Gordan Ramsay: Uncharted – that are resonating with the audience on cable, to ultimately migrate to a streaming video service and reach a younger demo.”

He also cites The Incredible Doctor Pol, Nat Geo Wild’s number one series.

“In cable, it attracts upper 50s and early 60s, and primarily women. When we see that show in on-demand, and in the future on Hulu and Disney+, that demo goes down to 30 to 40 years old.

There’s nothing intrinsically old about the story, it’s just about making sure the shows we have that people love are where they want to watch them.”

Daniels repeats something Courteney Monroe has hammered home since taking over as president of National Geographic Global Television Networks and adopting the ‘fewer, bigger, better’ premium commissioning strategy: the importance of having a distinctive brand in a crowded marketplace.

While Nat Geo has a wide palette of programming, from hard-edged journalism series Trafficked to Blink Films’ recent six-part commission Meet The Chimps, there are specific boxes that have to be ticked for a green light: “Creative ambition, authenticity and passionate storytelling with a purpose. Then that’s run through the lens of what Nat Geo has been in for many years: exploration, adventure, nature and conservation, science,” Daniels says.

“We’re looking for things that take genres like the human body and exploration of mechanics of the planets, and making sure we have visionary producers like Darren Aronogsky [Nutopia’s One Strange Rock] to help create something that pushes the genre forwards. We’re looking for that vision and ambition, but we also want impactful projects that get noticed.”

SCHEDULE WATCH: National Geographic

Light-hearted The World According to Jeff Goldblum (above) from National Geographic Studios and harder-edged journalistic series Trafficked

The extra budgets provided by Disney’s deep pockets will also see the network double down on its commitment to natural history, traditionally an expensive genre with lengthy development and production cycles. “It’s an area a lot of platforms are entering into at this point. We’ve been a leader in that forever and we want to make sure it has a distinctive point of view and purpose,” he says.

This could all be rather intimidating for smaller and mid-range indies looking to get a foot in the door at Nat Geo. Not everybody is Jane Root, not every company is Nutopia, not every project can have Darren Aronofsky attached, so is it a case of go big or go home? Daniels insists not.

“We have two global networks, Nat Geo and Wild. We have Disney+ and, down the line, our content could be on Hulu. It’s a broad portfolio of needs and, in terms of content, we need to ramp up,” he says. “There are different tiers and levels that projects need to serve in terms of moving the brand, business and audience.

“For the producers that are creating stuff in the mid-range, we have a vast number of shows we’re continuing to serve into our networks on a worldwide basis. As a case in point, we’ve just announced the radical expansion of the Life Below

Zero franchise. Each takes something familiar to the audience – obs docs and survival – and continues to build that out. Those sorts of shows are accessible to a broader production community than just the Nutopias of the world. We have a lot of needs and there is a lot of opportunity.”

Another trend we are hearing about increasingly, from factual networks in particular, is a desire for conversations with producers at the earliest possible stage of an idea so it can be worked up together, rather than an all-singing, alldancing pitch deep into the development process.

“We see the work we do with the creative community as a true partnership,” Daniels says.

“We want to make sure what we’re creating is uniquely and distinctly Nat Geo. Our teams now work directly with producers and collaborate on germs of ideas – working out how we take them, twist them, push them – and create something that feels different, fresh and very much Nat Geo.” Daniels says that process worked with The World According to Jeff Goldblum. “We’d been ruminating internally on what Jeff could do. We loved him – he had an affinity with curiosity and exploring the world in unusual ways. Our internal group developed it and found the best creative partner to work with to push it to another level.” The series, which formed part of Disney+’s launch offering, was renewed for a second season in January.

“We’re doing more and more ideation internally and working with producers here to brainstorm, targeting who we work with and making sure we work with best in class – that’s how you maintain consistent quality. When we talk about premium it’s not just a price point, it’s an approach to storytelling and craftmanship and an attention to detail that leads to an unparalleled experience.”

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Beware who’s watching Netflix’s latest serialised true crime hit, Don’t F*** With Cats, poses an interesting question to the genre’s broadcasters and producers: does their work risk inspiring the very horrors it seeks to depict?

By Clive Whittingham Fear Thy Neighbor

T

Kate Harrison Karman

hree-part true crime documentary Don’t F*** With Cats was Netflix’s cheery offering for Christmas 2019, dropping on December 18. It’s an upbeat little number about one man’s graduation from suffocating and drowning cats to stabbing a Chinese computer student to death and the internet sleuths who helped catch him Luka Magnotta, the infamous Canadian killer at the centre of Raw TV’s gruesome story, was eventually caught despite managing to flee as far as Germany.

