TV Real July 2024

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TVREAL

WWW.TVREAL.COM

JULY 2024 EDITION

TV Real Festival Recap

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CONTENTS THE BIG PICTURE The inaugural TV Real Festival kicked off with our factual superpanel featuring BossaNova’s Paul Heaney, Off the Fence’s Bo Stehmeier, Albatross World Sales’ Anne Olzmann and ZDF Studios’ Nikolas Hülbusch.

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT! Fremantle’s Vasha Wallace, Banijay’s James Townley, BBC Studios’ André Renaud and All3Media International’s Nick Smith discussed trends in non-scripted formats.

WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY’S KATHLEEN FINCH As chairman and CEO of U.S. networks at Warner Bros. Discovery, Kathleen Finch oversees a bouquet of leading channel brands, among them Discovery, HGTV, Food Network and Investigation Discovery.

THE VIEW FROM NBCUNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT This powerhouse session showcased NBCUniversal Entertainment’s strategy across game shows, talent, reality, lifestyle and true crime with Corie Henson and Rachel Smith.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Mansha Daswani Editor-in-Chief Anna Carugati Editor-at-Large Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Jamie Stalcup Senior Associate Editor Alexa Alfano Associate Editor David Diehl Production & Design Director

JUST THE FACTS WITH AMPERE Ampere Analysis’s Fred Black provided TV Real Festival viewers with detailed insights on the factual commissioning landscape.

Simon Weaver Online Director

TIME TO GO FAST? Autentic’s Patrick Hörl, Blue Ant Media’s Jamie Schouela and Cineflix Rights’ Mike Gould shared the keys to rolling out successful factual FAST channels.

Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Director

DAWN PORTER The founder of Trilogy Films, Dawn Porter, whose credits include Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, showcased her approach to impactful documentary filmmaking.

MICHAEL VON WÜRDEN As managing director of Snowman Productions, Michael von Würden has created an array of successful reality formats, among them the megahit Married at First Sight.

GETTING WILD ORF-Enterprise’s Armin Luttenberger, PBS Distribution’s Joe Barrett and Terra Mater Studios’ Berend Dreier offered up their insights on trends in the distribution of natural history and wildlife docs.

CRIME PAYS GRB Media Ranch’s Sophie Ferron, TVF International’s Poppy McAlister and Woodcut Media’s Kate Beal (who also chairs the Association of True Crime Producers) on achieving success and driving innovation within the true-crime genre.

A. SMITH & CO. PRODUCTIONS’ ARTHUR SMITH A keynote from Arthur Smith, whose extensive stable of shows at A. Smith & Co. Productions includes Hell’s Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior.

MARY BEARD A classicist who specializes in ancient Rome, Mary Beard’s latest project, Meet the Roman Emperor with Mary Beard from Lion Television, aired on BBC Two earlier this year.

Genovick Acevedo Sales & Marketing Manager Ute Schwemmer Bookkeeper

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Real ©2024 WSN INC. 401 Park Avenue South, Suite 1041, New York, NY 10016, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 924-7620 Website: www.tvreal.com

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The Big

PICTURE

The inaugural TV Real Festival kicked off with our factual superpanel featuring BossaNova’s Paul Heaney, Off the Fence’s Bo Stehmeier, Albatross World Sales’ Anne Olzmann and ZDF Studios’ Nikolas Hülbusch.

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The peaks and amplitudes in factual are much smaller than in scripted and other genres.

—Nikolas Hülbusch

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You have to listen to what the buyers tell you. That’s gold for the producers.

Sometimes they develop in a vacuum. Our job is to help the ones that we think can deliver on brief, on budget and on schedule.

”

—Paul Heaney

Factual is starting to see a renaissance because it’s a fastmoving genre. If you’re a streamer, you can hyperlocalize and get emotional stories on the screen faster at a much more manageable price point. —Bo Stehmeier

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A lot of producers want to be on public channels. They need the big audience. That’s a bit restricting for alternative financing.

—Anne Olzmann

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That’s

ENTERTAINMENT!

