TV Europe NATPE Budapest 2017

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TVEUROPE

WWW.TVEUROPE.WS

JUNE /JULY 2017

NATPE BUDAPEST, SUNNY SIDE OF THE DOC & CONECTA FICTION EDITION

Trends in Factual / Spanish Connection / Doc Co-Pros

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CONTENTS

Good News, Bad News

FEATURES 8 REAL APPEAL Docuseries, reality shows and one-off documentaries are finding slots across Europe.

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I’m starting to feel like “no news” is my preferred state.

Terrorist attacks, unhinged politicians, high crimes and misdemeanors—is there an end in sight? No. But I’m taking solace in my TV set as I whizz past the news channels to any other option available.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Assistant Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Europe © 2017 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tveurope.ws

I’m on a doc binge right now, working my way through Netflix’s The Keepers, which involves nuns, the Catholic Church, sexual abuse, murder and a decades-long cover-up.

Not much uplift there, but it’s true-crime storytelling at its finest. Armed with my new 4K set, I’m excited to dive into some Ultra HD wildlife, like the BBC’s upcoming Blue Planet II. Having a front-row seat to the wonders of the ocean could be just the thing I need to conquer my real-world blues. Another blue-chip underwater doc that has the factual market buzzing is Big Pacific. Ahead of its premiere at MIPDoc, executives from the show’s producer, NHNZ; distributor, ZDF Enterprises; and co-production partners took part in an insightful conversation with World Screen’s Anna Carugati about the ins and outs of doc co-productions. You’ll find a recap of that session in this edition. This issue also looks at the kind of factual content that is selling well across Europe, a subject that executives will be mulling over as both Sunny Side of the Doc and NATPE Budapest get under way.

The theme at Sunny Side this year is Historic, as history docs take center stage. In this age of confusion and disruption, it does feel like we are all trying to cling to some ideas from the past for a sense of stability, security and commiseration. My current doc binge was preceded by a severe perioddrama marathon as I devoured ITV’s Victoria and Netflix’s luscious The Crown. Not that there was anything easy about Victorian or post-World War II England, but traveling back to the past does give me a brief respite from the seemingly incessant insanity around us today. Of course, it’s internet platforms and smart TVs that allow me these TV-delivered flights of fancy. In Europe, much like the rest of the world, OTT has rapidly transformed the media ecosystem. Netflix recently announced a massive investment in the region, while Amazon Channels in the U.K. and Germany is creating new opportunities for content owners. Regulators are trying to keep up with all this change, with the European Parliament recently voting to approve contentportability rules that allow citizens to access streaming content on paid services when traveling across member states.

Good news: consumers are hungry for content and want to devour it everywhere. Bad news: copyright and geoblocking just got way more complicated.

—Mansha Daswani

GET DAILY NEWS ON EUROPEAN TELEVISION

12 SPANISH CONNECTION Fostering collaboration between LatAm and Spain is one of the key goals of this year’s inaugural Conecta FICTION.

14 FACTUAL TITANS Executives from ZDF Enterprises, NHNZ, PBS, CCTV9, ARTE France and ZDF weighed in on co-pros in a superpanel moderated by World Screen’s Anna Carugati.

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Caracol Internacional The Goddess/Night School, Dreams Never Sleep / Dynasty Patricia Teherán, a woman who used her singing to conquer a chauvinistic world filled with jealousy, is at the center of The Goddess. Another highlight on Caracol Internacional’s NATPE Budapest slate is Night School, Dreams Never Sleep, which follows a group of adults who attend a night class to get ahead in their careers. “These eight characters will encounter a number of obstacles, both personal and professional, that will test their ability to succeed,” says Paloma García, Caracol Internacional’s sales executive for Europe and Africa. In the telenovela Dynasty, singer Kaleth Morales dies in a car accident. Kaleth’s father decides to honor his memory by beginning his own music career. The company is also presenting El Bronx, set in a dangerous neighborhood where failure and disappointment are interspersed with love and faith.

“We have successful stories with creative characters, great production values and local plots that appeal to universal tastes.”

