World Screen MIPTV 2019

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THE MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA | APRIL 2019

WWW.WORLDSCREEN.COM

MIPTV Edition

Distribution Shifts CBS Armando Nuñez Endemol Shine Cathy Payne Fremantle Jens Richter Lionsgate Jim Packer all3media Louise Pedersen Banijay Rights Tim Mutimer ZDF Enterprises Fred Burcksen Red Arrow Studios Bo Stehmeier Keshet International Alon Shtruzman Dori Media Nadav Palti A+E Networks Patrick Vien

RTL Group Bert Habets WarnerMedia Gerhard Zeiler Viacom David Lynn ZDF Thomas Bellut ProSiebenSat.1 Max Conze National Geographic Gary Knell Astro Henry Tan GMA Network Felipe L. Gozon

Plus: Sky @ 30

Tom

+

Selleck Michael Sheen David Tennant Iain Armitage

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CONTENTS

APRIL 2019/MIPTV EDITION DEPARTMENTS WORLD VIEW

By Anna Carugati.

16

VIEWPOINT

By Mansha Daswani.

18

46

50

Group Editorial Director Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE 20

By Bruce Paisner.

UPFRONTS What’s new for MIPTV.

Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Associate Editors Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton

22

Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari

SPOTLIGHT 79 AMC Networks International’s Eduardo Zulueta.

Associate Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Rafael Blanco Editorial Assistant, Spanish-Language Publications Jessica Ávila

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX 459 WORLD’S END In the stars.

Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise

462

TOM SELLECK

IAIN ARMITAGE

Production & Design Director Victor L. Cuevas Online Director Simon Weaver

SPECIAL REPORT

82 WHERE’S THE MONEY? This special report on the seismic shifts in the distribution business includes interviews with CBS’s Armando Nuñez, Endemol Shine’s Cathy Payne, Fremantle’s Jens Richter, Lionsgate’s Jim Packer, all3media international’s Louise Pedersen, Banijay Rights’ Tim Mutimer, ZDF Enterprises’ Fred Burcksen, Red Arrow Studios’ Bo Stehmeier, Keshet International’s Alon Shtruzman, Dori Media’s Nadav Palti and A+E Networks’ Patrick Vien.

ONE-ON-ONE

143 RTL GROUP’S BERT HABETS The CEO of the leading European media group discusses his “Total Video 2.0” strategy, streaming plans, content investments and how the company is working with advertisers.

ON THE RECORD

207 WARNERMEDIA’S GERHARD ZEILER While taking on the new role of chief revenue officer at the newly restructured WarnerMedia, Zeiler continues to oversee the group’s Turner channels internationally.

Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Coordinator Nathalia Lopez Business Affairs Manager Andrea Moreno Contributing Writers Steve Clarke Neil Crossley Andy Fry Joanna Stephens Jay Stuart David Wood

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development

IN CONVERSATION

279 VIACOM’S DAVID LYNN WORLD SCREEN is published nine times per year: January, March, April, May, June/July, September, October, November and December.

Annual subscription price: Inside the U.S.: $90.00 Outside the U.S.: $160.00 Send checks, company information and address corrections to: WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. For a free subscription to our newsletters, please visit www.subscriptions.ws.

Contributing Editor Elizabeth Guider

As president and CEO of Viacom International Media Networks, Lynn is emphasizing the importance of content creation globally as well as working with new distribution partners.

EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

327 ZDF’S THOMAS BELLUT The director-general of the German public broadcaster weighs in on combating fake news and the crucial role ZDF plays in the European media landscape.

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WORLD SCREEN is a registered trademark of WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreen.com ©2019 WSN INC. Printed by Fry Communications No part of this publication can be used, reprinted, copied or stored in any medium without the publisher’s authorization.

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CONTENTS

APRIL 2019/MIPTV EDITION THESE TARGETED MAGAZINES APPEAR BOTH INSIDE WORLD SCREEN AND AS SEPARATE PUBLICATIONS:

OTT DEMANDS PRESCHOOL MEDIA-PARTICIPATIONS’ CLAUDE DE SAINT VINCENT RAI’S LUCA MILANO

242 252 260 264

ASIAN MEDIA TRENDS ASTRO’S HENRY TAN GMA NETWORK’S FELIPE L. GOZON

378 386 390

TOP BUYERS SKY’S GARY DAVEY PROSIEBENSAT.1’S MAX CONZE

118 124 136

EUROPEAN DRAMA FANTASY & SCI-FI MICHAEL SHEEN & DAVID TENNANT WALTER PRESENTS’ WALTER IUZZOLINO

174 184 192 196

STATE OF FORMATS DANCE SHOWS CRAIG PLESTIS BBC STUDIOS’ SUMI CONNOCK

308 316 320 322

SCIENCE DOCS MEDICAL SERIES NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S GARY KNELL CURIOSITYSTREAM’S CLINT STINCHCOMB

346 354 360 366

LATIN AMERICAN DISTRIBUTORS VIACOM’S PIERLUIGI GAZZOLO TURNER’S TOMÁS YANKELEVICH

412 418 420

LISTINGS FOR MORE THAN 100 DISTRIBUTORS ATTENDING MIPTV 427

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WORLD VIEW

BY ANNA CARUGATI

Need Versus Want About 15 years ago, I met a Japanese documentary filmmaker at MIPTV who had an impressive body of work in historical and current-affairs docs. I was fascinated by his use of archival footage, and with the help of a translator, he shared with me how he often worked with experts in other countries to gain access to the material he needed.

At one point, the conversation shifted to which shows we enjoyed watching, and he asked me about the television business in the U.S. I remember his disbelief when I described the range of entertainment, sports, news, children’s, lifestyle and even foreignlanguage channels that are available to my family through our cable provider. He asked me how many I routinely watched, and I answered that the family probably didn’t tune in to more than 10 or 12 regularly.

He was incredulous; You pay every month for dozens of channels you don’t watch? Well, sometimes we select other channels, I replied. We choose the channels based on the programming they offer on any given day or evening. He thought about that for a minute and then said, So you pay to be able to choose. I said, Yes, we pay for choice. He had a tough time wrapping his head around that concept. I must admit, his reaction to what I took for granted—my right to choose from a bunch of cable channels—left me feeling quite strange, even guilty. Did I actually need all those channels? No, but there was no alternative to the bundle. I’m a very lapsed Catholic, but I clearly recall the rule instilled in me when I was young: when considering a purchase, ask, Do I need it or do I want it? The implied moral was that one should only buy what’s necessary; don’t give in to frivolous or selfish desires.

I guess it’s good that I have the need-versus-want refrain in mind, because I, and millions of consumers, will be facing many choices in the coming months. Several new streaming services are launching, backed by Disney+, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal.

These services have the dual aims of satisfying binge-craving viewers and countering Netflix’s 130million-subscriber-strong dominance worldwide.

Not to mention the other FAANGs. Not only will consumers face a dizzying amount of choice, but industry players faced with tough decisions are also rethinking their business models. Constant change is nothing new to television. In its early days, TV challenged the film industry and movie-theater attendance; later, cable channels toppled the dominance of broadcast networks; and video-on-demand and catch-up ushered in the maddening complexity of windowing content. And, of course, streaming services, the ultimate disruptors, have

prompted in many traditional media executives a malaise akin to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

The streamers have created multiple challenges and opportunities for a range of players in the media industry.

The need for a lot more high-end drama is good for writers, showrunners and producers. This demand, however, has also generated a premium on talent, and in some countries, there are long waits until writers or crews become available.

Distributors are no longer just in the business of selling finished programming. Rather, they are actively involved in the development, financing and production of shows.

As our main feature analyzes, they then have to find the best route to market for these shows, which sometimes means making one global deal with a streamer, and other times selling territory by territory. One of the biggest questions circulating in the industry now is whether there will be sufficient content left for international buyers, as media companies opt to keep films and series for their own streaming services.

And will history repeat itself? We’ve heard that companies like Roku are planning to offer their customers a small bundle of streaming services. Wait. Are we moving toward bundles again? I thought cord-cutting was all about abandoning the package for the freedom and lower costs of picking individual services. I’m confused.

Being prepared for an uncertain future is a constant refrain in our interviews with top media executives in this issue. We speak with RTL Group’s Bert Habets, WarnerMedia’s Gerhard Zeiler, Viacom International Media Networks’ David Lynn and ZDF’s Thomas Bellut, each of whom offers a unique perspective on the business. As diverse as these companies are, several concepts connect them all: delivering on-brand promises, fostering consumer trust and being present wherever consumers are.

Wherever consumers are, they will be making choices that will influence the success of linear and nonlinear offerings. And as we navigate the sea of choice, we return to the need-versus-want debate, which will be strongly influenced by valid considerations: How much time do I have to watch all this content, and more importantly, how much can I afford?

Consumers will be making choices that will influence the success of linear and nonlinear offerings.

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VIEWPOINT

BY MANSHA DASWANI

Fear of Missing Out There was a time when I thought that having the full pay-TV triple bundle, a suite of premium channels, Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu was just more entertainment than any one person actually needed.

I considered letting go of Hulu, thinking that the cable on-demand function pretty much satisfied my catch-up needs. And then I fell in love with black-ish—currently in season five, I’m on season one—and ended up upgrading to the premium ad-free tier. Best laid plans. And now there are so many other things I want to subscribe to. With The Twilight Zone being rebooted, I expect I’ll be adding CBS All Access to my monthly bills. The Walter Presents lineup of foreign-language drama, available through the PBS Masterpiece Amazon channel, has become far too compelling of a proposition to ignore. The ads for the CuriosityStream SVOD service have piqued my interest— I surely need a jolt of fact-based content after facing the barrage of “fake news” on the internet all day. Sundance Now and Acorn TV are on my mind too, each showcasing at least one show that I want to watch and can’t find anywhere else. Disney+, with the promise of Marvel content, is likely to make it onto my list of recurring subscriptions. (I’m still reeling from Netflix’s decision, in the runup to Disney pulling all of its content from the streamer, to cancel its suite of Marvel-based shows, which included two of my favorites, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.)

I have a pretty good sense right now of what is a musthave, can’t-do-without-it subscription. I have a manageable number at present. But as I inevitably sign up for more, choices will have to be made—for the sake of my wallet and my ability to do things other than watch television. What’s the calculus? Is it a certain number of shows? One show in particular? A creator or writer or director whose work can only be found on said service?

Talent can indeed be a compelling draw (I would follow Ryan Murphy or Shonda Rhimes or Neil Gaiman or Ava DuVernay anywhere), so it’s no wonder the FAANGs are shelling out astronomical fees for exclusive access to the best writers, showrunners and directors out there. That model is akin to the studio system, but some rights owners posit that talent may find the FAANGs’ upfront deals aren’t going to be that lucrative in the long run. As one executive quipped to me recently, “The headline number is fabulous. If I were them, I’d buy the yacht and the house now, because there’s not going to be a lot more later.”

Amid a seemingly endless flow of disruption, companies from every genre and every territory are finding ways to innovate and getting smarter about how and where they invest. This MIPTV edition explores the many ways in which distribution companies, broadcasters and digital platforms are charting new paths. Our main feature

examines how rights owners are making windowing decisions, accessing talent and committing to early investments in ideas that show the potential to be both local and global hits. TV Europe looks at the factors that buyers have to take into consideration as they decide what kinds of shows to acquire from the worldwide market. In TV Drama, Walter Iuzzolino reveals his curation and expansion strategy for the on-demand service Walter Presents, which has made aligning with strong linear broadcasters one of its key USPs. Co-productions and working with OTT providers are the major themes of the MIPTV edition of TV Kids; not surprising, given that this segment of the business is dealing with seismic changes in consumption habits. TV Formats grapples with the state of the industry, exploring the ever elusive concept of the “Next Big Thing,” and if that holy grail will be found in an emerging format powerhouse (South Korea, perhaps?) or on a digital platform. In TV Real, Gary Knell weighs in on how National Geographic Partners’ move to Disney will allow it to deepen its engagement with audiences eager for knowledge amid a sea of disinformation. TV Asia examines the shifts taking place in the region’s media ecosystem as digital picks up steam and local content becomes more important than ever. And TV Latina spotlights the wealth of opportunities emerging for Latin American distributors as the global drama landscape embraces compelling IP from everywhere.

We also showcase in this edition some amazing onscreen talent. Michael Sheen and David Tennant, who have to avert the apocalypse in Amazon and BBC’s highly anticipated Good Omens, talk about their on-screen chemistry and the weight of expectations in taking on Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s adored book (which I need to find the time to reread before the series launches this May). Tom Selleck discusses television’s evolution over the course of his career and his current role in the CBS stalwart Blue Bloods. And Iain Armitage reflects on how he prepared to become the pint-sized version of television’s favorite geek in Young Sheldon. Three very different shows, financed with different models. Indeed, while there is still a one-size-fits-most approach for many companies, there is definitely not a one-size-fits-all strategy that will work in today’s environment. The economic stakes are too high, the factors to consider too complicated, and most importantly, audiences are way, way too demanding. Once you’ve lost them to another service, it won’t be easy to get them back.

Companies from every genre and every territory are finding ways to innovate.

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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

BY BRUCE L. PAISNER

Shutdown We were in the Honolulu airport, waiting for the once-a-week flight from Honolulu to the Pacific nation of Fiji. It was midnight and the airport was nearly empty. Except for our 2 a.m. departure, no planes would leave between 11:30 p.m. and 7 a.m.

There is nothing noteworthy about all this except that it was the 14th day of the U.S. government’s partial shutdown, and TSA agents weren’t being paid. They were amazingly professional, but wistful at the same time. A few of us found ourselves thanking them for their service, as if they were soldiers. And they talked with us, explaining how vital they consider their job, but how hard it would be to keep coming to work if they didn’t get paid. “Gas is expensive in Hawaii,” one said. “We need our salaries to buy it.” This is a point that needs more attention. TSA employees may occasionally give us a few miserable moments at an airport security site, but they don’t make a lot of money. In a place like Hawaii, which is larger than it looks on a map, gasoline for transportation is a significant budget item. People who are not getting paid their salaries often lack the cash flow even to show up for the jobs they’re not being compensated for but required to perform anyhow.

Of course, these TSA employees were a small fraction of the 800,000 federal employees affected by the shutdown. Some were still being required to work, with the hope that Congress would pay them retroactively. Others were just furloughed. No pay now, no promise of pay later.

For those forced to work without pay, the situation was particularly dire. They couldn’t find another job to tide them over. Nor could they just not show up.

Said one worker: “We are required to work, and we don’t get paid. I thought they outlawed slavery.”

The U.S. government shutdown ended in January, and there was no appetite for another one. But who knows what is on the global horizon. More shutdowns in the U.S., a Brexit calamity in the United Kingdom, continuing demonstrations and burning of government buildings in France? We seem to be entering a new era of governments inconveniencing their citizens, though press coverage tends to focus on the specific issues that those in power are fighting over.

Government crises, real or manufactured, tend to soak up most of our journalistic commentary, but it’s worth dwelling more often on the victims: the ordinary citizens. Journalists are usually drawn to the government players—speeches, strategies, votes— without much attention to the governed. What I found lacking in the shutdown coverage was much empathy for or attention to those 800,000 workers who were furloughed or working without pay.

Perhaps such coverage is more of a challenge than we think. I was struck to read that TSA agents were instructed not to talk to the media. Clearly a government pushing its people into inconvenience, or worse, wants as little reporting as possible. I think if it hadn’t been the middle of the night in Honolulu, with little else to do, most of those agents wouldn’t have talked to us either. But journalists learn early on that governments won’t appreciate much of what they do, which is all the more reason to keep doing it.

Particularly because governments are increasingly divided into governing elites, with different ideas of who should benefit from the wealth of the society, the challenges will get greater. And struggle among the different points of view will affect the lives of the governed. The world has seen these situations before.

Wars, revolutions, fights for succession have affected countries for millennia.

But the advent of new technologies on the one hand and a resurgent nationalism on the other have the power to affect citizens’ lives in new and intrusive ways.

Consider those TSA workers in Honolulu. Their work is essential to a functioning, safe air transport system. Though they are paid by the government, government conflicts and ideologies seldom enter their lives. Nor should they. The job is to ensure the flight is safe. Federal government employees are among the most vulnerable and most deserving in our society. Many of them have passed on much better jobs to work for their country. To make them pawns in political battles, no matter how right the cause or stupid the other side, is unfair and counterproductive.

Perhaps one solution would be to permanently exclude current government employees from shutdowns, perhaps by enabling the government to borrow funds to pay employees until the budget issues are resolved. Obviously, this tactic would make shutdowns much less effective and attractive, but isn’t that the point?

Clearly, we are entering a new phase in governments’ relations with its employees and with the governed public at large. It’s a different world, and we must respond accordingly.

No pay. No promise of pay later.

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Bruce L. Paisner is the president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

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UPFRONTS

Jesus: His Life

A+E Networks Damian Lewis: Spy Wars / Miss Scarlet and The Duke / Jesus: His Life Known from hit dramas such as Homeland and Billions, Damian Lewis leads the action in A+E Networks’ unscripted series Damian Lewis: Spy Wars. “Everyone knows and loves the intrigue around the world of espionage,” says Richard Tulk-Hart, managing director of international content sales and co-productions. “We take that international appeal and dig into different agencies and actual stories from the past.

At the same time, the show is fronted by one of the biggest actors in the business, who was a lead actor in one of the most groundbreaking series of a similar subject.” The company is also presenting Jesus: His Life. “This is high-end factual programming, an area A+E does better than anyone in the business,” says Tulk-Hart. In the way of drama, there’s Miss Scarlet and The Duke, set in Victorian London.

“The common thread of all of these shows is their international stories and characters.”

—Richard Tulk-Hart

ABS-CBN Corporation The General’s Daughter / Los Bastardos / Alone/Together ABS-CBN Corporation’s new action drama The General’s Daughter stars Emmy-nominated Angel Locsin as Second Lieutenant Rhian Bonifacio, a military-nurse-turned-spy trained by her adoptive father to exact revenge on his enemy.

Also from ABS-CBN comes Los Bastardos, which follows the lives of five brothers from four different mothers who vie for their rightful place in their father’s heart. Rom-com duo Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil (Just the Way You Are, Everyday I Love You, My Ex and Whys) are back for another tryst as reunited college sweethearts who try to rekindle their old flame in Alone/Together. “We believe that these titles will appeal to buyers because of their portrayals of authentic and relatable characters in narratives that viewers will surely connect to,” says Laarni Yu, ABS-CBN’s sales head for EMEA.

“We hope to continue actively initiating co-production partnerships with international producers and introduce our artists and talents to the global arena.”

—Laarni Yu

The General's Daughter

Alfred Haber Distribution

Help! My House Is Haunted!

Help! My House Is Haunted! / Shallow Grave / Hitched in Vegas One offering from Alfred Haber Distribution is Help! My House Is Haunted!, which has just been renewed for a second season by UKTV. Created and executive produced by Ghost Adventures’ Zak Bagans, the series helps families reclaim their properties from unwelcome paranormal tenants. Crime and investigation series Shallow Grave sees investigators analyze “the deposition site” of a crime scene—the shallow grave or dumping ground for the often burnt, dismembered or decomposed bodies of murder victims killed elsewhere. “Crime and investigation is a very strong international genre right now,” says Alfred Haber, president of Alfred Haber Distribution.

On the lighter side of reality fare, Hitched in Vegas follows couples and their wedding parties on elaborate Las Vegas adventures.

“Paranormal is a very strong international genre right now.”

—Alfred Haber

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Artist View Entertainment U2: Dream Out Loud / Grace / Axcellerator Artist View Entertainment is presenting a look into one of the world’s most famous rock groups through the eyes of their dedicated fans in the documentary U2: Dream Out Loud. Also on the slate is the feature film Grace, a drama about empowering a young woman to find herself and reach her goals. It boasts a star-studded cast, including Katie Cassidy (Arrow), Tate Donovan (The Man in the High Castle) and Matthew Lillard (Good Girls). Artist View is offering up comic-book-like thrills and a wild ride in its new movie Axcellerator. The movie “is just clean fun,” says the company’s president, Scott J. Jones. “It’s a sci-fi adventure that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Loaded with nonstop action, it is meant to entertain all age groups with a unique storyline and interesting characters.”

“We look forward to working with our long-term clients and finding new partners as the world continues to move in this quickly evolving digital landscape.”

Grace

—Scott J. Jones

Boat Rocker Studios Cavendish / Mary’s Kitchen Crush / Kingdom Force Created by and starring Mark Little and Andy Bush, comedy series Cavendish mines for laughs a situation in which two brothers with opposite personalities return home to care for their father and fall into the patterns of their youth.

MasterChef Canada alum Mary Berg shares her inspired twists on classic recipes in Mary’s Kitchen Crush, a culinary program from Boat Rocker Studios’ catalog. Kingdom Force, a CG animated preschool series, is centered on a five-animal team of heroes that protects their respective animal kingdoms with rescue robot Alpha Mech’s help. “These three titles are great examples of the wide range of programming across multiple genres produced by the content teams within Boat Rocker Studios,” says Jon Rutherford, the company’s managing director and president of rights.

“Mary ’s Kitchen Crush introduces Mary Berg to the international TV community for the first time.”

Mary’s Kitchen Crush

—Jon Rutherford

Calinos Entertainment Our Story / Woman / Forbidden Fruit Our Story, Woman and Forbidden Fruit, three of Calinos Entertainment’s offerings, all “depict the lives of strong, independent and driven women who would stop at nothing to protect their families or their dreams,” says Ismail Dursunov, deputy general manager. Our Story, an adaptation of Shameless, follows Filiz as she struggles to take care of her five younger siblings in the wake of her father’s alcoholism and mother’s abandonment. In Woman, a young widow grapples with her beloved husband’s death while trying to keep her children’s spirits up despite the poverty and loss that surrounds them.

Forbidden Fruit tells the tale of two sisters, Zeynep and Yildiz, the latter of whom chases the glitz and glamor of Istanbul’s high society while her career-minded younger sister gets caught up in a life-altering chain of events.

Our Story

“Our aim is to strengthen our relationships with our current customers and establish new ones with potential customers.”

—Ismail Dursunov 24 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Schitt’s Creek is a CMF-funded project

Canada Media Fund Policy development / Funding programs / Promotion of Canadian content At MIPTV, in addition to the Canada Pavilion, Canadian producers will be participating at In Development, a MIPTVCanneseries initiative. This will allow them to “develop coproduction opportunities for drama series, a genre in which Canada has a great deal of co-production experience,” says Valerie Creighton, president and CEO of the Canada Media Fund (CMF). “This 360-degree, fully-integrated approach speaks to the growing Canadian presence at international events like MIPTV, where Canadian creators have been able to develop unique business opportunities, taking Canadian content around the world.” She adds, “Canada is known for providing a very competitive environment for television and digital media production and co-production. We intend to build on this reputation.”

“Canadian productions are exported all around the world, and sales of Canadian content continue to increase.”

—Valerie Creighton

Caracol Internacional

The Agency

The Good Bandit / The Agency / Big Steps Caracol Internacional is introducing audiences to the narcocomedy genre with The Good Bandit. The show follows a former drug lord who wants to atone for the sins of his past.

In the reality format The Agency, men and women compete against each other in a bid to become models.

Celebrities will judge the contenders, who are grouped into different agencies led by famous models. Big Steps, meanwhile, is based on the true story of a shoe shiner who won local elections and became an important political figure in his country. The drama is “the number one series in Colombia’s prime time,” says Lisette Osorio, Caracol’s VP of international sales. “A story that blends humor, love and hope, it is also set to captivate the eyes and ears of this year’s MIPTV attendees.”

“Our main mission at MIPTV is to continue expanding our presence in Europe.”

—Lisette Osorio

CBS Studios International

The Code

Blood & Treasure / The Twilight Zone / The Code At the center of the action in Blood & Treasure are a brilliant antiquities expert and a cunning art thief, who team up to catch a ruthless terrorist funding his attacks through stolen treasure. The CBS series is “fun, sexy and full of action—great summer viewing and a story with a complete in-season arc,” says Barry Chamberlain, the president of sales at CBS Studios International. The Code is described as a classic CBS procedural, “a mix of hit series like NCIS and JAG,” Chamberlain says. He adds, “Finally, we couldn’t be more pleased with Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg’s modern reimagining of the iconic The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access. With a recognizable and marketable brand and great guest stars, this anthology series is sure to resonate with viewers around the world.”

“While the industry is going through a transition, CBS and Showtime remain super focused on creating the best content for a global audience.”

—Barry Chamberlain 26 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Crown Media International Distribution Mystery 101 / The Story of Us / Ruby Herring Mysteries: Silent Witness On the slate for Crown Media International Distribution is programming from Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Hallmark Drama and the SVOD platform Hallmark Movies Now. One such offering is Mystery 101, which follows English-professor-turned-investigator Amy, who, alongside her detective partner Travis, must use her crimefiction expertise to help find the killer of a student on campus. Meanwhile, The Story of Us follows two adults on divergent paths who rediscover young love. The company is also offering Ruby Herring Mysteries: Silent Witness, a whodunit. “With all our content, we offer a unique and dependable experience that connects with viewers in every territory,” says Francisco González, the company’s senior VP of international distribution.

“We continue our commitment to creative excellence, bringing to the international marketplace our signature content and worldrenowned brand.”

Ruby Herring Mysteries: Silent Witness

—Francisco González

Giada on the Beach

Discovery, Inc. Silicon Valley: The Untold Story / Secrets of the Underground / Giada on the Beach A new Science Channel three-part documentary series, Silicon Valley: The Untold Story shines a light on the technological hub that lies just south of San Francisco and is home to brands such as Apple, Facebook, Intel and Google.

The series looks at why it became such a fertile ground for technological breakthroughs. In Secrets of the Underground, scientist Rob Nelson investigates the strangest subterranean locations in the world, while Giada on the Beach follows chef Giada De Laurentiis and her daughter, Jade, as they cook up casual meals for guests on their summer holiday. “These shows cross boundaries and are relatable, no matter where in the world you may be,” says Elliot Wagner, senior VP of global program sales for Discovery, Inc.

“Most of what Discovery produces travels well, as the subject areas are universal.”

—Elliot Wagner

Dori Media Group The Drop / Shepherd / Dumb A single mother whose daughter is sold into sex slavery in Bolivia is at the center of whirlwind crime thriller The Drop (La Entrega), which draws attention to the country’s kidnapping epidemic. Shepherd is a crime drama named after the canine half of an unlikely crime-solving duo, the other half being an alcoholic former detective who wanted to put the dog down.

The third season of the series Dumb follows as Shiri and Assaf have escaped abroad with millions of stolen euros. They believe they are finally free to fulfill their love, but instead, reality rears its ugly head. “The three crime drama titles above originate from three very different territories in the world— Bolivia, Russia and Israel—proving that success stories are born worldwide and can travel worldwide,” says Nadav Palti, president and CEO of Dori Media Group.

Shepherd

“We always believe that good stories travel, no matter where they were born and created.”

—Nadav Palti 28 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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The Promise

Eccho Rights The Promise / Wounded Birds / Invisible Heroes After just two weeks on air, The Promise received a second season commission from Kanal 7, where the series is scoring four times the broadcaster’s average market share.

From the same producer as Elif, Wounded Birds is a drama centered on two orphans who confront dangers and opportunities as they make new lives for themselves in Istanbul after escaping from a ruthless criminal. Invisible Heroes is based on a true story set amidst General Pinochet’s military coup about two Finnish diplomats who saved thousands of Chilean citizens. “From a production perspective, it is unique,” says Fredrik af Malmborg, Eccho Rights’ managing director. “A co-production between Finland and Chile, it has a star cast from several further international territories like Germany and Sweden.”

“Our catalog counts brand-new drama series from Sweden, Russia, Romania and Portugal and a number of new scripted formats from Korea.”

—Fredrik af Malmborg

Endemol Shine International Deep Water / Your Home, Made Perfect / LEGO Masters Australia The emotional thriller Deep Water was adapted by Anna Symon (Mrs Wilson, Indian Summers) from Paula Daly’s Windermere novels. “Delving into the female psyche, this series investigates the tangled issues of modern parenting, women’s friendships and relationships, as well as their sexual desires,” says Cathy Payne, chief executive of Endemol Shine International. Your Home, Made Perfect sees ordinary houses transformed by architects into extraordinary spaces. “The homeowners will be able to explore the architects’ designs using cutting-edge VR technology, which will allow them to see rooms in their house transform, giving them a chance to decide on which design comes out on top,” says Payne. There’s also an Australian version of the U.K. format LEGO Masters.

“Bringing together the most fanatical brick builders from around Australia, the scene is set for a competition unlike any other in LEGO Masters Australia.”

—Cathy Payne

LEGO Masters Australia Damaged

Escapade Media Damaged / Dogfather / Undocumented Damaged, a psychological thriller Escapade Media is showcasing, follows a student on a revenge mission after suffering a head injury at the hands of local thugs. “There is an interactive transmedia experience that is appealing to global audiences, allowing them to engage on another level and discover clues and answers to unlock their own perspective,” says Jessica Stonehouse, head of sales, partnerships and business development for the U.S. and U.K. at Escapade Media. Dogfather, meanwhile, sees a former mobster leave crime behind to run a pet store after a stint in jail. Undocumented, available as a commission and presale, is a drama series about an Australian living in New York City who must readjust her everyday life after learning she’s not legally documented to be in the country.

“Escapade Media is dedicated to developing distinct content in line with the technological developments of the industry.”

—Jessica Stonehouse 30 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Gaumont Narcos / Murder in Lisieux / The Art of Crime Gaumont is licensing linear rights for all seasons of its flagship series Narcos at MIPTV, including the fifth season currently in production. After the first three seasons chronicled Pablo Escobar and the rise of Colombia’s cocaine trade, the fourth pivoted to the Guadalajara Cartel and Mexico’s cannabis trade.

“Although in a new location, the storytelling, production values and equally talented new cast continue to captivate,” says Vanessa Shapiro, Gaumont’s president of worldwide TV distribution and co-production. Produced for France 3 is the 90minute thriller Murder in Lisieux, which follows an investigation into the mysterious death of an artist commissioned to restore a religious statue at a pilgrimage site. A procedural set in the art world, The Art of Crime will be highlighted at the market after getting greenlit for a third season.

Narcos

“Co-productions are key to our growth strategy.”

—Vanessa Shapiro Sahaya

GMA Worldwide To the One I Love / Written in the Stars / Sahaya A satirical romantic comedy, To the One I Love is about the local elections in the Philippines. Written in the Stars charts the story of two up-and-coming singers who are not only rivals in the spotlight but also in family and love.

Sahaya is centered on a young lady from a tribe south of the Philippines called the Badjaws and her struggles in adjusting to city life. Roxanne J. Barcelona, VP of GMA Worldwide, highlights that these shows feature stories of persistence, compassion and love for one’s family, “which are universal themes.” She adds that GMA is making investments to improve content creation—“from equipment to software to talent training and the overall production quality. Audiences can look forward to content with more exciting stories and of a higher quality in the very near future.”

“These titles portray the colorful and vibrant Filipino culture.”

—Roxanne J. Barcelona

GRB Studios Untold Stories of the ER / On the Case / Masterpiece The medical series Untold Stories of the ER is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and “we are excited about its continued success around the world, as well as the newly expanded interest in the development of local format adaptations,” says Patrice Choghi, senior VP of international at GRB Studios. On the Case, another of GRB’s offerings, is also celebrating a milestone, having been on the air for ten years. In the true-crime series, host and journalist Paula Zahn unravels murder mysteries as she interviews those closest to the case, including detectives and victims’ families. GRB is co-representing Masterpiece with partner Media Ranch. “The format explores seminal works of art and challenges teams of experts to re-create them in the ultimate attempt to pass them off as the real thing in front of world-renowned art enthusiasts,” says Choghi.

“We are very excited to be presenting the newest season of truecrime series On the Case to global buyers.”

—Patrice Choghi

On the Case 32 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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HBO Latin America Psi / The Bronze Garden / The Secret Life of Couples Created by psychiatrist Contardo Calligaris, the Brazilian series Psi enters its fourth season this year. The drama examines instances of paranoia—all of which are based on real-life cases Calligaris has encountered—with five narratives developing through the ten episodes. Also on HBO Latin America’s slate is The Bronze Garden, which is back for its sophomore run with a new storyline written by Gustavo Malajovich, the author of the book that inspired the first season. The Secret Life of Couples returns for a second season as well, as “politics, sex and power come together in this intriguing series created by Bruna Lombardi and Kim Riccelli,” says Xavier Aristimuño, the company’s VP of licensing. The new season focuses on the world of hackers and opens with an investigation into the death of one of the first season’s characters.

Psi

“HBO Latin America content has always been unique, telling universal stories in locally relevant settings.”

—Xavier Aristimuño

Hong Kong International Film & TV Market March 18-21, 2019; Hong Kong

HK FILMART

This year marked the 23rd edition of the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART). Since its launch, the event has evolved into one of the world’s largest entertainment marketplaces of its kind. It provides a platform for participants looking to connect and get business done. This year, it welcomed more than 880 exhibitors from 35 countries and regions, with around 9,000 visitors from 60 countries and regions attending the market. Exhibitors are not only from the film and television industry but also digital entertainment, documentary production and global filming support. Positioning itself as a market-intelligence platform as well, this year saw a new seminar series, “Insights with Industry Leaders,” bring together speakers from HBO, YouTube, Lionsgate and iQiyi to discuss the latest market trends.