He couldn’t resist dropping into an internet café to check his own profile on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and was doomed by his own rampant narcissism, which was a theme running throughout the show.

It’s this idea that Magnotta was motivated to commit worse and worse crimes by the online infamy they inspired that brings the documentary to

its episode three conclusion. One of the main talking heads breaks the fourth wall to ask viewers whether factual television’s hottest genre, glossy documentaries like this one from Netflix, and the audiences that devour them are complicit in motivating criminals.

Netflix has done much to ignite the true crime genre in recent years, with series like Evil Genius and Making a Murderer bringing new audiences to the topic. Discovery’s Investigation Discovery (ID) network had long since realised the genre was sticky and bingeable and could be serialised over multiple episodes.

Now, however, the streaming giant is turning the spotlight back on the entire genre, asking whether this is such a good idea, and producers are split.

Kate Harrison Karman, president of Toronto-based Cream Productions, which is behind series including ID’s Fear Thy Neighbour, says: “Raw did an incredible job on that show. We watched it with our oldest teenager and it sparked a conversation about

why not to do these things, that being famous on Instagram is not what you need to be concentrating on. I loved that they asked the question.”

But Patrick Reardon, president of US firm Jupiter Entertainment, which has made more than 500 episodes of Snapped for US cablenet Oxygen, wasn’t so enamoured. “I hated that they asked it,” he says. “I thought it was the worst gimmick. I thought it was such a wink wink, nudge nudge moment. That film was really well done and incredibly compelling, and then at the end it was like, ‘Fuck you.’

That was more egregious to me than the thought we might be inspiring criminals.”

Patrick Weiland, senior VP of production and development at Andrew Zimmern’s Minneapolis-based Intuitive Content, which recently produced How to Survive a Murder for Reelz, says the genre can actually be a help rather than a hindrance.

“These shows have actually helped police officers do a better job,” he says. “Particularly outside big urban areas, police do better work because

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Police do better work because they know somebody might report on their case and end their career. There’s a real-world impact on true crime – people know if a crime might end up on Dateline or a Netflix show those cops will do a better job.

“

Patrick Weiland Intuitive Content

How to Survive a Murder

they know somebody might report on their case and end their career.

There’s a real-world impact on true crime – people know if a crime might end up on Dateline or a Netflix show those cops will do a better job.”

Of course, that role of holding authority to account is traditionally ally that of the news and press, which h have both been eroded in the rural areas that Weiland describes, with local newspapers particularly badly hit. it.

As Reardon adds: “Unless we’re going to get rid of the news then I don’t think there’s much of a conversation rsation about whether we’re feeding into o it.”

This is a point echoed byy Will Hanrahan, founder and creative reative director of UK indie FirstLookTV, ookTV, whose series Inside the Mind d of a Serial Killer was acquired by Netflix after first appearing on Reelz. z. “I’ve no conscience issues at alll with portraying crime on television in the same way newspapers have done and town cryers used to. The stocks that were put on village greenss were there so criminals could be seen en to be caught. It’s a deep human need

to see that wrongdoers don’t get away with it,” he says.

But unlike Reardon, he does fear that the rush of true crime programming, p g g, with new broadcasters and producers flocking to the genre, could mean standards start to slip.

“If you don’t respect the view that there is copycat behaviour based on what people see on television, in movies, in video games or in books, then you’re very short-sighted,” he says.

“Some people

get ideas of what to do from what they see on television, and producers have to acknowledge that.

“We have debates in our production team about how we should portray the wrongdoer all the time. We stick very strictly to a policy that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. If you depart from that and start telling linear narratives of how people got away with appalling crimes, you give them a platform for their bad deeds and wrongdoing.

“The purpose of true crime programming is to reinforce confidence in the community that people don’t get away with it. I watch some true crime programming and am horrified by it.

It doesn’t respect that purpose of the genre.

“As a breed of producers and as a content industry, we’ve got to say we’re better and different than the mavericks out there on the internet.

We have rules and regs and standards we adhere to and as soon as we stop doing that it’s the end of the industry.”

Patrick Hörl, founder and MD of German producer and distributor Autentic, says his company has been careful to stick to those standards and Psychology of Con use science in Psy series it currently has Artists, a serie in developme development. looking at con “We’re lo over 50 years, artists ove how they were analysing ho so success successful and how their psyche is structured, taking a scientific but we’re tak approach,” he says. “In an unstable environ environment like ours relevant; people are the question is relev people are capable realising what peo of. We can’t escape that but we’re trying to follow it in a specific way, taking points from ta our tradition in o sscience docs.

“There is an inherent risk. It’s in fascinating to fa ssee the stories being told in Patrick Reardon

such a slick way. It makes it easy to feed into the atmosphere and emotion the shows come with. We’ve made a conscious decision to stay away from that in our development. It can be dangerous, like anything on the web.