—Paloma García

The Goddess

Intellecta Strange Love / Farewell to the Bride / Love Gamblers Intellecta has been working on the syndication of Indian drama series and movies in Europe for the last six years, “so the European market feels both like home with a lot of success stories and at the same time holds a lot of potential for Indian content,” says Christina Vlahova, the company’s general manager. Intellecta, which is a partner of Star India, will be at NATPE Budapest showcasing Strange Love. The first Indian series to be shown in Turkey, the show “quadrupled the ratings and share of its slot,” says Vlahova. “Farewell to the Bride is another series that has opened a number of European markets and has achieved 85 percent shares for European broadcasters.” Love Gamblers, meanwhile, comes from the producers of Strange Love “with the same highquality production and glamor,” Vlahova says.

“We bring the best Indian drama series and Bollywood movies to Europe.”

—Christina Vlahova

Strange Love

Kanal D International Wounded Love / Family Secrets / Flames of Desire Real-life couple Halit Ergenç and Bergüzar Korel co-star once again in Wounded Love, a drama that Kanal D International is highlighting for buyers at NATPE Budapest. There is also Family Secrets, about a man who lives an enviable life in Istanbul with his wife and children, until it is revealed that he has another family in Adana. The drama is about “family ties and how far parents can go for their children,” says Ezgi Ural, the director of business development and content sales for Europe, MENA and Asia. The slate also features Flames of Desire, which tells a story that “anyone and everyone can relate to. They can put themselves in the characters’ shoes,” says Ural. It stars “young and successful actors such as Burcu Biricik, the unforgettable actress from Matter of Respect,” she adds.

“Restructured as Kanal D International, we are not only distributors but also a global company looking for global collaborations.”

—Ezgi Ural

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Mediaset Distribution For Love Alone: Crossed Destinies / Donnavventura Challenge / The Phone Secrets At NATPE Budapest, Mediaset Distribution is touting a new drama series, For Love Alone: Crossed Destinies. The company also has a lineup of unscripted shows, including Donnavventura Challenge. “We’ve already had interest from Greece both for the series and the format,” says Manuela Caputi, the head of international sales at Mediaset Distribution. Another market highlight is the format The Phone Secrets, which watches as couples take part in a game to try to win a dream trip, but they must first share messages from their mobiles. Scripted formats continue to be a priority for Mediaset Distribution in CEE as well, according to Caputi. “We have a very large catalog of series with great stories and the knowledge and expertise to localize our best dramas outside of Italy.”

“We would like to be known not just for drama, but we’d also like to open a new business with unscripted formats.”

—Manuela Caputi

Donnavventura Challenge

Terra Mater Factual Studios Supersapiens: The Rise of the Mind / Ant Mountain / All About the Moon The latest developments in AI and other technologies that aim to merge man and machine are highlighted in Supersapiens: The Rise of the Mind, which Terra Mater Factual Studios is presenting at Sunny Side of the Doc. The program raises the question of whether we are witnessing the birth of a new species and leaving Homo sapiens behind through the development of such technologies. Another highlight is Ant Mountain, narrated by David Attenborough. The 4K documentary examines wood ants in the Swiss mountains. There is also the documentary All About the Moon. Sabine Holzer, the company’s head of TV, says, “Each of these films focuses on either a very current, widely discussed issue; fascinating behavior as it has never been shown before by using completely new camera techniques; or reveals the latest scientific discoveries.”

“The programs represent Terra Mater Factual Studios’ relentless commitment to continuously produce high-quality documentaries across genres.”

—Sabine Holzer

Ant Mountain

TV Azteca International Nothing Personal / Missing Bride / Iron Lady Alongside telenovelas, the TV Azteca International catalog has a number of series on offer. Among them, Nothing Personal comes from writer Alberto Barrera and executive producers Elisa Salinas and Joshua Mintz. It tells the story of Mariana Aragón, who witnesses the murder of two young journalists and becomes embroiled with a criminal organization. She finds herself taking on the powers that be in a battle for her life. Mintz is also an executive producer on Missing Bride, which is written by Sebastián Arrau. The mystery follows a son’s investigation into his mother’s disappearance. Iron Lady, which also counts Mintz as an EP, combines drama and action to tell the story of a female prosecutor on a mission to bring down a drug lord who is also responsible for the murder of her father.

