TV Europe MIPCOM 2011

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The U.K. Market Euro Drama Spotlighting Poland RTL’s Anke Schäferkordt ProSiebenSat.1’s Andreas Bartl MTG’s Hans-Holger Albrecht BSkyB’s Sophie Turner Laing BBC Worldwide’s John Smith ITV Studios’ Kevin Lygo www.tveurope.ws

MIPCOM EDITION THE MAGAZINE OF EUROPEAN TELEVISION

OCTOBER 2011

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AFL Productions www.aflproductions.com • Top Builder • 2Rude4UTube • Police Patrol • The Secrets of the Amber Room • Military Tribunal

In addition to its slate of hidden-camera and caught-ontape programs, such as Naked & Funny, AFL Productions is showcasing a varied catalogue of reality, comedy and actionadventure series. “We can’t wait to share all of our new programs and formats, such as 2Rude4UTube, Top Builder and Military Tribunal, along with many of our other innovative titles,” says Yuri Volodarsky, the head of development and distribution. 2Rude4UTube features video clips of inappropriate behavior and/or scantily clad people. Top Builder is a reality format that spotlights a general contractor who has a unique style of supervision. Military Tribunal shows court cases that involve military personnel. “We are actively seeking coproduction partners for our Indiana Jones–style prime-time series The Secrets of the Amber Room,”Volodarsky adds.“We’re looking forward to pitching our prime-time clip show It Only Hurts When I Laugh to our CIS and Eastern Europe clients.” Also available is Police Patrol, a series of TV movies.

“ For us, the most

marketable genres are comedy, reality and clip-show programs.

”

—Yuri Volodarsky Police Patrol

IN THIS ISSUE An English Affair Dramatic changes are under way in the British media market 16

Antena 3 TV www.antena3.com • Grand Hotel • A Normal Family • Hispania • The Secret of Old Bridge • Eat, Drink, Love

The period drama Grand Hotel, which combines love and mystery, is a lead title for Antena 3 TV. “We have complete confidence in Grand Hotel and trust it will repeat the success of our other series: the epic Hispania, the super powerful A Normal Family and the telenovelas The Secret of Old Bridge and Bandolera,” says Diana Borbón, acquisitions and sales executive.“All of them are returning series that captivated the audience, not only in Spain but in Eastern Europe as well.”

While scripted shows are the key products of the Antena 3 catalogue, there are a number of factual programs that complement the slate.This includes Arena Mix and the new Eat, Drink, Love, which presents some the most popular places of the Spanish coast. Borbón also makes mention of the continued success of Physics or Chemistry, which has sold throughout Europe and the Americas.

Grand Hotel

“We [would like to] explore

new business opportunities in other territories like Asia.

”

—Diana Borbón

Dramatic Closeup European dramas are in demand

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Poland Points the Way Profiles the thriving Polish market

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Interviews RTL’s Anke Schäferkordt ProSiebenSat.1’s Andreas Bartl MTG’s Hans-Holger Albrecht BSkyB’s Sophie Turner Laing BBC Worldwide’s John Smith ITV Studios’ Kevin Lygo Star Media’s Vladislav Riashyn

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Audiovisual from Spain www.audiovisualfromspain.com

“Spanish

Ricardo Seguin Guise

Publisher Anna Carugati

Editor Mansha Daswani

Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski

Managing Editor Marissa Graziadio

Editorial Assistant Simon Weaver

Online Director Craig Brown Michelle Villas

content is present in all the countries in Europe and many other territories with huge success.

The TV and film programs and companies coming out of Spain are represented under the banner of Audiovisual from Spain. The brand is backed by the Spanish Institute for Foreign Commerce, Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior (ICEX), and the Spanish Federation of Audiovisual Producers, Federación de Asociaciones de Productores Audiovisuales Españoles (FAPAE), as well as other regional and national institutions. Isabel Espuelas Peñalva, the head of the content industries department at ICEX, says that Spanish content has crossed many borders: popular programs in territories from Russia to Portugal are of Spanish origin. “And sales are continuing to grow worldwide, according to the report of all our companies,” Peñalva says. “At MIPCOM 2011 we are present with almost 50 distributors and around 5,000 hours of new programs, making the Spanish content—from classic entertainment to the latest technology in 3D—one of the most interesting for international buyers.”

”

—Isabel Espuelas Peñalva

Production & Design Directors Phyllis Q. Busell

Art Director Cesar Suero

Sales & Marketing Director Terry Acunzo

Business Affairs Manager Vanessa Brand

Sales & Marketing Assistant

Ricardo Seguin Guise

President Anna Carugati

Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani

VP of Strategic Development TV Europe © 2011 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website:

www.tveurope.ws

Bavaria Media Television www.bavaria-media.tv • Vares • Line 32 • Storm of Love

There is a new set of episodes in Bavaria Media Television’s successful long-running series Storm of Love.The telenovela now has 1,670 episodes, at 50 minutes each.Alongside Storm of Love comes Vares and Line 32. Philipp Kreuzer, the VP of international and co-production, says both are “of very high quality in terms of story as well as production values, which is needed to allow our clients to attract and satisfy their audiences’ demand in this competitive environment.” In the mini-series Line 32, chance brings a variety of Amsterdam residents—individuals, couples and families—together over a five-week period, filled with events that change them all.The Finnish movie cycle Vares features Jussi Vares, a private investor, ladies’ man and hard-drinking pub regular.The title is based on the best-selling crime novels by Finland’s Reijo Mäki. “This movie cycle is another important step in our strategy to expand our portfolio with high-profile international programs,” says Kreuzer.

“We are convinced that

Vares will excite our buyers just as much as it has excited us and the Finnish audiences.

”

—Philipp Kreuzer

Vares

Get daily news on European television

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Deutsche Welle/DW-Transtel www.dw-world.de/www.dw-transtel.de • Chasing the Rush • Future Now: Innovations Shaping Tomorrow • The Human Miracle

Chasing the Rush

A number of the series new to the Deutsche Welle/DWTranstel slate are dedicated to our senses, our bodies and our future. For adrenaline junkies there’s Chasing the Rush, which looks at the lives of extreme athletes. “Chasing the Rush is all about testing limits—and viewers always enjoy being part of the quest for the impossible,” says Petra Schneider, the director of distribution.

“Whether running through the Moroccan desert or diving from 30-meter cliffs, this shows what it takes to put the impossible within reach.” The reality of science fiction is explored in Future Now: Innovations Shaping Tomorrow, which showcases visionary scientific projects in the fields of communication, the environment, mobility and health. The Human Miracle looks inside at what makes us all tick, from our heart to our eyes to our brains. “Both Future Now and The Human Miracle explore potential, of science and society on one hand, and the human body on the other,” Schneider says. “People are always looking for answers and these two provide them.”

“The television world is

changing constantly, and we think there is a lot of potential in several new areas.

”

DRG www.drg.tv

“Our MIPCOM lineup reflects our

• Top Boy • Big Law: Deputy Butterbean • Home by Novogratz • Models, Misfits & Mayhem • My Celebrity Boyfriend

ambitions to offer programs which are emotionally engaging, insightful, original, provocative, upscale, and which appeal to broadcasters’ key demographics and audiences.

”

As a successful multi-genre distribution company, DRG will be working on high-profile launches of its major new drama, factual and format titles at this market. “Top Boy, a thriller written by Ronan Bennett, is one of the most eagerly anticipated drama events of the year,” says Patrick Roberts, the senior VP of international sales. “Colorful and outrageous, ITV2’s intimate [observational doc] Models, Misfits & Mayhem will definitely catch the eye of youngskewing channels around the world,” he adds. Home by Novogratz has successfully launched on HGTV in the U.S. The show, which explores the world of high-end interior design, has excellent co-viewing potential, according to Roberts. “Big Law: Deputy Butterbean is Investigation Discovery U.S.A.’s first reality series and will be a massive draw for lovers of larger-than-life, character-driven crime stories,” he says. DRG’s exclusive representation of NRK’s formats continues with the launch of My Celebrity Boyfriend.

—Patrick Roberts

Home by Novogratz

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—Petra Schneider

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Marc Dorcel www.dorcel.com • Adult Only • Pornstar • Making Of

The erotic programs in the Marc Dorcel catalogue are shot in full HD and native 3D side by side. The company has invested heavily in 3D technology, focused on embracing new technologies and on bringing adult content to the largest audience on all devices.The programs fall under the categories of “Adult Only,” with sex reporters taking viewers to some of the world’s greatest hot spots;“Pornstar,” featuring glamorous and rebellious exhibitionists; and “Making Of,” going behind the scenes for outtakes and a look at life backstage.There are also mainstream offers with soft content for thematic channels. “We are looking to localize our formats and content ourselves or through local partners to answer audience desires,” notes Gregory Dorcel, the company’s CEO. “We’ll also be presenting the HD version of our pan-European adult TV channel, Dorcel TV. It will be upgraded in HD on October 4 during MIPCOM. Also, our goal is to be present on as many devices as possible and we are now working on developing our smart TV apps.”

“ Marc Dorcel’s 30 years’

Marc Dorcel 3D

experience and different activities (film production, VOD, magazine, TV channel, shops) show a real know-how and passion for the media.

”

—Gregory Dorcel

Mediaset Distribution www.mediasetdistribution.com

“We’re penetrating with sales in

• The Chosen • A Cry from the Past • Love and Vendetta • The Mall • Police District

territories where we used to have some difficulty, such as the Middle East or Africa.