People can take it as a role model.”

Koulla Anastasi was previously director of programmes at A+E Networks UK’s Crime + Investigation channel and is now director of international development at Woodcut Media in the UK, which produces The Killer in My Family and Britain’s Most Evil Killers, among other series.

“The case of Luca Magnotta is not a recent one. It’s several years old, so to suggest it’s born out of this recent true crime trend in TV is not true,” Anastasi says. “But it is true to say the way we treat true crime, the attention given to true crime as entertainment, is different now.

“Whether I was running a channel or now as a producer I was always really keen not to create a mythology around the killer or serial killer. If you’re not careful you can create this persona that they got to where they are by being some kind of evil genius. Let’s not go overboard on them. Part of that is absolutely giving credence to the families and victims, giving them the right amount of time and space in the programme. There is a balance that we’re always mindful of.”

You wouldn’t expect true crime producers to agree with the idea that their work is fuelling the problem, and by and large they don’t. The point about serving as the sort of watchdog the media used to be when it comes to botched investigations and corrupt police is a valid one.

But copycat killers exist and television’s natural cycle is that if a genre works well then more channels and producers flock to it, creating a glut of content. This creates the need to cut through with something even bigger, better or more shocking. So, TV’s buzziest factual genre needs to make sure it doesn’t stray further into sensationalising or glamourising rather than documenting.

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Fun natural history

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Animal Impossible exec producer Doug Hope reveals how the BBC’s Natural History Hi Unit is moving into factual entertainment and why natural e history is the new rock ’n’ roll. h

Animal Impossible

By Karolina Kaminska

T

he BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU) is known for blue-chip documentaries such as the Planet Earth and Blue Planet franchises, for which it has collaborated with wildlife icon Sir David Attenborough. But the NHU is now exploring the factual entertainment field with new 10-part series Animal Impossible.

Created and exec produced by NHU head of development Doug Hope, Animal Impossible takes some of the most enduring myths about the animal kingdom and puts them to the test to find out whether they are true or false. In each episode, presenters Tim Warwood and Adam Gendle investigate a single fact or myth, such as is spider silk stronger than steel? Or do bulls really hate the colour red?

The show is more light-hearted than the NHU’s typical portfolio of programmes, which Hope says is a direction he’s been wanting to go in for a while. “No-one does fun natural history. No-one.

And I’ve been banging that drum for a while. So I’m hoping it will catch an audience and everyone will fall in love with it,” he says.

Despite its more “fun” nature, Hope insists the science behind the show still represents the core beliefs of the NHU. “The key to it is that the natural world is amazing and extraordinary and our ambition is to make as many people aware of that and connect with it.”

He sees this accessibility as “another string to our bow” rather than a strategic shift at the NHU. “It’s just another way of us getting out extraordinary stories. It is leaning more towards factual entertainment, but the facts and the science are still absolutely NHU to its core; it will be a leaping point to the harder and deeper issues. It’s different but a lot of fun,” the exec says.

Animal Impossible is coproduced with China Mobileowned video platform Migu Video, a collaboration that meant the series has a more “magaziney” structure, according to Hope. By this, he means it follows a series of chapters, enabling it to be broken down and watched in smaller chunks of just a couple of minutes or so.

“The idea has always been that the full show can be broken up,” he says. “It will be shared as a full-length piece, but how Migu’s customers get access to it could be done in a myriad of ways. The episodes make sense all the way through, but you can also watch them in clips.”

Coproducing with Migu also gave BBC Studios access to the panda sanctuary at China’s Wolong National Nature Reserve, which Hope says is somewhere the NHU hasn’t been able to film for a long time.

“Migu has been brilliant,” he says. “It wanted certain things and we had to film in China on its request, but it got us into Wolong and without it we couldn’t have done that.

The team is very young and their enthusiasm has been

Mission Impossible really great. Financially, Migu is very important; it has been a proper coproduction.”

Once Animal Impossible launches later this year, the NHU’s ambition is to produce a second and third season, according to Hope. “Animal Impossible certainly hasn’t run its course,” he says. “We’ve only done one season and we’re only just starting now, so we want to carry on doing as much as we can.”

The NHU has earned a reputation as one of the top, if not the top, producers of natural history in the world.

Recognising the demand for these types of documentaries, more and more broadcasters and platforms are commissioning shows in the genre.

Later this year, Sky in the UK will launch a channel dedicated to natural history docs called Sky Nature, which Hope says proves how the industry is “cottoning on” to the fact that people are becoming more aware of issues like climate change and “how precious and wonderful the world is.”