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Terra Mater’s Wild Sri Lanka.

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Docuseries, reality shows and one-off documentaries are hot commodities for broadcasters looking to fill factual slots across Europe.

By Sara Alessi rexit, the refugee crisis, fears of the European Union coming apart and political instability have many in the region feeling on edge these days. And in these times of uncertainty, factual content that educates and entertains is, perhaps, more important than ever.

“In times of political uncertainty, which these are, audiences look for comfort viewing and familiarity,” says Robyn Hurd, the VP of content sales for EMEA at A+E Networks.

According to Hurd, this is one reason reality programs like the male-skewing transactional series Pawn Stars and American Pickers do so well across CEE and Europe as a whole. “Audiences know what they’re getting with Pawn and Pickers.”

Hurd adds, “With a specific focus on CEE, these longrunning franchises have continued to sell incredibly well across the region in second and third windows.” She says the success of these shows is also due to the fact that “they’re

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utility players that can be stacked and peppered all over the schedule. They repeat incredibly well, and they deliver ratings, so they add real value.”

Long-running, key brands are a big trend throughout Europe and in CEE in particular, echoes Marine Ksadzhikyan, the senior VP of distribution and development at Rive Gauche Television. “In an environment that is a little uncertain, a lot of broadcasters want to attach themselves to brands that have been working for years and series that have multiple seasons,” she explains. For that reason, Rive Gauche has seen “a lot of action with some of our key brands such as Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer, My Strange Addiction, My Crazy Obsession and Fix It & Finish It with Antonio Sabato Jr.” The company has also found regional success with its crime titles, including Homicide Hunter, which has been a hit for Investigation Discovery, and Ice Cold Killers.

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Another long-running franchise with a recognizable face is the female-skewing Dance Moms, which A+E’s Hurd says continues to perform well in the region. The show offers a “great co-viewing experience for moms and their daughters and is one of our strongest digitally performing franchises too, so it works well for our broadcasters.”

Programs that provide opportunities for family viewing are finding success in CEE. Melanie Torres, the director of international content sales at GRB Entertainment, says the fan-favorite Auction Kings and one of its newest launches, Super Fan Builds, work well because “both are general, easyviewing type shows that the entire family can sit around and watch.” She has found that programs with volume always do better in terms of sales, especially in “regions like CEE, where they might not pay as high license fees as Western Europe.” Thus, the company has had success with the longrunning crime series On the Case and the docuseries Untold Stories of the ER. A+E’s Hurd says history is another genre that continues to prove popular in Europe. A+E touts a host of short-run event series like Hunting Hitler, The World Wars and Barbarians Rising, and Hurd has even found that “in CEE in particular, which is unlike other territories, history programming doesn’t have to be tied to an anniversary.”

GONE WILD

as Nat Geo WILD or Discovery Channel,” Holzer adds. “Oneoffs work for larger TV stations that have a fixed wildlife slot.”

Popular programs include those that “take the audience to exotic countries such as Wild Uganda, or dream destinations, as Wild Sri Lanka does,” she says.

When it comes to documentary series, Rive Gauche’s Ksadzhikyan reports that the preference is for shows without talking heads, though she notes that it depends on the country.

PRESENTED BY “There is no general rule in regard to presenters,” explains Terra Mater’s Holzer. “Although the better known the host is—and the better they fit the program and thus are credible—the more appeal a hosted show has, but it heavily depends on the slots of the broadcaster and whether they already have an established host.” It’s key for a program to be “truly captivating to engage the audience,” she adds, and it also needs to be able to draw in viewers who might tune in after the show has begun.

According to GRB’s Torres, it’s important to have factual titles that are not too American-centric and that appeal to a general audience. She points to Arabia Motors, a new addition to the company’s catalog that follows the partners behind an automotive magazine in the Middle East, as a show that has broad appeal.