Incendo Thicker Than Water / Radio Silence / The Sisterhood According to Gavin Reardon, Incendo’s head of international sales and co-productions, the company’s reputation and work speak for themselves. “Our current slate of thrillers represents 18 years of knowledge, experience and expertise in production,” says Reardon. Starring Andrea Roth as a mother grieving the death of her teenage son, Thicker Than Water shows a family tested when a tenant who resembles their lost loved one turns malevolent. In Radio Silence, Georgina Haig plays a therapist who uncovers a web of secrets after returning to her radio show only to take a call that seems to be from the same woman whose on-air suicide had previously led her to quit.

Her personal life in shambles, Ashley Shields (Claire Coffee) seeks empowerment from a women’s group that she realizes too late is more sinister than sisterly in The Sisterhood.

Radio Silence

“Our international partners around the world see our commitment and dedication to creating the finest films possible.”

—Gavin Reardon 34 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Love Conquers All?

Intellecta Love Conquers All? / The Singing Star / Family Secrets Intellecta has been working as Star India’s syndication partner for Indian drama series and movies for the last eight years. “And we have a lot of success stories with Indian series, which have achieved very high ratings and captured the hearts of audiences around the world,” says Christina Vlahova, general manager of Intellecta. Offerings for MIPTV include Love Conquers All?, “which is a new take on one of the most successful Indian series of all time,” Vlahova explains. The Singing Star is the story of a poor girl with a unique vocal talent, while Family Secrets follows a protagonist who is abandoned at birth but reclaimed by her mother on her 17th birthday to become the heir to a royal dynasty.

Buyers can also opt for a selection of Star India stories as scripted formats, Vlahova notes.

“When it comes to touching audiences’ hearts with dignity, romance and good family values, complemented by a lot of colors, there is no equal to Indian drama series.”

—Christina Vlahova Bitter Lands

Inter Medya Bitter Lands / Exathlon / The Pit Set in Istanbul and southern Turkey in the 1970s, Bitter Lands tells the story of an unscrupulous love affair and a couple who risk it all, including their freedom, to remain together. “International buyers want to see classic stories about love and family, and we can all agree that Bitter Lands is a special kind of love story,” says Can Okan, founder and CEO of Inter Medya. Also on the slate is sportsreality format Exathlon, which sees two teams of athletic contestants—including physically fit celebrities and sports stars—compete in obstacle courses in a bid to make it to the last round and be crowned Exathlon champion. Meanwhile, Ay Yapim-produced drama The Pit follows a young scion torn between following in his family’s footsteps and pursuing the woman he loves.

Keshet International

“International buyers want to see classic stories about love and family.”

—Can Okan River Hunters

2025 / The Great Gardening Challenge / River Hunters Keshet International’s 2025, described as “Monopoly meets The Truman Show,” is a reality format that places contestants in a mock-up of a near-future city in which they play a game of strategy with the aim of accumulating social currency. “The 2025 set is built on a massive scale and powered by a dedicated network of nearly 300 operators, producers and editors,” says Kelly Wright, Keshet International’s senior VP of distribution and new business. “The great news is that we’ve already made the investment and the Israeli set will be available as an international hub for our clients.” The Great Gardening Challenge throws professional garden designers into a competition to completely transform unkempt outdoor spaces.

Hello Halo’s River Hunters explores waterways of the world to uncover archeological treasures.

“River Hunters takes the popular factual genre of archaeological discoveries into the completely new and unexplored world of waterways.”

—Kelly Wright 36 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Accusations and Lies

MarVista Entertainment Bottled with Love / Accusations and Lies / The Narcissist Among the new movies that MarVista Entertainment will be debuting at MIPTV this year is Bottled with Love, a romance with a “message in a bottle” theme starring One Tree Hill alum Joy Lenz. Thriller Accusations and Lies—with AnnaLynne McCord (90210), Kate Vernon (Battlestar Galactica, The 100) and Jennifer Freeman (My Wife and Kids)—follows a woman searching for answers to her husband’s disappearance when she becomes the authorities’ prime suspect. Another thriller in MarVista’s catalog is The Narcissist, which centers on a woman who unwittingly falls for a charming man with a dark side and deadly secrets. “The genres of romance and thrillers have consistently performed particularly well for us with international buyers and audiences,” says Jody Cipriano, MarVista Entertainment’s head of distribution and acquisitions.

“We listen to our partners and bring them on board early on in the development process to ensure that our content meets their needs.”

—Jody Cipriano

Multicom Entertainment Group Boonie Bears / TheGrapevine & TheArchive / 4K Restorations Boonie Bears, an animated franchise, is looking for a U.S. home after finding success in China. Among the brand’s programming catalog is Boonie Bears: The Adventurers, a 52x13-minute series in which Bramble and Briar Bear help Carly save her Siberian tiger best friend Kitty from poachers.

Multicom Entertainment Group is also highlighting its new channels TheGrapevine and TheArchive that offer hundreds of hours of content internationally. The company’s 4K restorations include the Academy Award-winning documentary The Long Way Home, horror films The Convent and Slaughterhouse Rock, and the classic The Adventures of Pinocchio. “Multicom’s ever-growing library of broadcastquality films and television continues to improve,” says Multicom Entertainment Group’s president, Darrin Holender.

“Multicom’s vast catalog can provide buyers with content from nearly any genre.”

—Darrin Holender Boonie Bears

Nippon TV Beat the Rooms / Weakest Beast Nippon TV aligned with Red Arrow Studios International for Beat the Rooms. The format was created to open up “a new era for entertainment/studio game shows across a multitude of platforms,” says Atsushi Sogo, president of international business development at Nippon TV. “We get many inquiries asking for ‘crazy’ Japanese game shows, and we collaborated with Red Arrow Studios’ fantastic team of format experts to create a modern but still extremely funny and action-packed program. Beat the Rooms has smashed its time slot in Japan, and posts on [social media] were filled with comments, laughing and enjoying the fun show.” Nippon TV is also highlighting the scripted format Weakest Beast, directed by Nobuo Mizuta, whose other credits include Mother, Woman-My Life for My Children- and anone.

Beat the Rooms

“I think we have created a format that everyone has been waiting for.”

—Atsushi Sogo 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 37

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One Life Studios Porus / Chandragupta Maurya / Kingdom of Shani Well-received in 14 territories already, One Life Studios’ costume drama Porus follows the titular king as he defends his motherland against Alexander the Great. Another costume drama from the studio, Chandragupta Maurya is a saga about a teacher and a reluctant boy who together defend India from foreign invaders and an internal enemy.

Kingdom of Shani, a 3D animated action-adventure series, follows three pals who defeat mythological supervillains while tackling their own personal demons. “While our content is symbolic of the core culture and diversity of India, our approach has always been global,” says One Life Studios’ Rahul Kumar Tewary, producer and managing director. “Our series are a perfect blend of emotion, drama, grandeur and fantastic production values.”

“We seek to captivate audiences from all walks of life, in India and overseas, with our compelling storytelling.”

—Rahul Kumar Tewary Chandragupta Maurya

ORF-Enterprise Cuba’s Wild Revolution / Walking on Sunshine / The Csárdás Princess ORF-Enterprise’s blue-chip nature and wildlife strand Universum includes Cuba’s Wild Revolution, a documentary about how decades of socialist government, U.S. embargoes and minimal development have allowed the country’s wildlife to thrive. “A pillar of our factual catalog and well-known for great storytelling and stunning visuals, [Universum] is being complemented by innovative fiction shows from Austria that are today selling worldwide,” says Armin Luttenberger, ORF-Enterprise’s head of international content sales.

Workplace comedy-drama Walking on Sunshine follows a former hotshot news anchor who’s now a struggling weather forecaster trying to reestablish himself in a changing newsroom. Operetta The Csárdás Princess is the latest addition to ORF-Enterprise’s Austrian music and culture collection.

Cuba’s Wild Revolution

“ORF-Enterprise continues serving as a supplier of high-quality content from all genres for all media.” —Armin Luttenberger The Royal Beverlys

Pure Flix/Quality Flix The Royal Beverlys / Malibu Dan / The Encounter The family comedy The Royal Beverlys, which Pure Flix/Quality Flix is highlighting, is about three talented young singers who are orphans. The second season of Malibu Dan, also part of the slate, is airing on WGN America. The family comedy centers on Dan Marshall as he juggles his home life and the demands of his morning show. With a second season coming this year, The Encounter is a thriller/mystery in which a group of strangers finds themselves brought together for an unknown reason. Ron Gell, the company’s VP of international sales and distribution, also highlights four brandnew TV movies being brought to MIPTV: Sweet Inspirations, starring Dean Cain; Christmas Manger, with Tara Reid; Prayer Box, featuring Denise Richards; and Life with Dog, led

by Corbin Bernsen and Marilu Henner.

“Our objective is to establish relationships with top distribution companies and broadcasters directly in all territories.”

—Ron Gell 38 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Rabbit Films The Most Endangered Species with WWF / Couples’ Party / Beyond Human Boundaries Beyond Human Boundaries A pair of new formats lead Rabbit Films’ highlights, including The Most Endangered Species with WWF, a travel series about endangered animals, hosted by a comedian-scientist duo. “We believe there is a high demand for this topical format that provides a powerful message and fascinates the whole family,” says Jonathan Tuovinen, Rabbit Films’ COO and head of international. Dubbed the “naughtiest game of the year,” Couples’ Party features three couples that are all friends as they compete to see who knows the others’ blush-worthy secrets best.

Rolling out its third season, the travel docuseries Beyond Human Boundaries follows an ordinary man named Arman Alizad, who travels to eight countries—including Brazil and Saudi Arabia—where he integrates himself into a community, group, tribe or environment for ten days.

“Strengthening existing partnerships and creating new ones in Europe and the U.S. is always part of our mission.”

—Jonathan Tuovinen

Smithsonian Networks The Green Book: Guide to Freedom / Apollo’s Moon Shot / Mystic Britain Smithsonian Networks brings a slew of factual highlights to MIPTV, among them The Green Book: Guide to Freedom, a documentary that covers the same subject matter as this year’s Academy Award winner for best picture, Green Book. “Our program tells the true story of the ‘underground’ motorist’s travel guide featured in the movie,” says David Royle, executive VP and chief programming officer. “The controversy surrounding Green Book has created enormous buzz around our program.” Also on the slate is Apollo’s Moon Shot, which tells the story of early space exploration in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, and Mystic Britain, in which host Clive Anderson and anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota go on an “insightful journey and they explore everything from mysterious stone circles to Ice Age shamanism,” says Royle.

“Our evolution into a global channel is only increasing our appetite for international partners for both our programming and our channel business.”

—David Royle

SPI International/FilmBox

Mystic Britain FightBox HD

FightBox HD / Gametoon HD / Timeless Drama Channel SPI International/FilmBox operates 36 channels on six continents. FightBox HD and Gametoon HD are two of its most popular global offerings, while Timeless Drama Channel is the newest network in the company’s portfolio. Timeless Drama Channel features more than 800 hours of internationally acclaimed content from major Turkish producers. “Timeless Drama Channel captures universal themes such as passion, action and love,” says Berk Uziyel, CEO at SPI International.

“These are themes that go beyond geographical boundaries.

We are very proud of the quality of its programs and how its audience is growing every day.” FightBox HD delivers live broadcasts of combat sports events as well as multi-discipline sports coverage. Gametoon HD is a gaming channel created and developed by gamers for gamers.

“Last year and the first quarter of 2019 have been nothing short of incredible for SPI/FilmBox.” —Berk Uziyel 40 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Below the Surface

STUDIOCANAL Below the Surface / Trust Me / Spiral STUDIOCANAL is highlighting three series returning with fresh episodes for the marketplace. There’s a second season of Below the Surface, a crime thriller series from Søren Sveistrup (The Killing), Adam Price (Borgen) and Meta Louise Foldager Sørensen (A Royal Affair). There’s also a sophomore season of Trust Me, which follows the story of Corporal Jamie McCain, a former war hero who must adapt to his new life as a paraplegic. Spiral returns for a seventh season filled with criminal investigations, embracing the various perspectives of the police and the judicial authorities in Paris. “The winning combination of a strong cast lineup and excellent production teams and writers, which STUDIOCANAL can secure, means the global potential for our crime drama series is limitless,” says Beatriz Campos, head of international sales.

“Returning series are a statement of the quality of our stories and their success, not only in their commissioning territories but also internationally.”

—Beatriz Campos

TV Azteca International Culture Code / Maria Magdalena / Dementia Led by world-renowned anthropologist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, Culture Code delves into the complex world of who we are and why we do what we do. Dr. Rapaille, who has dedicated his life to decoding the social phenomena of the world, demonstrates that three different parts of the human brain build rituals and reality from the rational, emotional and instinctive perspectives. Each chapter of the show delves into a specific place’s culture and teaches viewers to “speak cultures.” TV Azteca International is also offering historical drama Maria Magdalena, which re-creates the life of a woman who dared to challenge the laws of a corrupt society entirely run by men, and Dementia, which follows a reporter who admits herself into a psychiatric hospital to discover the truth behind her grandmother’s murder.

Culture Code

Beat the Chef

Twofour Rights Beat the Chef / Secret Teacher / Extreme Chocolate Makers Amateur cooks face off against culinary pros in Beat the Chef, a new cook-off show from Twofour Rights that has a money ladder with a big cash prize. Secret Teacher is a new four-part series with four successful business owners who struggled in school returning to academia to offer a helping hand to those who remind them of their younger selves. A spin-off of Extreme Cake Makers, Extreme Chocolate Makers features chocolatiers creating show-stopping chocolate masterpieces.

Twofour will also be showcasing the format What Would Your Kid Do?, which has already traveled to ten territories. “All of these feel very of the moment—TV with heart and purpose,” says Holly Hodges, Twofour Rights’ head of sales operations and VP of sales for North America, the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

“Twofour continues to offer content this market that evokes emotion.”

—Holly Hodges 42 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Wisdom in China Shanghai Media Group / iFormats Shanghai Media Group (SMG) and iFormats, a library platform for Chinese formats operated by SMG, organized Wisdom in China events at MIPFormats last year. The success of this has led to two new events being held this time around in Cannes.

The first, Wisdom in China: New Opportunities for Chinese Formats, will be held on Saturday, April 6, at 3:45 p.m. in the Debussy Theatre. “This will be a promotional event that shows popular original TV formats from China, from which people can discover how these original ideas came out and have been fully prepared to enter the global market,” says Vincent Sun, deputy director of SMG’s new media business unit. The second, Wisdom in China: How to Realize Win-Win Co-Production with China, is slated for Monday, April 8, at 3:30 p.m. in Auditorium A.

“With the constant development of the Chinese economy, we have sufficient capital and resource investment to innovatively put forward advanced and modern ideas.”

—Vincent Sun

ZDF Enterprises The Worst Witch / The Greatest Race / Victor Lessard From the ZDFE.junior catalog comes The Worst Witch, the story of Mildred Hubble in the magical world of Cackle’s Academy. Not only is Hubble the worst witch in school, but she is also constantly battling fellow sorceresses and landing herself in precarious situations. The Greatest Race, a ZDFE.unscripted series that follows the rise of young charioteer Scorpus, gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the chariot races of ancient Rome. At the heart of the show “are the elaborately reconstructed and reenacted races that are coupled with documentary segments, giving viewers incredibly rich, new insights into the highly influential Roman society,” says ZDF Enterprises’ president and CEO, Fred Burcksen. On the ZDFE.drama slate, crime drama Victor Lessard is an adaptation of the best-selling novels by Martin Michaud.

Victor Lessard

“Victor Lessard is a dramatic crime series that tackles identity issues, recovering memory loss and a need for recognition.”

—Fred Burcksen

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Deceptive Measures / The Relationship Conundrum / Cosmic Connection Deceptive Measures, an adaptation of the Indian series Pavitra Rishta, is Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ second African coproduction. The series centers on a young middle-class girl who everyone depends on, yet no one seems to value. The Relationship Conundrum (Guddan Tumse Na Ho Payega) is the story of 20-year-old Guddan, who after marrying a widower suddenly finds herself a mother-in-law to three older daughters. Cosmic Connection (Tujhse Hai Raabta) chronicles the bittersweet relationship between a daughter and her stepmother, who are forced to live together after tragedy strikes the family. “Given the intriguing storylines and high production values, we believe these programs will travel worldwide either in their original or adapted versions,” says Sunita Uchil, chief business officer of Global Content Hub by Zee.

“We are coming with our largest catalog ever, with over 260,000 programs in various genres, and also have a variety of formats to offer.”

—Sunita Uchil Cosmic Connection 44 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Tom Selleck om Selleck has starred in dozens of TV shows and feature films, notably Three Men and a Baby, the original Magnum P.I. series, the Jesse Stone franchise, and he had a recurring guest role on Friends. For the past nine years, he has played New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan on Blue Bloods. Frank not only commands 38,000 men and women in blue, but he is also the patriarch of a family dedicated to law enforcement. His two sons are on the force and his daughter is an assistant district attorney. Selleck talks to World Screen about crafting his character, the level of quality of episodic television and those famous Reagan family dinners scenes.

By Anna Carugati

T

WS: I have a colleague at work whose husband is a New York cop, and he says that Blue Bloods is the only show that depicts police work correctly.

SELLECK: We get that a lot. It’s drama, so it’s a heightened reality. What do they say, “Art isn’t the truth; it’s a lie that enables us to see the truth”? We’re not doing a commercial for the NYPD, we’re showing the good and the bad, but cops seem to really respect it, which means a lot to me.

WS: Do you have consultants on the show?

SELLECK: Yeah, Jimmy Nuciforo is a former NYPD detective. He’s now an associate producer. We do a lot of research. [Former New York City Police Commissioner] Bill Bratton was very helpful to me because my job is a little different. I’m not shooting people or putting cuffs on them or tackling people. I love the challenge. I’m kind of dealing with an abstraction. How do you lead people? More importantly, if you’re in command, you don’t show weakness or fear or anxiety, and yet the audience has to see that. [Bratton’s] book Turnaround: How America’s Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic helped me a lot, especially with the politics too, with the mayor. Commissioner [Raymond] Kelly, who was the commissioner at the time, was way too busy being a real commissioner. Bill Bratton calls me the acting commissioner! [Laughs] WS: To what do you attribute the continued success of the show?

SELLECK: When I read the script for the pilot it moved me.

I’d been shown a lot of series opportunities and I didn’t want to do them. I didn’t want to do a procedural. Increasingly, they wanted me to play the boss of something. I guess that’s flattering. And there was some of that in the first episode or two of Blue Bloods. We had some sit-downs and I said, If I play the boss, that’s what you hired me for, but I don’t want just to bark orders. I want to see what the world of command is like.

I did a motion picture—and I never thought I’d get asked to do that kind of role—called Ike: Countdown to D-Day,

where I play General Eisenhower. I’m very proud of it. It was scary. When my good friend and agent, Bettye McCartt, sent it to me, she said, They want you to play General Eisenhower in the lead-up to D-Day. I said, What are they thinking? The only thing I knew was that the audience would say the same thing, and that might make them want to watch. When I read the script written by Lionel Chetwynd it made me cry even though you know the ending. I said, I must get this, so I took the risk. But I learned so much about the abstraction of command, about the weight of the responsibility. He had millions of men under his command. Frank on Blue Bloods has 38,000, so I’m not playing General Eisenhower, but I have drawn on that a lot.

And that’s where I wanted the show to go with my character— not walk into a room and give orders.

The interesting thing for me about Frank is that he’s one of the most famous people in New York City. He travels in different circles, whether he likes it or not. That’s not his roots. He was a beat cop in the NYPD. But he travels in some incredible circles and when that door to that office closes, things are talked about in a whole different way, and when he walks out the mask comes up. To me, that was the most interesting thing.

WS: Tell us about the wonderful family meal scenes.

SELLECK: I loved the family scenes in the pilot script, and I said to [executive producer] Leonard Goldberg, this is an eight-page scene with the family having dinner. I know something about television networks. They’re going to try and cut that out, right? He said, No, it’s going to stay the way it is and it’s going to be a set-piece.

Leonard thought of that and made that contribution from day one. And now most people say it’s their favorite part of the show.

The benefit of a seven- or eight- or nine-year characterdriven show is the audience walks in your shoes. There are episodes that we couldn’t do in the first season, but we can do now because the audience has this cumulative

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Now in its ninth season on CBS, Blue Bloods has been a strong seller for CBS Studios International.

narrative in their head, we don’t have to do a lot of explaining. And you have the wonderful thing where the audience knows a secret at the family dinners.

They had a secret on Magnum P.I. and Magnum shared it with the audience in the narration. If he lied to somebody and was running a con on somebody, he would get in his car and say to the audience, I know what you’re thinking, I lied. I shouldn’t have lied. Magnum had a conversation with viewers. [Blue Bloods] has that in the form of the audience knowing a secret at family dinners that even the characters aren’t aware of because the audience has seen—usually, it’s the third or fourth act— what all of the characters are going through.

The source of jeopardy for our show, as much as the audience worries about it, is in the relationships. They know it’s a contentious family; they know they all have opinions. You have to fight to get attention at the Reagan table or to get a word in. They don’t want their relationships going south.

WS: What’s the atmosphere like on set?

SELLECK: [Shooting a TV series] can be miserable. I’ve been on those sets—usually, as a guest, thank god. It made me work harder than when I had my own shows because you’re walking on eggshells. I’m not coming out of my dressing room until they’re coming out. We don’t have that. We have really good people, who happen to be good actors. We’ve got two families now. And it shows. On an hour television show with a big ensemble, you could go two, three, four weeks without seeing somebody. In our show, we shoot [an episode] in eight days. Once every eight days, the whole family [gets together at the dinners]. And there’s a family of actors, too. Sometimes the directors have to remind us we’re shooting a scene because we’re catching up and kidding around and doing all sorts of stuff!

WS: How have you seen the quality of television series increase over the years?

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SELLECK: You have to fight for it. I had some very serious meetings at the beginning of the show about Frank’s character: Are we doing a procedural or are we doing a character-driven show? It had to be settled once and for all. We weren’t going to evolve once we were on the air. If the network is allowed to executive produce every show, you know what, there’s going to be a sameness, and I think our show is a little different. The production values have increased. Technically, now I’m an executive producer in an unofficial way. I won’t take a credit for it; there are too many executive producers. But I know episodic TV; I ran the show for the last two years on Magnum. I couldn’t do that now.

I’m too old. [Laughs] But I do spend a lot of time on my character and everybody seems to welcome it.

A character-driven show is very hard. You’ve got to find the comedy in the tragedy and the tragedy in the comedy in a character-driven show. Finding moments takes a lot of time. The editors don’t have enough time.

So, I’ll spend a day in the editing room just working on moments for the characters. And I make notes, like, Why is the character crying? You can’t pander to emotion. I’m not saying we do. You can say, Let’s do a scene like that, that will be emotional. No, it won’t. Not unless the characters are compelling and the journey is good.

It’s almost a trap because our show, more often than not, will have a moment that sneaks up on the audience and moves them. And most shows don’t do that. To find that stuff takes time, so I usually spend a day in the editing room.

I think that’s a big contribution that’s helped. But look, I’m only improving an already well-done form.

[Take] the photography and the fact that New York is a [central character in the show]. We’ve learned how to do that. We have to do it on budget. How do you get more production value out of less money and still get outside and show the city? You get better at it and it makes the show better. But the only real question to ask always, on any changes is, is it better?

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t just 10 years old, Iain Armitage has already acted alongside some of the biggest heavyweights in Hollywood. As Ziggy Chapman in the HBO hit Big Little Lies (a role he landed at age 7), his co-stars include Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern and, with season two, Meryl Streep. His film work has paired him up with screen icons Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, as well as other A-listers like Naomi Watts, Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson and J.K. Simmons. Armitage is perhaps best known, though, for playing boy genius Sheldon Cooper in the CBS comedy Young Sheldon, a prequel to the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, in which he plays the school-aged version of Jim Parsons’ beloved Big Bang counterpart.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

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WS: When did you start acting, and what drew you to the entertainment business?

ARMITAGE: I started acting at about 6 or 7 years old. I got my first part, in Big Little Lies, at 7. It was more of a happy accident. I always liked being a good audience member and seeing theater. An agency asked if I wanted to try [acting] and I thought, OK! It’s been really fun and awesome ever since.

Being in high school as a 10-year-old might not be very relatable, but everyone has something that makes them feel a bit different from other people. That’s actually a good thing! If everyone were the same, things would be pretty boring. Sometimes people have a difficult time navigating social aspects of life; that can always be a little bit hard.

WS: What do you like most about the character you play in Young Sheldon, and do you and Sheldon have characteristics in common?

ARMITAGE: Since he is so oblivious to emotions, it gives him the freedom to say a lot of funny, kind of naughty things that you wouldn’t say in real life. He’s a very interesting character to play. He’s funny and nice (a lot of the time).

We’re both very passionate about the things we’re passionate about. We both love science. We’re also different in a lot of ways. I’m not nearly as smart as he is, for example.

WS: How did Jim Parsons help you step into the role of Sheldon? Do you ever watch The Big Bang Theory and look to his character for inspiration?

ARMITAGE: I don’t watch The Big Bang Theory because it’s not aimed at my audience level. The good thing is I have the world’s greatest Sheldon expert just a few sound stages away. To help me prepare for this mammoth role—it’s very hard to be Sheldon!—we talked about how Sheldon would handle different situations. We talked about how he would react to things and about everything from the way he speaks to the way he behaves. We discussed every aspect of Sheldon, and over time I got it down.

WS: What are some of the biggest challenges Sheldon faces as a super-bright kid in high school? Are these relatable to real-world experiences of kids or are they unique to a brainiac like Sheldon?

ARMITAGE: For most kids, the social aspect of school is the easy part and all the work is the hard part. For him, the work is the easy part and socializing is hard. [Looking at] the hallway scenes—where I’m scuttling between all these people, running around and going underneath them—being a lot smaller is definitely not an advantage for Sheldon.

WS: What method do you have for memorizing your lines?

Is there anything in particular that helps get you into character when filming?

ARMITAGE: I read somewhere that if you read something before you go to sleep, you remember it better. I read my lines on my way home from work and on the way to work.

Once I have the gist of the scene, I pretty much know all the lines—it’s sort of weird! [Laughs] When I come [to the 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 51

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Warner Bros.’ CBS sitcom Young Sheldon has already been renewed through season four.

set], I’m Iain; I’m in my Iain clothes with my Iain hair.

But then I put on my Sheldon clothes, step into his shoes (literally), get my Sheldon hair on, my perfect Sheldon paleness—we jokingly call it “going through the works.”

Once I have all that done and I step onto our sound stage, that’s when I feel like Sheldon. Having it all come together is a good feeling.

WS: What are some of the things that are universally funny (or relatable) that this show offers for viewers across the world?

ARMITAGE: Touching back to the idea of Sheldon being oblivious to feelings, having someone being as open as he is is always pretty funny. He says such brash and hilarious things. There’s also the fish-out-of-water aspect to it. That’s so relatable but in a funny way. This really takes it to the next level of being a fish out of water. Think fish in a desert. [Laughs] WS: Are you and the cast a tight-knit group?

ARMITAGE: Oh yeah! I love everyone in the cast.

Meemaw, Miss Annie Potts, I go to her house on the weekends. Me and Raegan [Revord, who plays Sheldon’s twin sister, Missy] go to the park together. Me and Montana [Jordan, who plays Sheldon’s older brother, George Jr.] have a lot of fun and do some videos together.

The parents are like real parents to us. The atmosphere on the set makes it feel like I’m at home, even though I’m at work. The Cooper house set, that’s our home— everyone there is like my family. I’m really lucky and feel so honored to work here.

WS: Your character on Big Little Lies is quite different from Sheldon.

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ARMITAGE: Sheldon is very confident. He holds himself in a high, high place. He knows his capabilities.

Ziggy is more vulnerable. Sheldon is a little bit vulnerable, in that he hasn’t quite found his footing in the world. Ziggy is quiet; he doesn’t really talk to people and is not confident.

WS: You have worked alongside some tremendously talented actors. Have any of them passed on acting tips?

ARMITAGE: Oh my goodness, it is mind-blowing! To be in the room with such legends is crazy! They’re like the best you can get, and then you’re around them and they are so homey and down to earth. They make everything feel so normal that sometimes you forget you’re in the same room as, say, Jane Fonda; it’s more like you’re in the same room as your friend. Just being around them and watching how they [approach acting] in itself is a big acting lesson. Seeing everybody’s different method for acting and how they get into their characters is pretty cool! It seeps into you and makes you better than you were before.

WS: I understand you love the theater and do reviews of Broadway shows on your YouTube channel. Where did your love of plays come from?

ARMITAGE: It’s in my blood. My mom is a director and my dad is an actor. It’s like seeing magic happen on stage. On screen, you can’t go meet the actors when they’re done with the show; they’re not right there in front of you for real. In theater acting, there’s only one take to get it perfect—so it’s very good. Theater acting is also very passionate. So is acting for film, and I love both!

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SPOTLIGHT

By Anna Carugati

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s president of AMC Networks International (AMCNI), Eduardo Zulueta oversees the channels AMC and SundanceTV outside the U.S. and a portfolio of local brands available in more than 130 countries. He talks to World Screen about the health of the pay-TV business, the power of original programming and the vibrancy of the Spanish and Latin American markets.

WS: The pay-TV market is still doing well in several territories.

ZULUETA: Yes, the pay-television market is doing quite well. It’s not just pay television, but television in general is doing quite well. Technology is creating changes in consumer behavior. These changes are good; they provide more demand for high-quality entertainment, for more content, so we thrive in that environment because we are providers of that content. It’s a good time to be in television. These technological changes bring more diversity, more variety; actually, they empower the consumer much more. The changes might be disruptive, but disruption is the norm in a dynamic industry.

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Certainly, the television industry has always been very dynamic. The key takeaway is that the total audience for video is growing. You might say, OK, but traditional or linear viewing is decreasing. Yes, but total video consumption is increasing significantly. You might say that traditional advertising is declining. Yes, but there’s a new wave of advanced data-driven targeted advertising that is exploiting new, highly profitable niches and opportunities for the advertiser.

It’s a different world. Business models are adapting to this new reality and as they adapt, they often forget about the past and previous challenges and how, as an industry, we overcame them. For example, let’s imagine a convention for movie executives in the late ’50s or early ’60s. We would be very concerned about one thing, television, and how disruptive television was going to be because we would be only thinking of one metric, which was movie attendance and the box office. That was the only way to monetize our efforts. We would be very anxious thinking, oh my God, people are not going to movie theaters because they are staying home watching television. What is that going to do to our bottom line? Little did these movie executives understand that the movie industry was going to benefit enormously from television. It was counterintuitive at the time.

If we fast-forward 20 years, broadcast executives in the ’80s would be concerned about audience fragmentation and how terrible cable disruption would be for the business. Yes, indeed, the audience share of the U.S. networks has declined steadily. What was difficult to anticipate on the eve of cable disruption was that the revenues of these broadcasters were going to go up. They added new revenue streams; they argued very successfully that the diminishing supply of eyeballs would make each remaining pair more valuable and they did very well.

Now, we look at the past and those concerns seem exaggerated. I like to reflect on these historical transitions because right now we are in a transition. We are in a technological transition and all these evolutions, all these changes in consumer behavior, have actually helped the creative process. They have unleashed new creative potential. They have created a bigger, more stable industry. That’s important and that’s what we are experiencing now—more demand for content.

WS: In this constantly evolving landscape, how important is a brand?

ZULUETA: A brand defines who you are. What defines AMC Networks is high-quality storytelling and our brands reflect that. Our brands are relevant. AMC is one of the best-loved TV brands in the U.S. It’s doing very well internationally as well. It’s a brand that has character; it engages, it has passionate viewers. It’s a brand that is consistent with its promise to deliver high-quality content. That coherence is appreciated by the viewers, so the brand resonates, and of course, we engage with our viewers on social media. We engage with our customers, the distribution platforms; we do all sorts of events. We are constantly engaging and monitoring. But I believe that in this world of increased fragmentation, you need powerful brands that act as lighthouses that cut through the fog.

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World Screen’s Anna Carugati interviewed AMCNI’s Eduardo Zulueta on stage at NATPE this year.

We’re successful with AMC internationally and we also have some important local brands that matter very much in the territories where they operate. I’m thinking of El Gourmet, Film & Arts, Europa Europa, Más Chic [in Latin America]. If I go to Spain, I would say Canal Cocina, Canal Hollywood. In Portugal, Canal Panda, in terms of brand recognition, is on par with Disney Channel. I would also highlight Spektrum in Central and Eastern Europe.

WS: When AMC acquired Chellomedia five years ago, part of the strategy was to secure broader distribution for the programming coming from the U.S. Has that worked out?

ZULUETA: Yes, absolutely. It has worked out. It has been a very successful acquisition. As a former Chellomedia executive, I couldn’t be happier. Chellomedia was successful inasmuch as it had very relevant local brands and channels.

But what Chellomedia missed was having a top international brand that would give cohesion to the whole bouquet and act also as a driver locally. We have achieved that.

As for AMC, it did not have much of an international presence. Now it has a solid footing in many important regions.

WS: How important is original programming to the health of a brand?

ZULUETA: Original programming is a number one priority.

We are a creative company, very focused on programming. That’s what we do and what we do well. AMC and SundanceTV, which are the two international brands that we have rolled out, have been successful. And that success is predicated on the AMC Studios series we air.