“Natural history programming is cultural, apolitical and anti-ageist. Anyone can enjoy it from the ages of two to 102,” he says. “It is sort of the new rock ’n’ roll – everyone wants it.”

No-one does fun natural history. And I’ve been banging that drum for a while. So I’m hoping it will catch an audience and everyone will fall in love with it.

“

Doug Hope BBC’s Natural History Unit

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SCHEDULE WATCH: BBC

Channel 21 International | April 2020

The Last Wave

Foreign wave I

f today’s UK viewers don’t think twice about watching subtitled drama, it’s in no small part down to TV execs like the BBC’s long-serving head of programme acquisitions Sue Deeks. With multiple access points for their foreign drama fix, audiences can flick between BBC4’s Saturday night slot or iPlayer, Channel 4’s Walter Presents strand and a mushrooming number of SVoD and now AVoD services.

Amid the growing debate in the UK about the BBC’s role and how to fund it in the digital age, now might be a good time to remember the pubcaster has played a significant role in the global content revolution with its current funding model. It has helped put foreign series firmly on the UK map over the years, as well as taking local content worldwide, ldwide, through commercial arm BBC C Studios.

“One of the BBC’s ’s remits is to bring the UK to the world and the world to the UK, and d a great wayy of doing that so it’s beneficial to o the licence fee payer er and costeffective is by offering the ng the best of the world’s programming,” mming,” says Deeks, whose department tment oversees the corporation’s imports of international dramaa series, sitcoms and movies for its domestic channelss and iPlayer service.

The BBC has always ways

BB drama acquisitions chief Sue Deeks discusses BBC th the rise of international drama at the UK pubcaster a and the opportunities that lie ahead.

By Gün Akyuz

aired a certain amount of foreignlanguage drama, says Deeks, citing German television epics Das Boot (1984) and Heimat (1986) on BBC2 – the latter also inspiring the BBC’s own series The Village from Peter Moffat in 2012.

A more regular strategy took shape following BBC4’s arrival in 2002, starting with French crime drama Spiral (Engrenages) in 2006.

Deeks says there’s now a year-round Saturday night presence of foreign fiction on the channel. Think The Killing, Bridge, K Ki lling, The Bridge Borgen, The B Bo rgen, Follow Th Trapped, Money and Trapped to name a few.

BBC’s The BBC’ iPlayer VoD

and streaming service has also added significant bandwidth for catch-up and boxset viewing. Last year the digital service reached a whopping four billion requests for the first time – up 12% on the previous year.

Headline acquisitions such as BBC America’s Killing Eve topped the iPlayer rankings in 2019 with season two generating almost 41 million requests. Cumulatively its two seasons have generated more than 100 million requests on iPlayer alone.

It’s not just high-profile Englishlanguage acquisitions. The first season of Spiral attracted around 200,000 linear viewers in the preiPlayer era, but since 2009, iPlayer requests across all seven seasons of the series have reached 14.6 million.

One of the BBC’s remits is to bring the UK to the world and the world to the UK, and a great way of doing that so it’s beneficial to the licence fee payer and costeffective is by offering the best of the world’s programming.

“

Sue Deeks BBC Su

What has also changed over this period is the growing internationalisation of content, spearheaded by the drama boom in particular, which media analysts Ampere Analysis forecasts will continue.

This landscape means there’s still “room for a whole range of different deals, and it’s always on a case-by-case basis and what the circumstances are on a particular project,” says Deeks.

Her team currently buys up to eight international series a year for BBC channels like BBC4 and BBC2, including iPlayer rights. “They won’t all be foreign-language,” says Deeks, citing series such as Canadian crime drama Cardinal, which returned to BBC4 for a third season last autumn.

However, the vast majority will be foreign-language. The most recent newcomer was 10-part Nordic crime drama Wisting, which launched on December 28. Produced by Cinenord and Good Company Films, the series is a copro between Nordic streamer Viaplay, TV3 in Norway and Germany’s Degeto Film.

Two new acquisitions have just been unveiled, including French supernatural eco-thriller The Last Wave (La Dernière Vague, 6x60’). The series, from Fremantle-owned prodco Kwai, was created by Raphaëlle Roudaut (Un fils, Match Day) and Alexis Le Sec. It premiered X

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SCHEDULE WATCH: BBC

strongly on France 2 last autumn and is due on the UK pubcaster in the first half of this year.

The second is Aussie psychological noir drama The Secrets She Keeps (6x60’), produced by Lingo Pictures for Network 10, and distributed internationally by DCD Rights.

Adapted by Sarah Walker and Jonathan Gavin from the bestselling novel by Michael Robotham, the series centres on two women whose lives collide as they attempt to conceal explosive secrets. The cast includes Laura Carmichael (Downton Abbey, Marcella).