”

For the past few years, Mediaset has made it a mission to produce programs that could appeal to the widest possible audience, more than ever before, says Patricio Tuebal, the head of sales at Mediaset Distribution. The result is a catalogue that includes everything from suspense-thrillers, like The Chosen and A Cry from the Past, to drama, such as Love and Vendetta, to scripted formats, including The Mall and Police District. “We’re offering this year a rich readymade catalogue. [In addition,] our scripted-formats business has been...quite a success, having closed options and adaptations in many different countries, including the U.S.A.,” says Teubal. “Mediaset will also promote the international distribution of Mediaset Italia, a linear channel that offers the best of Mediaset’s programming and that has already been launched in 14 different countries, targeted to the 60 million Italians living around the world.”

—Patricio Teubal

The Chosen

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ORF-Enterprise contentsales.orf.at • Universum: The Secret World of Termites • Universum: Wild Nairobi • Universum: Mystery of the Fairy Circles • Fast Forward • White Beauty

“ Our fiction programs are a good mixture of thrilling elements and overall agreeable story lines—appealing to old and young.

”

—Marion Camus-Oberdorfer The Austrian public broadcaster has completed a restructuring of its distribution operations, which are now all facilitated under the ORF-Enterprise division. For MIPCOM, Marion Camus-Oberdorfer, the head of content sales, is seeking out a successful outing for what she calls the “refreshed” seller of ORF programming. Headlining the catalogue are three specials from the acclaimed Universum factual strand: The Secret World of Termites, Wild Nairobi and Mystery of the Fairy Circles.“The successful prime-time series Universum, with its high production values, strong narrative structure and top photography, captivates TV audiences weekly. Within this series we produce more than 20 hours of nature and wildlife blue-chip documentaries per year in cooperation with the most renowned international production partners,” Camus-Oberdorfer says. Drama is also a priority for ORF, with Fast Forward and White Beauty, which she feels have a wide demographic appeal.

White Beauty

Pura Vida Paprika www.puravidapaprika.com Costa Rica

Survivor, Paradise Hotel, Desafio, The Bachelor and Top Model are just a few of the formats expected to find a long-term home in the newly established production hub of PuraVida Paprika.With its Costa Rican operation, Pura Vida Paprika intends to become one of the most efficient locationservice providers for exotic reality shows. Costa Rica is “made up of a perfect mixture of wild jungle lands, pristine beaches, as well as paradisiacal exotic resorts,” notes Peter Marschall, the company’s CEO. “Supported by great logistical and infrastructural elements, safety and ease of doing business, Pura Vida Paprika presents all the right premises to be successful in its goals. In addition, the company enjoys full support from Costa Rican governmental representatives, an aspect that contributes to the efficiency, reliability and velocity with which it can operate in the region.” The mission of the company, a subsidiary of Paprika Latino, a multinational producer, is to provide services that uphold the highest European quality standards in reality-TV production and service provision. “Pura Vida Paprika’s main objective for the 2011 MIPCOM market is to present its services and scout the market for potential clients and partners for its operations,” Marschall notes.

“ Costa Rica reveals itself as a fully functional open-air studio, offering countless production opportunities.

”

—Peter Marschall

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TM International www.tmg.de • Haven • Rosamunde Pilcher’s Shades of Love • Moby Dick • Thorne • A Business with Love

Haven

With two seasons under its belt and proven success on air, Haven is one of TM International’s top titles. Michael Oesterlin, the executive VP of international sales, points out the show’s appeal for free TV, its solid demographic reach and its innovative use of new media. “We look forward to hearing viewers’ feedback to the recently implemented Twitter story line,” he says. Meanwhile, Carlos Hertel, the head of international sales, believes Shades of Love will be a top pick for buyers.“It’s a well-produced series with global recognition of its author and cast members,” he notes. Other TM International titles that Oesterlin and Hertel highlight are Moby Dick, an event mini-series; Thorne, based on one of the most successful crime franchises in the U.K.; and A Business with Love, a format that is skewed toward a young male audience.The execs note, “We want to make buyers aware that we have top-notch Englishlanguage programming ranging from drama to formats.”

Thorne

TV5MONDE www.tv5.org • TV5MONDE FBS • TV5MONDE Europe

Epicerie Fine on TV5MONDE

Europe is TV5MONDE’s oldest and largest distribution field.“We have a very strong penetration in these countries, where there is a strong demand for French-speaking programs and Francophile culture,” says Marie-Christine Saragosse, the director-general of TV5MONDE. Its active subtitling policy delivers viewers more than 1,000 hours every year in German, Dutch, Romanian and Russian.This past March,TV5MONDE began subtitling in Polish, with English subtitles planned for Q4 2011 and Spanish for 2012.

Saragosse points out that the European TV market has become increasingly cluttered, with a lot of rival networks starting or expanding services, but, she says,“TV5MONDE has an inbuilt advantage that its programming is unique and universal at the same time. The diversity of the region is reflected in the programming of TV5MONDE Europe, which explains why we maintain our position in basic tiers.” Saragosse explains that in addition to the linear channel, TV5MONDE has a catch-up offering, a 24-hour mobile streaming service, apps for the iPhone and Android devices, and various web portals.

“ Europe is a very diverse

zone with different market realities.

”

—Marie-Christine Saragosse

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Radical restructuring, abandoned takeovers and management overhauls are dramatically shifting the British media market.

BBC Worldwide’s Sherlock.

An

English Affair

By Gerald Legge The U.K. may be one of the most mature television markets in the world, but it is certainly not acting its age.

The landscape of the British TV industry has shifted significantly over the past 12 months with both successful and abandoned takeovers as well as some literal pie-slinging—and there have yet to be any clear signs of stability.

In free-to-air television, the public broadcaster, the BBC, is undergoing one of the most radical restructurings in its 89year history, the commercial outfit ITV is looking online and internationally to keep the cash rolling in, and both Channel 4 and Channel 5 are making sweeping changes under new management.

While the terrestrials are adapting to a changing market, the number of their digital spin-offs is growing exponentially. Each broadcaster operates at least two channels in this arena. But the dominant pay-TV juggernaut Sky can still throw its weight around, increasing investment in original content and snapping up acquired programming whenever necessary—even if it means poaching from rivals—while new on-demand platforms are beginning to find their feet.

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Overall, it’s a healthy market. According to the British media regulator Ofcom, TV viewing has held up despite the growth of Internet and smartphone use. Last year, each person in the U.K. aged 4 and above watched an average of four hours of television per day, up from 3.8 hours in 2009.

LICENSE TO CUT

The Ofcom figures also revealed that British TV-industry revenue grew by 6 percent in 2010 to £11.7 billion (€13.6 billion).That includes £3.5 billion (€4.1 billion) for the license fee, generated by each TV home paying £145.50 (€169) annually.This is the principal source of funding for the BBC, which still does not take advertising. Last year, a hastily agreed-on settlement with the government secured the short-term future of the license fee, following calls for it to be scrapped. But severe cuts are looming, including at least 1,000 lay-offs.

The BBC is undergoing a wholesale review of the corporation to identify 20 percent in savings over four years, aimed at saving £600 million (€692 million) a year by 2014.This review is titled Delivering Quality First; proposals were presented to 10/11

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Pretty in pink: For the under-new-ownership Channel 5, a new signature hit has been The Gadget Show.

the BBC Trust, the broadcaster’s governing body, in September, with a final decision on efficiency savings expected in October.

One suggestion, since ruled out, was the privatization of BBC Worldwide, the hugely profitable commercial operation that remains the largest sales-and-distribution house outside the Hollywood majors. In July, BBC Worldwide reported its “most successful year in taking British content to the Boys in blue: The Inbetweeners, sold worldwide by DRG, has been a huge hit for the British youthworld” and made record skewing digital channel E4, resulting in its also being shown on E4’s parent network, Channel 4. profits, up more than 10 percent to over £160 million (€186 million).

Crozier has not put a figure on how much cash will be But signs of cost-cutting are becoming ever more visible, with injected into ITV Studios America, but it is likely to come strike action from BBC News journalists in recent months and out of the £12 million (€14 million) freed up in March to the sharing of Formula 1 racing rights with Sky, saving the corplough into new talent and pilots. Domestically, the proporation a reported tens of millions of pounds. gram budget for the flagship channel, ITV1, will be mainWhile the BBC wrestles with its restructuring, tained at £800 million (€928 million). commercial leader ITV is making good Overall, soaps continue to be the most-watched scripted progress with its five-year transformation programs, with ITV1’s Coronation Street claiming six of the plan, put in place following the arrival of top ten most-watched shows in the first half of 2011. An chief executive Adam Crozier at the start installment in February drew 11.78 million viewers. BBC of 2010. Its external income grew to One’s soap EastEnders is not far behind, with its mostmore than £1 billion (€1.2 billion) watched episode, in January, securing 11.42 million. in the six months to June 30, However, the two channels continue to fight hardest on Sat2011, and its portfolio of chan- urday nights—a long-time battleground for ratings dominance. nels increased its share of viewThe highest ratings for both broadcasters over the past 12 ing from 22.7 percent last year months have been 15.1 million for the ITV1 singing conto 23.2 percent in the first half test The X Factor on December 11, 2010, and 14.3 million of 2011. for BBC One the following Saturday with the celebrity comBut ITV will be monitoring petition Strictly Come Dancing.The importance of winning the an Ofcom review of the night saw a furious spate of bidding over the new singing for£3.5 billion (€4 billion) TV mat The Voice, which was a breakout hit for the U.S. network advertising market, which is NBC earlier this year. BBC One secured the rights to the due to conclude this Talpa Distribution format, not just translating into a potential autumn, investigating ratings winner but also helping to keep the channel relevant to concerns about the a younger audience. allocation of ad revenues across BIG BROTHER’S COMEBACK broadcasters, market As both Channel 4 and Channel 5 begin to show the results of changes at the top, it is the reality show Big Brother that, perhaps innovation and pricing.