We also produce significantly in the lifestyle genre, around 500 hours a year on all of our lifestyle channels across Latin America and Southern Europe. We also produce some factual programming. Internationally, we have not produced scripted series yet, but I am sure that it is something that will happen next.

WS: You have firsthand knowledge of the Spanish market. Spain went through quite a struggle after the 2008 financial crisis, but now there’s a flurry of activity in Spain.

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ZULUETA: It’s interesting because the Spanish television market always bet on locally produced series. So there has been an industry since the mid-’90s, which has exploded now thanks to globalization and international VOD players. All of a sudden, these series pop up internationally. They were there in the past, but it was difficult to get the series distributed. In the last ten years, when Spain started to produce period series, those period series started to travel much better. Why? If you have a very current series, you might use slang or certain words that are easily understood by a Spanish audience, but it will not travel as well. If you are doing a period series, you use language that is understood much better. So that raised awareness that Spanish series played well in Latin America and so there was an interest from buyers. They were ready to take on more current series. For example, El Príncipe, which is a Spanish series set in the present day, worked very well in Latin America. And then, of course, you have the huge success of Money Heist (La Casa de Papel), which surprised everybody in Spain. It did very well for Antena 3 but wasn’t a runaway hit and nobody expected this huge international success. I think we’re going to see more of that because Spanish is a language that is shared by around 500 million people around the world.

WS: What growth opportunities do you see in Latin America, even though some countries are experiencing economic and political challenges?

ZULUETA: Latin America had tremendous growth in pay television from 2010 to 2014. Now it has stabilized.

There are some microeconomic worries; yes, everybody suffers from the depreciation of the local exchange rates.

I think we could see more growth. I have perhaps a different view than some of my colleagues because I have had four consecutive years of growth. So we are optimistic and bullish. We started four years ago with a very strong legacy presence in Argentina because we had a robust local operation there. Right now, our main market is Mexico and we are growing steadily and quite significantly in Brazil. Those are our three main markets.

We are very hopeful in Colombia; we are opening an office there. So we are positive about the region.

WS: How is AMC Networks International making content available direct to consumer?

ZULUETA: We have Sundance Now and Acorn TV, which is specialized in British drama. We have Shudder, which is a horror channel. All these are being rolled out internationally. That’s part of our diversification effort.

AMC Networks has shown foresight with a capacity to execute. Obviously, the company has been successful with its U.S.-produced series. The company has made a big statement rolling out internationally and the company is also investing in SVOD niche opportunities now that streaming is very important for the consumer.

I would say that we walk on two legs. One of them is the generation of content IP and the other one is distribution. We have AMC Studios [that produces content]. [In distribution,] we have a channel business in the U.S. and internationally, and now we have OTT streaming services.

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Atresmedia & Netflix’s La Casa de Papel (Money Heist).

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Leading distributors from around the world tell Mansha Daswani how they are coping with the seismic shifts in the ways content is commissioned, distributed and monetized. etflix reportedly shelled out almost $100 million to keep Friends on its service through 2019.

This year may, in fact, be the streaming giant’s last opportunity to let its users binge-watch all ten seasons of the beloved sitcom.

WarnerMedia, which controls the rights to the comedy that ended its broadcast run 15 years ago, may want to keep the lucrative asset for its own streaming ambitions, since a platform from the AT&Towned business is expected by the end of this year. The higher-ups at WarnerMedia will have to make some tough decisions as they weigh the value of what Friends could do for their own direct-to-consumer business against forgoing a generous licensing fee. Of note, Disney has already said its operating income will be about $150 million lower in 2019 as a result of reduced licensing fees from holding back content for its own service, which is also expected in late 2019.

These developments reflect the seismic, and ongoing, disruptions in the licensing of IP that have everyone—from the Hollywood studios to indies to the distribution houses of major broadcasters—figuring out new ways to keep up with the onslaught of change.

However, the traditional distribution business isn’t dead, it isn’t dying and it’s not even in need of intensive care.

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“Principally we make the vast majority of our revenues in the same way we always did,” says Richard Halliwell, the CEO of DRG. “But the route to that has changed for all distributors over the last few years and continues to accelerate. The old model doesn’t exist, and therefore we’re all trying out new ways to support and grow our businesses and to understand what our role is in the new world.”

And in that new world, DRG now sees itself as a “content company that does distribution, as opposed to a distribution company,” Halliwell says.

Espen Huseby, the president and CEO of NordicWorld, expresses a similar sentiment when he observes, “We are rights management, we are financiers, we are developers; we are much, much more than distributors.

Distribution, meaning sales and representation, is just a part of what we’re doing today.”

EARLY BIRDS The most significant manifestation of that change in thinking has been companies boarding projects far earlier than they used to. For many rights owners involved in big-ticket international drama, the old days of picking up a show after it had been commissioned—and largely paid for—by a local broadcaster are long gone.

“We prefer to come in at the co-development stage, where we are full co-production partners from day one and co-developing and sharing the costs along the way,” says Vanessa Shapiro, Gaumont’s president of worldwide 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 83

TV distribution and co-production. “We’ve found that by the time content is already produced, there’s normally a distribution company attached, so to get great content that fits with our clients’ needs and what we’re looking for, we have to come in as early as possible.

And in some cases, we will develop our own content. I’m a distributor, but I can bring my creative team and co-develop with other production companies.”

That view is shared by Greg Phillips, the president of Kew Media Distribution, who notes that early involvement can help “eliminate risk—or, as I’d rather put it, maximize potential.

We have Carrie Stein now on board [as Kew Media’s executive VP of global scripted series], we have extremely talented people at our internal companies and we trade with some extremely talented people who bring us product. We are happy to develop directly with networks via those entities. We are also happy now to commission, as our sister company TCB Media Rights does, based on our knowledge of the marketplace and our relationships with the networks and platforms.”

Phillips adds, “In the old days, broadcasters were paying for 100 percent of the budget and the foreign sales were the icing on the cake.

Once that stopped, you had to rethink your methods and your operation and take into account other things. It’s just much bigger, and the process is more complicated and sometimes needier now than it was before.”

David Ellender, the president of global distribution and co-productions at Sonar

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Japan’s Nippon TV is showcasing scripted formats like Weakest Beast as interest in local drama booms worldwide.

Entertainment, stresses the importance of early involvement on projects to deliver something that will have worldwide appeal.

“We develop internally and externally with a lot of third-party creators, both [in the U.S.] and internationally,” Ellender says. “It’s not just finding a great story—when you’ve found that story, how do you craft it into something that will work universally? That’s incredibly important. You can only do that at the formative stages of a project. With that comes risk. You have to make a financial contribution in terms of acquiring the IP and then investing in scripts.

It’s a lengthy process as well. Crafting some of these projects will take months, if not years.

Not everybody has the pockets to do that. If you’re going to create something that has global value, then it takes a little longer.”

“We’ve all learned to be a bit more patient,” quips DRG’s Halliwell on the practical impact of being an early investor in a project. “That’s the one thing they don’t tell you. If you get involved in product and development earlier, it takes a hell of a lot longer to turn up!”

Halliwell continues, “Very rarely now are we the last dollar into a conversation, which would have been our role until a couple of years ago.

Very often now we’re the first dollar on the table. We recently worked with one of our successful first-look companies to acquire some hotly contested book IP. That’s not something we would have been doing a few years ago. Through the group we have a relationship

with TV3 in Norway, where we are cocommissioning, co-financing projects for them. They’ve come up with the slot and we’ll co-finance it. That gives us IP and product that we can then take to the market. And it gives our first-look producers, most of whom are in the U.K.—which is still a very small market with very few slots—a better chance of getting something commissioned internationally first.”

As Halliwell indicates, it’s not just producer relationships that are being entered into earlier than before; conversations with broadcasters, and platforms, are also starting at the beginning phases of a show’s life cycle.

Fernando Szew, the CEO of MarVista Entertainment, reports that one of the biggest shifts at his company has been the integration of its creative and sales teams. “We’re giving our buyers much earlier awareness of our creative process and what the distribution pipeline is going to look like. One of the reasons we’ve done that is in part to answer the changing distribution landscape. It’s also about our understanding that the pipeline from content to distribution to audience is much more integrated than it used to be. We started as a distributor who was more of a marketer and seller of content. Now it’s more about being creators of content.”

And just as distributors are evolving, buyers are too, with linear broadcasters having to find new ways to maximize the rights they acquire while facing off against the FAANGs. 84 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Broadcasters “are undoubtedly more ambitious and more aggressive at trying to get more rights,” reports Stuart Baxter, the president of international distribution at Entertainment One (eOne). “Exclusivity is at an even bigger premium than it ever was before. Having said that, they are constrained by this year’s budgets.

Some of the SVODs in the market are less concerned about this year’s P&L—it’s about growth, it’s about subscriber numbers. The traditional broadcasters all operate within annual P&Ls.” In some cases, broadcasters are being more flexible in the rights they acquire based on what their needs are. Of note, ProSiebenSat.1 Media, which used to be one of the world’s biggest buyers of U.S. content, licensed some of its American shows to 7TV. “This content can be better exploited on a streaming platform due to changes in viewer behavior,” the company said when announcing its financials earlier this year.

ALL OR NOTHING? On rights acquisition trends at broadcasters, Shapiro at Gaumont reports, “The more [buyers] want something, the more flexible they are! It’s becoming extremely complicated, especially when you sell a show [following] a Netflix window. We are competing with a major platform available to 130 million-plus subscribers worldwide. So, we’re looking for creative ways to make, rebrand or repackage the content to make it unique to a channel.

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For instance, in the case of Narcos, the original version is 50/50 Spanish and English. Now, we’re dubbing the whole series in local languages (English, Spanish, French) for free-TV broadcasters where audiences might not want to read subtitles.”

Kew Media’s Phillips observes a “steady progression” toward buyers being more pragmatic about their acquisitions. “Years ago when some of these [OTT] platforms started, the broadcasters said, We have to have everything. We said, No you don’t, you’re not going to do anything with it! It was just part of the negotiations. A broadcaster needs catch-up rights. There’s a difference between that and buying SVOD rights exclusively or blocking other rights and paying over the top for them. Most broadcasters are very aware of what they need and what they don’t need and what they’re prepared to pay for. That’s part of the process now.”

WINDOW WATCHING

MarVista continues to generate sales on its slate of TV movies, among them A Winter Princess.

Many broadcasters have also been miffed by the raft of global SVOD deals that effectively pulled content out of the market before they even had a chance to look at it. ITV Studios Global Entertainment opted for a global window on Netflix, outside of the U.K., Ireland and China, for the buzzy Bodyguard. BBC Studios’ hotly anticipated Good Omens will have its first run on Amazon outside of the U.K. Atresmedia’s La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), after two seasons as a modest success in its home market, became a phenomenon on Netflix, which took exclusive global firstrun rights to a third season.

The whole process of crafting a route-tomarket strategy is becoming increasingly

complicated as distributors take into account the wants of the commissioning broadcaster or platform, the producers and the potential to maximize their own return on investment.

Baxter at eOne references the conversations within the company about the approach to selling Mark Gordon’s ABC procedural The Rookie, led by Nathan Fillion, whose previous show, Castle, was a huge hit on free-to-air and pay-TV broadcasters around the world. “We knew the potential of this drama series and were confident it would be a prime-time international free-to-air proposition,” Baxter explains. “We turned down a global SVOD offer and sold it separately to big premium and free-to-air broadcasters all around the world,

Gaumont is offering up international co-pros as well as single-market commissions such as The Art of Crime.

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and we kept the upside. We’ve reaped the rewards for doing that.”

Baxter continues, “Others may have been tempted to take that early SVOD offer and make some money that way. We said, We believe in this show and we’re confident we’re going to sell it to the Skys, the M6s, the Rais, all of the big broadcasters, so we’re not going to rush and do an early panic sale.

We’re going to wait until we get the broadcasters who will invest in the show.”

Halliwell says that the approach at DRG is “driven by value. Exclusivity can be fine as long as it comes at the right price. We don’t want to go all in with just the OTT guys because we need to remain a relevant supplier to the international marketplace. We want the knowledge and the intelligence that come with trading on an international basis. That’s valuable to our producers, particularly in drama. While the OTT people currently are still paying a premium, sometimes the increasingly high cost of drama means that you don’t get the scale of return you want. We’re old-fashioned in that we still believe we have to work for a living! If that means a territory-by-territory approach over time, then that’s what we have to do.”

Halliwell continues, “We do have great relationships with some of the global players. And sometimes it’s important reputationally that a producer gets their show on [a Netflix or Amazon]. It’s good for their brand.

Sometimes that one-and-done approach is absolutely what you want to do. Again, it’s going to depend; it will be case by case.”

Kew Media’s Phillips likens the windowing question to assembling a “jigsaw puzzle,” adding, “There are prescribed deal templates, but it usually boils down to, what’s the project,

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Turkish series like Inter Medya’s hit drama The Pit have generally fared better on linear free-to-air networks than on SVOD platforms. what’s the level of people’s enthusiasm and what are their needs?”

He continues, “Is it great to do work for hire, as it were, for Netflix? Sure, if you make a profit on it! Is that better or less attractive than owning something yourself and taking a higher risk? It’s a judgment call. You’re judging things now as businesspeople, as creative people and as salespeople.”

MarVista’s Szew says there are many factors to take into consideration when devising a windowing strategy. “One is money, for sure! It’s thinking about what gives us a better opportunity to have [higher] returns on the investments we are making. So it’s looking at deals we have in place and market knowledge and making educated guesses as we think of the different windowing strategies. That is one factor in the matrix. The other is looking at the specific content and understanding its audience and where it can get its biggest reach. There are no tried-andtrue windowing strategies anymore. That doesn’t mean we can’t templatize and have specific content follow a similar path.

Understanding what works for key buyers and where they can carve out certain windows becomes essential. But it has become a pretty complex part of licensing content.

It’s about understanding the different variables of how content can be exploited with the purpose of maximizing audiences and revenues.”

Given the range of models, Sonar’s Ellender stresses the importance of having “a mixed portfolio that meets the needs of everyone from the streamers to basic cable. With those global streamers, you know you’re not going to have international rights. So some things we will wholly own and some things we won’t. With a company of our size, you have

to accept that that’s the way you have to operate going forward.”

Rights owners are also discovering that aligning with producers before they get pulled into the streamers’ eye-popping exclusive deals is crucial.

“These sorts of deals have been done forever by the studios—this is not new,” notes eOne’s Baxter. “In many ways, what the global SVOD guys are doing is emulating a lot of the studio practices. They are vertically integrated by having their own production, they are doing direct deals with talent, they’re taking all rights internationally. I don’t think it’s a dramatic change in the landscape. However, it is still incumbent on us to have our own key talent relationships.”

Baxter adds, “We’re not in any way finding ourselves being restricted or excluded from the market. There is plenty of talent available, but we’re not necessarily throwing out the $400 million deals that the global SVOD players are!”

GOT TALENT? DRG has a deep well of content from its parent NENT Group to tap into via sister production companies, the Nordic broadcast outlets and streaming service Viaplay. “But that’s massively outweighed by the amount of money that we’re investing into the thirdparty market, most tellingly for us through a suite of first-look and development deals,” says Halliwell. “We have 13 long-term first-look and development deals across scripted and non-scripted. That’s all about giving those producers room to breathe, to acquire IP, to negotiate book rights and to go through the process of building content from the ground up.”

Indeed, it’s important to be flexible in how those talent relationships are developed. “In some cases we’re doing first-look or overhead 86 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

deals; in other cases it’s project by project or equity investment,” Baxter explains. For many producers, that flexibility is preferred to what Baxter calls a “front-loaded, cashonly, producing-a-number-of-shows type of arrangement.”

Amid the never-ending headlines about the prowess of the FAANGs, what’s often lost in the conversation is that linear broadcasting is still a force to be reckoned with—and channels around the world are still buying lots of content.

“I think it’s over exaggerated that all linear channels are going to die,” says NordicWorld’s Huseby. “You can see in market after market that it’s stabilizing, at least in the mature markets where the fall [in linear viewing] came first and hardest.”

LONG LIVE LINEAR The entire Turkish export business has been built on the back of selling long-running shows to broadcasters in Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia and Europe, to run as daily strips.

“Even though digital is growing, I can say that less than 5 percent of our business is digital,” reports Izzet Pinto, the founder and CEO of Global Agency, citing deals with the likes of Netflix and iflix. “Especially for Turkish drama and TV formats, we are mostly targeting the ‘old-school’ free-TV channels. We are mostly distributing Turkish dramas to less wealthy countries where ready-made shows are a big part of their business. They are the easiest and most cost-effective ways [to fill their programming needs].”

“Linear is still our core market,” agrees Can Okan, founder and CEO of Inter Medya. “The conventional Turkish drama series are quite long and ongoing, and they are not being sold that much on SVOD or digital platforms.”

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to make a decision between] licensing the content or keeping it for ourselves. There are other considerations. You look at the science of it and say, What is the reach of that particular platform you’re talking about? What is the language of the telecast? We have a very popular channel called Zee World, which is in English, in Africa. But there’s an opportunity to license content [dubbed] in Swahili and other African languages.”

DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS

Global Agency represents several shows commissioned by Turkey’s Star TV, including Sisters.

Both Okan and Pinto note the rising importance of international sales to Turkish producers as the country copes with a currency crisis.

“With the currency exchange and the potential economic crisis, [producers] cannot recoup their expenses from the local market or from sales to the broadcasters,” Okan says.

“So they depend on international sales. Every single day, they are now trying to create concepts that appeal to the international market.”

Pinto adds, “The first years of the boom of Turkish drama were the best for everyone. At that time the Turkish economy was strong, and if producers were making episodes for $150,000, they were able to sell to the channel and make a profit. The channel was covering the cost and making money. Now, the channels’ incomes have decreased so much that they are losing money on every episode and the producers are selling for less than what they invest in the show. Both the TV channels and the producers are aiming for international sales to cover their losses and bring a profit. This puts a lot of pressure on distributors. Everybody wants big sales and a quick return.”

LOCAL STORIES While the trade in local-language series from around the world is booming, some distributors have seen their businesses transformed by format opportunities—among them leading Japanese media group Nippon TV. While the company has long found a home for its drama series in Asia, the sale of scripted formats has dramatically expanded its horizons.

Of note in the last few years, the company has seen two shows remade in Turkey that

went on to become domestic hits (which also sold well globally).

“As cultural tastes and preferences expand, countries that only used to buy overseas content are now getting empowered to locally produce remakes,” says Atsushi Sogo, the president of international business development at Nippon TV. “This is where Nippon TV’s unparalleled production expertise in dramas and entertainment shows sets us apart. Our drama remake business is stable and the demand is solid. Japanese drama series have 10 to 12 episodes, which is short compared to the rest of the world, but Nippon TV titles are extremely [suitable] for formats and offer the flexibility of being lengthened through blending in local ideas.”

The scripted-format business is also developing quickly at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, which arrives at MIPTV with the first-ever African remake of an Indian series, Deceptive Measures (based on Pavitra Rishta).

However, selling Hindi-language scripted remains the company’s bread-and-butter business—one that has to be balanced with the needs of its own branded channels around the world.

“We have channels in Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa,” among other markets, says Sunita Uchil, chief business officer for international ad sales, global syndication and production at the Indian media giant. “There’s a continual dialogue with the channel programmers, and then we decide, OK, this is how we will window the content. It’s easier to have this conversation because we have 39 channels—if I had just one or two channels [we would need 88 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Zee, like many other content owners, has gotten into the direct-to-consumer space with ZEE5.

It’s a landscape that is moving fast as the major Hollywood studios place massive bets on setting up their own streaming services. Disney, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia are all starting streaming platforms in the U.S., but international expansion should be expected. What that means for everyone in terms of content being held back from the ecosystem remains to be seen. Anticipating this development, Netflix and Amazon have been making more of their own content—but they can’t rely solely on originals, so they’ll have to look elsewhere to replace the shows and movies that will eventually be pulled from their platforms.

“The creation of those vertically integrated ecosystems should mean that distributors that can find content and give other players access to that content are in a good place,” says DRG’s Halliwell. “We are a business ourselves with distribution, production and broadcast, and we don’t have a completely shut-off ecosystem.

[The studios’ direct-to-consumer initiatives] will affect us as well in terms of the access to the content that we need as a group.”

MarVista’s Szew also sees the studios’ directto-consumer ambitions as an opportunity. “For those of us who are not sitting on the sidelines but are also not creating those major direct-toconsumer strategies, [they are] welcomed.

They demonstrate an appetite for major investments and significant technological advances in how and how much content is delivered to the audience on an individual basis and a mass basis. The overall level of investment, the race for more and better and more targeted content and a technological push to super-serve an audience all bode very well for those of us who can professionally make content.”

Kew Media’s Phillips also sees a potential upside for companies outside of the studio system. “If they’ll hold back some jewels and window carefully, that will create opportunities for all of us independents. But with 500 drama series in the marketplace [just in the U.S.], I’m more concerned [about making sure] that when I have shows, they are good shows. That’s what we’re focusing on.”

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Armando Nuñez CBS Global Distribution Group

By Anna Carugati WS: Would you give some examples of where you see demand for your product, and which shows have been selling where?

NUÑEZ: Our varied genres of content drive different types of business opportunities. FBI has been a very successful show on CBS, and we have licensed it in some 200 markets. It recently premiered on SAT.1 in Germany. It sold to Rai in Italy and Sky in the U.K. It’s a high-profile Dick Wolf show. The NCIS franchise continues to perform extremely well.

The content that we have thrives in different ways on different platforms around the world.

It’s getting more difficult to cut through the noise and the clutter. There’s probably too much content in the marketplace now. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years, assuming Disney’s direct-toconsumer plans come to fruition on a global basis, which one would assume would include

or years, the CBS Television Network has been known for long-running procedural dramas that draw loyal audiences. Shows such as the NCIS franchise, Elementary and the new Dick Wolf series FBI are also sought after by outlets worldwide because of the ease of scheduling their self-contained episodes. This demand prompts considerable windowing of rights by the sales teams overseen by Armando Nuñez, the president and CEO of the CBS Global Distribution Group and chief content licensing officer for the CBS Corporation.

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WS: Back when you and I started in this business in the ’80s, distribution deals were relatively simple: studios licensed TV series for two years and two runs. It’s a little more complicated these days!

NUÑEZ: It was a simpler time back then.

There wasn’t a multitude of platforms; there wasn’t the windowing of content that has become routine. It was a different business and has evolved into what it is today, and it’s been this way for many years—it’s a complicated world. The deals that we do are just as much driven by the holdbacks as they are driven by the rights granted. You have the complexity of language rights, multiterritory rights, holdbacks that affect potential windowing. It’s a much more complicated distribution pipeline.

also continue to monetize our content to thirdparty platforms. We’re looking at this evolution in an opportunistic way and more on a territory-by-territory basis or a regional basis, as opposed to making just one huge decision about a global direct-to-consumer offering.

WS: How has CBS All Access been doing in Canada and Australia?

NUÑEZ: All the U.S. media companies have direct-to-consumer ambitions. The issue for each is, How do you effectuate that strategy?

How are you going to monetize whatever your offering is? When we launched in Australia, we had the benefit of owning Network 10, which we utilize as a launch platform to market and promote 10 All Access. We’re a bit ahead of what our expectations were there, and the same in Canada. We’re in this for the long haul. We don’t have unreasonable subscriber projections at the very beginning.

CBS Global Distribution Group employs a variety of models to maximize its deep slate of content, which ranges from network procedurals to edgy premium series. the Fox studio content as well. There have been rumblings about a WarnerMedia direct-toconsumer global offering, and Comcast has made noise as well. So it’s going to be interesting to see the direction those companies take, how they are going to utilize their content and what that means in terms of availability and potential scarcity for that content in the global marketplace. That’s a fascinating potential evolution of how the business works.

WS: I have spoken with buyers who are concerned about the prospect of less product on the market if these entities keep their content for their streaming services.

NUÑEZ: For those companies who are not yet quite ready to flip a switch on a global directto-consumer offering, it bodes well for them if there is a scarcity of content. As it relates to CBS, our ambitions are to do both, [sell our content and manage CBS All Access], but we simply aren’t big enough to launch CBS All Access globally. We’ve started quite modestly in two territories, Canada and Australia, with plans to expand into other territories, but we 90 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

There is going to be an evolution in terms of the volume and type of content that we put on these services and how we window that content through other platforms, no differently from how we do it now. We’re off to a good start, with plans to do this in other markets.

WS: Would you give some examples, taking any shows, of how you maximize their exposure and window through different outlets?

NUÑEZ: One example is NCIS in the U.K. We are on seven different outlets, depending on the season. First, [it’s on] FOX, with seasons 11 to 16; followed by Channel 5, seasons 5 to 14; Universal, seasons 1 to 5 and 8 to 10; our channel, CBS Justice, seasons 1 to 12, and then Amazon, iTunes and Google Play each have seasons 1 to 15.

Another example is Elementary in Germany, where ProSieben is first, with seasons 1 to 7; then maxdome, season 6; iTunes, seasons 1 to 6; RTL, seasons 1 to 5; Netflix, seasons 1 to 6; Amazon, seasons 1 to 6; and Sky, seasons 4 and 5.

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Star Trek: Discovery WS: There are so many entities producing scripted programming. What does a studio offer clients these days that they can’t get elsewhere?

NUÑEZ: What studios still have—it varies from studio to studio, but I would put us at the top of this category—is infrastructure. We have a rolodex of writers, showrunners and producers that are part of CBS. The ability to execute on any concept obviously comes out of good casting and good directing, but so much of this comes down to the showrunners and writers, whether you are talking about Showtime or CBS Television Studios under David Stapf. They have the knowledge and the database from which to execute.

At the end of the day, as much as we talk about technology, the sophistication of platforms and all the different ways that people consume content, the one thing that hasn’t changed since we started in the business is, it’s still about the content. It always comes down to producing compelling content that people are going to watch.

WS: With all the attention and use that data and algorithms get, I sometimes wonder if gut instinct and human creativity are being sidestepped.

NUÑEZ: I don’t think creativity is being sidestepped. Technology affords an additional level of metrics by which content creators can make more informed decisions, but it still comes down to the creative process. That’s nothing new.

We’ve kidded here that over the course of the history of CBS, and without getting into individual shows, sometimes our highest-testing shows are the first ones to get canceled! Ultimately, metrics are meant to give guidance and insight, but you shouldn’t utilize these metrics to make the decisions for you.

WS: They have your input, too.

NUÑEZ: Yes, we all work closely together during the process, but as I often say, first and foremost, the show has to work in this country. We know when we go into the development process that there are going to be some shows that are more U.S.-centric and less tailored for a global audience, and some other shows that will be U.S.-centric but have potential to appeal to a global audience.

WS: We have talked about scripted series.

What other aspects of your business would you like to highlight?

NUÑEZ: We continue to see change in the global marketplace. It was evident at the panel I did at NATPE with Amy [Reinhard, the VP of content acquisition] from Netflix and Brad [Beale, the VP of worldwide content acquisition] at Amazon Prime Video.

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Cathy Payne Endemol Shine International

By Anna Carugati have heard a few years ago of making a show that cost £3 million an episode for the BBC. However, as those streaming services have become players in their own right and competitors to broadcasters in their markets, the linear broadcasters want to focus on exclusivity. From the streamers’ perspective, [given the] rising contributions being asked of them and the debate over how to window in the domestic territory, the streamers can choose to go alone and commission production for global rights.

In terms of retaining exclusivity, one recent example is Bodyguard on BBC. Netflix picked it up outside of the U.K., but the BBC kept all rights in that territory, so they could have it exclusively available on iPlayer. Every linear broadcaster is looking at how they can expand their VOD offering in order to provide flexibility of

athy Payne, the CEO of Endemol Shine International, taps into the shows produced by the Endemol Shine Group’s 120 companies in 23 territories and finds those with global appeal, from scripted series like Black Mirror to unscripted hits like MasterChef. She also works with producers to help finance projects they are developing and finds the right homes for them among the dozens of linear channels and nonlinear services in numerous territories.

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WS: What considerations go into selling a show?

PAYNE: When you review a new idea or a project in development or a show, you consider what is going to be the best route to market and who is going to be the primary commissioning broadcaster. With global streaming services, it’s become very interesting. Their appetite for product and budgets have seen them help finance many domestic productions that would have otherwise struggled to be financed.

Therefore, they allow a level of production budgets that a domestic broadcaster couldn’t afford on its own. Previously, we’d seen co-productions with the likes of the HBOs of the world. But with the appetite of Netflix and Amazon, there have been greater opportunities to make a show at a much higher budget. You wouldn’t

budget, it wasn’t one of the most expensive productions we have seen in the past 12 months. And it’s a reminder that the cost of producing a show does not always correlate with how many people watch it.

We have Deep Water from Kudos coming to ITV in the coming months. It’s adapted from the Windermere series of novels by Paula Daly. It’s a thriller with three female characters, starring Anna Friel, Sinead Keenan and Rosalind Eleazar.

Financing [came from] ITV, tax credits and Endemol Shine International. It was not a project that we expected to presell and its route to market could be a more territoryby-territory proposition—as opposed to a global sale.

We also have Adult Material for Channel 4, which is executive produced by Patrick Spence at Fifty Fathoms. It’s the story of a woman, Jolene Dollar, who worked in the

Endemol Shine is exploiting its catalog— 3,000-plus formats and more than 50,000 hours of finished programming— on linear and digital platforms worldwide. viewing and a level of exclusivity for their viewers.

The streamers and the domestic linear broadcasters won’t say no to co-productions.

However, in an increasingly competitive world, the focus for the domestic broadcasters has to be their home market, whereas for the streamers or any other multiterritory broadcaster, they will continue to evaluate commissioning more originals that they can own and control.

We do tend to discuss the streamers a lot. However, let us not forget all the linear broadcasters globally who all have programming needs and, likewise, are valued clients to all producers.

WS: Are linear broadcasters looking for exclusive content that can differentiate them from the competition?

PAYNE: All domestic broadcasters are playing to their domestic markets’ strengths, what works in their market. Look at the performance of Bodyguard—it was amazing! While made for a good production 92 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

porn industry for many years before it was the huge industry it is now. Adult Material is about what happens when a younger porn actress comes on set—did she give consent or not? Was she manipulated? And it makes Jolene look at the porn business in a different way. It’s an interesting concept of consent and manipulation, written

by Lucy Kirkwood [who is also an executive producer].

WS: Is there a difference between the type of drama wanted by linear broadcasters and the type wanted by streamers?

PAYNE: The streamers want to appeal to a global audience, so the domestic-focused product may not always be the right fit for them. Genre pieces have worked well for the streamers; examples such as Dark and The Rain come to mind. An area that can be tricky for streamers is comedy, bearing in mind that a large amount of comedy is market-specific. Hulu has a lot of success with comedy, but that could correlate to Hulu being a U.S. service only. We have a

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variety of comedies on the streaming services that perform very well in their domestic markets but do not gain traction for the platforms outside of their home market.

WS: What are some of the most significant changes in the distribution business in the last ten years?

PAYNE: You’ve got a lot of different rights to divide up and sell. Anyone who is commissioning a show wants to have the opportunity to offer it to their viewers so that they can consume it in many different ways—where they want to watch it and how they want to watch it. Everyone is chasing longer windows, additional VOD and more exclusivity. They want to own shows because exclusivity is so important for those premiere windows— it’s all about marketability and keeping those viewers on their channel or service.

The other point to reinforce is the importance of back catalog, and how valuable that is for a streaming service. We were all interested to read the news on Netflix’s recent nonexclusive license of Friends; it is one of those titles that many viewers will always come back to and catch an episode.

The availability of catalog will become tight as the studios roll out their own direct-to-consumer services—Disney+, WarnerMedia, CBS All Access, Comcast, etc. New players such as all the FAANGs will need to build their own catalogs and certainly, Netflix has led the way in driving original commissions.

Deep Water

Grantchester MasterChef (U.S.)

WS: We’ve been talking about scripted, but you also have a lot of unscripted and factual programming. Does demand for those genres remain constant?

PAYNE: Yes, and the streamers are moving into that genre as well and actively looking for programs. Queer Eye is very well produced and a great example of a rebooted factual-entertainment series.

It’s proven very popular for Netflix and is now in its third run.

Like our very own MasterChef in the food area, the streamers are experimenting with formats where they can make shows for different markets and produce them out of a hub. That’s what they are currently exploring.

MasterChef leads our unscripted slate; the show has been adapted in more than 60 markets to date. It’s amazing; the latest local versions include MasterChef Myanmar, MasterChef Khmer [in Cambodia] and MasterChef Maldives. The show is so local and culturally relevant—real people, real food.

Peaky Blinders

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Jens Richter Fremantle

By Anna Carugati and Jude Law on the poster and it becomes irresistible viewing. The setting is important so you produce shows like Baghdad Central on location in Morocco, or The Luminaries in New Zealand or Beecham House in India. All these aspects of production drive up the value. We end up with higher budgets because we don’t want to make just another drama, we want to make a very special kind of drama.

WS: Would you give some examples of how you are financing high-end productions?

RICHTER: We finance through presales and coproductions. One example is American Gods, which, in terms of budget, is one of our most ambitious shows. Very early in the process, we placed it with Amazon for the first global window and now we have secondwindow clients, too. Picnic at Hanging Rock came out of Australia. We took more time [to make it] so it looked more

few years ago, Jens Richter, the CEO of International at Fremantle, identified a need for drama in the global market. Broadcasters and platforms were asking for branddefining series that could help them stand out in their markets. Richter and his teams have been focusing on unique stories featuring A-list talent in front of and behind the camera, such as The Young Pope and American Gods, relying on presales and co-productions to bring these shows to the screen.