The Nordics continue their strong presence, too. Expected soon is six-parter The Investigation (Efterforskningen), written and directed by Tobias Lindholm (The Bridge), which dramatises the investigation into the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. The series is a Miso Film and Outline Film copro for TV2 in Denmark, Swedish pubcaster SVT and Nordic streamer Viaplay.

Others include two Norwegian dramas commissioned by pubcaster NRK. Period drama State of Happiness (Lykkeland, 8x45’) is set in the coastal town of Stavanger following the discovery of oil in the region in the early 1970s. It is written

by Mette Bølstad and produced by Maipo Film, with DR International Sales handling distribution.

The second is crime drama Twin (8x45’), in which a twin assumes his identical brother’s identity after accidentally killing him. Produced by Nordisk Film, the series is distributed internationally by TrustNordisk.

BBC’s ongoing creative output deal with FX also “guarantees awardwinning quality US drama for BBC2 and iPlayer,” says Deeks, citing Alex Garland’s first TV series, the thriller Devs, set in a near-future tech company. The UK-produced eightpart series is due to launch on BBC2 in the first half of this year and debuts stateside on Hulu in early March.

Another will be the third instalment in the American Crime Story franchise, Impeachment, about the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal.

BBC2 aired the first two, The People v OJ Simpson and The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Acquisitions made by Deeks and her team are about “finding something amazing that we will hopefully find a home for,” says the exec.

Last year’s three-parter Vienna Blood was one. The international

Channell 21 21 IInternational ntte n nte terrn rna n tional | April 2020

English-language event crime series, set in the early 1900s, was adapted

by Steve Thompson (Sherlock, Deep State) from the best-selling Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis and produced by Red Arrow Studios-owned Endor Productions and Austrian prodco MR Film. Its premiere on BBC2 on November 18 attracted 2.5 million viewers.

Last year Deeks also acquired youth-skewing BBC3’s first subtitled foreign-language drama, Norwegian shortform series Nudes (10x20’). The anthology series, which explores the consequences of sharing intimate material among teens, was produced

by NRK with Barbosa Films.

Deeks says every acquisition represents something of a risk.

“Generally speaking we’ve only ever seen one episode and you never know how it’s going to develop or how the audience is going to respond to it,” she says. Last year’s acquired shortform comedy drama State of the Union, written by Nick Hornby and made

by See-Saw Films, was a gamble for BBC2 because of its 10-minute length but paid off, according to Deeks.

However, the BBC rarely takes a chance on pre-buys. “It would have to be a very unique project, or something with the potential to become very competitive,” Deeks says.

Previous pre-buys have included Icelandic noir series Trapped and last year the BBC also boarded the new adaptation of Jules Vernes’ Around the World in Eighty Days from European drama club The Alliance, starring David Tennant as Phileas Fogg. The English-language series, from Slim Film + Television and Federation in association with 247 Films, has just gone into production.

Australia’s Seven West Media is also onboard.

While Deeks and her team will occasionally pre-buy, they do not deal with coproductions, as these are handled directly by the drama commissioning team.

Deeks is always on the look-out for new dramas for BBC4 and other channels, and she likes to cast the net widely. “You never know where the next gem is going to come from and what it will be,” she says.

Authenticity is a deciding factor for her.

Rights can vary but must include the iPlayer. “We like a minimum of 12 months but more if we can get it,” says Deeks. iPlayer rights are linked

From top: Shortform drama State of the Union, Network 10’s The Secrets She Keeps, French series Spiral and Nordic crime drama Wisting

to a broadcast, but could include renewals or pick-ups of earlier seasons of a series launching on one of the channels.

The fast-moving global market means execs like Deeks are always trying to think ahead. “The rise of affiliated SVoDs is going to have a big impact. There will be a lot of

programming we just won’t have access to. It’ll go straight there, or we may have access later,” she says.

“But fortunately there’s a lot of drama being made and a lot of choice out there, and yes, it will be a challenge but it’s also exciting. Freeto-air TV channels [like the BBC’s] have a lot to offer: we have an amazing shop window, we have the ability to market programmes across our channels, and we can give a very big profile to what we have that’s very appealing.”

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19/03/2020 09:57

THOUGHT LEADER: Andre Renaud

Channel 21 International | April 2020

On top of the world BBC Studios’ Andre Renaud discusses the co continuing global appetite for UK formats, fo how streaming has helped and why primetime is still important.

Andre Renaud

By Karolina Kaminska

T

he UK has always been a major player in the formats space, bringing global hits such as Dancing With the Stars (airing as Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1) and ITV’s The X Factor to the world.