In the meantime, ITV is surprisingly, marks the end of an era for one and the beginning looking to diversity in a bid to remain prof- of a new phase for another. Channel 4 dropped the Endemolitable. It will launch a micro-payment system for produced show last year after a decade on air, freeing up around online content in January 2012, with the long- £50 million (€58 million) of its annual programming budget.

Joining the broadcaster at a time of creative renewal, Jay running soap Coronation Street and the reality series The Only Way Is Essex lined up for trials. Box sets of Hunt, the new chief creative officer, received instructions from archive programming, such as Inspector Morse and chief executive David Abraham to increase experimental proPrime Suspect, are also expected to be made gramming without fear of controversy. It takes Channel 4 available for small payments, although the back to its “mischief-making” roots.

But this has already caused problems. While the channel is price has yet to be established. aiming to improve diversity in its lineup—commissioning proITV will also pour resources into its U.S. production companies after winning gramming around next year’s Paralympic Games and pledging to help improve the portrayal of transgender people—the comedian nearly 30 international commissions in Frankie Boyle sparked outrage with a joke about a celebrity’s the first half of the year.

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Towering ratings: The big-budget period drama Downton Abbey—sold by NBCUniversal—scored more than 10 million viewers for ITV, which has renewed it for a second season.

handicapped son. In April, Ofcom ruled that Abraham had made “an erroneous decision on a matter of editorial judgement,” but no sanctions were made against the broadcaster.

What is clear is that Channel 4 has some way to go before it strikes the right balance.

Channel 5, on the other hand, is finally achieving some identity in the market, following its takeover by newspaper tycoon Richard Desmond. After more than ten years struggling to gain a foothold in the already packed terrestrial space, Desmond acquired the broadcaster from RTL Group for £103.5 million (€120 million) and has set about a total overhaul. Out went the management at the top, including channel controller Richard Woolfe, chief executive Dawn Airey and managing director Mark White. The Channel 5 stalwart Jeff Ford, now director of programs, who had secured the most successful content for the channel over the years, was retained to run the broadcaster with a promise from Desmond of £300 million (€346 million) of annual investment in programming over the next five years.

The first major statement of intent came in August with the relaunch of Big Brother on the channel. It signals the beginning of more celebrity-focused shows that can be crosspromoted by Desmond’s publications, such as the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers and glossy OK! magazine.

While the terrestrials attempt to secure their future, the payTV broadcaster BSkyB has had to weather a media storm.

In the first half of the year, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was bidding to acquire the 61 percent of BSkyB that

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it did not already own and looked set to have the deal waved through. And then all hell broke loose.

SCANDAL STRIKES

It was revealed that Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid The News of the World had hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians and murder victims to secure stories. Within a week, Murdoch announced that he would shut the 168-year-old newspaper. He then abandoned his bid for Sky and appeared before the British Parliament’s culture, media and sport committee with his son James, the chairman of both News International and BSkyB. It was at that hearing that Murdoch senior was hit by a shaving-cream pie, slung by a comedian who branded him a “greedy billionaire.”

Sky is now attempting to put the debacle behind it, but saw the number of new subscribers fall to 40,000 in the last quarter against 90,000 a year ago. However, its chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, has pointed out that Sky did gain a further 30,000 customers who took broadband only, and the board gave unanimous backing to James Murdoch as the company posted an operating profit of more than £1 billion (€1.2 billion) for the first time.

Sky now has 10.3 million subscribers paying an average of £539 (€625) annually, up from £508 (€589) the previous year.

The satellite broadcaster has been accelerating growth over the past year, which began with the £160 million (€186 million) acquisition of Virgin Media’s portfolio of

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Fashion forward: Sky Living—which BSkyB acquired from Virgin Media—is home to female-skewing fare like Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model.

channels, including the female-skewing station Living. It then struck a deal with HBO to screen all its programming in the U.K. The agreement, understood to be worth around £150 million (€174 million), led to the launch of Sky Atlantic in February. The channel now airs new HBO series such as Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, as well as more established titles, including Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage.

Sky is also making a £600 million (€696 million) push into original comedy and drama over the next few years. The first fruits of this strategy have included the thriller Mad Dogs and the supermarket sitcom Trollied, both of which are proven successes, breaking ratings records for the company’s flagship channel, Sky1.

DIGITAL SURGE

While Sky forges ahead in the multichannel space, each of the public-service broadcasters (PSBs)—BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5—has a portfolio of digital channels that are eating into the share of non-terrestrial stations, according to Ofcom.

In 2010, the PSBs’ core channels and spin-offs accounted for a 71.4-percent share in digital homes, up from 64.9 percent in 2004 and 66.9 percent in 2005. These include the youth channels BBC Three, ITV2, E4 and 5*, the highbrow stations BBC Four and More4, and others, including ITV3, ITV4 and 5USA. All are available on Freeview, a DTT platform that launched in 2002 and offers dozens of channels for no charge following the purchase of a set-top box that can cost as little as £15 (€17).

Non-PSBs’ share has been broadly flat for the past three years, at between 28.1 percent and 28.6 percent, suggesting that the surge of interest by early digital adopters has been balanced out by mainstream viewers switching to digital.

Nearly half of all homes in the U.K. (46 percent) have a digital video recorder, while a third have high-definition TV. “It is clear that the market share of PSBs is now stabilizing for the first time,” says James Thickett, Ofcom’s director of research and market intelligence. “There has been a histori180

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cal fall in share as digital grew, but now we have reached nearly full digital penetration, [and] that is levelling out.”

An important piece of the U.K. broadcasters’ future plans is on-demand services.The BBC pioneered this with iPlayer, an online catch-up service available through computers, mobile devices, game consoles and connected TVs. The service offers BBC programs for free seven days after initial broadcast and also offers the opportunity to catch up on BBC series currently on air. In June, iPlayer generated 3.2 million views daily by 1.2 million people. On average, viewers requested four programs a week, streaming more than an hour of content.

Rival broadcasters ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and BSkyB all offer similar services—ITV Player, 4oD, Demand 5 and Sky Go, respectively—with varying pay models.

But attempts to take things a step further—into TV 3.0— have hit various stumbling blocks.

The launch of YouView, formerly known as Project Canvas, the BBC-backed venture that aims to bring VOD services to Freeview, has been pushed back by a further six months to 2012.YouView is also backed by BT, TalkTalk, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. It is understood that the delay is due to technical issues. BSkyB and Virgin Media oppose YouView and will welcome the prospect of delays to its launch. Both companies have rival services. In late 2010, BSkyB launched Sky Anytime+, which is used by 800,000 Sky Broadband homes, while Virgin Media has developed an upgraded service based on TiVo technology that has 50,000 subscribers.

Meanwhile, the online TV service SeeSaw narrowly escaped closure after being saved in July by a consortium of investors led by the U.S. private equity firm Criterion Capital Partners. It currently features programming just from the BBC, after its deals with Channel 4 and Channel 5 were not renewed, raising questions about its future.

What is clear is that British TV is a market in transition, as it grapples with the opportunities and challenges of digital— and the winners have yet to be decided.

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Dramatic ZDF Enterprises’ The Killing.

European drama series are increasingly making their way off the Continent to screens across the globe.

By Juliana Koranteng European-made drama is making a killing on the international TV circuit, if the popularity of The Killing, the Danish crime-TV series, is anything to go by.

Developed at the Danish public broadcaster DR and coproduced with German broadcaster ZDF, its commercial arm ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE), the Norwegian state network NRK and Sweden’s Sveriges Television (SVT), The Killing has injected new life into the reputation of Scandinavian TV drama; it is hailed by experts as the ultimate Nordic noir.

Since the broadcast of the 20-episode first season on DR in 2007, the show and its lead character, detective inspector Sarah Lund (International Emmy Award–nominee Sofie Gråbøl), have become critical and ratings hits domestically, in the neighboring Scandinavian markets, and in other countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium and Australia.

What impresses the industry is the fact that The Killing in the Danish-language version has wowed viewers not only on the tiny Faroe Islands, but also in the U.K., where the British have traditionally had an overwhelming preference for Englishlanguage U.S. and domestic dramas. It pulled in between 500,000 and 600,000 viewers every week on BBC Four.

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Even Hollywood could not resist The Killing’s dark allure, prompting Fox Television Studios and Fuse Entertainment to create a U.S. version, which debuted on the cable network AMC in April. AMC has commissioned a second season, and the U.S. version has equally been a hit on the U.K.’s Channel 4 with more than 2.5 million weekly viewers.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

Europe’s drama output has mostly focused on local-language domestic shows. And despite being home to first-rate drama production, Europe’s non–English language fiction has not traveled internationally as well as its English-language counterparts, says Alexander Coridass, the president and CEO at ZDFE, The Killing’s global distributor.

“We’ve [got] excellent producers, writers, actors and directors in Europe who have faced cultural barriers in the English-speaking world,” Coridass says.“I’d say there is now a new perspective.”

This new stance, Coridass argues, has been accelerated by the worldwide popularity of novels by Swedish authors such as the late Stieg Larsson. His cult crime novels, known as the Millennium trilogy, have become international hit movies on 10/11

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Making an entrance: Mediaset has found U.S. interest in its stable of Italian dramas, a portfolio that includes the new series Blood Ties.