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WS: What factors have driven up the cost of quality drama?

RICHTER: Financing drama has become more expensive, and one of the reasons for this is that we have to go for the right talent. When we produce drama, our ambition is to aim high and that means creating a piece of storytelling that hasn’t been told before but also a package that’s hard to resist. That includes IP. We work very closely with partners such as our sister company Penguin Random House. We love book IP. We work with top creators and writers like Paolo Sorrentino, who did The Young Pope and The New Pope. We go for specific directors. We go for a great cast like Natalie Dormer in Picnic at Hanging Rock or Eva Green for The Luminaries. We [want] to increase the quality and value of the package. In the ideal world, you put together a package that comes with built-in marketing. So when The New Pope launches, [audiences see] John Malkovich

test out the TV space. We got to know each other and we embarked on The Luminaries.

WS: You have also had success selling nonEnglish-language drama.

RICHTER: Deutschland 83 was originally commissioned by RTL in Germany. UFA produced this unique drama that told history in an entertaining way and showed a world you hadn’t seen before. Out of the gate, that show sold around the world and was the first German drama that got placed on an American cable network, SundanceTV, followed by Hulu as a second window. We had to change the commissioning model for the second season because, although the first season did work for RTL, their hopes had been higher. For the second season, Amazon became the commissioner and co-production partner for Germany.

The original broadcaster clients around the world stayed on board as the first window for

Once best known for its global format brands, Fremantle has emerged as a major provider of high-profile event drama like My Brilliant Friend. authentic and we got top talent involved when we brought Natalie Dormer on board; all of that of course affected the budget. For Picnic at Hanging Rock it was important to bring partners in early. Very early, we had conversations with Amazon and the BBC, and that helped in two ways: you offset some financial risk, but you also bring partners on board early that share your ambition for the show and will help bring it to market by building the promotion and buzz.

What Amazon has done around American Gods is very impressive. For season one, the main markets outside America were the U.K. and Germany on Amazon Prime.

Not only did they support it heavily on their site and in the online space, but they also bought bill boards and implemented a huge outdoor campaign. If you have a partner on board early, they identify with the show and get behind it.

Another example of financing is on The Luminaries. We brought in third-party financing from Silver Reel. They had done some financing in the theatrical space and wanted to 94 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

season two, [including] SundanceTV, Hulu and Canal+, and Amazon got a second SVOD window. Why did they do it? Because they wanted a big hit show for the German market, but they were also interested in that second window outside of Germany. We saw with Netflix and La Casa de Papel that we are not limited by language anymore, nor by where we produce. The limitation is, do you have the ambition to produce something outstanding, yes or no? And the answer is very clear. If you have that high ambition, a series should travel.

Fremantle produces drama in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, across Scandinavia, Australia, the U.S. and Israel. We wanted to do more in Latin America; that was a blind spot. We spoke to several producers and found Fabula, whose team is outstanding on the creative side and in production. They are based in Chile and have an office in L.A. Last year, they won the Oscar for best foreignlanguage film with A Fantastic Woman and one of its stars, Daniela Vega, was the first transgender [presenter] at the awards and gave a hugely admired and emotional speech.

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The Luminaries

We spoke to them; they came up with the idea for La Jauría. It’s set in Chile and takes two stories that happened in Latin America and Spain as inspiration and creates a new narrative. In the past, in Latin America, crimes against women weren’t properly followed up on by the police. Now there are allfemale teams that [investigate] these crimes, and the series follows one of the units involved in the crimes against women, in which Daniela Vega is an officer.

WS: Some people think there is too much drama on the market, and it’s going to hurt the industry.

RICHTER: Not over the next few years.

It may come to the point that the bubble bursts, but I don’t personally think it will come to that level. For sure, we’ll see at some point growth slowing down. But when you look at the market at the moment, you have Netflix and Amazon spreading around the globe. You have new OTTs entering the market. You have local broadcasters turning into platforms, and in order to build their USP or market position against the global OTTs, they are focusing very much on local and turning acquisition slots into local commissioning slots. This means that when you want a local drama produced in France, Germany or Spain at the moment, you have to queue, and it’s not only to get that writer or that lead cast.

I’ve heard of situations where they had to postpone productions because they couldn’t get the right lighting or sound crew because the number of productions meant that the crews were all booked and at full capacity.

How long will that last? I don’t think anybody can tell you, but for the next couple of years, we are going to see a very high level of

competition among the platforms. And ambition will rise across genres. It won’t only be in drama. When you look at what we do in the entertainment space—we produce huge shows like Idols, The X Factor and The Greatest Dancer—everybody is also aiming for the highest possible quality show to win audiences.

At Fremantle, we’re also embarking on high-end factual. At our upfront in London, Fremantle Presents, in February, we introduced Expedition with Steve Backshall, a fantastic new documentary series, and Enslaved, which will tell the history of slavery, with Samuel L. Jackson as one of the producers and the face of the show. He traced his DNA back to Gabon, so in the show, we will take him back to where his forefathers came from and retrace the traumatic voyage that was endured by millions of Africans over hundreds of years as they were transported from their home to the New World for a life of slavery. Together with Simcha Jacobovici, who is an Emmy Award-winning factual producer, we found a very smart way to make this journey, telling what happened over 400 years ago [through underwater archaeology] and making it must-see viewing.

WS: With higher budgets and the premium on talent, will smaller companies have a problem surviving in this new world of megacompanies?

RICHTER: I’m pretty optimistic for the “little guys” if they are specialized in a certain genre, are connected to certain talent, have a certain creative background or a certain audience profile in mind, or focus on a specific market. You will always see smaller 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 95

companies that are able to create tremendous success if they find their unique DNA and focus on that.

One of our strengths is global connectivity.

We are producing in 30 markets. We have a good sense of the DNA of the local markets.

We have pretty good access to local talent.

And when it comes to finding partners, we are on the ground in all these countries, so we can have conversations really early on. One example is My Brilliant Friend. It is in China on one of the dominant VOD platforms. In China, there is censorship, plus quotas and piracy issues. The only way to get good positioning for your drama is if you talk to the platforms early, provide them with materials early. That allows them to get your show through censorship in time for the launch.

When that show goes out in the U.K. and the U.S., it has to go out day-and-date in China; otherwise, piracy evaporates a significant portion of the value. You have to know how to run that piece of the business. Then you can position your show, find your audience and monetize in a huge market like China. We did it with My Brilliant Friend, with American Gods and we are now doing it with Beecham House as well.

Our advantage is we act globally, and we can take our time to say, we have a clear plan for this show, we believe in it, we are not in a hurry to lay off the risk immediately. We are not going for that quick deal. We’re going for the best homes for our shows. Where does our audience sit? Who can be most successful with our shows? Because at the end of the day, that success will be repaid. Then these people will want to do business with us again. They want our next show, and we build relationships.

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Jim Packer Lionsgate

By Anna Carugati the ad rates and CPMs for advertiser-supported content continue to go up. A few months ago, Pluto TV was sold. That’s an interesting service that wasn’t here ten years ago, and it got $340 million from Viacom. As a company with Lionsgate’s breadth and depth, we need to find and be on every platform that makes sense.

WS: How do you give a show the best exposure?

PACKER: Kevin Beggs [chairman of Lionsgate Television Group] and my team are very close to the artists and creators, and we get a sense of what their content is all about. Then we try to find a network or platform that will come in not just for one season, because you have to look at these deals as multiseason commitments. You want somebody who will take the show, brand it and make it successful, and will also embrace season two, season three and season four. We also try to get at least two [bidders], because it’s always better to have a little bit

ionsgate was one of the first studios to sell programming to digital platforms. In monetizing Lionsgate’s film and television library, Jim Packer, the president of worldwide television and digital distribution, has always examined all possible outlets for a given title and looked for broadcasters and platforms willing to commit to multiple seasons of shows. With Lionsgate’s acquisition of Starz, Packer and his team have an even broader range of product to offer clients, and Lionsgate’s library is boosting Starz’s international rollout.

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WS: How have SVODs and streaming services changed the distribution business?

PACKER: I’ve always taken the approach that you need to look at every platform, analyze it and make sure there is a place for your content there. If there is, you need to take it early. So we always try to move quickly and early. A recent example would be Vudu. We were one of the first two studios to do a deal with Vudu’s AVOD service. We partnered with Tubi TV very early on for their AVOD service because we believed that the ad-supported business was going to continue to grow, and for some parts of our content—not the higher-end, but the middle-range content—it would be important to monetize it everywhere and make sure we were taking advantage of these platforms.

Sure enough, with everyone spending time on Netflix and Amazon where there are no ads,

Another show that we are selling is BoJack Horseman. I saw a number of episodes and thought the show was really well written.

What was interesting about it is that it had all the dubs done, because if you sell something to Netflix, you have to make dubs for many countries. [With BoJack Horseman] I didn’t have to spend money on the dubs; they were already done, so the dubs became a sales tool. When we showed the product to various broadcasters, we could show them the dubbed version. And yes, it has Netflix as a nonexclusive home, but Netflix is not as well penetrated internationally as it is in the U.S. So there are certain countries that we thought would be an opportunity, and sure enough, BoJack Horseman has been an excellent show for us.

WS: In what ways do you and your team work with Kevin and his?

Lionsgate has become adept at working with a range of distribution models, including selling shows post a Netflix window and taking Starz out as a direct-to-consumer service. of competition. We always do everything we can to make sure the content fits the platform and that we get as many platforms interested as makes sense, so we get a competitive situation.

WS: Lionsgate has been one of the pioneers of innovative financing and distribution models.

Give us some examples of how you are financing shows today.

PACKER: It’s really about finding the right financial structure for each partnership. We don’t look at things traditionally. [Take] Manhunt, an excellent show. It was picked up

by Discovery and by Netflix globally. It’s a well-done procedural, and when Discovery moved away from scripted programming, we had to make a choice. This is where Kevin and I talk all the time. We didn’t say, It’s over. We said, What else can we do? This show has more seasons in it; there are more stories to be told.

We looked at it and Charter Communications came to mind. We had a conversation with them, and ultimately, we did move it to that platform. We’re taking advantage of very creative ways [of bringing] things to market.

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PACKER: We work together all the time. When they are in the market and have a bidding war going for projects or pilots or straight-to-series, he and I talk about, Where is the right platform?

What will be the best rights profile? We start there and go all the way through the production, including casting. Kevin is one of the more open executives. He’ll call and say, “We have two or three different people we could place in this role, what’s the right person for international?” It doesn’t always work out, but he welcomes that input. That is invaluable now, especially with so many shows in the marketplace. Also with acquisitions, I acquire shows just for my international group, and a lot of times I will take the show to Kevin’s group and get feedback on scripts and casting, and he’ll treat it like it’s his own, even though I’m acquiring. I don’t buy ten shows. I only buy one or two.

I’m selective and I want every bit of feedback I can get, and to have him as a resource is perfect.

WS: Lionsgate now owns Starz. What added distribution opportunities do Starz shows offer you?

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The Spanish Princess PACKER: It’s a lot more than distribution opportunities; it’s truly a unique collaboration between Starz and Lionsgate right now.

When [our partnership] first started, it was focused on distribution. When we first came together, for example, Power had not been licensed in the marketplace, and we were able to find the perfect partner in Hulu. It ended up being a big financial benefit for Starz that they probably hadn’t planned on. And it worked well for Hulu because they got a show that was incredibly spot-on for an audience they were trying to grow. [We also sold] Ash vs. Evil Dead to Netflix. Then, it merged into more of a partnership. I talk to [Starz COO] Jeff Hirsch all the time. Starz [has started its] international launch. They are in a number of countries now, and a lot of the Lionsgate library is being put to work. The Starz originals are driving, but it’s the Lionsgate content that is providing that glue that makes it a real service. That’s a good example of us partnering together.

[I mentioned] acquisitions. I talk to them all the time. If I can acquire a show that makes sense for Starz in a few countries, they’ll take the first position and we’ll sell the rest of the world. We are all on the same page trying to grow that brand internationally.

WS: Viewers have so much choice that it’s becoming hard to find shows. How much more complicated is marketing becoming?

PACKER: We’re involved in more marketing decisions and dynamics now than we ever have been. Because of all the content, it’s a little harder to get noticed, even for the networks. Ten years ago, you used to sell a show to a network, and whether you were selling second cycle or first cycle, it was their job to market. You sat back, crossed your fingers and hoped the show was well received. Now, you have to go in and assist. We used a Lionsgate 360degree approach on Step Up: High Water.

We had YouTube virtual reality dance content, and we used three or four other different angles to promote that show.

We try to make sure there are access points. We have hundreds of Facebook pages with millions of views, and those are not just to support those shows, they are also to support new launches. We have a whole social team [that] markets product for those particular pages, but you want to use that collective fan base to introduce new things organically. We have to be mindful not to force-feed marketing down particular channels because people don’t like that. But if it’s organic and very natural to market something, and you think a fan would like to see it, that’s your job, to make sure you give fans the chance to see it.

WS: There is so much focus on series, but movies are a big part of what you do, too.

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PACKER: It’s a very big part, and it’s become a bigger part internationally. Lionsgate tends to have an all-rights profile when we sell our movies, and they sell for anywhere from 10 to 20 years. The company has been around since 2000, so a lot of those movies are coming back into our portfolio, franchises like The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games that were licensed years ago, which is a great opportunity. And domestically, our movie business is starting to kick in. Joe Drake [chairman of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group] has done an amazing job taking the movie studio, retooling it and figuring out the right focus. We have Hellboy coming out in April. We have John Wick 3 in May. And—this is where marketing is changing—they made a brilliant move where they said to the John Wick fans, if you text us, we will send you the trailer one hour before we debut it everywhere else. Imagine how many phone numbers we got to market the John Wick 3 franchise when it comes out. You really know who the fans are if they send you a text and want to see the trailer an hour early. If you harness technology, especially for the movie business, it’s going to be an interesting way to market products because you can’t emphasize enough what that marketing spend toward a movie means. It makes it more of an asset, compared to launching a movie without that spend, which is another way to do it if you are on a platform. We need that spend to make it a real franchise.

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Louise Pedersen all3media international

By Anna Carugati shows that resulted from this investment push. We have some key first-look relationships, both within the all3media group and with a number of independent production companies, and these are incredibly valuable to us. The extra investment helped us finance more shows from these partners but also form some new relationships in the scripted area.

Examples are The Feed, launching as the major screening at MIPTV, from Studio Lambert; the new brand extension of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Ms Fisher’s MODern Murder Mysteries, from Australian producer Every Cloud; as well as our new partner in Australia, Revlover, and their Diary of an Uber Driver.

WS: Are you relying on co-financing to get some of these higher-end projects off the ground?

PEDERSEN: Yes, in most cases. Our financing model has evolved over the last couple of

aving managed a production company earlier in her career, Louise Pedersen has firsthand knowledge of the creative process. As CEO of all3media international, she acts as a bridge between the various producers in the all3media group and outlets around the world looking for programming. She has helped open the U.S. market to top U.K. writers, where she has sold such series as Liar, Fleabag, Informer and Midsomer Murders, and continues to find new financing models for scripted and unscripted shows.

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WS: How have you grown your scripted output in recent years?

PEDERSEN: We wanted to grow the business and broaden the scripted content that we were bringing to our international buyers.

We commissioned research into how our scripted catalog was perceived by our buyers, and it backed up the fact that we needed to offer a wider range of scripted shows, from detective procedurals to contemporary thrillers to high-concept, heightened drama, for example.

As a result of that, we doubled our investment into scripted content in 2017 and sought to invest in a sweep of dramas that all shared some common denominators: original ideas with interesting talent attached—writers and directors from top-quality production companies. We are now starting to deliver the

We’re looking at that model in unscripted and entertainment programming as well. Particularly with entertainment, the market is moving towards a 50/50 funding model around pilots on big-budget shows. So we will look at funding some smaller pilots or tasters ourselves for ideas that we think will travel. But the key thing in all genres, especially in scripted, is that we are running a number of different models, from traditional gap financing to co-financing to the co-commissioning model.

WS: What are some of your new scripted series?

PEDERSEN: We’re just greenlighting another detective procedural show that we have cocommissioned with one major European partner attached. It’s called Van der Valk and essentially reinvents a very popular procedural show from the 1970s into contemporary

all3media international has become a major force in the drama business over the last few years, working with sister companies and others in Europe and the U.S. years. There is the traditional distributor model— U.K. broadcaster finances 80 percent of the budget or so, and then the distributor advances the remaining 20 percent, and, of course, we still do that. There’s the co-pro model, where we bring in another broadcaster to partner with the U.K. broadcaster and we cover the remaining gap. But for us, there is a new cocommissioning model that we are just starting to explore, for example, with a show called Blood, written by Sophie Petzal. In that case, we read Sophie’s wonderful script; it was an idea that really resonated with us and we loved the production team behind it, but it wasn’t being commissioned by a broadcaster in the U.K. Virgin Media Ireland came on board as the commissioner, and we financed the rest of the production, bringing in other key broadcast partners like Channel 5 in the U.K. once it was greenlit. We have done a couple of those, where we have financed the lion’s share ourselves. It’s a different model of how we fund shows for which we believe there is a market.

We will probably look at that type of arrangement for two or three shows a year.

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Amsterdam, with its evocative locations and its vibrancy as a major industry hub—it’s still a diamond center, of course, as well as a newmedia location.

A few years ago, you weren’t able to sell a three- or four-part miniseries, but there are definitely more opportunities now. Mrs Wilson is a brilliant example of this. When we are so overwhelmed with choice, making a commitment to 10 or 13 episodes can be a bit scary, whereas getting a bite-size treat of a three- or four-parter like Kiri or Mrs Wilson is easier, and there’s definitely a place for them in the market. A show launching at MIPTV that fulfills that is Dark Money, the new drama from The Forge, a four-part series for BBC in association with all3media international. It looks at the impact on the family of a young actor when it is revealed that there was an abusive producer on the film set.

WS: What has driven all3media international’s significant inroads into the U.S. market?

PEDERSEN: Partly it’s because broadcasters have realized that if you can partner up, there

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Mrs Wilson

is less risk and financially, it’s a more attractive proposition. U.S. broadcasters are much more open to that kind of financial and creative collaboration than they were. Possibly for two reasons: first, there is a price point, but second, because British producers and American broadcasters have gotten used to working together and a lot of talent—writers, actors, directors— work successfully in both markets. People have developed deep relationships and realize that perhaps their audiences aren’t as different as we all thought they were 10 or 15 years ago. The streamers have done a lot to prove that audiences will come to good original content.

WS: For what kind of factual programming do you see demand?

PEDERSEN: In our catalog, the shows that are talent-led stand out as the strong sellers.

There is a whole range of them: for example, the Gordon Ramsay-led shows, Travel Man with Richard Ayoade, the Guy Martin shows; they have a wide fan base around the world.

That’s important, as is volume, and ideally, you will have the two things combined. So talent-led factual is a good area for us.

WS: How do you work with writers to help prepare shows that appeal to the international market?

PEDERSEN: When dealing with writers, we rely on production companies and executive producers’ expertise. We are paying a lot more attention to how we market the shows—right from the get-go with the taglines and images, to the messages for the initial pitch. We want to make sure we get the writer’s vision across to potential partners. It’s helpful in the scripted and unscripted space if you can have a short sizzle when you are pitching the show that gives some idea of the visual tone and explains the story. That can be enormously helpful; just getting past the words on the page and presenting an idea in a way that international buyers can get a feel for, give a comment on and respond to. That work on the pitch, the sizzle, the look and feel of the show and any material we can provide is a lot more important than it was.

Makeover or lifestyle shows still travel well on the whole. Big tentpole-type shows about global issues, for example, Raw TV’s Drowning in Plastic, which we co-produced with CGTN last year, generate a lot of interest and resonate with audiences globally. We’re looking to build our co-production relationships in this higher-budget space. What is harder to sell currently are the one-off historical specials, particularly if it’s a purely British subject.

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Tim Mutimer Banijay Rights

By Anna Carugati that’s on-screen or behind the camera. Relationships with writers are important. We find that having these different production companies around the world enables us to engage with a wide range of talent and makes sure we’re getting a great flow of ideas coming through.

WS: Is it getting more complicated to piece together financing for high-end drama?

MUTIMER: It is, and it means that the distributor often has to take a greater risk. Commissioning broadcasters once would have paid for almost the whole budget but are now paying maybe 50 percent or 70 percent.

So, it’s our job to find the rest of the money elsewhere. We look at tax incentives or coproductions. It’s a complex business. We’ve got a number of regular partners with whom we’ve got good relationships. The other advantage of being part of Banijay is that

s CEO of Banijay Rights, Tim Mutimer sources programming from Banijay Group’s production entities in 16 countries, as well as from third parties, and manages a catalog of 20,000 hours. He oversees financing and international distribution of scripted series including Versailles, Occupied and Wolf Creek. His teams are also reinventing legacy unscripted formats like Survivor and Temptation Island for today’s viewers.

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WS: What types of scripted shows is Banijay focusing on?

MUTIMER: Banijay is fortunate to have scripted companies in 16 territories, so we have a whole range of ideas coming through. We look at the slates and work with producers, especially on ideas that we think have international appeal. We’re interested in great stories that feel authentic. A lot of the series that travel well focus on local territories, but are also ones that people around the world can enjoy. There’s also a section of the slate that includes more premium content requiring a lot of funding.

And there, we work out how we think we can fund a project—which other territories might be interested in coming on board and the kind of distribution advance that we could give. We’re interested in everything as long as it’s a great story, particularly if it means bringing on strong talent, whether

So the opportunity we have now is different. Rather than talk about everything as a patchwork of availabilities, it’s often about getting in earlier and saying we’ve got this great new show coming, is this something that would work for your service? And if they are interested, they are likely to want worldwide rights if they can get them.

That’s a different operation and as a distributor, you have to decide if that is the right strategy for that property or not. It’s great that we have the chance to do deals like that, and of course, we still have the option to sell on a territory-by-territory basis.

WS: If they take worldwide rights, can you sometimes keep second-window rights?

MUTIMER: No two deals are the same. Sometimes if they love a project, they will want exclusivity and if the deal is right, we can agree to that. Sometimes we can’t or won’t

From format megabrands like Survivor to acclaimed European drama series such as Versailles, Banijay Rights offers a broad slate to its clients across the globe. having companies in 16 territories means they’re trusted by their local broadcasters.

We’ve got projects like [The Count of] Monte Cristo that Neon Ink in London is developing. They’ve obtained paid development with a broadcaster in the U.K. We know it is a story that will resonate with French audiences. So Banijay Studios France has taken it to French broadcasters who have relationships with the creative talent at Banijay Studios and trust them to deliver a program that will work for their audiences just as well as it will for British audiences. It helps to be part of a group that has access to that expertise and those relationships.

WS: What opportunities have streaming services offered Banijay Rights?

MUTIMER: In terms of acquisitions, the streamers are key partners of ours; they are important clients. It’s interesting; we’ve started to see a switch in the way we work with companies like Netflix. Now they are focusing on fewer, bigger, better, and they want fewer properties across a larger footprint.

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make the world available and they will be more flexible on the rights.

WS: And what if a terrestrial broadcaster wants exclusivity?

MUTIMER: It’s a matter of money and windowing. If they are prepared to pay for exclusivity, great. It will be fascinating to see what happens as all of the big conglomerates launch their proprietary streaming services.

That is going to be a challenge for them, how much exclusivity do they want for their services. Look at Netflix’s $100 million Friends deal. I’m sure the people launching WarnerMedia’s streaming service would have loved to have that show exclusively. But it’s such a valuable property you have to look at the numbers and decide if that is going to work; that’s what distributors do on a day-byday basis. It could be that there are more opportunities for us if more of the U.S. studios decide to keep a greater portion of their inventory for their own services. There are so many platforms and broadcasters around the world who are hungry for content that this

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will bring more opportunities for independent distributors.

WS: Is there a willingness to share rights?

MUTIMER: I’m seeing a willingness to share rights, yes. Again, no two properties are the same, but we often window through OTT and public-service and commercial broadcasters around the world. We also work with regional OTT services. Movistar+ in Spain will launch Hierro at MIPTV, and that is a great series with a rich, strong cast, including Candela Peña, who worked with Pedro Almodóvar.

We work a lot with Viaplay. We’re launching Wisting with CarrieAnne Moss. That is a great drama we have, thanks to a streaming service that commissioned it.

WS: What new formats will you be launching at MIPTV? MUTIMER: We’re excited about Catch! from Banijay Group’s Brainpool for SAT.1 in Germany. It’s an explosive new entertainment format, in which four teams of four players compete against each other in games inspired by variations on the timeless game of catch—ranging from the classic (cross the line, obstacle race), to the funny (blind catch) and downright scary (vertical catch). The fastpaced rounds see all the teams take on the parts of chasers and evaders. Each team is led by a celebrity captain, and team members are top athletes and parkour specialists.

We believe this has great potential for broadcasters, as it can be scaled up or down depending on the clients’ needs.

WS: How have you been reimagining and launching some of your legacy formats like Temptation Island and Survivor?

MUTIMER: Survivor is an example of a format that’s been around 20 years and has been consistently on the air. We love it, we know it and the whole nub of Survivor is how people form societies together. And because it takes place in such extreme circumstances, it feels quite elevated. That is something that constantly engages [viewers], especially now as we watch what’s going on in our world!

Survivor is one of the best formats ever. It’s in its 38th season in the U.S. this year.

Incredible. Julia [Dick, consultant executive producer at Castaway Television Productions] knows that format inside and out. She helps

Hierro make sure it is a success wherever it goes.

We are discussing a new version in Russia at the moment. She is talking to the production team there and knows what the potential risks are—if you do this it might be a bit boring, you have to do it that way. We’ve got the expertise and knowledge that give broadcasters real support to make sure the show is a success.

Temptation Island is interesting. It’s a huge hit that is still on air in places like the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium and has come back to the U.S. this year. Whereas once it was a honey trap for people, now the angle is more couples who feel they are at a crossroads in their relationship and want to test [whether or not they are] with the right partner. It’s become a social experiment but still fun and exciting, and the casting is incredible.

WS: Careful what you wish for!

MUTIMER: Yes, and absolutely fascinating to watch. Shipwrecked is another format that is coming back in the U.K. It was on Channel 4 in the 2000s and it [launched in January] on E4. One of the things that makes these formats 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 101

relevant and feel slightly different and fresh is that the production teams working on them are a whole new generation and see things through a slightly different lens. Social media wasn’t around then but is now and is a key part of the proposition. We’ve got producers just focusing on social media for Shipwrecked. And the cast is much more diverse than the cast was 20 years ago. So the show does feel fresh and of today.

WS: Do streaming services prefer scripted or do they also look for unscripted?

MUTIMER: We sell both. Scripted is more highprofile content. But Netflix and Amazon are commissioning more unscripted than previously. They will look at unscripted ideas and have acquired some from us. Yes, they buy both, but they do think of scripted first. But it’s cyclical as well. We talk about these great shows that are coming back that people can binge on. After I watched the first two episodes of Temptation Island, I couldn’t wait to see the third! Had it been on a streaming service, it would be a weekend lost on Temptation Island!

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Fred Burcksen ZDF Enterprises

By Anna Carugati global successes, and that enabled us to strengthen our group as a whole.

WS: How have you seen co-financing and coproducing evolve in the last ten years or so?

BURCKSEN: I see two improvements. Television is all about financing projects with partners, but the improvement I see is that there is a greater acceptance for letting talent do their work. Coproduction partners, whether networks or distributors, are more willing to allow writers and everybody involved in the creative process to do their work; they don’t try to exert too much influence. There is a greater acceptance for projects as they are—let the creative people do what they know best, and we’ll enjoy the result. That is one element and it’s very positive.

The other element is that, especially in the field of high-end productions and drama and live-action kids’ series, which are very difficult and expensive to make, there is an absolute need

DF Enterprises (ZDFE) distributes scripted, factual and children’s programming from ZDF, one of the world’s preeminent public broadcasters. To boost its catalog, ZDFE also acquires content and has been investing in production companies. Through the years, ZDFE has participated in international co-productions in several genres. Knowing how to work with partners is essential for Fred Burcksen, the president and CEO of ZDFE, given the high cost of producing quality content that is so in demand today.

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WS: ZDFE recently acquired Off the Fence (OTF) and invested in Nadcon Film. What was the strategy behind those investments?

BURCKSEN: With the acquisition of Off the Fence, we wanted to increase our sales power and global presence within the unscripted industry. OTF is a very effective and boutiquestyle production entity. It fits very well within our portfolio of production companies. Nadcon is a one-person operation, Peter Nadermann. He had been with us, then left our group [in 2012 to launch Nadcon], and we thought it was time for him to return.

Peter has talent. He is well connected within the creative industry and has a nose for finding special content and for seeing trends in the drama genre. Peter was the one who discovered series like The Killing and The Bridge (Bron/Broen). Together with ZDF, we invested in both series and made them into

Canadian author Martin Michaud that we picked up—a small Canadian Quebec series that we are making into a global success.

WS: What opportunities have streaming services offered ZDFE? BURCKSEN: We have worked on three levels with the likes of Netflix. First, they acquire ready-made programs in various territories where they launched their platform. We were a launch partner in the U.K. and Germany, but they have also picked up series for global use.

The second level is co-productions. The best example is probably The Worst Witch, where Netflix stepped in as the third coproduction partner. They secured the rights they needed. They looked at the scripts; they made some notes. But again, they let the creative team do its work.

And the third level is where Netflix commissions series from our production companies.

ZDF Enterprises is bringing its financing and co-production expertise to the outfits within its network and a range of third-party producers. to work with partners. You can’t afford to do things by yourself. You need to work with partners to get special series done, which is first and foremost a positive thing, and second, people are willing to look at original ideas no matter where they come from. It could be a Scandinavian series, a Spanish series or a Canadian series. A project should be original and developed and executed by the creative team without too much influence by the co-production partners.

WS: Would you give some examples of recent co-financed projects?

BURCKSEN: In live-action kids’ series, we are doing the third season of The Worst Witch. It’s a CBBC project that could only be financed with the help of ZDFE and Netflix. This is a very original concept that all partners have accepted just as the creative team that built the property envisioned it. And secondly, it could only be financed with the help of all these partners, so you needed the two networks, CBBC and ZDF, and Netflix as a global platform. Another example is a Canadian series by Pixcom Productions called Victor Lessard. It’s based on a famous novel by 102 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Maybe they were not the initiators of the program, but they were the first to step in and take global rights. An example is one of our production companies, Bavaria Fiction, which developed a series on Sigmund Freud. Netflix picked it up on a global scale and ZDF took the second window in Germany.

WS: What advantages does ZDFE derive from its affiliation with ZDF? BURCKSEN: We are very proud to be a 100percent subsidiary. ZDF is a creative powerhouse; so many talented editorial people work there. It’s a very courageous network. Again, it was Peter Nadermann’s finding, but ZDF was the first broadcaster to decide to air season one of The Killing—one story over 20 episodes. For a linear network, that was very courageous. It’s in ZDF’s DNA; they like to be first movers.

Finally, if we work shoulder to shoulder and bring their money to the table and add some of our money, we can be a factor when it comes to co-producing or acquiring quality international content. We try to work with them, find synergies and be effective together.

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Bo Stehmeier Red Arrow Studios International

By Mansha Daswani first ever drama commission, and Lilyhammer was the first series Netflix put out as original content.

But as well as identifying changes, it’s also knowing when not to throw the baby out with the bathwater! We sell across all windows, from linear to SVOD, and the rise of the FAANGs hasn’t meant that traditional distribution to linear broadcasters is dead by any means. In some ways, as the linear channels step up to compete, we are seeing more activity than ever before.

Another big shift is that we are now involved in IP throughout its whole lifecycle, not just at the end when the show is delivered. We are getting involved in projects earlier and earlier— at the treatment and development stage— especially in scripted.

If you are a distributor of scale, it has never been more important to be able to put together complex rights structures, build business mod-

WS: What’s your approach to crafting rollout strategies on titles?

STEHMEIER: As a distributor, we ideally like to recoup within the first window, so there is sufficient upside for the production company we are representing. But the strategy—and recoupment—really depends on the type of show, the genre, the budget and how it has been financed; be that via the traditional broadcaster commissioning model, or by tapping into a local fund or private equity. When an opportunity arises, you look at it and determine how you service that specific project in a bespoke way.

WS: Is the Red Arrow Studios International catalog heavily skewed towards drama or is it a fairly even split between scripted and non-scripted?

ProSiebenSat.1 Media has made its content production and global sales segment, which includes Red Arrow Studios, a key growth pillar for the future.

ith offices in Munich, London and Los Angeles, Red Arrow Studios International has positioned itself as a preeminent supplier of scripted, factual and entertainment formats to the global market.

Under the leadership of Bo Stehmeier as president, the business continues to tap into its network of 20 sister production companies under the Red Arrow Studios banner—a group that includes Fabrik Entertainment, the producers of Amazon’s Bosch, and CPL Productions, creator of the acclaimed Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds—as well as third-party outlets, as it carves a niche for itself as an “über-connector” in the global content market.

els and financial packages to help facilitate ideas, wherever they are created, and then come up with bespoke distribution strategies to make sure each IP generates maximum revenue back to our production partners. It’s all about how you connect the dots. That’s where I see the true renaissance of the distribution business.