Fremantle’s Vasha Wallace, Banijay’s James Townley, BBC Studios’ André Renaud and All3Media International’s Nick Smith discussed trends in non-scripted formats.

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People are seeking nostalgia. They’re still also looking for new shows, but they want the scale of a prime-time slot with the budget of a secondary slot.

—André Renaud

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Sometimes it’s not just about the show; it’s about having production solutions in place and having a story that will convince them to get them over the line.

The new IP world needs as much help as it can get. We’re really keen to get behind those embryonic ideas that we feel have international potential.

—Vasha Wallace

—James Townley

”

”

Broadcasters and platforms need local content. There is a risk-aversion.

That’s the challenge. But on things that work, there are still definitely buyers that are willing to push the button.

—Nick Smith

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Warner Bros. Discovery’s

KATHLEEN F

As chairman and CEO of U.S. networks at Warner Bros. Discovery, Kathleen Finch oversees a bouquet of leading channel brands, among them Discovery, HGTV, Food Network and Investigation Discovery.

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ery’s

N FINCH We are pushing the boundaries to make sure that even the formatted shows don’t look just like traditional studio formatted shows. We’re also getting creative with our spin-offs, being careful to make sure that we don’t overdo a franchise. In the true-crime space, we’re going for big, buzzy, loud opportunities.

It’s [about] always finding shows that will get in front of an audience in a new way, in a different way—still staying true to the genre, but finding a way to get a new hook, a new interest and a new audience to sit up and pay attention.

”

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The View from

NBCUNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT

This powerhouse session showcased NBCUniversal Entertainment’s strategy across game shows, talent, reality, lifestyle and true crime with Corie Henson and Rachel Smith.

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Particular genres are due for a refresh. I’d love to see a modernization of the studio game. I would love the emphasis to be on creativity and taking big swings. We all still have budget constraints and mandates, but I would love for everyone to be able to stretch their wings more within the invisible rails that we have to give from —Corie Henson the commissioner seat.

”

We are in a risk-averse moment. It’s a crowded landscape. There are economic imperatives. When you get too focused on that, it can kill the creativity.

You have to take risks. You’ve got to be open, excited and curious. Zag where everyone’s zigging. I’m looking forward to a time when it doesn’t have to be [known] IP, and we can take a chance on something new. With all this proliferation of content, the standards are so high. The storytelling has to be excellent. That’s —Rachel Smith good for everybody.

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Just the Facts with

AMPERE

Ampere Analysis’s Fred Black provided TV Real Festival viewers with detailed insights on the factual commissioning landscape.

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Public broadcasters are starting to focus on some of the themes that we might more typically associate with streaming services. In particular, true-crime content. Most are somewhere along the journey toward streaming-first business models, and they need to attract viewers to these new VOD platforms. True crime has proven to be a very reliable, bingeable streaming hit elsewhere. Secondly, they need to start making content with greater resale value. These crime and thriller commissions are not only for the benefit of their own video-on-demand platforms, they also have one eye on future distribution to other platforms as well.

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Time to Go

FAST?

Autentic’s Patrick Hörl, Blue Ant Media’s Jamie Schouela and Cineflix Rights’ Mike Gould shared the keys to rolling out successful factual FAST channels.

l

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We’re beyond the point now with FAST where platforms are happy with just the same content swimming non-exclusively across dozens of channels. You’ve got to have something unique in order to get distribution —Mike Gould deals on the right platforms.

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It’s very clear that established brands give you a head start against everybody else in the market.

The difficult thing is how to place the exploitation of our piece of content on FAST amid all the other monetization streams —Patrick Hörl that we want to utilize.

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It’s the Wild West on data right now. We’re on many platforms. I often joke that it’s apples from one platform and bananas from another. We make a fruit salad out of it and try to understand the —Jamie Schouela whole view.

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DAWN PORT

The founder of Trilogy Films, Dawn Porter, whose credits include Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, showcased her approach to impactful documentary filmmaking.

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RTER

r

I’m seeing smaller budgets, longer time to ‘yes’ and less money for social justice projects. It’s harder to make films that are about art or politics that are not sensational. We’ve got to be more creative. We’ve got to be good partners.