But plenty of other countries can also claim to be hotbeds for new formats, such as the Netherlands, which gave us Big Brother and The Voice, and South Korea, whose Masked Singer broke into the US and UK recently.

According to the 2018/19 Tracking the Giants report from UK consultancy K7 Media, The Voice was the best-selling format of the past decade with 70 sales – including into notoriously insular Japan – and the fourth biggest seller of all time. The Masked Singer, meanwhile, was 2019’s format of the year in a more recent K7 report, having been licensed into 22 countries, making it the most impactful entertainment format since The Voice launched in 2010.

K7 put The Masked Singer’s success down to it delivering “appointment TV, co-viewing and conversation” and for embodying the current trend of “positive competition.”

In the face of this, however, the UK still holds the top

spot as the country with the highest number of top-selling formats, according to K7, accounting for 35% of all global sales. Andre Renaud, global senior VP of format sales at BBC Studios (BBCS), attests to this.

“Statistically, the UK is the number one idea generator for formats that travel globally. It’s really nice to have good, creative ideas coming from the UK. I always say it’s ideas that seem simple that can easily be adapted – Strictly Come Dancing, The Great British Bake Off and The Weakest Link are really good examples of that. I believe we will continue to be at the heart of creativity,” says Renaud.

While formats have traditionally sold well to broadcasters, they are now starting to get picked up by the many premium streaming platforms to have emerged globally, which, according to Renaud, enabled studios to extend the type of formats they offer.

“What it has helped us do is be able to have a wider spread of shows,” he says. “But it also means that we have to be better at coming up with ideas that work for them.

We’re very lucky because we have BBC3 as part of our X

BBC2’s Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe

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THOUGHT LEADER: Andre Renaud

family, which has now been online-only since 2016. In my opinion it is important to come up with stories that are about authenticity.”

Two examples of BBC3 formats that Renaud cites as authentic are Heartbreak Holiday, in which 10 strangers who have recently gone through break-ups go on holiday together, and dating advice series My Mate’s a Bad Date.

Meanwhile, competition from streamers has made primetime entertainment formats ever-more important to broadcasters, as they hold on to the success of hits like Dancing With the Stars and Bake Off. “A big primetime entertainment show is something that big broadcasters are always on the look-out for. However, there are a finite number of primetime slots for those shows, so finding a new one to go in there can be hard,” Renaud says.

Big primetime entertainment shows are also the formats best suited to travelling globally, according to the exec.

Sometimes, however, formats you might not expect to travel can also do well abroad, such as BBC2’s Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe, which follows a group of ordinary people as they take on a demanding training regime usually reserved for real-life astronaut candidates. During their training, they are assessed by a doctor, psychologist and an experienced astronaut to determine who has what it takes to attempt the ‘toughest job in the universe.’

The series was picked up by Dubai TV in the Middle East in 2018 and, according to Renaud, BBCS is in talks about remaking it in three other territories.

“It’s something I probably wouldn’t have expected to travel; it felt quite uniquely British,” the exec says.

“But actually, if you strip it down, it’s almost an iron man competition with both physical and mental stimulation, which raises the unique idea of whether or not you could make it in space. I would never have thought that it would get adapted.”

One of BBCS’s big format hits is motoring show Top Gear, with the original UK version selling worldwide. As the BBC has found since the show lost long-running presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, finding an on-screen trio with the right chemistry can be a tricky task. After a series of false starts, Top Gear UK is back on track with its latest presenting line-up of Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris.

With that in mind, does adapting it in local territories with different hosts present a major challenge?

“The short answer to that is yes,” Renaud says. “But actually it’s about understanding the nuances of what the show is, which we’ve seen as we’ve gone through iterations of presenters. If you take those people out, what do you have? You have cars, you have comedy, you have camaraderie, you have competition and credibility too.

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Once you can understand that in your own market, the rest of it is solid.

“There’s a blessing in having gone through a number of presenters in the UK because we can see it does work in different guises. We announced three new local versions of Top Gear in Sweden, Denmark and Norway in the last year, so we’ve got 10 versions now that are out there. Now that people can see how it gets iterated, it’s much easier.”

Statistically, Europe is the biggest buyer of UK formats, with sales into the region totalling £47m (US$61.1m) in 2018/19, according to a report from UK trade body Pact last year. This makes up 55% of all the UK’s format exports.

Meanwhile, demand from the US has jumped in the past year, with format sales there doubling to £20m in 2018/19 from £9m the year before. The overall revenue from UK format sales globally reached £86m in 2018/19, up 11% on the previous year.

According to Pact’s report, UK companies feel India, China and Latin America are the territories providing the best opportunities for expansion, as each has shown strong revenue growth in the past three years.