WS: How is Red Arrow Studios International responding to the changes in the distribution industry?

STEHMEIER: There is no doubt that the role distribution is playing in the TV ecosystem is changing rapidly. And I think it’s fair to say that, these days, to thrive as a distributor you need to be agile, versatile and creative, and you also need to be an über-connector. So spotting shifts in the industry is important. As the FAANGs matured, and we saw how their business models were changing and how they were positioning themselves, it became clear that original content was going to be key. So we have had a lot of success working with these companies early on: Bosch was Amazon’s

WS: Red Arrow Studios International has its roots in SevenOne International, which was set up primarily to sell ProSiebenSat.1’s original productions. How has the relationship with your parent broadcast group evolved?

STEHMEIER: Wherever an organization is created, you always carry that DNA within you, but nearly ten years on we have grown to become a truly international business, with multiple production companies around the world. Being part of a huge broadcaster in Europe is incredibly beneficial, as it provides not only resources for investment but also audience intelligence. And of course, it continues to provide us with product, too. Our pipeline of German TV movies and series from SAT.1 sells

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widely, particularly in the key European markets, and complements and rounds out our full catalog of more English-language shows.

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STEHMEIER: I would say it’s 60 percent scripted, 40 percent non-scripted, but it depends on how you measure that—by revenue or frequency of trade. But overall turnover-wise, it’s 60/40.

WS: Are broadcasters still eager to take all rights, or are they willing to be more flexible to save some money?

STEHMEIER: There is definitely more flexibility, and traditional broadcasters are keen to get in on big shows early as they don’t want to miss out on a hit. In Europe in particular, with quotas coming in, the streamers are increasingly co-producing with local partners.

In those territories where the big players are on basic pay, or the SVODs have a very aggressive penetration in TV households, then the free-to-air players tend to be much more protective because they have to be. But generally, if a production is loud enough, any business model applies.

WS: There is a lot of competition for talent.

What can Red Arrow Studios International

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offer third-party producers that they may not be able to find elsewhere?

STEHMEIER: Aside from finance—be that development money, advances or minimum guarantees—it comes back to being überconnected. Our diverse catalog means we have strong relationships with broadcasters in all the major territories, linear and nonlinear, and through that we have a huge amount of market knowledge and expertise that we impart back.

We are also well resourced across development, creative, acquisitions, sales and marketing, so that we can offer a partner maximum support.

WS: What impact will the streamers’ sixfigure talent deals have on the broader content ecosystem?

STEHMEIER: So far, with a few exceptions such as The Grand Tour, it has primarily impacted the scripted business, where the bar has been raised, not only in terms of quality and value on-screen but also budgets.

You need to have deep pockets to compete in that market, and you need to be prepared to invest at the development stage to secure the right projects and talent. We’ve done a number of early development deals recently, including a long-term deal with the awardwinning Israeli writing and producing partners Amit Cohen and Ron Leshem to develop multiple premium drama projects together, and you’ll see us announce more of these kinds of deals in the coming months.

But this strategy isn’t only driven by the fact that we want to compete with the FAANGs. It’s also because the other large linear platforms in Europe and North America are in that game as well. They expect you to come to a meeting with early development stage projects because that’s where the business is going.

WS: What are your thoughts on the studiobacked direct-to-consumer platforms like Disney+, which have international ambitions?

Will their content holdbacks end up creating more opportunities for European companies like Red Arrow?

STEHMEIER: Many of these propositions rolling out will be nonlinear, pay services; in response, the linear free-TV services are moving more towards live, hyper-regional content to differentiate themselves—and so are looking for local talent and more local productions. This is an opportunity for us, especially for our formats business. Over the last few months, we’ve seen a big increase in demand for our scripted formats in particular.

WS: Do you have concerns about the volume of content out there?

STEHMEIER: The breadth of content out there is huge, and it is hard to see this as anything

but positive. We continue to see a spike in revenues, particularly when it comes to scripted remakes and also our social experiment formats like Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, because they enable broadcasters to cut through the clutter.

In the world of commissioning, it’s important to have executives who will take a chance on something a bit different. It’s OK to have volume, but there is always an appetite among viewers for truly original, creative content.

WS: What are your big-picture priorities for the year ahead?

STEHMEIER: Sell, sell, sell, of course, but aside from that, we have a number of core objectives.

We are going to continue investing and coproducing in high-end dramas like Vienna Blood, Departure and Death and Nightingales at the earliest possible stage, a strategy that is being driven by Carlo Dusi, our executive VP of commercial strategy for scripted, and his team.

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Alongside that, we need to ensure we maintain our diverse catalog by continuing to grow our acquisitions pipeline. Alex Fraser, our senior VP of acquisitions, is continuously acquiring a range of product, from high-end scripted to procedural dramas and TV movies, high-volume factual entertainment to blue-chip factual series, and of course standout format opportunities.

We also want to ensure we continue benefiting from the growing appetite for non-English-language drama and scripted formats, such as Lice Mother, Einstein and Stella Blómkvist, in addition to continuing to drive forward our big format brands, such as Married at First Sight and The Last Cop. And last but not least, we need to ensure we are always delivering value back to our production partners, in-house and third-party, and staying 100 percent relevant for their businesses.

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Alon Shtruzman Keshet International

By Mansha Daswani was sold to Netflix worldwide. A decade ago, a show like POW had multiple revenue streams. POW became Homeland, which was a massive hit in the U.S. and worldwide. The Israeli POW was sold as a tape to 65-plus countries and became by itself a pretty significant revenue generator. And the format was produced in many countries—Russia, India, Latin America. So we managed to monetize POW on multiple platforms in multiple ways.

Nowadays, most of the big shows are being sold in one big global deal, which means it’s impossible to monetize this IP in other countries. So we increased our pipeline, and we generate and create much more IP today. The appetite of the market is so big and the ability to sell the same IP to multiple platforms is so hard, you just need to have more pieces of IP! We’re developing IP in Israel, in the U.K., in Germany, in the U.S. We’ve expanded our slate massively.

ince its humble beginnings licensing entertainment formats from Israel, Keshet International (KI) has emerged as a distribution powerhouse across a range of genres, most notably drama. A division of Keshet Media Group, KI, led by CEO Alon Shtruzman, offers scripted, entertainment, factual and kids’ titles to broadcasters across the globe and has expanded heavily into production, with outposts in Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and other markets.

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WS: What have been the major strategy shifts at KI as you navigate the changing distribution business?

SHTRUZMAN: If you look at KI’s evolution from its founding about seven years ago, the company has shifted massively into production. We [realized] that to make the most out of IP, we also needed to produce. That gives us better creative control and better participation. The way the market operates today is very different. It’s much harder to sell the same piece of IP to multiple countries. One of the pillars of our business in the past was selling formats like Prisoners of War (POW) and The A Word to multiple countries and producing them in different languages.

Today, one of the effects of the OTTs is there is more of an appetite to take all rights. Most of the big platforms or broadcasters have global footprints, and they are all looking to exploit the shows globally. When Heroes Fly

that can create the magic of television.

We’ve done it successfully in the U.K. and the U.S., but it took time. So we decided to step up and identify good companies and acquire them. The first was Tresor, which was an amazing addition to the KI family.

Tresor for us was a perfect acquisition; a great company in a huge territory, Germany.

Tresor has grown since then, getting into new spaces. They’ve entered the drama space. The integration has created benefits for both of us. We have an outpost in Germany that can take our shows to the market. And for Tresor it’s access to more money, more IP and the drama expertise.

And then Greenbird was the perfect match for us. It brought volume. It’s an umbrella of 12 great independent companies. Each company has a slightly different field of expertise. The Greenbird volume and talent were unbeatable. Suddenly, we had a flow of tape

Founded with Israeli IP at its core, Keshet International today represents a wide range of scripted, factual and kids’ content produced around the world.

WS: What benefits do you derive from being affiliated with a market-leading broadcaster?

SHTRUZMAN: It’s a huge advantage. It allows us to commission our own shows. It allows us to have a finger on the pulse and have a daily dialogue with a massive focus group so we can test our shows. It allows us to air the shows in Israel and go to key markets like the U.K., the U.S. and India with proven concepts.

WS: You’ve acquired companies in Germany and the U.K. Are you looking at other opportunities as you continue to scale up your production capabilities and IP pipeline?

SHTRUZMAN: The U.K. was our first production territory. Since then, we methodically built production in key markets. In the first few years, we built organically. At some point, in the interest of speed, we decided to start buying. The company was growing with more cash flow, and we had more tools to engage with talent. So it was natural to move to acquisitions. Building a production company is a complicated craft. It’s not only about personnel. It’s putting together a team 106 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

and IP from the U.K., which pretty much doubled the slate.

We see M&A as a tool to accomplish our strategy, which is pretty simple: expanding globally and getting into production. We’re looking at markets in Latin America. India is a great market. In Europe, Spain, France and Italy are very interesting. From our perspective, we see three barometers to buy a company: we want to see great management, we want great creative, and we want to see a company with very clear trajectories and growth. We’ll keep looking into other companies. M&A is going to be a key engine in KI’s growth in the next few years.

WS: The OTTs are spending a lot of money to lock in talent deals. Does that make M&A even more critical, so that you can retain access to content from leading producers?

SHTRUZMAN: Getting access to talent is a must in today’s competitive TV landscape.

We see talent as a priority. Every show that is sold is a combination of great IP and great talent. Whether it’s Howard Gordon, who

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reimagined POW to create Homeland, or Peter Bowker, who made The A Word his show in the U.K. M&A, JVs and first-look deals are all tools to engage with top talent.

WS: Why was it important for you to expand beyond drama and entertainment formats into the kids’ and factual arenas?

SHTRUZMAN: It’s a game of quality and quantity. You can’t be a distributor unless you have a big library. Absolutely we believe in diversity in general—in life and content! Our Keshet network is by design very diverse—it has different kinds of target audiences and it has every genre, from game shows to dramas. At KI we have benchmarks for quality, and we won’t take just anything for distribution, but in general, we are very open and flexible. We launched a kids’ division. We are expanding into documentaries and movies.

Nowadays, if you want to be a significant player, you have to be diverse, you have to become a supermarket and be able to provide something for everyone.

WS: How did your scripted financing fund come about?

SHTRUZMAN: Funding is becoming more and more sophisticated now. The drama space is becoming more prolific. Funnily enough, it’s becoming more challenging to set up a show. We used to say we’re selling a show. Now we’re setting up shows. It’s a much more complex structure. We saw that it was imperative for us to take greater control of our destiny and take a bigger chunk of the shows we make. We were lucky enough to see one of the greatest shows of our time, Homeland, become a massive hit—it was both critically acclaimed and financially successful. If Homeland

came today, we would want to own a bigger piece of it. Since we became a major player in the scripted space in America, and we have access to great properties, it made sense to us to own a bigger chunk of what we produce or even [what we sell] from third-party producers. It’s a volume game, and we’re looking for different ways to expand the catalog. We’re making more shows, expanding the footprint and building a strong and high-quality catalog.

We realized that one of the tools in this game would be deficit funding. Since we want to be able to do whatever a big studio does, it was crucial for us to be able to have access to deficit funding. We realized that it was pretty natural to raise money. We did it in Israel, where Keshet is a household name. Pretty quickly, we put together a fund of $65 million.

Many investors would like to have access to TV series but don’t necessarily have the relationships. We managed to put together a fund that helps us to grow the slate. And we allowed investors to get access to the very lucrative space of TV productions.

WS: What can you tell us about the international plans for 2025?

SHTRUZMAN: It was designed to be the biggest and loudest format in years. We wanted to do something completely different and come up with a new breed of reality TV. We did that six years ago with Rising Star, which is still a huge seller for us. It was a complete disruption and reimagination of traditional talent shows. 2025 is a reimagination of the reality show. It’s inspired by [futuristic] movies and books. It has a profound social message. It took us a year and a half to develop this show with the team that made Big Brother on Keshet.

When you watch 2025, there’s one prominent element: it looks like nothing else. The

visuals, the dynamics between the participants, the game mechanism. The way that The Real World, Big Brother and Survivor changed reality television, I think 2025 is aiming for the same. It’s a big statement. We built a small city in Israel to accommodate the production. It’s SimCity come to life!

WS: How do you see the unscripted format business developing with the global streamers?

SHTRUZMAN: Unscripted has been through a tough few years. It may be because the OTT platforms focused on drama. The drama model was very clear, and the long-tail value of drama is much bigger than in unscripted.

But remember, TV’s success was always driven by unscripted. The biggest shows in the last few decades were unscripted, whether it was Survivor, The X Factor or The Voice. So it was only a matter of time before the OTT platforms started to invest big time in unscripted. We see the signs, whether it’s The Grand Tour on Amazon or Queer Eye for Netflix. I’m sure they will do more. The platforms still need to figure out how unscripted should be on OTT. Unscripted has flourished on linear media, in prime time. How do you do unscripted without prime time, without live? [The OTT platforms] can do live. Will they? How would a traditional game show look on OTT? Game shows were born as a daily strip in daytime. What’s the equivalent on OTT? All those questions are challenging, but very smart people are dealing with them now. Global OTT platforms don’t just compete with pay TV. They want to compete with everything. I have no doubt that in a few years, OTT will have every kind of content. It’s a natural development. The next few years will see a huge wave of new and exciting formats specifically for OTT.

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Nadav Palti Dori Media Group

By Anna Carugati ourselves, as we do in Israel and Argentina. We are producing for TV, for YouTube and we are now trying a new trend and combining YouTube, social networks and TV. In TV, we are always in development on more than 100 new ideas. Out of these, 50 need some more work and of them, 25 or 30 will get a development budget. Out of them, 15 get to the next level, 10 go on air and 2 are a big success. If I had to compare, it’s similar to high tech or startups. Out of 100, you will have one or two that will be successful.

WS: Several of your new shows have connections to social media. Are these in response to buyer demand or did you envision a different type of programming?

PALTI: Both. We saw the frustration of channels as young audiences leave them. Young people are on YouTube and Instagram. They are not watching TV, and if they watch TV

adav Palti, the CEO of the Dori Media Group, has always paid close attention to market trends and reacted quickly. He expanded the group’s TV production from Israel to Argentina to take advantage of international demand for Spanish-language series. He spearheaded the move into formats and short-form programming and is now encouraging the creation of series that combine internet, social media and traditional television. He and his sales teams have also embraced OTT platforms, with Netflix becoming their biggest client in 2018.

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WS: How have you taken as much risk as possible out of creating programming, but still come up with so many hits?

PALTI: The idea is to balance opportunities against the situation of the market, and the market is rapidly changing. If you can look a bit into the future and try to understand the new trends, you can manage risk.

Second, you should do co-productions that allow you to split the risk. But if you split the risk, you also split the opportunities. Sometimes we are only distributors, and there we have none of the risks of production, but we do have the risks of the distribution business, which is very expensive. We need to be experienced, understand the market and have good long-term relationships with all the players, the old and new.

Sometimes we co-produce, so we split the risk.

Sometimes we produce 100 percent by

control the world, or, if there isn’t room for ten, they will merge, no one knows.

I will tell you one sentence: Netflix became Dori Media’s biggest client in 2018. This tells you the whole story. If you had asked me two years ago if that were possible, I would have said you were crazy. But it’s happened.

WS: When you sell to Netflix, can you keep some rights for second windows, do they take all rights, or does it depend on the show?

PALTI: It depends on the show. We’ve done both types of deals with Netflix. We did one show, I cannot talk about it because they haven’t announced it yet. It’s one of our biggest formats from the past from Argentina, and they want to produce it again and make a Netflix original. In this case, they get the rights with restrictions. There are rights to the new show, but we also have rights to the original finished show, which

Dori Media has built up a diversified slate across drama, comedy, entertainment formats, youth-skewing short-form series and more. shows, it’s through YouTube. We saw this, and we understood that the future is a combination of internet, YouTube, Instagram and TV. If TV doesn’t reinvent itself, it will lose its audience. Good content is good content and you will watch it, but the question is, where are you going to watch it?

WS: What else are you doing in the online space?

PALTI: We have a very strong presence on YouTube. Four years ago, we established a company called MeMeMe Studios, a multichannel network that creates brands for kids.

We produce live action. We started with 3- to 5-minute live episodes. We’ve produced more than 1,000 episodes at low cost, but still at a good quality. Now YouTube is asking for 10-minute episodes.

WS: Have OTTs disrupted the business the most? Within that disruption, have you found opportunities?

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we can continue to sell in different territories, and we have a few versions in other countries, as well.

There are maybe more rights restrictions when you produce an original show with Netflix, but if we sell them a finished show like Shtisel, or The Road to Calvary, a Russian show from NTV, or El Marginal from Argentina, produced

by Underground Producciones with TV Pública, for which we distribute season one and two, we try to limit the rights we give to Netflix. This is actually an art. Of course, money is always an issue, but when you are dealing with Netflix, it’s very important to be creative. You need to see the windows; maybe you can sell a shorter free-to-air window after the remake. The deal is always very complicated, but only the first deal with Netflix is very complicated. You can work six months on the master deal, but then all the other deals can be a two- or three-page appendix. The issue is to sign the first deal, which is always a secret, and I didn’t tell you any secrets! Up to now, we haven’t produced originals for Netflix, so we have retained rights.

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Patrick Vien A+E Networks

By Anna Carugati wanting to co-produce English-language television. This is a new global reality; for example, we are in discussions with coproducers in Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Brazil, France and Korea, to name a few.

Culturally, two elements are expanding the co-production marketplace. The first is that more companies are wanting to produce English-language content, so there are more ideas and more available capital. Secondly, audiences are embracing non-English-language programming all over the world, which means a show that might just have had regional scope can now have broader global scope. Think of Fauda, for example.

Creatively, the bar keeps rising. Scripted television has become the new motion picture, and the feature documentary is increasingly becoming the premium factual series.

The standard of production values continues to be elevated. Never has there been more

+E Networks manages a portfolio of brands in the U.S. and around the world that includes A&E, HISTORY and Lifetime.

Years ago, the company realized the advantages of owning its content, which it has now used to not only feed its channels, but also to build a robust distribution business. Patrick Vien, who shares the role of executive managing director of international at A+E Networks with Edward Sabin, has also begun co-producing projects with partners.

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WS: Tell us about A+E Networks’ recently announced co-production strategy.

VIEN: What is hardly new is the fact that fantastic programming is being produced all over the world. What’s become an explosive new reality is the collaboration that is taking place between big markets and medium-sized markets, and even smaller markets, for the co-production of factual and scripted television. In part, this is an evolution of the international media marketplace, where people are more comfortable than ever working with producing partners from diverse cultures and in different languages. It’s a broad recognition that there are extraordinary writers [and creators] all over the world.

What is particularly exciting is that producers are coming together to develop globally appealing programming. A tipping point has been big markets—for example, Italy and major broadcasters like Rai—

woman inherits a private investigation business after the untimely death of her father. A smart young woman becomes an unexpected first-rate private investigator in what is a chauvinist boys’ club culture.

We love this story for several reasons. First, we have a strong female protagonist as the central character. Second, even though we are starting with six episodes, it has the makings of a crime procedural for mainstream television. This is an interesting space for us. In a world of incredibly high-end scripted, much of which is dark in subject, we see an opportunity for more accessible mainstream scripted television. This series takes place in a rich time period, the late 1800s. That gives us the opportunity to be cinematic, which is the expectation of the viewer today. Lastly, we think it has universal appeal. One of our key development filters is, could the show be interesting on a global scale? You need global economics to make scripted work, so when we are

The A+E Networks distribution team seeks out third-party clients for a huge slate of content, largely produced for the company’s global networks portfolio. ambition to tell stories cinematically, in both factual and scripted. A vibrant co-production market provides opportunities for partners all over the world to produce at an even higher level and share in the risk.

Where there is room for partnership and creative collaboration, we at A+E very much want to participate inside that incredibly vibrant ecosystem. Like a lot of U.S.-based media companies, we have amassed a very big library, well above 17,000 hours over 30-plus years. We have produced countless factual hits, event series like Roots and scripted series like Project Blue Book.

Co-production also allows us to start producing outside the U.S. and discover extraordinary opportunities that could be global, or in some cases, regional in scope. It’s a big opening for us.

WS: What scripted shows do you have in the pipeline?

VIEN: The most recently announced, which is our first A+E International co-production, is Miss Scarlet and The Duke. We are extremely proud of this production. It’s set in the late 1800s in a Jack-the-Ripper London context, where a young 110 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

developing co-productions, we always ask, What are its themes and how universally appealing are they?

WS: Would you give some examples of how you find the best placement for your shows?

VIEN: Richard Tulk-Hart is leading a remarkable team; they are true 360 programmingminded media execs. We try to think first as producers, programmers and schedulers and use that mindset as a selling tool. When we sit with any number of our clients across all 200 markets in which we operate, we have a creative and scheduling partnership approach to understand what they are looking for. They all buy scripted, factual, TV movies and our formats for different reasons. They don’t have the exact same constellation of competitors from one market to another. More than anything, it’s the breadth of our understanding of our clients in the marketplace and how our teams aim to solve their scheduling opportunities and challenges. That’s what makes us successful in finding the sweet spot for any one of our shows.

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APRIL 2019

MIPTV EDITION

Top Buyers / Sky’s Gary Davey / ProSiebenSat.1’s Max Conze

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CONTENTS

1989: A Year to Remember

FEATURE 8 HOT PICKS

Some of Europe’s leading programmers reveal their wish lists ahead of MIPTV.

Among my family’s favorite restaurants is a wine bar that we love equally for its delicious assortment of tapas-style small plates, its wine list and its manager, Ines, a lovely woman who is as welcoming as she is knowledgeable about vintages.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Europe ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tveurope.ws

No matter how crowded the restaurant, she always finds time to come over and talk, catching up on our families and even current events. We share concerns about Europe, as I have family in Italy, my husband in the U.K. and Ines in Germany. We were recently discussing Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany since 2005, who announced she wouldn’t seek another term in 2021, and also stepped down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU has chosen Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK, to succeed Merkel as head of the party.

Ines was telling us how much she admired Merkel and approved of her decision to allow Middle Eastern refugees into Germany, as challenging as managing that policy has been. Ines was born in East Germany and lived there for many years, just as Merkel did. We asked Ines what her hopes and dreams were as a girl living behind the Iron Curtain. “I had none,” she answered. You couldn’t hope or aspire; you could only conform and accept the life you were given. Ines was 9 years old when the Berlin Wall came down and still vividly remembers that day in 1989. She has been living in the U.S. for nearly two decades and has a young daughter. She says her primary aim is to infuse her with a sense of hope for the future and anticipation for the many opportunities that await her.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 represented the crumbling of the communist system of government in the USSR and the Soviet Bloc in Europe, as well as the beginning of democracy and free-market economies in those countries.

That year also heralded other new beginnings in Europe.

Deregulation and the end of public broadcasters’ dominance of the television industry had started a few years earlier and continued with the commercial station ProSieben, which hit the airwaves in Germany in 1989 and has since been a destination for young viewers. Sky Television launched in the U.K. and it has grown into the continent’s leading pay-TV platform. We celebrate these 30th anniversaries with Max Conze, the CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media, and Gary Davey, Sky’s managing director of content.

—Anna Carugati

GET DAILY NEWS ON EUROPEAN TELEVISION

INTERVIEWS

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Sky’s Gary Davey

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ProSiebenSat.1’s Max Conze

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The Mediapro Studio Creation / Production / Distribution In the year ahead, Barcelona-based The Mediapro Studio is set to create, produce and distribute more than 30 series in Spanish and English. With a global investment of €200 million ($227 million) for producing series, films, short formats and documentaries in Spain, Italy, Portugal, the U.K., Finland, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, the U.S. and the Middle East, the studio is poised to ramp up its international expansion. The outfit will be involved in development, creation, production, audiovisual services, artistic direction and distribution, as well as in funding new projects. The Mediapro Studio is part of the larger Mediapro Group. Mediapro currently has 27 shows being broadcast, and earlier this year launched Vote for Juan on TNT Spain. It was also behind the Amazon originals Six Dreams and All or Nothing: Manchester City.

Vote for Juan

Mediterráneo Audiovisual State Secrets / Dangerous Moms / Monica & Sex Mediterráneo Audiovisual is the new Mediaset España company that unites the audiovisual, theatrical and digital content production companies owned by the group. MIPTV marks the first outing for the new venture, which is presenting the political thriller State Secrets. The plot centers on an assassination attempt against the Spanish Prime Minister.

“There is nothing more international than a political scandal, and this is the starting point of the series,” says Silvia Cotino, head of sales. A dark comedy, Dangerous Moms sees four mothers entangled in an accidental crime that will mess with all of their lives. “Women are the supreme protagonists of the show,” Cotino says. Meanwhile, Monica & Sex is a docuseries featuring singer Mónica Naranjo as she explores different sexual lifestyles around the world.

Monica & Sex

“Mediterráneo’s content is an innovative bet.”

—Silvia Cotino

The Hunt. Monteperdido

RTVE The Hunt. Monteperdido / Promises of Sand / Hospital Valle Norte In the RTVE drama series The Hunt. Monteperdido, two 11year-old girls have disappeared from a Pyrenees village and authorities are left with no clues. Five years later, one of the girls reappears. RTVE is also presenting Promises of Sand, which features “a story about friendship and support among women,” says María Jesús Pérez, international sales director. Andrea Duro stars in the series as Lucía, who lands in Libya as an aid worker and ends up living a unique story of love and mystery. The focus of the prime-time series Hospital Valle Norte is the team of surgeons working in a university hospital. The show combines “realistic drama, urban comedy and romance,” as the main characters face complex medical cases while having to keep their personal lives separate from work.

“RTVE is committed to creating high-quality content for global consumption.”

—María Jesús Pérez

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Lambs of God

Sky Vision I AM / Lambs of God / Puppy School Headlining the Sky Vision slate is Catherine the Great, an epic historical romance starring Helen Mirren. Also in the way of drama, there are I AM and Lambs of God. I AM was devised in collaboration with actors Samantha Morton, Vicky McClure and Gemma Chan, each of whom has a close personal connection to the story they are involved in. Lambs of God is set on a remote island, where three Catholic nuns are the last remaining members of the enclosed order of St. Agnes. On the non-scripted front, there’s Puppy School.

“The combination of the utmost cuteness, the personal stories of the puppies’ owners and production values you’d expect for a Channel 4 feature mean that Puppy School will get snapped up by international broadcasters in no time,” says Leona Connell, director of sales.

“Lambs of God is fabulously gothic in style; I can’t think of anything quite like it.”

—Leona Connell

SPI International/FilmBox

Kurt Seyit ve Şura on Timeless Drama Channel

FightBox HD / Gametoon HD / Timeless Drama Channel Operating 36 channels on six continents, SPI International/ FilmBox uses state-of-the-art technology to provide its 55 million subscribers with access to linear and on-demand content. Two of the most popular channels in its bouquet are FightBox HD and Gametoon HD. FightBox HD delivers live broadcasts of combat sports events, along with coverage of sports such as MMA, kickboxing, boxing, wrestling, karate, jiujitsu, taekwondo and more. Gametoon HD is a gaming channel created and developed by gamers for gamers, targeting millennials and Gen Xers. The newest channel in the bouquet is Timeless Drama Channel, which features content from Turkish producers. “Last year and the first quarter of 2019 have been nothing short of incredible for SPI/FilmBox,” says Berk Uziyel, CEO at SPI International.

“Our partnerships with international content producers and suppliers just keep getting stronger.”

—Berk Uziyel

ZDF Enterprises The Worst Witch / The Greatest Race / Victor Lessard ZDF Enterprises has a varied catalog with highlights from across the genre spectrum. From ZDFE.junior, there’s The Worst Witch, following the adventures of a trainee witch in the magical world of Cackle’s Academy. The ZDFE.unscripted catalog features The Greatest Race, which turns the spotlight on the charioteers of ancient Rome. “This documentary goes behind the scenes of the greatest spectacle of the classical world as it closely follows the legendary rise of the young Scorpus from a slave to one of the most successful charioteers in the lion’s den at the impressive Circus Maximus, which held more than 150,000 spectators,” explains Fred Burcksen, president and CEO of ZDF Enterprises. The central character in ZDFE.drama’s Victor Lessard is a troubled cop who becomes involved is a series of dark and disturbing murders.

The Greatest Race

“Apart from business as usual, we have several presentations, sessions and screenings lined up for MIPDoc and MIPTV.” —Fred Burcksen 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 117

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Sky Vision’s Riviera.

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Steve Clarke checks in with some of Europe’s leading programmers about their content wish lists.

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cross Europe, TV networks are looking for lucrative ways to respond to the still-growing appeal of the streaming giants.

They also need to take account of the implications of a consolidating global entertainment market. And Brexit is creating further anxieties as buyers once again descend on Cannes for MIPTV. Against this disruptive background, some common themes are emerging as international distributors prepare for business on the Croisette.

Overall, more resources continue to go into local and pan-European bespoke shows. Even the Viacom-owned U.K. service Channel 5 is moving away from its former dependence on American fare as it rethinks its programming strategy across the digital channels it operates.

Tellingly, the station has not yet replaced chief buyer Katie Keenan, who exited last year.

Broadcasters need to think creatively around exclusivity and windowing as their own VOD services become more popular, and audiences—especially hard-to-reach younger audiences— clamor for box sets, series stacking and online-only debuts. The traditional players know that more VOD offerings, some backed by the Hollywood studios, will arrive soon.

Yet for all the talk of a turn toward more original content, the demand for acquired shows, provided they match programmers’ criteria, remains strong throughout mainland

Europe and the U.K., which, with Brexit looming, faces arguably its biggest political crisis since World War II.

EUROPEAN MIGHT “While international content is a little less important for our major broadcasters, it has a growing significance for our smaller free- and pay-TV niche channels, as well as for our VOD services,” says Silke Regier, the senior VP of international acquisitions at Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland.

This view is reflected throughout the European TV buying community. “We are investing more in new content than we did in previous years, with a strong shift into local commissioned content,” explains Wolfgang Link, co-CEO of the entertainment segment at ProSiebenSat.1 Media.

“Danish drama is high on the priority list and we are producing more than ever,” agrees Anette Romer, the head of acquisitions and formats at Denmark’s TV 2.

She adds, “In the age of the big streamers, across the board, national broadcasters are ‘going local’—taking every opportunity to stress the local origin of a program. It makes a lot of sense in the home market, but at the same time makes it harder for the program in question to travel well.”

Jakob Mejlhede, executive VP and group head of content at NENT Group, is upbeat as he approaches the market. “As always with MIPTV, we’re looking for stories with character.

We’re increasingly telling these stories ourselves through our original productions. At the same time, high-quality acquired content plays a vital role in NENT Group’s ecosystem.”

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Blinded, which is sold by all3media international, is a Nordic thriller for Bonnier’s C More and TV4.

Mejlhede adds, “International films and series, in combination with originals, kids’ content and live sports, give us an opportunity to differentiate ourselves even further. I’m looking forward to seeing what MIPTV has to offer.”

CHART TOPPERS So what have been some of the breakout shows in recent months? At Sky, Sarah Wright, director of acquisitions, highlights a clutch of shows scheduled on Sunday nights on Sky One—MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0, NCIS: Los Angeles and S.W.A.T.–plus other series, including Magnum P.I., 9-1-1 and Criminal Minds.

“I think, if anything, we want to spend more on content,” she says. “Our customers love acquired and original shows. I am not sure how much they differentiate between the two.”

ProSiebenSat.1’s Link singles out entertainment stalwarts Dancing on Ice—a strong performer on SAT.1 in a very competitive slot—and The Voice Senior, a successful brand extension of The Voice.

In Denmark, TV 2’s Romer mentions Naked Attraction— both the British and German versions—as a hit on youthfriendly channel Zulu and the SVOD platform TV 2 Play.

Entertainment juggernauts Britain’s Got Talent, The X Factor UK and America’s Got Talent: The Champions have performed well for TV 2 Charlie and the main channel.

“In factual, the high raters tend to be crime shows or other human-interest shows, most often sourced from the U.K.,” she adds. “Current-affairs pieces like Escape from Dubai: The Mystery of the Missing Princess do not perform to the same degree, but are considered important to the channel.” A strong social media following has helped drive the success of Escape to the Chateau on lifestyle channel TV 2 FRI. In the U.K., Lethal Weapon is a consistent audience grabber for ITV on Friday nights, says Sasha Breslau, head of acquired series. ITV 2’s biggest acquired shows remain Family Guy and American Dad. On the female-skewing ITVBe, glossy reality and lifestyle shows like the Real Housewives franchise and

Property Brothers are still important. The plastic surgery show Botched is another winner.

Over on Channel 4, Nick Lee, head of series acquisitions, says The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo and Homeland remain the main service’s flagship U.S. shows. This year the final season of Homeland will be shown by Channel 4, presenting an opportunity to fill the gap with another scripted vehicle. On youth-friendly E4, long-running sitcom The Big Bang Theory is also ending, which means there is another slot that needs filling. Meanwhile, Young Sheldon is “doing a superb job,” Lee says.

FUNNY BONE Under its new controller, Karl Warner, E4 is scouting boundary-pushing comedy. “We can be more open-minded about single-cam, prank shows and other types of comedy,” says Lee. “Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Goldbergs and black-ish are also strong shows for E4. That slate is not going anywhere.

Rather, it’s about doing things in addition to that.” A recent innovation was to reintroduce animation to the channel with the award-winning Rick and Morty.