TV and the big screen via Swedish producer Yellow Bird (part of the Zodiak Media Group).

Yellow Bird also produced the original Swedish Wallander detective series, based on Henning Mankell’s novels, which aired between in 2005 and 2010. It then created the Englishlanguage version of Wallander for the U.K.’s BBC One. “In Scandinavia, you can see an enormous development of their own style of cop shows,” Coridass continues.“The novels are naturalistic and realistic, and the producers have found a way to reproduce that authentic hard edge on TV. The police officers are not clean-cut heroes—some are overweight, others wear dirty sweaters—and the acting and atmosphere are frightening.”

DR has commissioned a third series of The Killing, while in June, BBC Four announced its acquisition of another awardwinning DR drama, the ten-part political thriller Borgen.

This pay-off, in terms of sales, has inspired ZDFE to dig for more potential Scandinavian treasures, such as the new €8.9 million ten-part crime series The Bridge, produced by the Danish production house Nimbus Film and Sweden’s Filmlance International for DR, NRK and SVT. Also on ZDFE’s books is the new Sebastian Bergman, a two-part, 100-minute psychological-crime TV movie starring Rolf Lassgård, who also plays the Swedish Wallander. It is a co-production of SVT, ZDF, ZDFE, the German production company Network Movie and Tre Vänner.

“We’re even encouraged to look at other parts of the world that would not normally be the source of fresh drama material, such as Central and Eastern Europe,” Coridass adds.

THE NEW REALITY

Most of these new productions are crime thrillers. Other popular drama genres are historical costume mini-series, action adventures and, to a lesser degree, romantic comedies.They use European money, European locations and European talent but are targeting and winning over a global audience.

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their advertisers are still hurting from 2008’s global recession. “[In the past], broadcasters would cut a check and expect the producers to go out and do it,” observes Tim Halkin, a partner and the managing director at the German production-anddistribution outfit Tandem Communications.“But times have changed. Practically, no one can do that anymore. Broadcasters now have to be very careful with the programming budget,” Halkin says.

“They need to invest in ‘event’ programs that raise the profile of their networks. International co-productions offer a viable alternative to expensive domestic ‘event’ productions.”

In some ways, the $100-million Rome, commissioned by the BBC, RAI and HBO between 2005 and 2007, set the ball rolling.Then came The Tudors, the Emmy Award–winning historical drama produced by Ireland’s Octagon Films and the Canadabased Take 5 Productions for Showtime.This year alone has already seen the release of Camelot (coproduced by Starz Entertainment, Ecosse Films and CBC and shot in Ireland); Game of Thrones (produced by HBO using British talent with locations in Northern Ireland and Malta); and The Borgias (co-produced by CTV, Showtime and Take 5 Productions/Mid-Atlantic Films/Octagon Films and shot in Hungary).

These major productions, in order to be affordable, require that the financial risks be spread. Titanic, scheduled to be among the “event” dramas of 2012, is a typical example.

A TITANIC ENDEAVOR

Planned in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of that mega ocean liner’s sinking, Titanic became viable thanks to the involvement of the Oscar-winning British writer Julian Fellowes and the acclaimed British producer Nigel Stafford-Clark.Top-line broadcasters, including ITV1 in the U.K., ABC in the U.S., Australia’s Seven Network, SVT in Sweden, SIC in Portugal and Global in Canada, made financial commitments even before filming began, in Hungary, earlier this year. ITV Studios Global Entertainment is handling international sales.

“For us, presales played an important part in achieving the green light for Titanic,” says Maria Kyriacou, the managing director of ITV Studios Global Entertainment. “Having a respected and successful writer behind a project is even more important if presales are part of the strategy because international broadcasters are buying into the [same] vision above everything else at such an early stage.”

At MIPCOM, ITV Studios will also introduce The Jury, written by Peter Morgan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for The Queen and Frost/Nixon; Appropriate Adult, which stars Dominic West of The Wire fame; and the next installment of Lynda La Plante’s Above Suspicion.

“European drama has always had an important place in the international TV market, it just so happens that recently there have been some high-profile successes,” Kyriacou adds. “We are fortunate in the U.K. to be able to boast some of the leading writing talent, along with fantastic production expertise and acting talent.”

Ben Donald, BBC Worldwide’s executive producer for international drama, concurs.“What is also new is the appetite among 10/11

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High-seas adventure: Tele München Group assembled a well-known cast—including Ethan Hawke and William Hurt—for Moby Dick, which aired in the U.S. on Encore.

producers to look beyond their boundaries,” he says. “With broadcasters no longer able to finance expensive shows on their own, production partnerships are desirable. But the DNA of the show must be relevant to the [key] partners, and the target audience must be dealt with from the beginnings of the project.”

That was the approach taken by British public broadcaster BBC One and France Télévisions, which have linked up for the first time ever to commission Death in Paradise, an eight-part crime-drama series set in the French Caribbean island of Sainte-Marie. Produced by Red Planet Pictures, Atlantique Productions (part of Paris-based Lagardère Entertainment) with BBC Worldwide, it is expected to launch later this year.

“Only six years ago, my role wasn’t necessary because our shows were not going to a European audience,” Donald says.

BBC Worldwide has also invested in Sinbad, a modern action-adventure twist on the eighth-century epic fantasy tale for Sky1 in the U.K. To distributors’ delight, the U.S., the world’s biggest TV market, is embracing European-developed fiction.

“You would have hardly seen European drama being considered for U.S. adaptation in the past,” says Patricio Teubal, the head of sales at Italy’s Mediaset Distribution. “Lately, however, we have placed options for four of our series with top [U.S.] players such as ABC Studios, Lionsgate and Shine.”

Another European production making U.S. headway is Moby Dick, the new mini-series based on Herman Melville’s high-seas classic, which aired on Encore.

Distributors need to understand how to market dramas like Moby Dick as international brands, says Michael Oesterlin, executive VP of international sales at TM International, the division of Germany’s Tele München Group that represents the series.

“What makes Moby Dick such a hit are the talent, the brand and the high [production] value. With William Hurt and Ethan 186

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Hawke, you immediately appeal to two different audience demographics. Also, broadcasters have less time and money to spend on drama, so they want something that is tried and true.You need something that they’ll get immediately, and Moby Dick is a known brand.”

European drama series shot in English are also making an impact internationally, notes Catherine Alvaresse, the deputy managing director at Europe Images International, a subsidiary of Lagardère whose catalogue includes the longrunning TF1 detective drama Julie Lescaut.

One example of English-language European drama is Borgia (not to be confused with the similar-themed The Borgias), a $30million, 12-part, one-hour Franco-German historical drama, which France’s Atlantique Productions, Germany’s EOS Entertainment, and the U.K.’s Helion Pictures are producing for Canal+ and ZDF. It is scripted by the American writer and producer Tom Fontana, and is being shot in the Czech Republic.

DRAMATIC INCENTIVES

The production incentives in countries like Romania and the Czech Republic, such as locations, infrastructure, resources and financing, bode well for the future of European-made drama, reports Myriam Gauff, the international sales manager at TM International. “European governments are giving away grants to encourage producers outside Europe to produce here.”

However, despite the excitement about the made-in-Europe drama trend, experts advise caution. Producers still need to consider the varied cultural sensibilities in different countries.

As Mediaset’s Teubal notes,“The audience in each country has different tastes. In Italy, almost all fiction is produced by Mediaset and RAI for our main channels. This means that no matter what genre we’re talking about, it will still have a family target audience, less ‘edgy’ than the fiction you might see in Germany or France.”

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Y A W E H T S POINT aping the television sh re is ia ed m t New d, a thriving marke an ol P in e ap sc nd la e to creasingly attractiv l that has become in . ia

By Chris Dz du ls ne an ch l na io at intern The Internet is, in fact, becoming an increasingly important element of TVP’s strategy. The pubcaster operates a portal named vod.tvp.pl that offers viewers clips from series, feature films, documentaries and archive material on an ondemand basis. Earlier this year, TVP’s VOD service became available on the Samsung Smart TV platform.

COMMERCIAL INTERESTS

VIVA Polska’s 100 Klipów, które wstrzasneło Viva.

Throughout recent history, Poland has been a step ahead of its neighboring countries.While still part of the Soviet bloc, it was the first to organize a mass political movement, the trade union Solidarnosc. After the fall of communism, it was one of the first to deregulate its TV broadcast industry. The desire for freedom and entrepreneurship gave rise to a vibrant, competitive media market—one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe— that has attracted considerable foreign investment.

Most recently, while its neighbors were strongly affected by the economic downturn, Poland did not slip into a recession. This bodes particularly well for the country’s television market. Serving some 13 million homes, it includes a public broadcaster, two national commercial networks, regional and local stations, numerous thematic channels, a mature cable industry, a new DTT sector and no fewer than five DTH platforms.

Although the market has changed beyond all recognition in recent years, the publicly owned Telewizja Polska (TVP) and national commercial broadcasters Polsat and TVN still remain the largest players and in many ways continue to set the agenda.

TVP, for instance, now has no fewer than six thematic channels in addition to its main TVP1, TVP2 and TVP Info services. TVP Parlament, the newest of these, was launched this June as a purely Internet-delivered channel.

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In the commercial-TV space, Polsat, launched by the local entrepreneur Zygmunt Solorz-Zak in 1992, has evolved into one of the region’s leading broadcasters. Besides operating a national TV channel, it also has a portfolio of thematic services and, until recently, included Cyfrowy Polsat, the leading DTH platform in Poland, among its interests.This April, however, Cyfrowy Polsat bought its parent company in a deal worth €1.1 billion, thereby creating the largest media group in Poland.