Sometimes broadcasters prefer to make local formats of factual shows. Torres notes that she receives requests to format shows in GRB’s catalog, especially when it comes to cooking series like Recipe Rehab. She says buyers find that culinary programs work better when they are localized because “every

There is also an appetite for wildlife and nature programming.

“True best-sellers are our award-winning, blue-chip and highquality wildlife and nature programs from our renowned brand ORF Universum,” says Marion CamusOberdorfer, the head of international content sales at ORF-Enterprise. “Our recent Ultra HD 4K lineup, including our three latest ORF Universum highlights, the three-parter Wild Caribbean: Rhythms of Life, Giants of the Atlantic: Azores and The Canary Islands,” has caught buyers’ attention, she notes.

Science programming also lights a spark with European audiences, and in that category, ORF-Enterprise is offering the weekly series Newton, which covers recent scientific findings in an accessible way. Camus-Oberdorfer says high-end nature and wildlife and science programs are always in demand due to “their costefficient and comparably easy localization for different markets and languages.”

Sabine Holzer, the head of TV at Terra Mater Factual Studios, notes that her company’s science-focused programming does particularly well in Poland.

She says science-themed shows can be enriched with “widely known presenters who have built up their expertise in science and nature,” like Sir David Attenborough, or famous faces like Richard Hammond, the ex-Top Gear star who hosts Terra Mater’s Wild Weather with Richard Hammond.

“Three-part miniseries appear to be most suitable for multi-territorial networks such A+E Networks has found success in Europe with its long-running Pawn Stars series, both as a finished show and as a format.

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GRB recently added to its factual catalog Arabia Motors, a docuseries with broad audience appeal. region has different seasonings, different ingredients, and so a cooking show from the U.S. might not speak to an audience in Hungary.”

Rive Gauche’s Ksadzhikyan says she has noticed a trend toward making localized episodes of shows. For instance, broadcasters might suggest filming episodes of a series like Dog Whisperer in Poland or Hungary to give them an international flavor.

While there have been local versions of A+E’s hit franchises like Pawn Stars and American Pickers, when U.S. shows bring in ratings and there is so much tape to draw from, there is less of a need to produce local adaptations. “We sell so many third windows of our big franchises,” Hurd says. “It’s cost-effective programming” that European broadcasters can tap into.

Meanwhile, ORF-Enterprise’s Camus-Oberdorfer emphasizes that “culturally transferable and localizable programs” are in high demand due to the competitive nature of the market and the importance of economizing budgets efficiently. She adds that the biggest buyers of ORF-Enterprise’s factual programming have been Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Poland.

POLISH POWER “Poland by far in CEE is a big revenue generator for us,” says A+E’s Hurd. “It’s got the largest number of broadcasters, and last year saw a plethora of DTT channels open up, so there is a real competition in the region, and we’ve enjoyed a great deal of success.”

She adds that A+E has seen an uptick in sales to Hungary, with Russia shaping up to be a focus over the next 12 months.

In addition to activity in Russia, Poland and Hungary, Rive Gauche’s Ksadzhikyan has seen interest from Romania. “We have great contacts there, and they’ve done some big packages with us,” she says. Ksadzhikyan notes that the new documentary series Egg Factor, which follows the journey of intended parents who need the help of egg donors in order to have a baby, drummed up interest in these territories when it was introduced at MIPTV. Factual distributors are also eyeing the digital space. “Interesting new European players focusing especially on factual content are emerging,” says ORF-Enterprise’s Camus-Oberdorfer.

Terra Mater’s Holzer is enthusiastic about the fact that there are “opportunities regarding 4K on digital/OTT and SVOD platforms, especially in Russia and Poland, where we see an increasing demand.”

Rive Gauche’s Ksadzhikyan also points to Russia as a rising star in the SVOD space. She says that as new players emerge, they need content, and “this is really good for us distributors because most of them need volume. It’s going to open up some more doors for us.”