On sister station More4, geared towards an upscale, female audience, Lee’s MIPTV wish list includes lifestyle-led factual entertainment. “Anything with a voyage-of-discovery narrative is very interesting,” he notes. Ideally, these shows should have a tone similar to the broadcaster’s own commissions.

Lee highlights Car S.O.S. and Nazi Megastructures and the recent purchase of two natural-history shows. Exclusivity isn’t always necessary. “For More4, we’re very openminded about second windows from pay-TV or VOD platforms,” he says.

Regarding scripted shows, Lee points to the continued success of Outlander and the popularity of The Good Fight, spun off from The Good Wife. He has “an appetite to find a classy legal procedural that can play next to The Good Fight.”

On Channel 4’s VOD platform, All 4, Lee is delighted with a recent deal that saw every episode of all six seasons of

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The Goldbergs available for exclusive streaming, while spinoff show Schooled debuted on E4. Episodes of Schooled were stacked on All 4 following their weekly broadcast. “Obviously all rights come at a price, but I think there was sense in keeping the franchise together,” says Lee.

ANYWHERE, ANYTIME In Stockholm, Bonnier Broadcasting’s acting head of acquisitions, Karin Lindström, describes her approach to buying as “total TV.” She elaborates, “The content needs to work across all platforms and channels. AVOD is very much a priority for us at the moment. We launched our AVOD platform, TV4 Play, several years ago, but we are now making it a go-to destination rather than just a catch-up service.”

In the scripted space, Lindström is seeking content that can play effectively on SVOD, AVOD, linear, free and pay channels.

For SVOD, followed by later windows on AVOD and free TV, the dramas The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Keeping Faith and The Little Drummer Girl (starring Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård), all exceeded Bonnier’s expectations.

She adds, “The past few years we acquired many Nordic noir thrillers. That genre is still very important to us of course, but at MIPTV I hope to identify some broader, more lighthearted shows that can run alongside the darker material.”

Lindström identifies the U.S. sitcom Younger as an example of a recent series that worked across all platforms.

At RTL in Germany, the Vox channel has successfully established The Good Doctor, but Regier warns that “U.S. series are increasingly difficult to outperform on our free-TV lineups.”

NENT’s Mejlhede emphasizes that average viewing time on the premium streaming service Viaplay is growing. “This means there’s more room for new shows to make their mark.

So while our core historical performers continue to top the charts, they’re increasingly complemented by new series that we’ve secured over the past year. Recent U.S. network productions like New Amsterdam and edgier material such as Deadly Class—both of which reach our viewers on the same day and date as the U.S.—are each finding their respective audience.”

He adds, “Viewers in the Nordic region are also very aware of what’s working well elsewhere in the world and are keen to see it for themselves.” For Mejlhede, exclusivity is important.

London-based UKTV runs ten channels and on-demand service UKTV Play. Emma Sparks, head of acquisitions, says it’s “business as usual” for her despite reports that Discovery, Inc., is preparing to sell its stake to its partner in the venture, BBC Studios.

The objective at MIPTV is to find “high-quality scripted series, both procedural and serialized,” plus factual shows with “a fresh approach to the genre.”

Female-friendly channel W is in the market for contemporary glossy dramas, preferably featuring a strong female lead who appeals to the 25-to-44-year-old female audience. W is also interested in factual entertainment that can form an emotional connection with the audience.

For the Alibi channel, Sparks will be eyeing contemporary crime drama—pacey detective shows for peak and softer investigations for daytime. A recent success for Alibi was Disney’s Australian forensic drama, Harrow.

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Endemol Shine’s Home and Away has been a hit on Channel 5 in the U.K.

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DRG’s The River recently launched on Channel 4.

The show returns for a second season this year. Sony Pictures Television’s Carter was one of Alibi’s top-rated shows in 2018, driven by a box-set preview on UKTV Play, notes Sparks.

Male-friendly Dave requires character-driven, observational documentaries. Ideally, these should have a quirky sense of humor. Flashing-blue-light shows are also on Dave’s hit list. On factual service Yesterday, Impossible Engineering was last year’s biggest hit.

“More and more broadcasters are turning towards originals and as a result, the market is flooded with fantastic content,” explains Sparks. “For us, that means we have to be clever regarding the content we pursue. We can’t compete with huge pan-territory acquisitions. I have to adapt to the new market conditions and be savvy about it.”

MARKET DISRUPTION Since last year’s MIPTV, there have been significant upheavals in the global entertainment business, namely Comcast’s successful bid for Sky and Rupert Murdoch selling his 21st Century Fox entertainment assets to Disney. It is too early to tell how these deals will impact the acquisitions market, but buyers are already bracing themselves for change. As ITV’s Breslau says, “You’re going to have fewer suppliers controlling more content. Who’s going to be selling that content?

And what rights will they reserve for their own SVOD start-ups? There are factors that will come into play that will affect us as buyers. As yet we don’t know what the impact will be.”

The shape of Sky’s future relationship with its new sister company, NBCUniversal, is sure to be a talking point at MIPTV. Now that Comcast owns both companies, does this potentially give Sky more buying clout? “I guess it does if we fully integrate,” replies Wright. “It’s too early to say.”

Like other MIPTV-bound buyers, Wright is keen to find something to make her audiences laugh. But, “Finding good

comedy that really travels and has a European sensibility is not necessarily terribly easy,” she says.

“That grown-up, 10 p.m. comedy slot that we’re going for in commissioning, it would be great if we had some acquisitions there, but I am mindful that sometimes they are a bit too local and don’t travel. Or, frankly, they don’t reflect our audience’s sensibility.”

At Denmark’s TV 2, Romer would like to see more “linearfriendly procedurals” capable of attracting a broad audience.

She explains, “It seems that a lot of great drama is being produced for niche channels or with a streaming service in mind.”

BRITISH EXIT Finally, on the vexed question of Brexit, buyers are mainly keeping a diplomatic silence. John McVay, who runs Pact, the U.K. producers’ group, is fond of saying that regardless of the country’s future relationship with the EU, Britain will remain one of the world’s most dynamic and creative audiovisual economies for one simple reason: the demand for high-quality, British content is unlikely to diminish.

Earlier this year, Discovery announced it was relocating its European hub from London to Amsterdam. One entertainment company that isn’t planning to change its relationship to the U.K. capital is NENT Group. “When it comes to the U.K., we’ve been in London for 30 years, and we’re committed to maintaining this presence,” says Mejlhede. “This is because of the U.K.’s importance as a European programming and content acquisitions hub.”

Adds Romer, “It is difficult to predict how Brexit will influence the market, but we are certain that there will be more competition from the OTTs. That is going to influence the way we look at exclusivity and windowing. New models are constantly evolving. As long as we are successful in achieving high resonance with our audience on our linear channels while expanding on our digital commitment, we believe that we are needed.”

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Sky has built its business on three pillars. The first is content, as a way to attract and retain subscribers. From the beginning, the company flanked its vast array of programming with the second pillar, innovation, which it provided through a range of devices, products and services, including Sky Go, Sky Q and NOW TV—all designed to enhance the viewing experience and extend Sky packages beyond the traditional linear platform.

And the third pillar is customer service, and Sky takes pride in its relationship with subscribers.

Gary Davey was appointed Sky’s managing director of content in January 2015, but he has been with Sky and its then parent company, News Corporation, since before Sky’s launch 30 years ago. He has been the CEO of Star TV in Hong Kong and he has worked at Sky Deutschland—where he is still executive VP of programming—and Sky Italia, where he oversaw the launch of the terrestrial TV channel Cielo.

Davey has overseen Sky’s push into original productions, which includes the acclaimed Patrick Melrose and A Discovery of Witches and the upcoming HBO co-productions Chernobyl and Catherine the Great.

Davey talks to TV Europe about Sky’s three decades, from a fledgling pay service that no one in the industry took seriously to its success in establishing itself as a leading media com pany. In addition, Sky can now have international aspirations with the backing of its new owner, Comcast Corporation.

By Anna Carugati

S

ince its launch 30 years ago, Sky has continuously provided its subscribers with choice, whether TV series, entertainment and factual programming from around the world, Hollywood blockbusters, news or sports.

What started as Sky Television in the U.K. in February 1989 has grown over the decades to an offer that includes international pay-TV channels, movie channels and Sky’s flagship brands: Sky One, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts, Sky Witness, Sky Cinema, Sky News and Sky Sports.

With the acquisitions of pay-TV companies in Germany and Italy, renamed Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia, respectively, Sky has expanded beyond the U.K. Today, Sky has 23 million subscribers across the U.K. and Ireland, Germany and Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.

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TV EUROPE: Innovation and customer service, driven by content, have been hallmarks of Sky. What have been some of the most significant content offerings Sky has given its customers?

DAVEY: Sitting here on my desk is a fabulous old thing I made a long time ago—it’s a threelegged stool. On one leg is the word “service,” on the second leg is “content” and on the third leg is “innovation.” The idea behind that metaphor is, if you take one of those legs away, the whole thing becomes useless.

It’s funny how that stuck over the years as a very good metaphor to describe the DNA of the business, because they are completely interlinked and that’s what makes us unique.

On the content side, I think the single biggest achievement was reaching momentum on original productions in the past four years. The company has always wanted to be in original production—there was the occasional fine production—but it was challenging to get to the right momentum and quality level. Now we’ve done a pretty good job at getting what we call a “cadence of originals.”

Part of getting that right was also figuring out how to build a monetization model around the creative, but it was hard for us to find ways of funding a big production. At the green-light stage, all you’ve got are bits of paper, typically, and getting funding behind that is always challenging because you don’t want to be wandering around Los

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provide smaller entities with all the infrastructure and support and production services that are normally reserved for the big production companies. That’s what Sky Studios is all about. We just don’t know where the next great idea is going to come from. We want to be nimble enough so that we can bring in the pure raw creative, attach it to infrastructure and fast-track development. The idea behind Sky Studios is to have a safe, wellorganized, well-resourced entity that small indies or an indie creative can come in and call their home for the duration of a project.

All the way from office space, to research, to legal, to finance, technical services, cameras, etc.

Jamestown is a Sky One original produced by Carnival Films and sold by NBCUniversal International Distribution.

Angeles waving draft scripts in front of people—it doesn’t seem to work well. So we were always frustrated about not quite having the monetization model. It took a long time to build up enough momentum, trust and relationships to have the courage to commit and carry the risk of deficits. That was an important thing over the past three or four years, to the point where this calendar year, we have 38 Sky originals on air across multiple genres, and 21 of them are returning. Momentum, quality and returnability are combining to make us feel like we have a nice trajectory now.

There is so much I am proud of. In 2015, we very bravely launched a show called Fortitude, and we [recently aired] its third season. It was quite brave to make a show like that in the Arctic Circle, and it was a complex, challenging story. That was an important starting point, and the momentum has continued. I’m hugely proud of Save Me. It’s become the poster child of our commitment to authentic British stories. The success of that show has energized us to focus on a big, authentic approach to storytelling, which is something that I think the FAANGs are always going to find hard to compete with because they have to serve a global market. They are always going to find it hard to get deeply authentic. Now that we have reached this momentum, we don’t quite have to rely on the international market as much as we once did to fund our investment. That liberates us to get into British stories.

Obviously, we all prefer to have our shows sell successfully internationally, but we are at a point now where that is not essential. That particularly applies to comedy, where we are investing heavily. Comedy has always had difficulty traveling, and we are going 100 percent native on our comedy objectives. That is going to be a big differentiator between ourselves and Netflix and Amazon and whatever other OTT platforms come along.

TV EUROPE: Tell us about Sky Studios.

DAVEY: We think it’s an important part of the future.

We’ve always believed in the traditional independent model. It works; it’s unlikely we would do production inhouse, per se. However, I think there is an opportunity to

TV EUROPE: What message do you want to give the creative community with Sky’s original productions? What kind of partner do you want to be to writers and showrunners?

DAVEY: Part of the task of the past four years has been to build a sense of trust with the creative community [and let them know] that we take good care of the originating creative. When we go into production, we support the process and do as good a job as we possibly can on marketing and promotion. We’re in a good place now, so we want to create an environment where great creative people want to come and do their best work.

Forged in Fire: Knife or Death is on the HISTORY channel on Sky.

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sit very nicely alongside carefully selected drama and comedy productions on Sky One. And Sky Atlantic is about onethird HBO, one-third Showtime and one-third Sky original productions. Sky Atlantic is a unique proposition; it’s something that sets us apart from any other pay-TV platform in the world. Nobody else can boast the combination of those three sources of high-end, serialized drama.

HBO original series, including Game of Thrones, air on Sky Atlantic in the U.K.

There are a couple of things going on I am so proud of: my two favorite Janes! I’ve got lots of Janes, actually, and I love them all dearly, but if I can single out two; first, Jane Featherstone. It’s a great privilege to work with someone of the caliber of Jane Featherstone, but the Chernobyl project will be—and this is a personal observation—the most important thing we are likely ever to make. My other favorite Jane is Jane Tranter, with whom we have a threeseason commitment for A Discovery of Witches. The first season was brilliant. Working with Jane and her team has been a real privilege, too. If we can keep working with people of that caliber and remain committed to projects of that quality at the right scale with the right momentum, we’re going to be in a good place.

TV EUROPE: With all the value of originals, what role does acquired content play?

DAVEY: It’s critical across three content brands. The first is Sky Witness, which is hugely successful. It’s up 20 percent, year on year, after the rebranding from Sky Living to Sky Witness. Sky Witness is all acquired programming— beautifully crafted procedurals in all the categories you’d expect—medical, police, military and legal. The second is Sky One, which is very heavily dependent on acquisitions. For 30 years, it’s been the home of The Simpsons.

We’ve also worked hard with Warner Bros. and The CW network to be a good home for superhero shows. We also have shows like Modern Family; it’s an eclectic mix, but it’s family friendly and highly entertaining. Those acquisitions

TV EUROPE: How are Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia doing? I know Italy is in a horrible situation right now, politically and economically.

DAVEY: My wife is Italian, and she puts me through the agony of watching the Italian news every evening; oh my lordy, what happened today!

I worked for about five years in each, Germany and Italy, and the way they have evolved is just brilliant. On original production, they have both done extraordinary things. I’m enormously proud of Sky Deutschland’s drama output. I irritate the drama team here in the U.K. when I say Babylon Berlin was the best thing we ever made! It is a beautiful piece. We recently launched Das Boot in the U.K., and it is a huge hit. It’s by far the most successful foreign-language show we’ve ever streamed in the U.K. It’s right up there competing with some of our English-language shows. It was also the most successful Sky original import on Sky Italia. And Italy is doing some great work, too. They have been very aggressive in formats for a number of years, with The X Factor, MasterChef, Got Talent and three of their own formats, and they’ve also done brilliant work in drama. We’re coming up on the second season of The Young Pope, The New Pope; it’s really something. It’s going to be great. They are also very proud of the tentpole they have created in Gomorrah. They managed to reinvent that proposition year after year, and with a loyalty to the stylization of the storytelling that is quite remarkable.

Italy and Germany are hitting their stride in production, and the way they sit alongside the U.K. material is brilliant.

TV EUROPE: What have been the highlights of the many years you have been at Sky? DAVEY: The Sky News story is quite remarkable. I remember late in 1988 when we were running up to the launch, and people were saying, How the hell are you going to fill a 24-hour news channel? While we were rehearsing, a group of Libyan terrorists blew up a Pan Am jet over a little Scottish village called Lockerbie. There was this sudden realization: Oh my God, in this big event there are

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Eurosport, which carries the Australian Open, among other key tournaments, is one of several Discovery-owned channels on Sky.

1,000 stories. Then 1989, our launch year, the Berlin Wall came down. There was never any doubt that news was going to be a fundamental part of the DNA of our company, so I’m very happy with that.

I was away for a long time; I left in 1994 and went to Hong Kong as CEO of Star TV, but I remember I was on the other side of the world at the time, and I read in the press clippings that Sky had been voted the most admired company in Britain. This was some years ago, and I wrote Jeremy [Darroch, Sky’s CEO], Well, who would have thunk it?! It was a moment for me. Not that those kinds of awards pay the rent or mean terribly much, but it was such a remarkable journey from the way we were pilloried and laughed at and written off as being a complete waste of time in the early ’90s. And then to watch the company evolve into what it’s become, and for the world business community to value our company so highly, for me was a feeling of incredible pride.

TV EUROPE: As you look ahead, how do you see content evolving? Are VR or immersive experiences possible?

DAVEY: We launched Sky VR Studio about three and a half years ago. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at the beginning.

But I’ve become a believer; over time, it is going to become a legitimate entertainment platform.

The problem today is that it doesn’t have a proven business model.

One of the most important parts of my life is not so much ratings

but value perception. My most important KPI [key performance indicator] is simple. We ask our customers, Does Sky offer content that’s worth paying for? And if you think about it, as a pay-TV platform, if that’s all we get right, well, nothing else matters. With VR, we struggled with the business model. How can we justify continuing investment in both the technology and the utility on multiple platforms, which is another capital-expenditure cost, and creating a critical mass of original content for it?

In our case, we created a value halo around the idea by making it exclusively available to our VIP customers.

Therein lies the value. We are unique in having a justifiable financial rationale for continued investment in it. It’s pretty

CBS Studios International’s Madam Secretary runs on Sky Witness.

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basically their distribution arises out of angry negotiations with seven to eight cable companies. With a direct-to-consumer OTT business, you grow the business one customer at a time. It’s a fundamentally different thing, and to build a supremely sophisticated customerservice culture is fundamental. I remind my staff often that our greatest opportunity is also our greatest responsibility, and that is for 30 years, millions of families have given us permission to take money from their bank accounts. I take that responsibility seriously. That relationship of trust, and the responsibility of delivering service, content and innovation that are worth paying for, is really at the heart of our culture. It’s not easy. It’s taken a long time for us to get good at it, and it’s a journey that never ends.

We’re never good enough. The whole “Believe in Better” slogan came from good is not good enough. OK is not OK. You have to believe in better. So it’s a constantly evolving journey.

I’m not convinced that all of the OTT ambitions are going to play out as currently described.

Nonetheless, we are happy to compete. We are really at our best when the competition is hot. We’ve got momentum and a relationship of trust with our customer base that is going to be very hard for anybody else to undermine.

Rive Gauche’s The Dog Whisperer was acquired by Sky One.

tough elsewhere in the business. There are a lot of clever, creative people trying to find solutions to the issues around VR and AR, but what they are struggling with is, how do you justify continued investment in technology and content when you don’t have a reliable business model?

Having said that, it will happen over time. The good news for us is, there are a lot of well-funded tech companies around the world who are competing like crazy on the hardware end, on the headsets, the next generation of user technology, so we don’t have to spend any money there. There are all kinds of interesting things happening there, and we are a little bit ahead of the game because we have the motivation.

TV EUROPE: Everybody is talking about streaming services. Sky offers content on linear, on-demand and streaming. Do you feel you are well positioned for the future?

DAVEY: We [began] our first on-demand services 13 years ago, so we’ve known lots about it, and we know how hard it is.

Most of the American payTV companies have grown up in a world where—this is oversimplifying it—but

TV EUROPE: What benefits do you expect to derive from being a part of Comcast Corporation?

DAVEY: I’m really happy with that outcome. It’s been hard for us over the years, originally as a U.K. company, then as a European company; not having any global leverage was always tough. Now, to be part of Comcast is a fantastic opportunity. The good news is that at the heart of Comcast is a platform culture, so we can speak in shorthand. They understand the platform culture. They are also in almost identical technology spaces as us; slightly different in content spaces, but that’s an opportunity. As we come closer together, we will be able to take advantage of our various strengths in different parts, whether it’s in service or content or innovation, and then scale it up on a global level. It’s a fantastic opportunity.

Sky subscribers can access on-demand content via the Sky Go app.

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TV EUROPE: When you joined ProSiebenSat.1 Media last year, what did you see as the company’s strengths?

CONZE: I had no entertainment background when I joined ProSiebenSat.1, but I’ve been around consumer technologies all my life. What I was excited about is that ProSiebenSat.1 has a unique combination of strong entertainment brands and equally strong e-commerce platforms. There is an analogy to how Alibaba and Tencent in China are run, but in the Western world, we are pretty much the only company that is set up this way. There are significant synergies between entertainment and commerce that we can build on in the future. Also, the media industry is in huge transformation and I don’t see that as a threat but rather as a fantastic opportunity. ProSiebenSat.1, particularly compared to America, has a great starting point in Germany. Broadcasting here is fundamentally a three-player market with us, RTL Group and the public broadcasters. Our strength is that we have brands, stars, huge reach and convening power. Now we need to take that and convert it into how people want to consume entertainment in the future.

TV EUROPE: What do linear channels need to do to remain relevant in today’s environment?

CONZE: Let me answer this in two parts. First, I do not look at the world through the framework of linear and nonlinear channels. I’m a consumer guy and when I speak to my 18- and 19-year-old daughters, that’s not how they see the world.

They see it through the lens of content. They will get that content wherever it’s convenient for them to access it. If you start there, the first recognition is that entertainment is a great business to be in. It’s a growing business. Second, the way we make most of our money is through advertising.

Video—and I define video as the total of all the moving picture

roSieben first hit the airwaves in 1989 and quickly became a destination for young viewers. The channel, which is still a market leader among the 14 to 49 demographic, is part of the entertainment division at ProSiebenSat.1 Media alongside SAT.1, kabel eins and maxdome, among other assets. Red Arrow Studios is housed in the content production and global sales division and the NuCom Group, the commerce division, encompasses a range of businesses, from matchmaking to beauty and lifestyle.

Max Conze was appointed ProSiebenSat.1 Media’s CEO last year.

He talks to TV Europe about serving consumers and advertisers on multiple platforms, investing in engaging content, and the growth potential of esports and the group’s commerce businesses.

P

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content being consumed and advertised on all linear and digital platforms—is also growing. To benefit from this development, we need our content to stay meaningful and relevant.

That means it has to be more local, more live, more factual and more entertaining, because these are the areas that are difficult for Netflix and Amazon to compete in. And we need to make sure that that content is distributed both on the linear channels as well as on digital platforms, whether ours or others. Our joint venture with Discovery, Inc. plays an important role in this context. We are combining Discovery’s and our channels, our SVOD service maxdome and Discovery’s Eurosport Player into a new product—an aggregator platform where German

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ProSieben has a relationship with German comics Joko and Klaas that includes the series Duell um die Welt (The Battle Around the World).

consumers can conveniently access everything from news to great shows and more. Although the new product has not yet been launched, we already have 2.5 million monthly unique users on the existing streaming service. I am convinced that we can have a meaningful place here alongside Netflix and Amazon. We will make it available as an ad-supported platform, with an SVOD layer for those who want less or no advertising and more exclusive content. We’re planning to launch this summer. And we are bringing other content providers on board. ZDF, one of the two public broadcasters, has already agreed. And we’re having very constructive conversations with other players in the market.

TV EUROPE: ProSieben celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. What have been the keys to its success?

CONZE: ProSieben has one of the strongest channel slogans in the world, “We Love to Entertain You.” We have a passion for creating wonderful programs that you will find entertaining and want to watch; that has longevity. ProSieben has always been an innovator in Germany, with a great stable of big German stars and entertainers, and we continue to build on that strength. Our long-running shows, like Germany’s Next Topmodel with Heidi Klum, are cultural icons. Or take Galileo, which has been our factual science show for 20 years now. It’s one of the top three most successful factual formats around the world, one we have sold from Hungary to Asia, and a hit with the new generation of viewers, with 20 percent of the total viewing time on Galileo being digital. The strength, attitude and content breadth that ProSieben has as a channel are universal and will continue to be meaningful in a linear world. Let’s not forget that people still watch close to 200 minutes of TV compared to 30 to 35 minutes of streaming per day. Yes, streaming is rising, but these worlds live together. In Germany, ProSieben— and “We Love to Entertain You”—has more than 95 percent brand recognition. It’s a real icon and it’s up to us to continue to translate that icon in the broad world of entertainment.

TV EUROPE: Does imported programming still play an important role on ProSieben and other channels in the group?

CONZE: I believe that we need a good balance between local programming, programming we have invented and developed ourselves and licensed U.S. formats. Take Joko and Klaas, who are big stars on German TV. We have quite a symbiotic relationship; we jointly develop new shows and constantly try out new ideas. We combine that with buying some of the greatest Hollywood blockbusters and U.S. content, which is still popular on our channels. And then, of course, there is our own production network, Red Arrow Studios, which feeds our content pipeline. We plan to make greater use of our production business to supply programs for our entertainment platforms and channels. The content we commission from Red Arrow for our German channels will increase significantly. But that’s just one piece. We are also having very active conversations across the creative community in Germany and have increased our total content investment.

Last year, we spent about €1 billion on content. Now we are investing an additional €80 million. About half of the total amount goes into local productions. That’s a big message we are sending to the creative community because that’s also more than the share of Netflix’s $1 billion European content investment that is landing in Germany.

TV EUROPE: Given your experience at Dyson and Procter & Gamble, you know firsthand what advertisers’ media needs are. How is the group working with advertisers?

CONZE: First, advertisers need and want high-quality content, reach and scale. TV is still the only medium that can provide that. And in many ways that medium is becoming scarcer and the product is becoming more valuable. Not all advertisers necessarily like that because it means it’s becoming more expensive. It’s a function of the fact that television is a very singular product. Second, we are very focused on moving away from segregated universes, where you have TV on the

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one side and digital on the other, to an integrated universe.

Advertisers want us to provide total reach to find out how many people have received their message—regardless of the channel. In the next step, we will provide them with a smarter reach to be able to better target and address consumers and audiences. That’s why we see high potential in our tech marketing innovations such as addressable TV, which means the possibility of selectively broadcasting digital advertising on connected TV sets via IP-targeting. About 20 percent of our total TV reach today qualifies as addressable, so we are actively working to create the advertising server infrastructure to drive and serve that market on a bigger scale. Therefore, we are also stepping up our investments in data. We are increasingly solution-focused rather than being a generic media house. Today we have technology solutions, reach- or performance-based solutions and social media solutions. We are commercializing a lot of our content via third-party platforms—this way, we know not only the reach of our channels but also the total reach gained on social media, TV and digital magazines. We constantly talk and listen to our advertisers to understand their marketing goals—be it awareness, clickthroughs, etc.—and we can put together a package to help them reach those objectives.

Format adaptations on ProSiebenSat.1 include SAT.1’s The Biggest Loser.

TV EUROPE: What are your plans for 7Sports and eSports.com?

CONZE: Esports is the fastest growing segment of the sports and entertainment industry and an excellent fit for our portfolio. For quite some time, we have been the major broadcaster covering esports not only through a digital channel but also through

linear programming. We just set up eSports.com, a 50/50 joint venture with an international startup, to establish a digital esports platform for the German-speaking market as part of our esports strategy. We’re in active discussions about how to support the leagues, the teams and the stars. We want to be an active agent to build that whole ecosystem.

TV EUROPE: Tell us about ProSiebenSat.1’s commerce division.

CONZE: Commerce is a very important and fast-growing part of the group. ProSiebenSat.1 is a €4 billion company and NuCom Group, our commerce unit, will contribute around €1 billion of that in 2019. It’s a business we’re growing organically at a 10- to 15-percent range. The portfolio currently consists of ten companies that are leading in their segments and that we have bundled in four core verticals. We have a brand called Verivox on what used to be called online price comparison. Or, as I like to say, “saving people money.” We do that for energy, mobile and insurance contracts. We have a company called Parship Elite Group, which is number one in matchmaking in the German-speaking countries. We bought eHarmony in the U.S. We have Flaconi, which is the number two beauty e-retailer, and it’s growing 40 percent a year. I spent some of my early years at P&G in beauty. It’s a business I love because the dynamics are great and people are willing to spend money to look good. The fourth is experience and gift vouchers with two companies that make us the market leader in German-speaking territories. That’s a business with great potential because consumers’ tastes everywhere in the world are shifting from acquiring physical things to acquiring experiences.

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ome of the most successful and marketleading TV channels in Europe belong to the RTL Group, including RTL Television in Germany, M6 in France, RTL 4 in the Netherlands and RTL-TVI in Belgium. In each country, the flagship channel is surrounded by a group of services catering to different segments of the audience. The RTL Group also owns a stake in Atresmedia in Spain and stations in Hungary, Croatia and Luxembourg.

The RTL Group’s 60 TV channels and 30 radio stations belong to the broadcast division, one of three parts of the company. The second is content, consisting mainly of Fremantle, whose production companies around the world create a constant flow of scripted and unscripted shows, from My Brilliant Friend to the Idol and Got Talent franchises.

Several multiplatform networks, such as BroadbandTV, StyleHaul and Divimove, make up the third division, digital.

It is also home to advertising technology and data companies, including SpotX and Yospace.

Bert Habets, the RTL Group’s CEO, began working for the company in the Netherlands, where he grew and diversified the businesses in RTL Nederland, launched new channels and established commercial ventures. In 2017, Habets took on the

role of co-CEO of the RTL Group alongside Guillaume de Posch.

In January of 2018, Habets became sole CEO. Since then, Habets has been expanding the company’s Total Video strategy, which includes offering programming and serving advertisers on linear and nonlinear platforms. As he tells World Screen, among his priorities for Total Video 2.0 are creating must-watch streaming services connected to the channels in the group and boosting the creation of content across all genres—particularly high-end drama, which can be critical to the success of video-ondemand and streaming services.

He is also keen on continuing to provide innovative options to advertisers across all the group’s platforms and is willing to partner with other broadcasters through the group’s international sales house, RTL AdConnect.

Given the FAANGs’ aggressive expansion into Europe, Habets is calling for European regulations to safeguard media companies. For instance, he recommends support for trusted news and local programming. Although the media business in Europe is undergoing significant transformation, Habets is confident in the group’s strengths: its financial health—in 2018, group revenues amounted to €6.5 billion ($7.4 billion)—its market-leading channels and nonlinear extensions, its capacity to create compelling content and its growing portfolio of digital businesses.

BERT HABETS RTL GROUP

By Anna Carugati

WS: As CEO of a major media company that includes content production, traditional linear channels and digital businesses, in an environment that is constantly changing, what is your strategy for planning for the future?

HABETS: We will be focusing more strongly on organic growth with our Total Video 2.0 strategy, which aims to expand our streaming services and grow our content production. Let me explain why.

We are already true champions when it comes to optimizing our core business, which is reflected in our leading market positions and healthy financials, and that’s something we will absolutely continue.

However, our business is becoming increasingly challenging. With rapidly changing consumer behavior and global tech giants capturing an ever-growing share of advertising spend and audience attention, we have moved from a locally competitive landscape to one that is globally competitive—a seismic shift for our industry.

In the U.S., many media companies have reacted by making multi-billion-dollar acquisitions. We have chosen a different approach. More than ever, we will focus on fostering creativity, being close to our audiences, taking more risks and ensuring closer cooperation within RTL Group.

All of this is more easily said than done. To succeed requires a deep cultural change across the whole group, which takes time. This is why, in the first half of 2018, we started a comprehensive group-wide transformation journey called “New Frontiers—reinventing RTL’s pioneering spirit.”

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Fremantle North America’s American Idol was resurrected by ABC in 2018 and came back for another season this year. territories where the group is present is VOD most popular? What plans do you have to increase VOD offerings?

HABETS: With our Total Video 2.0 strategy, I see two clear priorities for RTL Group: building local streaming champions and strengthening our content creation. We’ve started developing the roadmap to a joint tech platform for our VOD services, with the intention that all streaming platforms will ultimately migrate to it. This tech platform will be a collaboration between RTL Group’s units and will encompass a high level of flexibility for local operations.

Over the next three years, we will invest at least an additional €350 million ($397 million) to boost the expansion of our local streaming services—€300 million ($340 million) of which will be for additional content investments across all genres. As our streaming services are deeply integrated into our families of TV channels across our footprint, these investments will have a very limited impact on our operating profit, so we will continue to generate very healthy profit margins. In other words, every investment in local, exclusive content is a long-term one—strengthening both our linear TV channels and our streaming services.

At the end of 2018, RTL Group passed 1 million paying subscribers, combining the subscriber bases of the recently relaunched TV Now Premium in Germany and Videoland in the Netherlands. We will start similar services

in other countries. Over the next three years, we aim to triple our total number of paying subscribers to at least 3 million.

WS: Similarly, what plans do you have for increasing the group’s streaming services and in which countries?

HABETS: Apart from what I have just described, in France our M6 Group, the public broadcaster France Télévisions and our commercial competitor TF1 Group announced in June 2018 that they will join forces to build Salto, a joint French video platform. Users of Salto will have access to different subscription models and varied exclusive content. An independent company, owned equally by all three companies, will operate the platform, following regulatory approval by the relevant authorities.

In our smaller business units, we have launched VOD offers based on M6 Group’s on-demand service 6play: RTL Play in Croatia and Belgium, and RTL Most! in Hungary.

Now they can offer their advertisers improved services, such as more targeting, brand safety, a high level of attention and a greater reach on all devices.

WS: Fremantle was one of the group’s revenue drivers in 2018. What led to its strong performance? What are your priorities for Fremantle?

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talent. This was shown clearly in their results for 2018, mainly in North America, in Germany (UFA) and by the Canadian video game company Ludia. In North America, with the return of television’s most successful and recognized music competition—American Idol—on ABC, Fremantle scored a huge success. It was ABC’s number one entertainment show of 2018 and performed over 50 percent higher than the broadcaster’s prime-time average. By the end of the season, American Idol had accumulated more than 1 billion video views across all social media platforms, and the American Idol app had been downloaded over 1.2 million times—a huge success in digital.