Like TVP, Polsat is keen to exploit the opportunities offered by the Internet and currently operates—through a whollyowned subsidiary named Redefine—an interactive media platform named ipla.

Launched in 2009 and claiming be the largest such service in Poland, with between 2.5 million and 3 million users each month, ipla’s offer includes over 1,000 movie titles from, among others, Warner Bros., Paramount, DreamWorks and SPI. It, too, can be accessed on the Samsung Smart TV platform, along with a host of other devices, including iPads, PlayStation 3s and Smart TVs from LG, Sony and Panasonic.

Rival commercial broadcaster TVN was launched in 1997 as a joint venture by Central European Media Enterprises (CME) and the Polish media company ITI Group. It then came to be operated by SBS Broadcasting and ITI Group before being taken over by the latter. Under its current structure, TVN is 56-percent owned by ITI Group, whose interests include ten TV channels, the DTH platform n and its sister service TNK, and the online portal and multimedia 10/11

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The four main channels, TVP1, TVP2, Polsat and TVN, still claim the highest viewing figures and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future.

They nevertheless continue to lose share to both smaller local and international services.

LEADING THE PACK

News of the day: Teleexpress is a daily news program that has been airing on TVP1 for 25 years.

platform Onet.pl. This platform has offered viewers an ondemand service named OnetVOD since February 2010.

Following growing speculation in the local press, ITI Group finally confirmed this July that it is “reviewing its strategic options” on the 56-percent stake in TVN. Its statement is likely to have alerted a number of potential buyers, including Time Warner, Bertelsmann, News Corporation and Modern Times Group, believed to be interested in entering the lucrative Polish TV market.

BUYING TIME

Although Poland was one of the few countries in Europe to escape a recession during the recent global economic crisis, its ad market, according to the local media sales house Starlink, shrank by 11 percent in 2009. It then bounced back the following year, growing by 4.5 percent to €1.9 billion.

Significantly, TV spend in 2010 rose by 7.2 percent and accounted for 52.3 percent of the total market, up from 51 percent a year earlier.What is more, thematic channels were responsible for the majority (4.9 percentage points) of the 7.2-percent growth and in total claimed 16 percent of the TV ad-spend pie.

While figures for the first quarter of this year produced by Starlink pointed to a slowdown in growth, the general trend remained the same. Namely, thematic services generally continued to gain at the expense of the main “classical” channels and looked set to account for 20 percent of TV ad spend by the end of the year.

On the other hand, one of these main channels, Polsat, had ad revenues 14.9-percent higher in the first quarter than during the same period in 2010, while those of the public broadcaster’s second channel, TVP2, were up 3.6 percent year-on-year. VIVA Polska, the most successful thematic channel, actually saw its ad revenues fall by 2.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter.

There are also mixed views as to how the ad market will perform this year as a whole. While Starlink expects it to grow by around 5 percent, ZenithOptimedia Group Polska predicts 2.4 percent, with TV spend up by 2.6 percent. However, there is general agreement that the ad market, and especially TV and the Internet, will benefit enormously from the Euro 2012 football championships, which will be co-hosted next year by Poland and Ukraine.

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Generally speaking,TVP1 attracts the most viewers in the 4-plus age group, with TVP2,TVN and Polsat battling it out for second place. They are usually followed by TVP Info,TV4,TV Puls and the news-based TVN24, consistently the most popular thematic channel. A similar pattern is seen among cable and satellite viewers, while in the important 16-to-49 age group, which appeals the most to advertisers, TVN usually has the highest shares among urban viewers.

All four main channels have long-established programs that continue to attract high viewing figures.Those on TVP1, for instance, include the current-affairs show Teleexpress, which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary and claims, according to Nielsen, an audience share of almost 40 percent in the 4-plus age group.

Interestingly, it is estimated to have earned the public broadcaster €262 million in ad revenues in the last 14 years alone.

TVP2, on the other hand, continues to enjoy success with the locally produced soap opera M jak miłosc (L for Love). As of June, it was attracting, again according to Nielsen, an average of 7.5 million viewers and an audience share of 45.7 percent in the 4-plus age group.

Polsat, meanwhile, lists the comedy series Swiat według Kiepskich (The World According to the Kiepskis) among its most popular shows. Launched in 1999, it attracted, according to Nielsen, around 2.8 million viewers and an average audience share of 17.12 percent in March of this year.

The top programs on TVN include the entertainmentbased Szymon Majewski Show, which at the same time claimed around 2.5 million viewers and an average audience share of 18.63 percent.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the lucrative nature of the Polish market continues to attract a growing number of international channels. In the case of Discovery Communications, Poland is already the company’s third-largest source of revenue outside the U.S. after the U.K. and Brazil and also the first in line for new channel launches.

What is more, Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) and Endemol have gone one stage further by launching a new global entertainment brand in Poland.

Known as Viacom Blink!, the female-skewed channel, which it is hoped will eventually be as well known as MTV and Nickelodeon, was launched this July and will in due course be rolled out to other markets in the region.

Nonetheless, most new market entrants are locally produced channels, and their number is set to grow thanks to the recent launch of DTT services in Poland.

Following months of wrangling, the country finally launched what are its second and third multiplexes in quick succession in late 2010. The second, known as MUX-2, is allocated entirely to commercial services, with the four leading broadcasters in the sector each being allowed to carry one additional channel. As of this past July, Polsat had been joined 10/11

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which cable and DTH reception is already so popular and well established. In the case of cable, which serves around 4.5 million households, UPC Polska,Vectra, Multimedia Polska and Aster are the largest operators.

In December 2010 it was announced that Liberty Global, UPC Polska’s owner, had agreed to buy Aster from Mid Europa Partners (MEP) for PLN870 million (€201 million). In September, the competition authority, UOKiK, approved the deal, which will create a platform reaching a reported 1.4 million subscribers.

Poland’s cable market is maturing rapidly, with most of the leading operators now offering their subscribers additional services such as HD channels, VOD, DVRs and ultra-fast, DOCSIS 3.0-based Internet access.

Taking charge: TVN is looking to export is top-rating originals such as Uklad Warszawski, which is being sold worldwide as Diamond Deal.

in the lineup by Polsat Sport News,TVN by TVN7, and TV4 by the newly launched entertainment channel TV6. TV Puls, however, had yet to add its second channel, to be called TV Puls 2, which is expected to make its debut at the end of this year or in early 2012.

The third multiplex, MUX-3, was meanwhile carrying the public channels TVP1, TVP2, TVP Info, TVP Kultura and TVP Historia.

MULTIPLEX MAZE

Somewhat surprisingly, the biggest debate has centered around who will operate the first multiplex, MUX-1, and the four channels it will carry, in addition to TVP’s three main services. The National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) organized a tender in early 2011 for the four channel licenses, which were won by Kino Polska TV, Eska TV, ATM Grupa and Stavka. Kino Polska TV subsequently returned its license, which was then awarded to Lemon Records.

Eska TV now aims to offer a music-based channel of the same name on the multiplex; ATM Grupa is planning an entertainment-based service named ATM Rozrywkowa TV; Stavka has a news and current-affairs channel named U-TV in the works and Lemon Records will launch a music channel named Polo TV. Although it has also been decided that the national transmission company Emitel will operate MUX-1 (in addition to MUX-2 and MUX-3), the multiplex is unlikely to be fully operational until mid-2012.

Legislation has unfortunately not kept up with the rollout of DTT services, with a new law on digitization only being approved by the country’s parliament (Sejm) this summer.

One of its most important clauses was to set the analogue switch-off date for July 31, 2013.

Also on the regulatory front, Poland amended its media law earlier this year, addressing such issues as frequency of television advertising and product placement. The amended legislation maintained the product-placement ban, with limited and clearly marked exceptions in some movies and TV shows. However, it failed to address such areas as on-demand services.

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SATELLITE FRAY

The DTH sector, meanwhile, goes from strength to strength, with services provided by no fewer than five platforms. Cyfrowy Polsat, the market leader, is a triple-play company, using HSPA+ and LTE technology to offer Internet access and its status as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to provide telephony services. It introduced catch-up TV in early 2011 and plans to add VOD to its portfolio by the end of the year.

Cyfrowy Polsat ended the first quarter with almost 3.5 million subscribers, double that of its nearest competitor, Cyfra+.

Backed by Canal+ Cyfrowy, whose other interests include a growing portfolio of thematic channels, Cyfra+ has always been regarded as a premium service and its offer includes VOD, multiroom subscriptions and HD services.

The DTH platform n and its sister service TNK are both operated by TVN. The n service was launched in September 2006 and was in many respects a pioneer, introducing HD, ondemand and DVRs to the Polish market. TNK, on the other hand, is a prepay service that has included a HD package since May 2010; the two platforms had a combined customer total of just over one million as of the middle of this year.

The fifth DTH platform is operated by the incumbent telco TPSA alongside an IPTV service.

Consolidation in the DTH sector is expected at some stage as the market moves toward saturation. Although Cyfrowy Polsat has expressed an interest in buying Cyfra+ should it come on the market, industry sources believe that one of the most likely deals could involve Cyfra+ and TVN. With takeup of HD channels growing rapidly in Poland, it is perhaps not surprising that the country is also showing enthusiasm for 3D services. 3D test transmissions were undertaken by Cyfra+, among others, in 2010, and earlier this year a local production company named Astro launched its first four channels, three of which (NEXT Man 3D, NEXT Lejdis 3D and NEXT Young 3D) are in the 3D format. Astro produces 3D content in the world’s first virtual 3D studio, which is located in the country’s capital, Warsaw.