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Cidade da Cultura

Fostering collaboration between Latin America and Spain is one of the key goals of this year’s inaugural Conecta FICTION. By Mansha Daswani

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his June, in the picturesque northwestern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, content executives from Latin America, the U.S. Hispanic market and Europe will convene to facilitate a new age of collaboration.

“I had an idea to create an event, a moment, where we can put together the two continents and cultures—the European and Latin flavors,” says Géraldine Gonard, the director of Conecta FICTION. “I had received calls like, I’m looking for a Chilean director, I’m looking for an Argentine actress; could you recommend someone? Or a call from Mexico saying, We are looking for a huge co-production between Spain, Mexico and the U.S. I was like, Wow, let’s find a place and a moment to have these people meet and find common projects.”

Backed by Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais (AGADIC) of Xunta de Galicia, ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones and Fundación SGAE, Conecta FICTION comes in response to the changing dynamics in the Spanish-language content landscape. After seeing its scripted sector contract in the years since the 2009 downturn, Spain is witnessing new life—and money—coming into the drama business. And Latin American content producers are responding to changing consumer trends as viewers demand more than long-running soapy telenovelas.

An example of a new breed of Spain-LatAm collaboration is IOSI, the Repentant Spy, based on the novel by Miriam Lewin and Horacio Lutzky, which hails from Oficina Burman in Argentina and is being developed with Spain’s MEDIAPRO. The two companies are also collaborating on Stroke, penned by Daniel Burman, and Edha, which is the first Argentine original

for Netflix. MEDIAPRO’s U.S. base in Miami, Imagina US, meanwhile, is working with Argos on Habeas Corpus and The Lord of Money.

“LatAm is a strategic territory for MEDIAPRO Group, and we have offices in Miami, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico and Cuba,” says Javier Méndez, the company’s head of content. “We are working with the best talent and developing amazing content for key players, including platforms, broadcasters and production companies in the region. Latin America is a natural market for Spain—we share the language and part of the history. For us it’s a key territory to determine new trends. LatAm and Spain are open to taking risks in content production and broadcasting, both becoming innovative territories inside the audiovisual market.”

“South America is doing more and more short formats, not just long soap operas or telenovelas,” Gonard observes. “There are Europeans who are more experienced in co-producing, who have been doing it for a long time and are also looking for new talent, new ideas, new creatives. Everybody is looking to South America as a new source of innovative creations.”

Gonard stresses that Conecta FICTION is a networking event rather than a market. “We are going to focus on talent and business topics. We are going to speak about the work of directors, scriptwriters, producers. Conecta FICTION wants to connect both worlds: the talent world with the industry.”

Among the conference highlights, ten international TV co-production projects selected by an editorial committee and six Spanish TV projects selected from the SGAE laboratories will be presented during pitching sessions.

Movistar+, which has emerged as a significant new player in Spanish fiction, will offer a development contract to one of the projects.

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By Mansha Daswani

From left: ARTE France’s Hélène Ganichaud, CCTV9’s Yuan Tian, NHNZ’s Kyle Murdoch, ZDF’s Jens Monath, PBS’s Pamela Aguilar, ZDF Enterprises’ Ralf Rückauer and World Screen’s Anna Carugati. xecutives from ZDF Enterprises, NHNZ, PBS, CCTV9, ARTE France and ZDF weighed in on co-productions in a MIPDoc keynote superpanel moderated by World Screen’s Anna Carugati ahead of the premiere of the blue-chip series Big Pacific.

Kyle Murdoch, managing director of NHNZ, said that co-production makes up about 60 percent of the company’s activities. Big Pacific is a good example of the kinds of co-pros NHNZ is involved with, Murdoch noted.

“It’s probably a very extreme example of a co-production too, because we have so many partners,” among them PBS, CCTV9, ZDF Enterprises, ZDF and ARTE. “Co-production is important for us because it brings together financing, but it also brings together platforms from different parts of the world,” Murdoch said. “That’s essential for us to be able to create something as big as Big Pacific because it’s an expensive underwater bluechip series to make.”