In global drama production, Fremantle, together with broadcasters and streaming platforms, is currently working on realizing more than 35 scripted series ideas. Hence, international drama production is forecast to generate €500 million ($567 million) in revenues in 2021, up from around €300 million ($340 million) in 2018.

Next to successful productions such as Deutschland 86 and Picnic at Hanging Rock, I would like to highlight Wildside’s My Brilliant Friend, the adaptation of the first of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. It’s a family saga set in 1950s Naples, produced entirely in Italian, even in the Neapolitan dialect. U.S. premium cable network HBO is a co-producer, and for the first time ever, it’s participating in a nonEnglish-language series. A few years ago, no one

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would have thought this possible. The series was extremely successful, and it was Italy’s number one new drama of 2018. A second season has already been announced by HBO and Rai. WS: How would you like to extend the connection between Fremantle and the broadcasters in the group?

HABETS: More than ever, local, exclusive content is the engine for everything we do. It is our USP and it’s the reason we will increase our investment in exclusive content, across all major genres: scripted, entertainment, factual, news and information, live sport and also digital-first content.

Drama series are key for RTL Group’s VOD expansion plans. We established a VOD content working group with Fremantle and our major broadcasters to explore the joint development of high-end drama series.

We will explore all possibilities to jointly develop strong brands and formats—between our broadcasters, and between them and Fremantle—to satisfy the increasing demand for good content.

WS: What are the plans for building a digital group to serve young audiences with shortform video?

HABETS: As part of our Total Video 2.0 strategy, we are determined to grow our multiplatform network (MPN) businesses. Fostering much closer collaboration between our various stand-alone MPN assets, including StyleHaul, Divimove and United Screens, will contribute to this. Our goal is to build a strong and

profitable digital video group to reach and entertain young audiences with compelling short-form video content.

The first concrete steps have been a new management team at StyleHaul, the 100 percent step up in Divimove, as well as the combination of Divimove and UFA X. UFA X will significantly enhance Divimove’s capabilities in digital storytelling and format development.

WS: What opportunities do you see in shortform video?

HABETS: Use of short-form videos keeps growing rapidly, in particular on mobile devices and among younger people. This is a key audience for us and our advertising clients. Advertising and branded-content revenues in the YouTube ecosystem keep on growing dynamically.

The MPN market is complementing our families of channels on national levels—

From Fremantle’s Italian outpost Wildside, My Brilliant Friend was a co-production of Rai and HBO. 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 145

TV Now is Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s on-demand service. we’ve developed strong number one and two positions with our investments, and they are well positioned to grow their profit contributions significantly. To succeed, we will attract the biggest talents and formats, and we will monetize our content globally, across all platforms, building our own sales capabilities. We will also develop much more of our own content—with new production facilities, digital-first productions from Fremantle and further partnerships, such as with our sister company BMG. WS: In today’s total video world, what is RTL Group offering advertisers?

HABETS: We see more and more global ad buying from advertisers and agencies, driven by the “walled gardens.” As a consequence, we are investing in our international sales house, RTL AdConnect, to ensure it serves international advertisers and agencies with our families of channels, our on-demand services and our MPNs. For example, we will expand offers for advertisers to run pan-European digital video campaigns on our on-demand services and MPNs, either via direct sales or programmatically via a unified booking tool.

And we are very much open to strategic partnerships because scale is key. For example, RTL AdConnect already cooperates closely and successfully with Rai in Italy and with ITV, the number one U.K. commercial broadcaster. More concretely, RTL AdConnect represents ITV on a global level outside the U.K. As online video advertising is maturing and hitting the TV screen, SpotX, our flagship investment in ad tech, is building the

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Got Talent, The Farmer Wants a Wife, Football Nightmares and The X Factor.

Family Duo, a talent show, will return this April with a second season. The original hours produced by Fremantle in Spain in 2018 increased by 32 percent.

M6, France Télévisions and TF1 are joining forces to build Salto, a French video platform. next generation of video advertising solutions, incorporating not only nonlinear but also advanced linear audience buying. Our recent acquisition of Yospace, which provides targeted and seamless advertising insertion on streaming services, is an important step in building our Total Video portfolio and will help drive two strategic goals at the same time. First, we gain a competitive, fully integrated and profitable solution, which is key to further growing our ad-tech business.

Our goal is to continue expanding SpotX into a leading, independent monetization platform for broadcasters, video-on-demand services and publishers. Second, this acquisition will also help build local streaming champions in the markets where we have strong families of channels.

WS: Do you feel there is a need for regulation of the major global digital businesses— Google, Facebook, etc.—and if so, what type of regulation is needed?

HABETS: Distribution of content in the digital media world is controlled by a handful of tech giants, driven by their powerful algorithms. The key question going forward is, can we allow tech giants to also dominate the process of content creation? The year 2018 was hopefully a turning point when it comes to fair regulation—just think about the scandal around Cambridge Analytica. It has become the perfect symbol for the public debate on the tech platforms: hate speech, fake news, fake followers, dark ads and even election meddling.

Independent media, high editorial standards and a thriving creative industry are key to preserving our European values. Only independent media that actively embrace the responsibility that comes with their daily mass reach can ensure transparent and fair public debates.

Only if creatives, artists and media companies can benefit from the value generated by their output can we avoid the ever-growing dominance of a few global tech platforms.

Europe has reached a turning point; it’s time for European policy to work for our creative industries. As RTL Group, we propose a new European Audiovisual Partnership: a forum convened by the [European] Commission to bring together its officials and other policymakers with C-level media representatives.

Together, they should take a broad view of the European audiovisual sector and address four priority areas: support for trusted news reflecting European values; measures to support the sustainability of local programming, to strengthen Europe’s wide range of content; access to data, which works to Europe’s competitive advantage; and guarantees of fair competition in the European audiovisual sector.

WS: How are the group’s businesses in Spain performing?

HABETS: In Spain, we have a minority shareholding in Atresmedia, plus our Spanish production business with Fremantle and our adtech business with SpotX in Spain.

Atresmedia’s TV channel Antena 3 had a very fruitful 2018 with its series. With numerous productions that scored national and international successes, it was able to expand its position in the fiction genre further. Last year, Antena 3 boasted half of the productions in the top ten most-watched Spanish series. With an average of around 3.1 million viewers, the history drama La Catedral del Mar took the top spot. La Casa de Papel leads the field as the first, and so far only, Spanish series to win an International Emmy Award.

With Fremantle in Spain, we are particularly strong in non-scripted formats such as 146 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

WS: Which other broadcast businesses in the group are performing well?

HABETS: Following the integration of our French radio family into M6 Group, and the disposal of non-strategic assets—the football club Girondins de Bordeaux and monAlbumPhoto—last year, M6 Group has recently published very strong results. Its record operating profit shows the strength of its core business in TV, radio and digital.

Thanks to effective portfolio management, M6 Group is in a healthy position to further thrive by entering into exclusive negotiations to acquire Lagardère’s TV business. This represents a unique strategic opportunity for M6 Group to strengthen its overall position in the French media market, both in TV advertising and digital, by leveraging the power of the strong children’s channel Gulli in on-demand TV, replay and SVOD. M6 Group would add a fourth channel to its portfolio of free-to-air DTT channels—M6, W9 and 6ter—and significantly expand its media offering for the whole family. The Gulli channel has established itself as the most powerful and trusted French children’s brand.

WS: Tell us about the group’s Factory initiative.

HABETS: With the rise of online disinformation, we believe RTL Group bears a big responsibility in raising awareness of how to use media to get credible and truthful information. Our role as a media organization goes beyond responsible reporting; we can be part of the solution for tackling disinformation and creating a generation of informed news consumers. With our Factory innovation challenge, we want to connect our talents across the group and foster innovation in media and digital literacy. Factory is aimed at our talents from all disciplines and business units who are interested in addressing the challenges of online disinformation, and who want to help improve the media literacy skills of young news consumers. Through a virtual training program followed by a physical hackathon in Berlin, participants aim to develop new digital products and services in media and digital literacy for young consumers. Ultimately, the goal is for our business to implement one of the ideas created during the innovation challenge.

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TVDRAMA

WWW.TVDRAMA.WS

APRIL 2019

MIPTV EDITION

European Drama / Sci-Fi & Fantasy Michael Sheen & David Tennant / Walter Presents’ Walter Iuzzolino

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14 TV DRAMA

CONTENTS

It’s (Too) Complicated

FEATURES 28 EUROPEAN MAGIC Spotlights the booming European drama sector.

38 FLIGHTS OF FANCY Explores the emerging renaissance of science-fiction and fantasy shows.

I am quite used to experiencing uncomfortable stress levels while watching the news or listening to true-crime podcasts (one too many stories about people disappearing without a trace, and you start to get paranoid).

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Drama ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvdrama.ws

I wasn’t expecting that level of anxiety when I sat down to watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Netflix’s brilliant but entirely discomfiting interactive film. First, I had to hold the remote control for the entire time. Not relaxing. And then, having to make selections gave me agita because I wanted to know where the other option would take me. So, I watched it over and over again until I had seen all the major endings. Lean-forward entertainment is exhausting.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for being invested in and committed to a show, whether that means getting teary-eyed during an emotional scene in A Million Little Things, anxious over Killing Eve’s thrilling cat-and-mouse game or maddeningly confused about Game of Thrones’ millionand-one storylines and characters. I’ll take a layered, complex serialized drama over an episodic procedural every time. But there is something to be said for relaxing, leanback storytelling that doesn’t require a massive investment of time. That’s why Jeffrey Katzenberg has lined up a $1 billion war chest to spend on “quick bites” of entertainment for the new streaming service Quibi. Sam Raimi and Guillermo del Toro are said to be working on projects for the new platform.

It is expected to be another game-changing development in a genre that has seen unprecedented levels of innovation and investment over the last few years.

This edition of TV Drama explores two areas of the scripted space that are making a lot of noise today. First, we analyze the booming European drama market, spotlighting creativity from Spain, Scandinavia, Germany, France, Russia and Turkey. Next, we dive into the genre space, looking at sci-fi, fantasy and horror shows being produced around the world. Speaking of fantasy, arguably one of the most highly anticipated shows this year is Amazon and BBC’s Good Omens. Its stars, Michael Sheen and David Tennant, talk about working together on the adaptation of the beloved Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel. We also hear from Walter Iuzzolino, co-founder and curator of Walter Presents, on how the acclaimed foreign-language drama service has evolved and expanded since its launch.

—Mansha Daswani

GET DAILY NEWS ON TELEVISION DRAMA

38 56 WILD DISTRICT EXPLORED Creator Cristian Conti, star Juan Pablo Raba and ZDF Enterprises’ Robert Franke discuss the new series Wild District.

58 MADE IN FINLAND A look at Elisa Viihde’s ambitious plans for high-end Finnish drama.

INTERVIEWS

46 Good Omens’ David Tennant & Michael Sheen

50 Walter Presents’ Walter Iuzzolino

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Cheat 16 TV DRAMA

all3media international Cheat / Diary of an Uber Driver / Back to Life From Two Brothers Pictures, creators of Liar and The Missing, comes the female-led drama Cheat. “This series explores the story of a university lecturer who suspects a student of cheating, and what begins as a simple case of academic deception turns into an exhilarating cat-and-mouse game with terrible consequences,” says Tatiana Hernaiz, all3media international’s sales manager for EMEA South. Also from Two Brothers Pictures, Back to Life tells the story of Miri, who, after spending ten years in prison, needs to rebuild her life. “It has that perfect balance between drama and comedy, with a very likable character, which makes it a truly enjoyable experience to watch,” says Hernaiz. Diary of an Uber Driver follows a driver on his quest to figure out what he should be doing while helping others get to where they are going.

Atresmedia Televisión

“We are very proud of our drama slate and the quality of it.”

—Tatiana Hernaiz

Presumed Guilty

Presumed Guilty / Slaughterhouse / People Talking The thriller Presumed Guilty, part of the Series Atresmedia offering, features an unsolved mystery that leaves the boyfriend of a missing girl looking for answers. “We invite the audience to be part of the series, to be active along with the episodes to find out the truth,” says Diana Borbón Cuchí, sales manager at Atresmedia Televisión. Slaughterhouse, meanwhile, has a dark tone. The story kicks off when the owner of a local slaughterhouse is accidentally killed by his wife and brother-in-law. They come to learn that he was using his pigs to introduce drugs into the country, and now two cartels are after them. “It is something different, a brave choice that aims to surprise the viewer,” says Borbón Cuchí. People Talking is a dramedy that emphasizes the importance of face-to-face conversations.

“The series we will present at MIPTV are very different from each other, but they have something in common: compelling characters.”

—Diana Borbón Cuchí

ATV

Lifeline

Hercai / Lifeline / Grand Family Set in the picturesque Turkish city of Mardin, Hercai features a story of love and revenge. “Hercai will draw massive attention from international buyers because of its atmosphere,” says Müge Akar, ATV’s content sales deputy manager.

“It will reveal the challenges of living in a modern world but still feeling the traditions of Turkish culture.” In its second season, Lifeline stars Mehmet Ali Nuroğlu as a cruel businessman and Irem Helvacioğlu as his abused child bride who attempts to make an escape with her son. Also back for another season is Grand Family, about a weaponssmuggling mafia clique led by a man up against the pressures of his business, the government and his family. Akar highlights the “touching stories, strong casts and quality of the production” in these MIPTV highlights.

“ATV always brings premium Turkish dramas to international audiences.”

—Müge Akar 162 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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18 TV DRAMA

Banijay Rights Hierro / Wisting / Hidden Selected as the best project at Berlinale’s first CoPro Series pitching session, Banijay Rights’ Hierro is a thriller starring Candela Peña (Princesas, Torremolinos 73) and Darío Grandinetti (Wild Tales, Talk to Her), shot on location in the Canary Islands. Wisting, which also benefits from an all-star cast, follows a homicide detective wrestling with a case like none he’s ever been on. “Wisting is expected to command a high level of interest from the global market, confirming the continual rise in commissions and acquisitions of non-Englishlanguage and multilingual dramas,” says Chris Stewart, commercial director of scripted at Banijay Rights. In Hidden, based on Filip Alexanderson’s critically acclaimed novel Förstfödd, the supernatural meets gritty realism for a suspenseful series that delves into what it means to be an outsider.

Wisting

“Our drama highlights for MIPTV all have strong, international appeal.”

—Chris Stewart

Electric Entertainment Almost Paradise / Jigsaw / The Outpost Shot in Southeast Asia, Almost Paradise follows a retired DEA agent living at a tropical resort who can’t help but seek out chaos, despite his doctor’s orders to relax. He’s recruited by the local police chief and partnered up to help put a dangerous drug lord behind bars. The fantasy/adventure series The Outpost features the lone survivor of a race called Blackbloods who travels to a fortress on the edge of the civilized world as she tracks her family’s killers. Jigsaw trails the quest for clues to find puzzle pieces that ultimately reveal the location of a hefty inheritance; the first one to solve the puzzle gets everything. “Buyers and viewers alike would want to tune in every week, or binge-watch the entire season, because our series all take place in imaginative locations,” says Sonia Mehandjiyska, head of international distribution at Electric Entertainment.

The Outpost

“Our TV lineup is showing audiences places and settings they rarely, if ever, see.”

—Sonia Mehandjiyska Gulperi

Global Agency Sisters / Gulperi Love and betrayal drive siblings apart in the drama Sisters, which Global Agency is presenting. The series follows as the different dreams of Ümran and Umay leave them and their daughters Hayat and Hayal worlds apart. Their lives collide as the cruelty of Hayat’s father catapults her from village poverty into the glamorous Istanbul life of her high-society aunt Umay.

The two daughters uncover their mothers’ dark secret, but the children face a similar twist of fate as they play out a conflict of their own. “Besides its well-known cast, the storyline fits international buyers’ needs, and we are sure it has great potential to be a worldwide hit,” says Izzet Pinto, founder and CEO of Global Agency. The company is also highlighting Gulperi, which comes from the producers of Magnificent Century, Kosem and Eternal.

“Gulperi is a drama that touches on the plight shared by many women living in different geographies.”

—Izzet Pinto 164 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Bitter Lands

20 TV DRAMA

Inter Medya Bitter Lands / The Pit / Innocent Since its launch last September in Turkey, Bitter Lands has been garnering increasingly strong ratings, and Inter Medya believes it will be successful on channels around the world as well. “International buyers want to see classic stories about love and family, and we can all agree that Bitter Lands is a special kind of love story,” says Can Okan, founder and CEO. The Ay Yapim-produced The Pit, which stars Aras Bulut Iynemli and Dilan Çiçek Deniz, has continued to notch up deals for Inter Medya. The company is also presenting Innocent, a web series that combines crime and drama. It’s about a retired cop and his wife living peacefully at a little ranch house away from the city, until one night, when their son shows up with terrible news.

“Bitter Lands is a special kind of love story.”

—Can Okan

Kanal D International Lost Scent / Ruthless City / Wounded Love Directed by Ömer Faruk Sorak (G.O.R.A., Vizontele) and boasting a star-studded cast is Lost Scent, a new drama series Kanal D International is bringing to MIPTV that tells the story of a woman seeking revenge upon returning to her hometown several years after she was kidnapped away from her family as a teenager. Ruthless City—starring Fikret Kuşkan, Deniz Uğur and Mine Tugay—follows a family’s migration from a small city to the metropolis of Istanbul. Returning to the global market is the drama Wounded Love, along with indemand titles Price of Passion, Double Trouble and Twins.

“In most of the regions—like many examples in LatAm— this content is aired in prime-time slots because of its success,” says Kerim Emrah Turna, the executive director at Kanal D International.

Ruthless City

“Turkish dramas have continued expanding into new territories while getting stronger in the existing ones.”

—Kerim Emrah Turna

Kew Media Distribution Clink / The Dead Lands / Line of Duty Set in the fictional BPS Bridewell Women’s Prison, Clink explores the hardships that have led the inmates to prison and the friendships that grow within its walls.

“We’ve recently noticed a strong trend in female-led drama series, and Clink showcases this perfectly; not only with its strong female characters but by highlighting both the dark and light stories behind these incarcerated women,” says Jonathan Ford, executive VP of sales at Kew Media Distribution. Also new to the market is The Dead Lands, based on the film of the same name about a supernatural-battling warrior named Waka Nuku Rau. In its fifth season is Line of Duty, from the makers of Bodyguard and featuring stars such as Thandie Newton, Keeley Hawes and Lennie James.

“We have a host of new and returning series that are sure to appeal to worldwide audiences.”

Clink 166 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

—Jonathan Ford

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Ambitions

22 TV DRAMA

Lionsgate The Rook / The Spanish Princess / Ambitions The follow-up to The White Queen and The White Princess, The Spanish Princess is the latest English royal court drama drawn from Philippa Gregory’s novels. This new Starz original focuses on Catherine of Aragon, the first of King Henry VIII of England’s six wives. Another Starz original that Lionsgate is highlighting is The Rook, about an official in Britain’s secret service for those with paranormal abilities who awakens within a circle of dead bodies not knowing who she is or why she’s someone’s target. “The series takes place in London and was beautifully shot there, adding to its high production value,” says Agapy Kapouranis, Lionsgate’s president of international TV and digital distribution. Ambitions is a multigenerational family saga set in Atlanta.

“We are thrilled to bring a slate of exciting female-driven stories to MIPTV this year.”

—Agapy Kapouranis

Madd Entertainment My Little Girl / Crash / Kuzgun Beren Gökyildiz, known from the series Mother, and Buğra Gülsoy, who has featured in Kuzey Güney and Fatmagül, star in Madd Entertainment’s My Little Girl. The drama “became a hit in Chile on Mega TV from the beginning, thanks to Beren Gökyildiz,” says Deniz Cantutan, sales manager. “She is a very talented child star.” The company’s slate also features Crash, which follows the fates of four young people involved in a car accident. Featured among the cast is Kivanç Tatlituğ, whose list of credits includes Kuzey Güney, Brave and Beautiful and Kurt Seyit ve Şura. Kuzgun, meanwhile, stars Bariş Arduç and Burcu Biricik. “This story will tell us how complexly woven the fate of fathers and sons are, as well as the conflicts and collisions between them,” says Cantutan.

“We want to develop sustainable relationships with potential partners by understanding their audience and choosing the right drama for their viewers.”

—Deniz Cantutan My Little Girl

MISTCO Hold My Hand / The Circle / Beloved The romantic drama Hold My Hand charts the love story between Azra, a beautiful and well-educated young girl who lost her father, and Cenk, a spoiled boy. “Hold My Hand was launched last MIPCOM, and it has been sold to 15 territories since,” says Aysegul Tuzun, VP of sales and marketing at MISTCO. “It is a very successful title, which has a beautiful, romantic story appealing to viewers all around the world.” The Circle tells the story of two young men fighting against a criminal organization for different reasons but with the same goals. Beloved spotlights the romance between two people whose parents are sworn enemies. “While our characters climb up the ladders of love, they also unwittingly go through hard challenges,” Tuzun says.

The Circle

“As an agent of the Turkish TV network TRT, we are offering long-term relationships and sustainability to our partners.”

—Aysegul Tuzun

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24 TV DRAMA

Brass Sun

NTV Brass Sun / Beyond Death / The Crow Coming off a successful fall season, NTV is presenting Brass Sun, a war drama starring Vladimir Mashkov as an army band conductor who leads the young soldiers to a dramatic finale amidst guerrilla warfare. Also among NTV’s highlights is the crime thriller The Crow, which centers on an investigator who is discriminated against for being a woman. Beyond Death, already proving popular with viewers as it heads into its second season, is likened to a “Russian version of The X-Files,” according to NTV General Producer Timur Weinstein. The series interweaves three separate paranormal crime stories that are investigated by a veteran detective and a young neuroscientist. “NTV is determined to become a leader in the international drama/thriller category, and we have all it takes to bring new global audiences to our partners,” says Weinstein.

“Diversity of ideas, international appeal and great production quality put NTV programs among the most popular in Russia and position it as a serious player among international content powerhouses.”

—Timur Weinstein

Red Arrow Studios International

Bad Mothers

Vienna Blood / Departure / Bad Mothers A crime series set in the cafes and opera houses of 1900s Vienna leads Red Arrow Studios International’s drama slate.

Vienna Blood sees cultures and ideas collide as the show’s main character, Max, a student of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, finds himself embroiled in the investigation of a series of disturbing murders. Conspiracy thriller Departure follows the mysterious disappearance of Flight 716 and the subsequent investigation into what happened to the plane and its 256 passengers. The show features a star-studded ensemble, including Archie Panjabi, Christopher Plummer, Kris Holden-Ried and Claire Forlani. Then there is Bad Mothers, a “sexy, glossy, funny drama about modern women juggling life’s big issues: love, family, careers, infidelity…and murder,” says Bo Stehmeier, Red Arrow Studios International’s president.

“Red Arrow Studios International’s diverse slate of high-quality content will resonate with our clients around the world.”

—Bo Stehmeier

Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport XXXXXXXX

Godunov / Blackout / Two Tickets Home The volatility of 16th-century Russia is showcased in Godunov, a historical drama that picks up after the death of Ivan the Terrible, which ended an ancient dynasty and left no heir to the throne. Blackout jumps forward to the Russia of the ’90s, as a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War returns home to a devastated country that he doesn’t even recognize. Disillusioned, he rearms himself and commits a daring robbery. The story “is a response to the challenges of contemporary social and political instability, uncertainty and pessimism that overwhelm the everyday lives of people worldwide today,” says Julia Matiash, director of Sovtelexport, which represents programming from Russia Television and Radio (RTR). Also on the slate is Two Tickets Home, the story of an orphaned girl who learns her father is alive, albeit in prison for her mother’s murder.

“Every year the RTR catalog is being replenished by the best and most successful local productions.”

—Julia Matiash Two Tickets Home 170 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Love Conquers All? 26 TV DRAMA

Star India Love Conquers All? / The Singing Star / Radha & Krishna Two star-crossed lovers are at the center of Love Conquers All? (Kasauti Zindagi Kay). Radha & Krishna (RadhaKrishn), rooted in Indian mythology, has as its core theme unconditional love and devotion. Gurjeev Kapoor, the president of distribution at Star India, calls these series “the two mostanticipated dramas from our portfolio.” He adds, “Kasauti Zindagi Kay is a remake of Star India’s classic drama by the same name, and it is once again likely to transform the scale and popularity of Indian dramas. RadhaKrishn is a costume drama based on the eternal love story of Radha and Krishna.

The initial interest in both these shows from fans and broadcasters across the globe has been phenomenal.” In The Singing Star (Kullfi Kumarr Bajewala), a 7-year-old musical prodigy ventures out to find her estranged father.

“Star India believes in harnessing the power of imagination, and this is reflected in our storytelling.”

—Gurjeev Kapoor

Viacom18/IndiaCast Media Distribution Jhansi Ki Rani / Kesarri Nandan / Gathbandhan The lineup from Viacom18/IndiaCast Media Distribution includes the historical costume drama Jhansi Ki Rani, which tells the story of Rani Lakshmibai, the bravest, fiercest warrior queen. Kesarri Nandan is an inspirational tale of a young girl who is a wrestling prodigy, while Gathbandhan is a romantic drama showcasing the love between two contrasting personalities: a cop and a gangster. “Our series are a perfect blend of emotion, drama and variety,” says Debkumar Dasgupta, senior VP and business head (syndication). He adds, “After successfully making inroads into the Eastern European markets, CIS countries and Asian markets, we are now also available in the Caribbean, Turkey and African markets across both traditional and new-media platforms.”

ZDF Enterprises

“Viacom18 has always been a pioneer in creating stories and has grown leaps and bounds on the back of engaging storylines.”

Jhansi Ki Rani

—Debkumar Dasgupta

Wild District

Victor Lessard / Wild District / Beyond Appearances Adapted from the best-selling novels by Martin Michaud, who has been called the “master of the Quebec thriller,” Victor Lessard is a fast-paced psychological thriller series.

“It leaves no emotion unturned as it tells the story of a driven detective and his pursuit of the evil behind unspeakable crimes,” says Robert Franke, VP of ZDFE.drama at ZDF Enterprises. From the creators of Narcos comes Wild District, which blends action and drama to tell the story of a man who escapes the Colombian armed conflict and must now learn the ways of the concrete jungle. It was produced as a Netflix original. There’s a mystery at the center of Beyond Appearances, a six-parter that follows the disappearance of a famous actress’s twin and the long-buried family secrets that are revealed.

“All three of these series have already proven their strong international potential.”

—Robert Franke 172 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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28 TV DRAMA

Sovtelexport’s Demons.

174 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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TV DRAMA 29

Dramas from across Europe are being embraced by new audiences around the world.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

I

t’s a fine time to be a producer or distributor working in the European drama business. The market for scripted coming from the Continent is in rude health, as there’s a heady mix of U.S. pay-TV players looking to partner on premium content, American broadcast networks eyeing adaptations of non-English-language scripts, local channels embracing the appeal of homegrown fare and, of course, streaming platforms expanding their evergrowing arsenals of originals. From Scandinavian thrillers, British murder mysteries and Russian period pieces to German miniseries, Spanish fiction and Turkish family dramas—and pretty much everything in between—stories with European roots are traveling now more than ever.

“It’s been booming,” says Nicola Söderlund, managing partner at Eccho Rights, which represents a varied catalog with series from Spain, Turkey, Scandinavia and elsewhere. “One of the reasons is because American series don’t dominate the grids like they used to. A couple of years ago, they were filling prime time for many [international] broadcasters, but they don’t work that way anymore. They needed to be replaced by something. The natural replacement for these series would be European dramas, and that’s what we’re seeing.”

Romain Bessi, managing director of Newen, observes, “Ten years ago, of the top ten dramas on the main channels [across Europe], more than half would be American shows. Now, ten out of ten are local dramas. Local dramas are performing much better in their domestic markets, and they are traveling better.”

It used to be mainly stories from the U.K. that traveled, having an advantage of being in the English language, along

with fare from smaller countries like the Nordics. “That was because they could not find in their domestic country enough money to finance their dramas, so they needed to talk to international players such as distributors or other channels,” Bessi explains. “Until recently, French drama didn’t have to look for other [financing] since there was soft money and license fees. The channels were very healthy and investing a lot. Over the last three or four years, the traditional players have had more difficulties locally, challenged by the expansion of global players. They are now bringing less money; it’s still substantial, but it’s less. French producers have to look for more money from the international market, mostly from distributors, and for this, they will have to take international needs into account.”

FRENCH CONNECTION Bessi adds that if you combine this with the fact that the movie industry in France, like many other markets, is dealing with financial problems, “you will understand that there can and will be a creative shift toward drama. Many writers, directors, producers and actors are moving into the TV space. So there is access to more talented people who come from an industry that has been successful and creative over the last 50 years. It’s a combination of those two things that is going to improve the perceived quality of French series.”

Russia’s drama-series industry is a relatively young one but it, too, has seen strong gains. “In 2001, only 50 series were produced, but now more than 250 are done yearly,” says Julia Matiash, the director of Sovtelexport, the distribution arm of Russia Television and Radio. “At least 75 percent of 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 175

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Eccho Rights’ El Accidente, a Spanish drama, is based on the Turkish hit The End.

broadcast content in Russia is locally done, and at least 40 percent of broadcast time is given to series.”

She notes that Russian product has been traveling in the international market for more than 15 years but has seen a nice uptick in the last few. This has been spurred along by “new, ambitious production companies” that have now gained solid experience and are “willing to invest in international promotion much more than before.”

The country is well-known in the global market for its period dramas. “Russian history, czar dynasties, its imperial and Soviet past—all of this provides rich material for creating major projects on the same level of production as the best international ones like Medici: Masters of Florence, The Tudors and The Crown,” says Matiash. “At the same time, our historical dramas stay relevant and appealing to contemporary audiences with their compelling stories, characters and acting, which are traditionally strong in Russia.”

Alongside period dramas, global buyers are particularly interested in screen adaptations of Russian classics. “This kind of classical drama is appealing to the broadest audience possible,” Matiash says, highlighting the “complicated characters in the most dramatic circumstances; impressive battle scenes; gorgeous and realistic locations, decorations and costumes; and the highest local production budgets.”

TURKISH DELIGHTS Turkish tales have been making their way around the globe since 2001, starting with the Balkans, the Middle East and Latin America, thanks to cultural similarities. “In the following years, international demand increased so much that Turkey became the world’s secondlargest series exporter,” says Can Okan, founder and CEO of Inter Medya. “The demand for Turkish series is still very high, with the major TV channels producing an average of 70 new soaps per year, and there is no end in sight.”

Okan credits the “high production standards and unique stories” as being drivers of this success.

These stories often reflect the balance between old and new. “This

makes the content unique and gives it a head start in the international market,” he says. “Tradition is still very important in dramas, but modern conditions and thinking are playing an increasingly important role. The conflict between tradition and modernity, past and present, creates an incredibly rich environment” for a Turkish romantic drama.

Kerim Emrah Turna, executive director at Kanal D International, says that the vast majority of the scripted series coming from free TV in Turkey can be characterized as family dramas.

“Lately, we are producing a lot of action dramas, miniseries and historical dramas,” he adds. “We have shown what kind of high quality we can reach.”

Turna highlights strong sales for Kanal D’s dramas in the Americas, Europe, Africa and most parts of Asia. “Broadcasters are aiming to get more traffic, and our content, which is very high quality, is creating a huge amount of viewership, and that helps the broadcasters to maximize their revenues.”

Ismail Dursunov, deputy general manager of Calinos Entertainment, points to strong interest from Latin America but notes that new markets are opening up. “After the success Turkish series received in Spain, all attention is now on the rest of the countries in Western Europe. The Far East is also an attractive market for us and we would like to expand our presence there further.”

“Turkish dramas are still receiving a huge amount of interest from every part of the world,” agrees Aysegul Tuzun, VP of sales and marketing of MISTCO, which represents the TRT library. She says that the stiff competition in the local TV market and the prolific producers it’s home to have been key factors in achieving success on the global stage. “There are many high-quality productions in the market, and the biggest reason behind that is the capacity of storytelling, which is a famous Turkish tradition for dozens of years.”

Production quality has also been rising in Spain, helping to drive interest on an international level. “There are wonderful

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La Otra Mirada is a period drama from Spanish pubcaster RTVE.

showrunners, good stories and good filmmakers,” says María Jesús Pérez, international sales director for RTVE. “After several international hits, it is much easier for Spanish dramas to find new distribution opportunities.”

SPANISH FLAIR

theatrical productions, so [there is] a lot of screen value along with carefully crafted stories with mainstream appeal.”

“We see a growing appetite for local productions, and German drama is definitely striking a chord with this trend,” notes Alexandra Heidrich, head of TV sales and acquisitions at Global Screen.

Many German dramas air in the 2x90minute format, but for the international market, Global Screen often repackages its event productions as 4x45-minute miniseries. “We have been very successful with this format and have sold Rivals Forever: The Sneaker Battle into more than 20 territories,” says Heidrich.

Spanish series, meanwhile, used to have a length of about 70 minutes per episode. “It was a difficult format for the international market, and we had to reversion various titles to adapt them to our clients’ needs,” says Atresmedia’s Salso.

For its new productions this year, the company will be doing 50-minute episodes. “Following the new Atresmedia strategy to reduce the length of the prime-time slot and the ad breaks, we were the first ones in Spain to change and adapt to the international market. We think it is a key movement that both the audience and clients will like.”