If the Polish economy remains strong and the advertising market grows, as expected, in the mid-single-digits range this year, there is no reason that Poland’s diverse TV market should not continue to remain vibrant.

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its audience shares in its core area of news and business information.

TV EUROPE: What are the forecasts for German advertising this market year?

SCHÄFERKORDT: The market was almost flat in the first half of this year and visibility remains low for the next months.

TV EUROPE: How are you

diversifying revenues at RTL Deutschland?

SCHÄFERKORDT: We have a long history of offering all kinds of merchandising related to our strong brands. In addition, our shows provide a huge variety of call-in and voting opportunities. With Universum Film, our Munichbased subsidiary, we have the strongest independent supplier of home entertainment through DVDs and electronic sales. Furthermore, our online and mobile offers are highly successful and are steadily increasing their contributions to the core business. Last, but in no way least, our pay channels add a smile to our faces!

RTL’s

Anke Schäferkordt Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland is arguably the core of the RTL Group. It holds free-TV stations, including the German market leader, RTL Television; digital channels; radio stations; production units; and new-media companies, as well as licensing and merchandising and video games. Its brands reach an audience of approximately 90 million viewers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As CEO, Anke Schäferkordt oversees all of this and is quite optimistic about the group’s prospects for further growth.

By Anna Carugati

TV EUROPE: What have been some of the keys to the success of RTL Deutschland’s free-TV stations?

SCHÄFERKORDT: Our flagship channel, RTL, increased its audience shares for the third year in a row. The success of RTL is based on its variety of programs. It is the market leader in entertainment as well as in information. Among our shows, our strongest formats are I’m a Celebrity,Get Me Out of Here!, Idols and Got Talent. The real-life show Undercover Boss was strong, as were several of the shows we developed ourselves. CSI: Miami is the most popular American show, and our action series Alarm für Cobra 11 tops the German series hit list.

The success of VOX is based mainly on three strong pillars: U.S. feature films, U.S. series, and nonfiction productions. CSI: NY, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit delivered reliable ratings, and the introduction of The X Factor to the German market proved to be a success as well. Super RTL is the clear market leader in children’s programs and N-TV has substantially increased 194

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TV EUROPE: Has the difficult economy affected the amount of production being done at your stations?

SCHÄFERKORDT: In 2010 and 2011 we invested more in programming than we did during the crisis year of 2009. We have three daily soaps in addition to Idols, Got Talent and The X Factor, the three top shows on our stations, which are all produced by FremantleMedia companies. [FremantleMedia is also owned by the RTL Group.] We have a very successful cooperation with FremantleMedia, but we have also strong partnerships with other production companies, as we are always looking for the best programs.

TV EUROPE: What opportunities for growth do you see in the

next 12 to 24 months for Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland?

SCHÄFERKORDT: We have reached record audience shares

and have continued to increase our leadership over our main competitor by a record 7.4 percentage points, so further growth in ratings on a group level will be tough to achieve.

For RTL, which is so dominant in the German market, our target is to defend this strong position. For VOX and Super RTL we see further growth potential. Since we have not yet capitalized on our ratings growth in the advertising market, there is potential to increase our share of advertising over the next years. And of course, our online and mobile activities will add further growth potential.

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TV EUROPE: Has your media-for-revenue-share strategy,

which gives commercial spots to companies that have not traditionally advertised on TV in exchange for a share in the company’s revenues, also helped your financial performance?

BARTL: Yes, it’s a way of using our commercial time that is not used by classic advertising spending.We bring new customers to television advertising by helping them over the hurdle, and we have built up a portfolio of 25 promising companies. It’s a very good addition to the [traditional] advertising income.

TV EUROPE: Outside of Germany, which territories and channels are performing well?

BARTL: Nordic is doing very well. Our Scandinavian channels— Sweden, Norway and Finland—are really performing very well in viewing share and also in revenues. So it’s looking bright and promising for the rest of the year. But the financial results of our channels in Eastern Europe are influenced by the overall economic situation of Hungary and Romania. Compared to what the whole advertising market delivers, the channels are doing well, but given the overall situation, they are below last year.

TV EUROPE: Tell us about the objectives at Red Arrow and

SevenOne International.

BARTL: The idea behind Red Arrow is to build up a network

ProSiebenSat.1’s

Andreas Bartl While ProSiebenSat.1 Media has free-TV stations across Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe, it is the bouquet of channels and digital businesses in Germany that is the engine driving the company’s success. This broad-portfolio approach ensures that when one region suffers from the impact of a bad economy, another region’s muscle, in this case Germany’s, balances out the group’s performance. Andreas Bartl, who heads up ProSiebenSat.1’s German operations, talks about the company’s many strengths.

By Anna Carugati

TV EUROPE: Is the positioning and programming of your

channels in Germany such that they complement one another?

BARTL: Our portfolio strategy of having channels that have different positioning—ProSieben targets young viewers, SAT.1 reaches a broader audience, kabel eins is for the young male audience and sixx is the new special-interest channel for women—gives us the opportunity to tell advertisers that they can run literally all their campaigns inside of our portfolio, and this is a very important asset for us to have. And besides this, all the channels are doing well, and this gives us a position of strength and a very good starting point for the future.

TV EUROPE: What factors contributed to the company’s

good financial performance?

BARTL: There were two main factors. First, it’s the market—

TV-advertising spending is rising in Germany, driven by the overall bright economic situation. Second, it’s the perfor mance of our TV channels.We had a very strong second quarter, and our channels have a combined market share of 29.2 percent, which is pretty high compared to previous years, so it is looking good in Germany.

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of very talented producers all over the world in order to get the best content available for us first, and for our channels, because at the end of the day, it’s all about content, so we are all working to have the best programming available for Germany and concentrated in Europe.We did a couple of deals recently with international producers and we are now represented in most of the key markets and we have plans to expand further. The formats that Red Arrow creates are not only available to our channels, but we sell them around the world, and this generates revenues for SevenOne International, which is doing very well.

Production and distribution have therefore become vital pillars of our strategy, and we want to expand it.

TV EUROPE: What opportunities are you finding in digital media, whether it’s online or mobile or tablets?

BARTL: TV and online are going well together, especially in the field of streaming video online.The online advertising business is growing dynamically in Germany, and we are number one here with revenues. So I think we are well prepared for a future in which hybrid television will give a new push to the on-demand use of TV content. We not only have advertisingsupported content online, most of our programming is available in a seven-day catch-up window to view it again, or view it because you had missed it or heard about it. We also have subscription video on demand and we are very well positioned here for the age of hybrid television with our platform maxdome, which is the number one video-on-demand online platform in Germany. We are expecting a big push by the hybrid television sets that make it much more convenient to watch your content on-demand on your wide-screen TV set.

So online advertising, subscription income and pay-per-view income from video-on-demand use is a vital part of our digital strategy. And the other part is the online games business.This is also a dynamically growing market, not only in Germany, but worldwide. We recently acquired burda:ic, which is one of the leading European publishers of free online games. We want to invest and grow here as well.

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The Modern Times Group (MTG) is the broadcasting group with the largest geographic footprint in Europe. Among its holdings is Viasat Broadcasting, which operates more than 60 branded channels in 33 countries that reach 125 million viewers. Viasat has five business segments: free-TV Scandinavia, pay-TV Nordic, CTC Media in Russia, free-TV emerging markets and pay-TV emerging markets. MTG also owns the production-anddistribution entities Modern Studio and Strix Television. As president and CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht explains, this diversified portfolio of advertising-based and subscription businesses has been the key to the company’s success.

By Anna Carugati

TV EUROPE: MTG reported a 4-percent sales growth in 2009, a very difficult year, and a 12-percent increase in 2010.

How has 2011 been so far and what factors have contributed to MTG’s strong financial performance?

ALBRECHT: The first half of 2011 has delivered record

results. The group’s year-on-year sales grew with almost double-digit figures when excluding currency effects, and all four broadcasting segments contributed to the growth.

One of the main drivers for this has been the strong TV advertising markets in the Nordic countries. We have also increased our viewing shares in a majority of our markets, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the media-house model that we employ. Another driving factor has been the subscriber intake and ARPU increases in our pay-TV operations.

We are particularly pleased that we have managed to deliver higher operating profits despite significant investments in both content and technology.

TV EUROPE: MTG is present in many territories. What

trends have you seen in the advertising markets in the countries in which you operate? Scandinavia is quite strong; how is advertising in emerging markets?

ALBRECHT: All of the Scandinavian advertising markets are exhibiting strong growth during the first half of the year, continuing the strong trend shown last year.

Recovery in emerging markets is still lagging, however. In that respect, we are not talking about one homogenous market.The Baltics and Czech Republic are showing modest growth, whereas the other countries where we operate are showing a slower development.

Modern Times Group’s

Hans-Holger Albrecht

TV EUROPE: How are Modern Studios and Strix performing?

ALBRECHT: Our content business fits well into our opera-

tions. Strix Television sells options and licenses to its formats around the world and has made strong exports recently to big markets.Their own format Home Delivery has been sold to the U.S. and is being shown on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

Moreover, Class of will be shown in Australia and The Farm started showing in Brazil in September.

TV EUROPE: What has driven the strong financial perform-

ance of CTC in Russia?

ALBRECHT: Strong advertising market growth coupled with

execution on the media-house strategy. MTG was recently offered the opportunity to acquire the 25-percent stake previously held by Alfa Group [the Russian conglomerate that sold off its CTC interest this year]. We passed on this opportunity and have now entered into a new shareholders agreement with Telcrest, the buyer of Alfa’s shares, and CTC Media to govern the relationship between the parties.The new agreement is valid until June 6, 2015.