Jens Monath is the commissioning editor of Terra X, ZDF’s Sunday night doc slot. Recent examples of co-pros for Terra X include The Celts, a three-parter with the BBC. “We did all the reenactments, BBC sent us documentary shots, so that was a very good co-production. We did First Flight with ABC Australia and a production company from Perth. We’re in all kinds of models, with broadcasters and with production companies.”

Pamela Aguilar, senior director of programming and development at PBS, oversees science, culture, natural history and history at the American public broadcaster. Co-productions are extremely important to PBS, she said.

“We’re able to access local productions, local producers from around the world, and make our dollars stretch.”

When asked if co-productions help producers and broadcasters access sources and locations they wouldn’t be able to on their own, NHNZ’s Murdoch said, “Absolutely. Big Pacific [involves] such a massive geographical area. A lot of the co-producing partners have some sort of link with the Pacific. For example, we can access parts of China that we wouldn’t be able to access without CCTV, access parts of the U.S. or French Polynesia.”

Hélène Ganichaud, the deputy head at ARTE France overseeing the specialist factual department, commissioning science, history, nature and natural-history docs, referenced a current docudrama project with NHK. “It’s definitely access, experts, location, down to Samurai costumes. They are literally managing the production locally, so it’s incredibly beneficial.

Between the French and Japanese production, it’s very intertwined.”

On the subject of what kinds of projects work best as co-pros, PBS’s Aguilar mentioned science and natural history. “History is a little tougher for us at times because it really needs to relate to an American audience.”

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Ralf Rückauer, VP of ZDFE.factual, said that ZDF Enterprises is involved in many history co-pros. “There is space for history,” he said, but agreed it can be challenging as “sometimes we don’t share the same history. Science and natural history are more global from the start.”

Monath said that Terra X is looking for partners for historical docs. “If you look at the market right now, we don’t find many big documentaries about history. To make big projects happen, like The Celts, you need partners. The audience expects a cinematic look.”

CCTV9, the factual channel operated by the Chinese state broadcaster, is always looking to “bring the highest production values and the best storytelling” to its audiences, said Yuan Tian, head of international acquisitions and co-production. The focus is on “traditional or classic factual programs. We launched the channel in 2011 and since then have worked with international colleagues. We’ve learned from our partners.”

Wildlife, science and history are the key areas of focus for ZDFE.factual, Rückauer said. The company does come on board to gap finance projects from producers from around the world. “We invest in programs we think other commissioning editors would like to show their audience.” Over the last few years, Rückauer said, ZDFE.factual has turned to another model. “We start a new and fresh idea together with a producer, like Jasper James in the U.K. We encouraged him to create a sizzle on the topic of ‘size matters’ and he did and now we have a co-production [Why Size Matters]. We want to be a little bit more involved in the creative process and be financing from the start.”

Carugati then moved the discussion to Big Pacific, which originated at NHNZ. “We developed the concept in-house. From my office I can see the Pacific Ocean, it’s our backyard. NHNZ has been making television documentaries for 40 years. To do something ambitious about the Pacific is almost a culmination of that 40 years of experience in producing. We want to take natural-history stories and turn them on their head. We didn’t want to give people exactly what they expected. We want unexpected stories around the Pacific.”

ZDFE.factual’s Rückauer said that NHNZ’s sizzle for the project gave him goosebumps. “It gave you a ‘never seen before’ feeling. I get 1,000 proposals a year. Sometimes you get a little bored. The sizzle really was outstanding.”

Ahead of production, NHNZ held a summit with the key partners. “We discussed the topics, what people liked and didn’t like,” Murdoch said. “I enjoy working collaboratively with our partners. It means that people have skin in the game and they feel they are involved.”

To offer up a new perspective on the Pacific, each episode of the series “is driven by a narrative arc of a particular emotion,” Murdoch said. “We have ‘Violent Pacific,’ ‘Passionate Pacific,’ ‘Voracious Pacific.’ It’s a snapshot of life in the Pacific.”

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