This trend is reaffirmed by Renaud, who notes an increase in demand from buyers in Asia. In fact, in February, the company made its first sale of scripted format The Split to JTBC in South Korea.

“Like-for-like, European broadcasters have predominantly been looking to us for ideas, but we are now finding that there are great scripted formats that can sell and Asia has been a really, really good partner for us for scripted formats,” Renaud says. “[Crime drama] Luther has been in South Korea and there have been some shows that we have launched in Japan as well. That’s actually been really helpful for us.

“And as we’re getting better and smarter at how we partner with people, shows are travelling more.

Bake Off is going into its second season in Argentina, while we have had five seasons of Dancing With the Stars in Brazil. Those markets are really interesting for us.”

Authentic examples: BBC3’s dating advice series My Mate’s a Bad Date and (below left) Heartbreak Holiday

Statistically, the UK is the number one idea generator for formats that travel globally. I always say it’s ideas that seem simple that can be easily adapted.

“

Andre Renaud BBC Studios

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Channel 21 International | April 2020

Development Slate

Studio Airlift Berlin-based prodco Studio Airlift took off last year with one of the creators and showrunners of German spy drama Deutschland 83 at the controls.

B

ritish-US writer and producer Anna Winger set up Berlin-based Studio Airlift last year, having developed Deutschland 83 together with husband and creative partner Joerg Winger at UFA Fiction.

The first new drama to come out of the fledgling prodco was recent Netflix series Unorthodox, based on Deborah Feldman’s autobiographical novel about her escape from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect and set in New York and Berlin.

In addition, Winger is working on two Europebased projects that are currently in the writers’ room, which could go into pre-production by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Studio Airlift – so named because

Anna Winger

its first office was on the site of Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport – is involved in Apple TV+’s remake of Israeli drama False Flag starring Uma Thurman, with Winger on board as an exec producer.

One of Winger’s goals at Studio Airlift is to make shows spearheaded by the writers, rather than non-writing producers, a method that tends to be more common in the US than in Europe.

“I believe the series business must be writerdriven. In Germany, most production companies

are run by non-writing producers and I didn’t see myself fitting into that, so I felt it was important to start my own company to redefine the role of the showrunner in Europe.

“It’s not to say that directing or being a nonwriting producer aren’t really important jobs, it’s just that I think series are really a writer’s business. That’s something that’s long been understood in the US that is less true in Europe.”

Also coming up for Studio Airlift this year is a podcast division, which Winger plans to set up to develop both fiction and non-fiction content that could transition to TV later on. The first project to be developed will be hosted by travel journalist Gisela Williams.

“Podcasts are a great place to experiment with an idea that can ultimately be a film or a TV show. It’s a place to work with new writers, to develop new projects and to develop a voice and characters. Whether it’s with radio plays or nonfiction documentaries, you can test things out without the budgets and complications of working in film production.”

Three-Year Plan Night Train Media Herbert L Kloiber, former MD of Germany’s Tele München Group, is setting his sights on Europe as his new production outfit, Night Train Media, leaves the station.

H

erbert L Kloiber’s new Munich-based prodco venture will be a developer, coproducer, financing partner and distribution specialist for in-house and third-party projects, focusing on developing European content that can travel internationally.

Just as a night train travels across Europe and beyond, so too will Kloiber’s new outfit, hence the name.

“Over the next few years, there will be demand for broader commercial series on the one hand, and really outstanding event programming on the other. And in a changing environment, if you look at a potential writers’ strike in the US, obviously European content will be very much in demand in the US as well. At the same time, all the streamers entering the European market need to be looking for European products as well.”

Night Train is still taking its first steps as an independent production company and Kloiber is in talks to fill a number of key roles, including a head of coproduction and co-financing, head of media and business affairs and a development executive,

with plans to hire a marketing executive “further down the line.”

Nonetheless, Kloiber has already struck a partnership with the Nordic Entertainment Group to jointly develop and produce a number of Englishlanguage productions every year, and is finalising deals for another four projects.

The Night Train CEO admits he is “not looking to go into anything too niche in terms of genres” but mentions spy thrillers, content for young adults and supernatural titles as being of potential interest.

Over the next three years, Kloiber, who left Tele München Group last year at his own request following its acquisition by New York-based investment firm KKR, says he would consider becoming part of a larger group as well as potentially investing in other ventures.

“I need to be flexible and opportunistic in finding the right position in the market in the near- to midterm,” says Kloiber, who is aiming to have the as-yet-unannounced projects that are entering development at Night Train this year to have arrived at their respective viewing destinations by 2023.