We’ve got to watch those budgets. We have to do what we’ve always done, which is roll up our sleeves, get creative, be clear about the story you’re telling and the quality that you’re making. We also need to diversify.

We’re looking at doing museum projects or projects that are more commercial, so we’re not just dependent on the commission of the broadcaster or streamer.

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MICHAEL VO

As managing director of Snowman Productions, Michael von Würden has created an array of successful reality formats, among them the megahit Married at First Sight.

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VON WÜRDEN We know that the people who participate in Married at First Sight are not the [usual] attention-seeking persons. It’s actually the everyday Joe and Jim and Jane and Joanne who are looking for love. We have a big [team] around them in terms of psychologists and duty-of-care personnel to keep in touch with them during and after shooting and especially when we are on-air. We recommend that every territory has an aftercare program for each participant so that we make sure they have a ‘safe landing’ afterward. It’s highly emotional; they are opening their heart to the public. So, we need to be very careful in managing their emotional stages.

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Getting

WILD

ORF-Enterprise’s Armin Luttenberger, PBS Distribution’s Joe Barrett and Terra Mater Studios’ Berend Dreier offered up their insights on trends in the distribution of natural history and wildlife docs.

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FAST has allowed a much broader audience to view nature documentaries because they’re largely censor-friendly and family-friendly. It’s been a wonderful platform —Joe Barrett for nature to be rereleased.

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Remote cameras help to get the viewer into the scene and experience elusive animals like never before. The downside of that is that you get a lot of footage. I hope that AI will help with the archiving and tagging, making this content more available for —Berend Dreier future exploitation.

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We’re involved in almost all of the projects of our flagship program, ORF UNIVERSUM, from the very beginning or at a very early stage. We support it directly through financial contributions, but also by offering and seeking new co-production partners. Well-made nature and wildlife —Armin Luttenberger programming is expensive.

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Crime

PAYS

GRB Media Ranch’s Sophie Ferron, TVF International’s Poppy McAlister and Woodcut Media’s Kate Beal (who also chairs the Association of True Crime Producers) on achieving success and driving innovation within the true-crime genre.

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It’s dramatic scripted narrative in the unscripted world. You have the tension, the build, the characters, the ‘oh my goodness’ moments, the twists and turns and —Kate Beal the rabbit holes.

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Viewers like to binge on true crime, but they don’t want to feel like they’re exploiting the victims in any way. The cases are often so salacious that you don’t need to go into the details of the gory realities. You can look at other ways to tell the story.

—Poppy McAlister

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We are looking at FAST channels, and if we had enough true crime, we would do a true-crime channel. There is no end to this genre. Everybody wants it. But not everybody wants the same level. Some are more in-depth, some are more cookie-cutter and some are —Sophie Ferron more celebrity-driven.

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A. Smith & Co. Productions

ARTHUR SMIT

A keynote from Arthur Smith, whose extensive stable of shows at A. Smith & Co. Productions includes Hell’s Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior.

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tions’

MITH

h

The episode orders [in streaming] are smaller. We do a fairly chunky order with Hell’s Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior—20 to 30 hours. You don’t see those orders anymore; they are usually ten or eight. When you’re planning a show, you benefit from a budget standpoint from the amortization of doing a lot of episodes. Now, when you’re planning a big show, you’ve got to figure out how the math works divided by eight or ten.

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MARY BEARD

A classicist who specializes in ancient Rome, Mary Beard’s latest project, Meet the Roman Emperor with Mary Beard from Lion Television, aired on BBC Two earlier this year.

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RD

t, d

Television viewers concentrate much too much on the lead presenter and not enough on all the people who make the television programs possible.

I have some ideas about what I would like to do, what point I would like to get over. Good directors and producers can help you say that and make it real. They have a sense of what works visually. I have learned a huge amount, but I’ve done it through endless discussions. How would we make that point? Where would we go? The whole process for me has been hugely enjoyable, but it’s also been a learning process.

”

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