TV EUROPE: Do you have plans for acquisitions, whether

channels or other companies?

ALBRECHT: We are continuously deploying new channels in

the market, both on the free-TV and pay-TV side. Our focus is to continue to grow the company organically, although given the right circumstances we remain open to other possibilities.

Our healthy cash flow and low leverage level puts us in a flexible financial position to invest further in the group’s existing operations and seek new growth opportunities.

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BSkyB’s

Sophie Turner Laing BSkyB is one of the most successful pay-TV platforms in the world. It offers its subscribers some 600 channels, including a bouquet of its own that includes movies, the best series from the U.S., arts programming, news and sports. Sophie Turner Laing, the managing director of entertainment and news, oversees the whole offering and is intent on keeping Sky’s customers satisfied and coming back for more.

TV EUROPE: You have

By Anna Carugati

revamped your entertainment lineup.

TURNER LAING: When Sky initially launched we were absolutely focused on sport, movies and news, all of which were not as well served by the free-to-air broadcasters. That goes to the heart of Sky, which is we want to give our customers the very best choice of content.We have delivered fantastic supertankers in sport, movies and news, but it’s fair to say that our entertainment offering was not nearly as strong as it should have been. In February, we totally re-launched and repositioned our whole entertainment portfolio.We bought the Virgin channels, which included Sky Living.We did the deal with HBO, which then spawned Sky Atlantic, and we committed to giving much more support and attention to Sky Arts, which although it was an existing Sky brand and had cut through just brilliantly, it was probably not as loved or supported financially as it should’ve been.

TV EUROPE: What are your criteria for launching a

new channel?

TURNER LAING: The key is understanding what customers

want and value. As you know, we have 600-plus channels on the platform so there’s no point for us to simply replicate an existing one. It’s about finding those niche areas where we add value for existing customers whilst reaching out to more people who haven’t yet chosen pay TV. We had already started delivering some fantastic British content on Sky1 and Stuart Murphy, who heads the channel, had really positioned it as a very credible entertainment offering. But there was a point where there were some dramas and some factual pieces that were not a natural fit for Sky1 and [didn’t make sense if it wanted to] maintain its entertainment moniker.When we [were considering] Sky Atlantic, we saw that there was a gap in the market.There was an amazing supplier 200

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in the form of HBO, who still produces some of the best programs in the world. Sky Atlantic just felt like a natural fit. Likewise Sky Living is a channel dedicated to our female customers— something that we felt was missing from the portfolio. It’s like a magazine in tone, which is why I hired Jane Johnson, who launched some of the U.K.’s biggest magazine brands, to run it. The content is a mix of fashion, celebrity, real-life, drama and comedy. And as it’s a channel “brand” there are opportunities to engage with the audience digitally and through brand extensions. The great thing about Sky is when it decides to do something it absolutely goes after it and gets it done!

TV EUROPE:You have also ramped up your original productions.

TURNER LAING: Sky is one of the biggest investors in home-

grown content.We invest £380 million (€434 million) a year in origination for our wholly owned channels—and we will increase this figure by more than 50 percent over the next three years. So by 2014, Sky will be directly investing £600 million (€686 million) a year in origination.Where we’ve really come on in great leaps and bounds is scripted.We’ve been the home in the U.K. for the best of U.S. programming for a very long time and that still remains a very, very important genre for our customers.

But there is no doubt that locally produced content also resonates in a totally different way with our customers, with familiar surroundings, familiar actors, familiar themes. Anne Mensah, who is our new head of drama, has the most amazing and exciting challenge: how do we get drama in the kind of numbers that are worthwhile, rather than in two, three or six episodes, which is the usual amount [commissioned] in the U.K. And Lucy Lumsden is in charge of our comedy strategy where we literally have one new episode of British comedy for 52 weeks of the year. We’ve gone from a total of zero episodes to one every week for a year and that’s phenomenal. And we know that some will be totally brilliant and others won’t necessarily resonate as highly, but we have to carry on pushing the boundaries and really delivering to our customers content that they just can’t see on other channels.

TV EUROPE: That’s the key of the whole offering, right?

TURNER LAING: Yes, absolutely. If you look at pay offer-

ings around the world—whether it be Starz chomping on the heels of Showtime and HBO to DIRECTV getting involved in programming, albeit in a small way—pay channels have got to stand out above the crowd. So it’s very important to us that we deliver these kinds of big event pieces alongside the week-in, week-out content staples.

The channels are greedy beasts and we need a lot of carbohydrates for them to survive on!

Strike Back recently aired on the re-launch of Cinemax. It’s our first co-production with HBO and it’s not part of our output deal. It’s really fascinating to see that despite having a relatively new reputation in the scripted business we are going absolutely gangbusters in delivering high-end shows that sit just as easily on both sides of the Atlantic.

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As the commercial arm of the British public broadcaster and the largest producer and distributor of programming outside the U.S., BBC Worldwide’s main mission is to generate profits that are pumped back into the BBC and invested in programming. Indeed, BBC Worldwide remained true to its remit and announced record profits of £160.2 million (€183 million) for the last fiscal year. CEO John Smith, who oversees six business areas—channels, content and production, global brands, sales and distribution, consumer products and magazines—talks to TV Europe about BBC Worldwide’s success.

By Anna Carugati

TV EUROPE: What factors have contributed to such a good

TV EUROPE: In what other territories around the world are you planning to increase BBC Worldwide’s presence?

SMITH: Becoming more international is one of our strategic priorities. Our first priority is growing our market share in the U.S. and Australia—as the major English-speaking markets.We’re also developing plans on a market-by-market basis—for example for India. And to help drive international growth, we’re appointing executives to develop business opportunities in Asia, EMEA and Latin America, in addition to existing positions for North America and for Australia and New Zealand.We want to increase the share of sales from outside of the U.K. to two-thirds by 2012.

financial performance?

SMITH: I’m pleased to say this was BBC Worldwide’s best year

ever, with record sales and record profits.This year was particularly good due to strong sales performances by our channels, consumer products, and sales and distribution businesses and BBC.com advertising sales growing 113 percent in the U.S. This—combined with continuing to run a tight ship—led to a 10-percent increase in profit on the previous year. Our strategy of developing

BBC Worldwide’s

TV EUROPE: What are your priorities in growing BBC Worldwide’s channel business?

SMITH: We’ll be looking into new possibilities for channel brands and channel launches. Jana Bennett, who heads up our channels business, is also keen for us to do more global viewing events. We had a great success with our coverage of the royal wedding, and we’re looking to do something just as exciting around the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympics. Jana also plans to commission more original content for our channels on both a regional and global basis. We already have five new titles in production this year—including Come Dine with Me South Africa and our first comedy pilot—and are set to announce a new slate of commissions shortly.

John Smith a diversified global media business and extending the international visibility of our brands is producing good results and allows us the flexibility to weather many market challenges.

TV EUROPE: What was

the strategy in increasing BBC Worldwide’s presence in the U.S.?

SMITH: We’ve made a good start in the U.S. but there’s still so much opportunity for BBC Worldwide that we haven’t yet harnessed. BBC America has had its best year ever, so we want to use that as a platform to push U.K. content and brands. Plus, BBC.com is doing well in the U.S.—with a monthly average of over 15 million unique users. There’s a real appetite for great quality British content. Like Dancing with the Stars—this year’s U.S. series was the most popular yet. We’ve set up our own production studio in L.A. and plan to develop both new commissions and local versions of our own formats. We’re also investing in games and apps linked to our key U.S. properties.

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TV EUROPE: How has BBC Worldwide grown its own local

production teams in various countries?

SMITH: Our strategy [has] been to build up a network of

production bases in major territories. BBC Worldwide now has wholly owned production bases in Los Angeles, Paris and Mumbai; joint ventures in Germany, Canada, Argentina and Australia; and partnerships in Russia and Brazil. The benefits include keeping production revenues as well as license fees, keeping control over the format, and being able to keep additional rights. This means more profit to return to the BBC. Our production bases have done very well this year. All are securing new commissions. The team in the U.S. is currently overseeing 20 scripted development deals and 17 unscripted series.This year our focus is on growing the number of commissions from our existing production network.

TV EUROPE: With increasing consolidation in the U.K. indie sector, has it become more difficult to access rights to quality programming?

SMITH: There is competition for the best content, so we are always exploring all avenues to increase our catalogue. One of our strategic priorities is to increase investment in new content. Last year we invested £101 million (€114.2 million) in new programs.We’ll continue to invest in new BBC-produced programs and support emerging indies through development finance, coproduction deals and international distribution.

We’ll grow the number of commissions from our production offices. We’re also developing more direct relationships with talent, like Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer’s Raise the Roof Productions, to develop valuable intellectual property and content.There’s also a dedicated team at BBC Worldwide who works closely with broadcasters and producers to find imaginative and creative ways of sourcing funding.

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TV EUROPE: Tell us about Simon Cowell’s new show Red or Black? How is your arrangement with Cowell’s production company SYCO different with Red or Black? than it was with The X Factor?

LYGO: This was a priority for us when I arrived, that we become a very attractive partner for people who have really great ideas and are at the top of their game. ITV airs both The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, which are two of our biggest entertainment shows, but they are not made by ITV Studios, so we get no revenues from back end or international distribution.