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62

PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: Ed Waller

Channel 21 International | April 2020

Unprecedented crisis

W

ith so many shows ceasing As the coronavirus production and sports events pandemic grinds on, cancelled due to the coronavirus C21 editorial director pandemic, there are huge gaps being created Ed Waller explores in broadcasting schedules the world over.

So far we’ve seen plenty of productions the impact on the industry and halted, perhaps the biggest being Amazon’s looks to an uncertain future.

US$250m Lord of the Rings reboot, while sports events such as the English Premier increased when US cable giant Comcast Corp League, UEFA Champions League, Superliga, acquired California-based streaming service NHL and Bundesliga were all postponed or Xumo. In March, that buzz culminated in Fox Corp buying AVoD streamer Tubi for about paused. That’s a lot of hours of television.

The natural consequence of this is for US$440m, with a possible further US$50m those networks to reach for more news payable over the next three years.

The interest in AVoD preceded the bulletins, reruns or content already in the can, and many distributors have told C21 coronavirus, for sure, but the fact plenty more demand for readymade programming is rising. viewers will be stuck at home, most likely less Broadcasters that have spent the past 10 able to pay subscriptions, could make 2020 years shifting away from acquisitions towards the year AVoD truly comes of age. Like the free original commissions and local productions linear players, the free OTTs – laden as they are with ‘comfort content’ in the form of muchwill have to reverse a little to fill the gaps.

This means that for some broadcasters, loved library shows – look set to reap whatever schedule costs are actually going to fall, as they upside there is to the current situation.

And while distributors might be seeing a are not paying for rights to sports events that aren’t taking place. In the UK, for instance, ITV spike in readymade sales in the short term, said the postponement of the 2020 European the pinch might soon be felt. With sales events like MipTV and the LA Football Championships The fact plenty Screenings off, the focus until 2021 will almost halve more viewers will is on the fall events like its schedule costs in 2020 Mipcom and 2021’s Natpe from £90m (US$105.88m) be stuck at home, most Miami and MipTV. But with to £50m – including the cost likely less able to pay so much production halted, of replacement content. subscriptions, could launch plans for new Likewise, NENT Groupmake 2020 the year AVoD content will stall, along owned Nordic OTT service with the ROI for those Viaplay said in mid-March it comes of age. increasingly stretched “will not report media rights costs for postponed sports events in its income distributors that have moved into development.

However, while there are upsides and statement until such time as the events take place.” It expects to receive compensation for downsides to the pandemic for broadcasters, cancelled events and will not be making any OTT platforms and distributors alike, there seem to be only downsides for production new payments for postponed events.

Hence the company’s recent price reduction companies. Some might be able to get new for direct-to-consumer sports packages as shows based on archive off the ground if they a way to limit churn driven by more people don’t require a production crew, but most will be hurt severely by the production freeze. facing uncertain financial situations.

Those that have managed to retain rights SVoD services are certainly having to think on their feet. US-based Acorn TV and might have some cushioning, but those that Sundance Now are extending their free-trial survive on production fees alone already live in periods for new subscribers from seven days a feast-or-famine world, and might find that it’s to 30 to make their services more tempting soon more famine than feast. The European Producers Club (EPC) and UK indie body Pact during self-isolation.

But if the pandemic leads to more economic won’t be the last to call on governments to trouble and people not only cut the cord but help their members, with Pact describing the also ditch streaming subs, this could impact current situation as “an unprecedented crisis.”

After previous global crises, such as the 9/11 the SVoD services waiting in the wings.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock and HBO Max from terrorist attacks and the 2008/09 economic WarnerMedia, for instance, won’t want to meltdown, there was a spate of struggling launch into such a market, particularly if their prodcos changing hands while price tags were reduced, or seeking the shelter of bigger original productions have been put on hold.

This will all be a boon for ad-supported groups – or simply folding.

C21 readers might be tiring of stories about OTT services like Tubi and Pluto TV, which enjoyed so much growth last year. There was cancellations and shows ceasing production, already plenty of buzz around the AVoD sector but I’m afraid the Covid-19 news cycle isn’t in 2019, after ViacomCBS (then just Viacom) going to slow down – or, for many, get any paid US$340m for Pluto TV. And that only better – anytime soon.

“

2nd Floor, 148 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3AT Tel: +44 (0) 20 7729 7460 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7729 7461 Email: post@c21media.net EDITORIAL

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You can read C21 every day on www.C21media.net – the world’s leading International Entertainment Business website. Also on C21Media.net you can find a number of channel brands and services including FutureMedia, C21Kids, The C21 Formats Lab, C21’s Factual Week, Schedule Watch, and an extensive industry MediaBase which is constantly updated and features more than 25,000 contacts worldwide. Subscribers to C21Media.net have access to the most respected information source in entertainment.

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