So we talked to Simon Cowell and his team about what we could bring to the idea and how we could work productively together. We were chosen to partner with SYCO and SYCO and ITV Studios made Red or Black? first here in the U.K. It aired in September stripped across seven nights. It’s a big 90-minute show. It’s a family show, a fun, big game based essentially on luck. You start with as many people as you can, in our case 7,000 people, and you get them down to one person at the end of the show, who may or may not win one million pounds.

There is enormous interest in Red or Black? around the world, and America in particular.We’re looking at what would be the best place to make it in the U.S. It is a very big, ambitious show, as you would expect from Simon Cowell.

ITV Studios’

Kevin Lygo When Kevin Lygo joined the British commercial broadcaster ITV last year as managing director of its in-house production arm, ITV Studios, he had a clear mandate: make sure homegrown programs remain at the heart of ITV’s schedule, attract the best talent on and off the screen, and develop programming that would work on ITV and could also be sold internationally. He also had to follow chief executive Adam Crozier’s directive to improve the relationship between ITV Studios and ITV. Lygo, who had previously been director of television and content at Channel 4, talks to TV Europe about the progress he and his team have made in the last 12 months.

By Anna Carugati

TV EUROPE: ITV Studios sold Prime Suspect to NBC. That

was an important deal, was it not?

LYGO: Yes, it’s incredibly exciting, first, to be making an

American prime-time network drama, and secondly, Prime Suspect was one of our beloved brands from the past. We’ve got a lot of expertise and tradition in this area with our stable of detectives, from Poirot and Miss Marple [to] Inspector Morse, that are known around the world. So to take Prime Suspect into the modern age with people like director Peter Berg and actor Maria Bello is very exciting.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment [ITV’s internationaldistribution arm] is serious about backing and getting big glamorous material and we’ve never had a U.S. procedural prime-time network drama on our slate before.

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TV EUROPE: Tell us about Titanic, which is a big event with international co-financing partners. Do you plan to do other international co-productions?

LYGO: Yes. ITV had worked with Julian Fellowes in the past, because Downton Abbey [which Fellowes also created] is on ITV. Titanic was the next thing he was very interested in doing. So we jumped in. It’s a very expensive project and we needed a lot of co-production partners, but we have found people very receptive to it. We had a combination of a really well-established writer like Julian, ITV Studios as a very well-respected producer of this type of drama and then the ITV network committing early, so we found it not too difficult to bring in partners. ABC came in quite early. There is quite an appetite for this type of high-end event drama.We absolutely intend to do more, but they’re not that easy and you’ve got to find the right combination of elements to make something that international partners all understand and want on their networks.

TV EUROPE: An important element of the transformation

plan that Adam Crozier has set was strengthening the relationship between ITV and ITV Studios. Has that relationship improved?

LYGO: We’re all sleeping together on the top floor of the building and we find that really helps! [Laughs] No, it obviously had been a bit of an issue here, but I think everyone understands now, on whatever side of the fence they are standing, that the holy grail is to create programming together that is successful on ITV and that we can also take around the world. So the concentration of resources, the hiring of new people and a general fresh approach between commissioning and the studio is well under way.These shows that we’ve just mentioned are evidence of how it’s going; I think it’s really good.

TV EUROPE: You have an important formats business, too.

How has that been doing?

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properly. And many writers get pissed off because you are only going to get 20 things on air, so we’re a bit more targeted. It’s a sniper approach rather than the Gatling gun. Writers write best when they have a relationship with the producer or developer who is working alongside them in a threeway split with the network, with our own development team and the writing community in the U.K., so far [our development process] has been working well. It has its own pace because you want to work with the best writers and you have to wait for their availability. Some are slow, some are quick, some do a very fast first draft and an agonizingly slow second one, and so forth. It’s going to take a while, but we are certainly developing many, many scripts at this point and already some have come through. I would say it’s an ongoing process that should deliver us a consistent choice of dramas that we want to make.

TV EUROPE: Is it common to go

Prime time: ITV’s acclaimed crime drama Prime Suspect has been remade for NBC in the U.S.

LYGO: That’s all part of the entertainment development. One of our most successful international shows is Come Dine with Me, which is on the air in 30 countries now. It’s a very small format and there is something attractive about small formats— almost every territory in the world can make their own version because they are inexpensive to produce and can be made in bulk. Whereas if you take something like I’m a Celebrity...

Get Me Out of Here!, we haven’t yet found a way that some of the smaller countries can make it cost-effectively because it just needs such a massive budget. So we are working both ends of the spectrum here. Again, it’s about getting people here, brainstorming, creating an environment where talented people can come up with ideas that you can then take forward.

But absolutely, formats are central to what we are about.

TV EUROPE: Money has been made available to ITV Stu-

dios to develop and fund pilots and scripts. How has the development process at ITV been? Is it as expensive as it can be in the U.S.?

LYGO: No, I don’t think it is. It is quite expensive but the truth is the expense of scripted programming is simply getting writers to commit. It’s partly about their time and our scripted development team’s time and you don’t want 100 people writing scripts because you would never manage it 206

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six or eight episodes once a project gets greenlit?

LYGO: It’s not common. Everybody agrees in theory that it’s the way forward. But I think [everyone’s] still quite cautious and certainly in the development stage you are asking for one script and maybe a second and then really it’s more a network issue, for most dramas, as to how many episodes they want. There are certain types of drama that we are stepping into in a major way that we call a family drama here in the U.K. It’s the type of drama that we play pre-watershed [before 9 p.m.] often on a Saturday or Sunday night. These are series in the tradition of Merlin. Primeval is one that ran successfully on ITV. It is this sort of family drama we are looking into because we’ve got a sense that many countries around the world would appreciate it. Robin Hood would be an example. They are known brands that many countries would like if you can guarantee a quality writer and producer, and can cast it up, and we are looking to do more of these.

TV EUROPE: At Channel 4 you oversaw commissioners; now you are more in a role of having to pitch ideas to networks, whether it be ITV or other ones. What skill set did you have, or have to develop, to wear this new hat?

LYGO: I think falling to my knees and begging. No, obviously because I have had 8 million people pitch to me over the years I’ve got an innate sense of what you don’t like and what works more effectively. So I think the skills are pretty similar. I have to say I genuinely haven’t found it difficult and quite enjoy it—when you really believe in something you are happy to pitch it.

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By Jay Stuart

Russia is already the fifth-largest television advertising market in Europe. TV ad spending rose to about €3.1 billion last year, according to Aegis Media, up 15 percent from 2009, and the upward trend continues. There is indeed plenty more room for growth. TV ad spend per capita in Russia in 2010 was only about €21 compared with €134 in the U.S. (and €6 in Ukraine). Bullish executives in Moscow are predicting that Russia will be Europe’s biggest TV ad market within the next couple of years.

One of the production companies tapping into the boom as a program supplier is Star Media, which is home to a library of more than 2,300 hours of programming. On the current slate are the crime dramas Demons and Fury for NTV; the series Island of the Unwanted; and, for Channel One Russia, Once Upon a Time in Odessa and Trouble in Store.

Vladislav Riashyn, who launched the company five years ago, was formerly the chairman of Inter TV, one of the toprated networks in Ukraine. TV Europe asked him about the changes in Russia and the implications for the international program market.

TV EUROPE: What has been the biggest change in the Rus-

sian TV landscape recently?

RIASHYN: The Russian television advertising market has

bounced back very quickly from the economic crisis, and next year’s figures could exceed 2008’s. Competition has intensified between television channels, not only the first tier, but second and third tier too. Channels understand their audiences better and have become more clearly focused on niches.The amount of content produced in 2011 is the highest in the last three years.

TV EUROPE: Has your company seen a difference in

demand for product?

RIASHYN: Definitely. In terms of turnover and the number of

productions we expect to exceed the figures for 2008. Star Media is present in Ukraine and Kazakhstan and these markets show the same upward trend and stable growth. In Ukraine, together with our partner Quarter 95, we have already done two seasons of a major proprietary format called Go Dance! and next year it will probably appear in local versions in Russia and Kazakhstan, and possibly in other countries.

TV EUROPE: Is demand for imported programming growing?

RIASHYN: The Russian market remains very interested in

the world’s big television hits and the popular formats of various TV shows and series. However, we not only buy but also produce our own formats for export.This year, Star Media has sold U.S. remake rights to a thriller called The Weather Station.

TV EUROPE: Are there opportunities to set up to co-

produce with Russia?

RIASHYN: There is a lot of potential for combining prime-time

audiences in Russia and various other countries through international co-production. At MIPCOM, Star Media will present a new joint project with HISTORY, an English-language docudrama called Soviet Storm, inspired by our original docudrama The Great Patriotic War.We’re also introducing a new large-scale docudrama project for co-production, World War 2 Reloaded, in which we plan to enlist several of the participating countries of the Second World War. And we have another big docudrama for coproduction, on the Napoleonic wars. In addition, we have a number of drama series that are potentially interesting for coproduction, such as Anna German: Mystery of the White Angel, about the fate of a famous European singer.

TV EUROPE: What are the big investment opportunities in

Russian television at present?

RIASHYN: The Russian TV market is still undervalued. So, it’s a

Star Media’s

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good time right now to get involved. Many large international companies, such as Sony Pictures Television, Zodiak Media Group and Endemol, have opened offices in Russia and have expanded their presence by buying assets in the form of local production companies. Local production is an attractive opportunity.

The price-performance ratio of production in Russia is better than in many other countries. Already the quality of production in Russia is very high. And in three to five years I think we will have some of the best production in Europe, with demand from around the world. Globalization and more access to information are giving people a better understanding of the overall global context of production.This will enable us to develop themes that are understandable to audiences in different countries. So I see potential for Russian local product to become more universal.

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