MISTCO’s Tuzun says that typical episodes in Turkey are around 150 minutes, “but for international broadcasters, we create 45-minute versions for each episode.”

The arrival of local OTT services is also leading to different lengths and formats, she adds. “The emergence of Turkish VOD platforms has opened up a new branch for Turkish dramas that are 60 minutes instead of 150 minutes, and some of these new dramas have become quite successful.”

“Turkish series usually take two and a half hours per episode, filled with romance, family quarrels and drama,” says Inter Medya’s Okan. “These Turkish-length episodes are edited into three episodes of one commercial hour each” for the international market.

Among those international hits is La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), the Spanish-language heist thriller that became the most-watched non-English series on Netflix ever. Following this success, Atresmedia Televisión landed a deal with the global streaming service that sees Netflix getting a first look at new titles produced under the Series Atresmedia label.

José Antonio Salso, head of acquisitions and sales at Atresmedia, says that the company’s scripted series have been sold into 120 countries around the world, highlighting Velvet and Grand Hotel as dramas that have performed particularly well internationally.

“There is a boom of Spanish drama, not only in Spanishspeaking territories but also in the rest of the world,” says Silvia Cotino, head of sales at Mediterráneo Audiovisual, a new company set up by Mediaset España. “The Spanish content production quality is really high, and in a globalized era, stories are traveling in an unstoppable way. We now have a double challenge: to access new territories and keep up with the needs of our clients.”

Meanwhile, the hallmarks of German dramas are “production value and mainstream appeal,” says Robert Franke, VP of ZDFE.drama at ZDF Enterprises. “The programs from our channel tend to resonate with really broad target audiences when picked up and often outperform comparable English-speaking projects.

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streamers, and they need to step up their game. So the budgets have increased all over the place, and the quality has increased as well. That has an impact on everything.

The gap between what the broadcasters give and the streamers give and the production budget is bigger than before. That gap is supposedly covered by agents like us, but since there is such a big output, it’s very hard to cover that gap. It’s not a market that’s in balance. There are not even enough eyeballs to view all of this content.”

QUALITY CHECK

MISTCO’s catalog of Turkish drama from TRT includes Hold My Hand.

With everyone competing on a global level nowadays, the demand for higher production values is increasing, and so is the need for having big stars on board a project. “The only way for some of the free-TV stations to compete is to coproduce with other countries,” says Söderlund. “Otherwise, they can’t afford the budgets that are required.”

A+E Networks recently embarked on its first international scripted co-production, Miss Scarlet and The Duke, in development with Element 8 Entertainment. The series is described as a full-throttle crime drama about the first-ever female detective in 19th-century London.

Richard Tulk-Hart, managing director of international content sales and co-productions, says that A+E Networks has kept a close eye on how the proliferation of streaming platforms has bolstered opportunities for series to gain audiences outside their home territories. “Our feeling is that some shows will work better in the linear space and others better in the SVOD space,” he says. “If we see that a show can work and grow on an SVOD platform then we will look to work with them outside the territory of commission. In the case of Miss Scarlet, we felt the show’s longevity was more guaranteed by bringing big free-to-air broadcasters on board in a number of territories while we tried to build up the brand and audience.”

Sovtelexport’s Matiash says that OTT and digital platforms are especially convenient for first-step penetration into markets. “They provide an opportunity to be delivered to new audiences, [the ability] to get high-quality local dubbing, which can be used for further sales, and perform as a focus group for the local TV channels,” she adds. “The

Okan, too, notes that the introduction of Turkish digital platforms is shaking things up. “These streaming platforms invest in original series and try out a new way of storytelling. The projects are bolder, edgier and have shorter [running times] compared to classic TV projects. This birth of original digital content is an important event in the Turkish TV landscape. These new series are shorter in length to meet the international standards and are, therefore, easier to consume and sell, especially to the Nordics, Eastern Europe and Asia, where traditional Turkish drama is less popular.”

Much like what has happened in the U.S., the voracious appetites of global OTT players have had an enormous impact on the production industry in Europe as a whole. Netflix, for one, invested a reported $1 billion in new content with European roots last year and is expected to produce or co-produce more than 200 projects in the region this year.

Amazon, too, is ramping up its European ambitions. And this is poised to intensify, as the European Parliament has approved new regulations for online streaming services, imposing a quota for homegrown productions on the likes of Netflix and Amazon. The guidelines will require that at least 30 percent of content carried on streaming services operating in the EU originates from the region. On-demand platforms are also being asked to contribute to the development of European films and TV series, either by directly investing in content or by contributing to national subsidies.

“The level of commissioning might even be too much,” says Eccho Rights’ Söderlund. “I wonder if there is enough talent to produce all these series at a reasonable quality. Given the demand for experienced talent, the prices will go up because of this.”

There’s also an impact on the quality of European drama, he says. “The freeTV stations feel the competition from the Wounded Love has been a huge hit in Turkey and a strong seller for Kanal D International.

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popularity of a title on digital drives interest from other players.” Matiash cites an example of the binge-viewing success of Ekaterina on Amazon Prime helping lead to three deals with European TV channels within one month.

NEW HORIZONS Russian drama, she says, has traditionally been popular in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and former USSR countries.

“The last five years were rather difficult, considering the loss of the very important Ukrainian market for us and new political trends. Nevertheless, our series have shown good results on the main channels in Serbia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Poland.”

Latin America is also on her list as a promising market.

Sovtelexport likewise has its eyes on the MENA region, as well as parts of Asia.

For Spanish dramas, meanwhile, there has been plenty of good business in the Americas, “mostly due to our cultural and language affinity,” says RTVE’s Pérez. “In the last few years, we have seen increasing interest for our dramas in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.”

MISTCO’s Tuzun lists Latin America and the Balkans as popular markets for Turkish fare. “Regarding new opportunities, we have started doing business with Russia and CIS countries, and we believe that Africa will become a new market for Turkish dramas as well,” she adds.

“Latin America is still a huge market for Turkish series,” agrees Inter Medya’s Okan. “You will find at least one Turkish series airing on almost every channel there. A new market is Spain, which has the advantage of enabling us to export

our series to other regions in Europe. Black Money Love was sold to Atresmedia and Endless Love to Mediaset [España].

These two series attracted millions of viewers, increasing the channels’ average shares.”

Kanal D’s Turna echoes that Spain is currently a hot market for Turkish titles, with the company notching up a number of recent deals. “As it is a Western European country, this is an important milestone for us,” he says. “This shows that we will also be able to break some walls in core Western European countries like France, Germany and the U.K., and then, hopefully, English-speaking U.S. and Canada.”

Turna is eyeing new opportunities in East Asian markets.

“We think that our storytelling is very similar, and so are the subjects and core values,” he says.

REMAKE FEVER Eccho Rights’ Söderlund mentions that while sales of finished European dramas have been thriving, the market for scripted formats is increasing right along with it. “There’s an enormous demand for new shows because of all the streamers that have come in and are commissioning. I don’t think there are enough talent and ideas to cover that demand. So what do you do? You look at existing series that are successes and make an adaptation.”

“The interesting thing is that European drama can travel either as a format or as a tape,” says Newen’s Bessi. “European countries have good stories, talent, soft money and important local players, and [digital] platforms are bringing more resources. Local players will always be the main partners for local drama, by far, but global platforms will facilitate its international expansion.”

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Andy Fry explores the emerging renaissance of science-fiction and fantasy shows. here was a time when sci-fi and fantasy were perceived to be the exclusive preserve of the arcadedwelling, bike-riding, Dungeons & Dragons –obsessed adolescent boys depicted so exquisitely in the Netflix series Stranger Things. But that series, together with Marvel and DC Comics adaptations, HBO’s Game of Thrones and AMC’s The Walking Dead, have helped transform perceptions of geek culture. As the success of events like Comic-Con vividly illustrate, sci-fi and fantasy-based TV series are now capable of attracting significant audiences across gender and age demographics.

Rola Bauer, the managing director of STUDIOCANAL TV, says, “There is a definite growth in interest in ‘what’s out there’—which is probably because ‘what’s here’ is disturbing and not particularly comfortable at the moment. In our case, we have started production on War of the Worlds, a Howard Overman adaptation of H. G. Wells’ timeless story, set in Europe today.”

T

Arguably the first great alien-invasion story, War of the Worlds was written in 1897. But in Bauer’s view, its narrative themes continue to resonate, making the transition to a modern setting relatively straightforward.

“It is an extremely relevant story reflecting our world today as we stagger through global upheaval. The narrative Howard has created is emotional and characterdriven. It is a fusion of human drama and science fiction at its best. It’s also a story about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances—a universal theme that transcends borders.”

EUROPEAN INVASION Historically, sci-fi and fantasy-based TV series tended to be led by the American market; so the fact that a Europeanchored company like STUDIOCANAL is investing in the genre is a sign of how the global market has shifted. But there are also financial implications. So how has STUDIOCANAL constructed a big-budget sci-fi series fronted by the likes of Gabriel Byrne and Elizabeth McGovern? The answer, says Bauer, is co-production, a model she has used with ambitious period pieces like The Pillars of the Earth.

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Endemol Shine’s Humans was made as a co-pro between AMC in the U.S. and Channel 4 in the U.K.

“We have worked hard on building a major co-production partnership for War of the Worlds, made up of Canal+, Fox Networks Group Europe & Africa, AGC Television and STUDIOCANAL. This is completely necessary to deliver a stand-out series—this is 8x60-minutes of cinematic scale production—with an exceptional cast, leading writers and award-winning talent behind the camera. A series of this high caliber demands a substantial budget, and that can only really be achieved these days through a like-minded international production partnership.”

War of the Worlds will debut this year on Canal+ in France, and on FOX in more than 50 countries across Europe and Africa. Bauer is optimistic the series can live on a range of platforms. “Commitment from strong pay-TV platforms enabled the series to be created, but the AGC and STUDIOCANAL teams will be looking to place the drama with the best platform or broadcaster in multiple territories. And we know there is demand from OTT, pay and free-to-air networks.”

DEMANDING VIEWERS Cathy Payne, the CEO of Endemol Shine International, says her company has enjoyed broad-based success with Humans on broadcasters such as Channel 4 and AMC. But she stresses that VOD platforms have played a pivotal role in the recent rise of sci-fi and fantasy. Among the titles on Endemol Shine’s slate are Black Mirror, which shifted from Channel 4 to Netflix early in its life cycle, and Dark, a Netflix original.

“While a genre like sci-fi has always had a very loyal audience, in individual territories such as Australia it can generate small numbers compared to broader offerings,” Payne says. “However, global platforms that have the ability to consolidate audiences from many territories can deliver a significant number.”

In addition to this ability to aggregate genre audiences, Payne says there is an editorial fit between sci-fi and fantasy

and VOD. “VOD services provide the perfect environment for binge-viewing, which is often associated with genre fans.

Furthermore, straight-to-series production orders can make genre budgets more affordable, and, in general, their premises are set up for multiple seasons—another reason why you see so many on streaming platforms.”

Echoing Bauer’s point about international co-pros, Payne says it is tough for a linear player in a single territory to fund high-end genre events in isolation. (Humans, for example, was a Channel 4 and AMC co-production.) “I would say U.S. networks are the only ones large enough to commission the more expensive genre pieces. More generally, linear channels need co-pros or distributor-deficit-funded models to fill the gap. This is even the case for SYFY U.S. commissions that have often not been fully funded in the U.S.”

GOING MAINSTREAM Christian Vesper, the executive VP and creative director of global drama at Fremantle, agrees that pure genre pieces tend to sit most naturally with pay TV and VOD, but he says shows with genre elements are creeping into mainstream free-to-air schedules. BBC’s The City and the City and SS-GB “are examples of limited-run series that combine the feel of a procedural drama with heightened genre elements,” Vesper says. “I think it’s a way for creatives to explore new ideas and concepts.”

He says that a taste for genre-based series continues to be present among Fremantle’s production subsidiaries. “Our Danish producer Miso Film teamed up with Netflix on The Rain, a thriller that is set a few years after a virus has wiped out most people in Scandinavia,” says Vesper. “And we are in development with the acclaimed director Michael Haneke on a scripted series called Kelvin’s Book, kind of a cross between The White Ribbon and The Hunger Games.”

Vesper, whose company is currently working with Starz on season two of American Gods, agrees that genre pieces often

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the need for brand-defining series that can build a loyal audience. And it also plays into broadcasters’ desire to reach young audiences.”

Outside of Doctor Who, Rakusen says genre is “a big part of what we do. We are also involved in Good Omens, a co-pro with Amazon based on the work of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; His Dark Materials, Bad Wolf’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels (a co-pro with HBO); and The Watch, another Pratchett adaptation, this one for BBC America.” Dracula with Netflix and an adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s Runestaff series of novels can be added to this impressive list.

MONEY-HUNTING

Viacom18 is offering up the Colors hit Naagin 3, about a shapeshifting serpent.

need a big U.S. backer or a co-production arrangement to justify the cost of production. “But there are lower-budget shows where the skill of the writer can make a world believable without lots of expense on design and special effects.”

Payne agrees that certain styles of genre TV, like horror and time travel, don’t need to be expensive. “Audience awareness can be generated by platform recommendations.

If you look at shows like Dark and The Rain on Netflix, they are not hugely expensive but perform well.”

GIRL POWER Vesper believes the sector has reinvented itself in a way that makes it more appealing to a female audience. Shows like Wynonna Earp, Jessica Jones, Orphan Black and Supergirl all confirm the shift taking place in sci-fi and fantasy—as does CBS All Access’s decision to make Sonequa Martin-Green the lead in its big-budget Star Trek: Discovery reboot. No less dramatic was BBC Studios’ decision to cast a woman, Jodie Whittaker, as the lead in the company’s classic time-traveling series, Doctor Who. Martin Rakusen, BBC Studios’ commercial director for fiction, says that the decision has been vindicated by the success of the show, both at home and internationally. “It has performed well among its traditional audience, but we’ve also seen growth among female audiences—to the extent the show is fifty-fifty between genders.”

A long-running free-to-air flagship, Doctor Who runs counter to the idea that genre series belong on pay TV or SVOD. For Rakusen, its importance to BBC One is partly due to its heritage. “But the current interest in genre is also about

Rakusen agrees with his peers that sci-fi and fantasy “don’t have to break the bank with Game of Thrones–style CGI, but it is rare for them to be made on a domestic license. So we are very active in co-production. We partner with HBO and SVOD and, increasingly, are talking to some European companies about partnerships.”

Overall, he says, the market is still very focused on “serialized dramas with a single writer’s voice underpinning them. Anthologies and story-of-the-week are tougher propositions.

In terms of keeping people engaged, I think it is about characters that people can fall in love with, and expansive worlds that spin off in lots of interesting directions and raise big themes.

There is so much to choose from that being visually distinctive is also vital.”

And, he says, the job isn’t over at the end of each episode or series. “We look closely at licensing, social, digital content,” says Rakusen, “because you have to keep up a dialogue with fans all the time.”

Dan March, the managing partner of Dynamic Television, says his company “loves developing sci-fi shows because [these] audiences have been underserved for years—especially in Europe. OTT and pay-TV channels realized that a couple of years ago and are now capitalizing.

Netflix, in particular, is focusing on genre programming more and more, which is extremely effective counterprogramming to mainstream series on linear networks.”

Another part of the appeal, he says, is that science fiction is such a broad genre. “It’s an umbrella for supernatural, creature, post-apocalyptic, fantasy, space and true science fiction, among others. So all the subgenres create a broad array of storytelling opportunities. For example, Z Nation (creature/post-apocalyptic), Wynonna Earp (supernatural) and Van Helsing (vampire) are all sci-fi shows but are quite different from one another. If we had three crime shows, chances are they’d have more similarities.”

Another upside, he argues, is that sci-fi’s audience appeal is broader than most industry insiders might expect. “The audience is more gender-even than people realize, and sci-fi viewers range from 18 to 64-plus. They are more contentdriven than demographically defined, and they are also extremely loyal and smart.”

Having said this, he stresses that the genre is not easy to finance, in part because of the hit-and-miss record of freeto-air networks. “They have dabbled, but not always

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countries like Thailand and Malaysia. The initial response to Siya Ke Ram (Sita and Ram) in Russia a few months ago has also been very encouraging.”

A WORLD AWAY

Star India arrives at MIPTV with a slate that includes the new fantasy series Nazar.

successfully. Their target audience is broad and sci-fi has always been viewed as niche, so I think big linear channels have either experimented and failed to capture the audiences they need, or are just not willing to try.”

This, says March, presents challenges when developing and producing science-fiction shows. “For an independent company like ours, the challenge with financing sci-fi shows is that from a distribution perspective, they are acquired by cable channels with niche audiences and lower budgets. This puts more pressure on us to find co-production partners and to be very smart about the risks we can take, knowing free-TV linear channels are not the likely buyers.

And with OTT services shifting their investment into original productions, our financial model on sci-fi shows can no longer safely assume that the OTTs are potential buyers.”

ASIAN LORE While fantasy series are picking up in Europe, they’ve long been a staple in Asia. India is a prolific producer of longrunning fantasy and mythology-based series funded by the domestic broadcasters for local audiences. The distribution arms of those broadcasters are now eager to bring these shows to international screens.

“We have seen a resurgence in fantasy/costume drama series, including historical, supernatural and horror stories,” reports Debkumar Dasgupta, the senior VP and business head (syndication) at Viacom18/IndiaCast Media Distribution, which represents series like the Colors hit Naagin. “Set against larger-than-life backdrops and with mysticism at the core, this genre instantly finds a connection with viewers.”

Star India has a selection of costume dramas with mythological themes on its slate, including Mahabharat, Chandra Nandini and Siya Ke Ram. Gurjeev Kapoor, the president of distribution, notes, “Mythological content like Mahabharat has enjoyed stellar viewership in

Dynamic’s March takes the view that strong storytelling is the key criterion in making a successful show, rather than large budgets and a huge spectacle. “If Game of Thrones weren’t built on one of the greatest story structures ever told, all its spectacle wouldn’t be enough to sustain the audience it has rightfully earned.

The fundamentals of great storytelling apply to sci-fi as much as any genre. Great ideas are built on strong structure, compelling characters we want to root for, or against, and layers of conflict in a unique and engaging setting. This doesn’t always have to be cost-prohibitive; character conflict doesn’t have to include a dragon destroying an empire.”

One way in which genre is distinct from many other forms of drama, however, is its emphasis on world-building, says March. “The challenge in developing an exciting series is not the hero or relationships, but the world-building— creating the rules that exist in this sci-fi world and understanding its logic and consequences.”

This emphasis on world-building probably explains why most successful genre productions are based on books or comics. To those already mentioned could be added SYFY’s adaptation of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles (based on novels by Terry Brooks) and Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings production (which has a five-season commitment). The risk with shows that don’t have this preexisting structure is that they can run out of steam or collapse in on themselves after one season.

World-building aside, another big advantage of working with preexisting IP, according to Fremantle’s Vesper, is that “it makes it easier to walk in and pitch to commissioners.

They are confronted with such a deluge of ideas that they welcome the familiar—it just means one less challenge.”

Endemol Shine’s Payne agrees that preexisting IP can give a series an immediate boost, but also points out that “VOD services have such appetites for fast-turnaround volume, they will seek out all forms of genre, whether original or derived from existing IP.” BBC Studios has a rich array of classic genre IP, but Rakusen warns against creative complacency. “IP is a great starting point for writers, producers and commissioners. And it’s especially exciting when you get to work with living creators because you get inside their heads—learning about things that didn’t even make it to the page. But that doesn’t always reduce the challenge of adaptation. The world isn’t static, so you have to be constantly thinking about how to make this iconic IP work for this time and this audience.”

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his May, BBC Two in the U.K. and Amazon everywhere else will give fans of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, something they’ve wanted for almost 30 years. The cult-classic novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is finally making it to television, courtesy of BBC Studios, Amazon Studios, Narrativia and The Blank Corporation. The six-part Good Omens tells the story of angel Aziraphale and angel-turned-demon Crowley— played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant, respectively—who team up to avert the apocalypse. The mega-watt cast also includes Frances McDormand as God, Benedict Cumberbatch as Satan and Jon Hamm as Archangel Gabriel. Tennant and Sheen tell TV Drama about working together, collaborating with Gaiman— screenwriter and showrunner—and fan expectations.

By Mansha Daswani

T

TV DRAMA: How did you each hear about the project?

SHEEN: Neil sent me an early draft of a first episode when he wrote it. That must have been a few years ago now. He would send me early versions of the episodes as he was writing.

TENNANT: I think it was Douglas Mackinnon, the director, who I heard it from first. I had worked with Douglas before and he said, there’s a script coming. I got this wonderful script that was a fully formed piece of genius. Michael was already attached, which already made me want to do it. I didn’t know the book, I’m ashamed to say. Now it seems that for everyone in the world it’s their favorite book ever! I don’t know how I missed it! I was very grateful that it landed in my lap.

SHEEN: I had read the book when I was at drama school. This was before I’d ever met Neil. I remember loving it. So when we talk about all those people out there who love this book and feel protective about how it’s going to be adapted, I’m one of those people. I have my hat where I’m just a fan, and I want the book to be done as well as possible, and then I have my other hat where I’m one of the people who could potentially mess it up.

TV DRAMA: Is there added pressure when you’re taking on material that is so beloved?

SHEEN: One of the things that really helped us was having Neil Gaiman as the showrunner.

TENNANT: He’s a thesaurus, isn’t he? It means that any decisions that have been made have been made by God, as it were. That takes a certain amount of the pressure off. But anything that is that beloved, it’s a huge honor to get to bring it to a different medium and to be the embodiment of these characters that people have lived with and loved for all these years. Of course you tread gently.

SHEEN: Also, just because something works well in one medium doesn’t mean that it’s going to work well in a different medium.

We knew that certain things were going to have to change from the book. And having Neil be the person making those changes allowed us all to feel more confident. If it had been someone else who inevitably would have to change it for it to work as a TV series, that would have been very scary!

TENNANT: Preparing to shoot it, I was definitely liberated by not knowing the book. It was only after [beginning production] when I started to meet people for whom it meant so much. Nina Sosanya plays a fantastic role in the first couple of episodes. I sat with her at the read-through and she was trembling. She said, I reread this book every year of my life. This is so important to me. I would have delivered the sandwiches to the set just to be involved in this. So it’s moments like that when I started to realize how important this was to so many people. And it’s a mixed blessing. It’s thrilling to be part of something that has such a built-in enthusiasm, such a fan base, such love for it. But you have to take a deep breath. I’m sort of glad I didn’t know too much about it before we got started. [If I had] I may have been hamstrung by expectations.

TV DRAMA: Michael, did you go back and reread the book as you were preparing?

SHEEN: I read it again. I hadn’t read it for quite a long time, so it was a real pleasure to go back and just be reminded of what made me love it so much in the first place. And also, you go back to whatever source material you have when you’re doing an adaptation of something and look for clues that are going to help. When I first read it, I wasn’t thinking about playing Aziraphale. So it was the first time I got to read the

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BBC Studios’ Good Omens premieres on BBC Two and Amazon Prime on May 31.

book from the point of view of it being preparation.

You’re looking to find clues: what they look like and how they sound. And I realized how little there was, which was great because it meant there was a lot of freedom. With the little that was suggested, there was a strong sense of the characters and the world. That’s quite a complicated area because then there’s no consensus—everyone has their own version of these characters and the scenes. That becomes quite tricky, because you think, well I’m going to look one way as this character and that really may not chime with the way people have imagined it. So I hope they like it! [Laughs] TV DRAMA: I understand you had never shared any screen time before. How did you finesse your on-screen dynamic?

TENNANT: You finesse it by just turning up! You finesse it by reading the scenes and playing the scenes. It’s almost after the event that you look back and go, that was such a happy, creative, enjoyable time. There is a lot written about chemistry between actors. I don’t know if that’s a thing you can prepare for or measure or legislate for in any way, really. We did know each other and therefore I always felt quite confident that [the chemistry] would happen, and then it sort of did. We were on set looking at each other pretty much every day, which ended up becoming a real pleasure. It could have been awful! [Laughs] SHEEN: It could have been horrendous! I keep thinking back to the first time we ever said the lines out loud with each other. We hadn’t really talked about how we were going to play these characters. It was all very fluid at that point. Within a short space of time, it felt like what I was doing as Aziraphale was completely dependent on what David was doing as Crowley. So my character developed around what David was doing. Normally that doesn’t happen. Normally, a lot of what you do comes out of just thinking about it on your own and talking to the director.

This was the one thing I’ve done where what I did was so dependent on what another actor was doing. And I think we both have a sense of wanting to make the scene the best it can be.

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that did prove to be the case. We both approach things, not the same way, but we have a similar kind of ethic of turning up and doing it and seeing what happens and we play off each other.

SHEEN: A lot happens if you just have the same goals. It’s interesting because actors don’t always have the same goals! [Laughs] If you do have the same goals—getting the most juice out of this scene in terms of what the writers originally wanted, making this the best it can be—then it’s amazing how good the chemistry can be.

TENNANT: The characters are well written, so that gives you something to start with. If you’re starting with good material then you’re off to a running start.

SHEEN: We were never trying to scramble around to see how to make a scene interesting. Quite the opposite!

There was so much going on in every scene.

TENNANT: An alarming amount of time, you will spend the first hour on set in the morning trying to go, if we rewrite this and you say that—there was none of that required. We were starting with a Rolls-Royce of a scene. So it was up to you to not fuck it up, really!

TV DRAMA: What was it like working with Neil Gaiman?

TENNANT: Neil is the perfect mix of knowing exactly what he wants and being entirely open to other people’s ideas. Those are the best showrunners that I’ve experienced. They absolutely know what works and what doesn’t work. But they are always open to a good idea.

SHEEN: He’s one of the great storytellers of our time. He understands the way stories work. That works really well as a showrunner. On the hoof each day, he totally understands the world of this piece because he was a big part of writing it, but he also understands just the mechanics of storytelling.

He’s a very good troubleshooter in the moment as well. And he’s a genuinely lovely person! He’s so respectful of everyone else’s process and what everyone else does.

TENNANT: And excited by what everyone brings to it. He will genuinely respond to ideas as they fly by, at the same time knowing the world that he has created, inside out, knowing what the parameters are that we all need to work with.

TV DRAMA: Amazon will roll this out on their global footprint this May. Were you thinking about that massive worldwide platform as you were working on the show?

SHEEN: I don’t know if you think about that when you’re shooting it.

TENNANT: It does change the way things are now, knowing that people can watch the whole thing in one go if they want. It’s six episodes, but a lot of people, I would imagine, will watch it as a six-hour film. That does make a difference, doesn’t it? As opposed to watching an episode a week. It is a very different way of relating to the piece. But I’m not sure that makes a difference to us in the acting of it.

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TV DRAMA: It’s been three years since the service launched in the U.K. What adjustments have you made as you’ve expanded the platform internationally and learned more about how your users are engaging with the content?

IUZZOLINO: Some of it is more business and strategic, in the sense of our international launches, and some of it is content- and editorial-driven. The most notable thing for us has been our international growth. It’s been quite brilliant, for a number of reasons. First of all, we’ve established a lovely, happy cycle with broadcasters. Our reputation internationally in the drama space has grown. And the brilliant formula we established with Channel 4 has been a blueprint for many others. So now we’re getting into a position where broadcasters ring us and say, How are you doing 30 million streams a year and can we joint venture together? We identify great shows, we help them shine, we make distributors happy, we make content producers happy and we make broadcasters happy! We realized as much as we love adventure, our role should always really be that of the pure curator. Our concentration and focus should be on watching and picking the best dramas, packaging them and branding them. Every time we can nestle our venture in the home of a broader broadcasting organization that already has relationships with millions of viewers, it’s just better. They do what they do best and we do what we do best.

TV DRAMA: Tell us about the international journey, beginning with the U.S. IUZZOLINO: When we launched in America we were just direct to consumer [as an SVOD platform]. We have struck a deal with PBS Distribution whereby Walter Presents is now available on the PBS Masterpiece Amazon channel. That is

By Mansha Daswani

I

n the U.K.’s prolific scripted market, Walter Presents has steadily built a community of devoted lovers of foreignlanguage drama. Co-founded and personally curated by Walter Iuzzolino, the service, chock-full of subtitled shows from Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium and elsewhere, has been a phenomenon in the U.K., where it sits in the Channel 4 on-demand environment, All 4, with select series also airing on the linear schedule. On the heels of the British success, Iuzzolino and his team have been busy expanding internationally.

Iuzzolino tells TV Drama about bringing Walter Presents to more markets around the globe and weighs in on how his editorial curation strategy has evolved.

significant because it means that our programming reaches many, many more viewers. As you know, when you launch SVOD direct to consumer, the challenges are money and marketing. How far can you go to make people aware that you even exist? We went quite far on our own with our small pockets, but [working with] PBS has been amazing and instrumental. What we lacked in the U.S. were the muscle, the money and the visibility in more households. PBS provided that through the Masterpiece experience on Amazon, but also through select runs on their regional stations. We recently transmitted a great show called Modus, a Scandi noir, in L.A. on KLCS. We’ve identified more titles with them. That

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had become a real hub of extraordinary creativity. I love the karma that we opened up the world to Belgium in some ways and made it aware of the extraordinary output, and then Belgium opened their arms to us! The Benelux audience is an increasingly sophisticated one. It is known for appreciating multi-language anyway because of their territorial makeup. I have every confidence that we’ll be embraced there. That’s an exciting chapter for us.

In addition, there will be at least two more launches to come later this year. Broadcasters are coming to us, and that’s an important message. Everybody that’s involved in dealing with us is happy. They know we don’t have much money to pay, but we do great stuff with their shows and we promote them.

It’s a positive business cycle that has meant global growth of unprecedented scale for a small company of eight people.

TV DRAMA: Do some shows play better in a nonlinear, binge environment than on a week-to-week basis on linear?

IUZZOLINO: Our shows on linear have a good, solid, fairly modest audience—they don’t compete with The Great British Bake Off or huge dramas—but viewers come back again and again. And broadly speaking, what does well on linear does well on digital. However, there are very interesting exceptions. When we launched in the U.K., one of our minor digital-only releases was a vampire show called Heartless.

Without any press, any marketing push, it became one of our highest-rated shows. That trajectory was replicated in Italy.

The one show that has really popped there is Heartless. Some shows lend themselves to being more streaming phenomenons and they tend to be the younger or slightly cultier series.

STUDIOCANAL’s Danish drama Ride Upon the Storm has been a breakout success on Walter Presents in the U.K.

means that effectively as more and more walls go up—Brexit and Trump—we’re knocking other ones down! If politics isolate countries, the consumers do the exact opposite. We’re bringing international drama into British and American living rooms! Also in the U.S., we’ve announced our launch on Comcast Xfinity X1, so we’ll be in even more households.

There are more launches that we are finalizing now in the U.S. In Australia, we have an incredibly successful venture with Foxtel. Again we’re replicating the Channel 4 prototype. They have a brilliant channel called Fox Showcase. They give us a fantastic Friday night slot on linear, and then we also live in their VOD environment.

In Italy, we launched with Discovery. Discovery came to us and said they wanted us to live in their AVOD space, Dplay. It’s a combination of AVOD and SVOD, and then some bespoke linear airings on two of their channels, NOVE and Giallo. Italy was interesting and challenging, as it’s a market that dubs programming. It was important to do Italy, not just for scale—it’s still a very small operation—but because we wanted to make a point that we can find a good audience in a country that normally wouldn’t consider watching shows with subtitles. And now my mum and dad can finally understand what I do for a living. [Laughs] We’re starting a slow conquest of Europe!

In April, we are very excited to be launching in Belgium.

Walter Presents will be available on-demand, with some linear exposure. We have championed Belgium obsessively.

Having done Scandi, having done Spain, having done Germany, we genuinely felt at the end of last year that Belgium

TV DRAMA: You mentioned championing Belgium. Are there other emerging hot spots for you?

IUZZOLINO: Denmark kickstarted the phenomenon of Scandi noir with The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen. When we came on the scene, Scandi noir was almost a bit spent, which was why we concentrated on Deutschland 83 and Locked Up and other shows. We thought, we’ve seen the missing girls, it’s all becoming a bit samey and it’s just feeding the beast of market demand with slightly derivative propositions. We still bought the shows and they did well, but we were saying, Is [Denmark] still the place you would look for real originality? But in the second half of last year, they burst on the scene again. We bought three shows and we pitched them to the U.K. market as the renaissance of Danish drama. As Sweden and Norway and the other countries around Central and Northern Europe have heavily cloned the tropes and the language of Scandi noir, the Danes have shrugged them off. The writer of Borgen [Adam Price] created an incredible show called Ride Upon the Storm, which is about a family of priests. It is controversial and fantastic and intense. Lars Mikkelsen won an International Emmy for it recently. Liberty from DR, about Danish expats in the ’80s trying to exploit the aid system in Tanzania, is a compelling story about how good intentions in human beings go horribly wrong. Greyzone is a Homeland-style thriller co-produced by Denmark, Sweden [and Germany].

It takes the premise of what sounds like a traditional thriller but makes it very intimate. Denmark is back with a vengeance.

We’ve gone out of our way to highlight that.

Germany is alive and kicking. Deutschland is coming back for us. There’s a brilliant new show called Bad Banks

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ZDF Enterprises’ Bad Banks is among the German shows on Walter Presents.

about whistleblowers and industrial espionage. And I think Italy is in a fantastic place. HBO invested in the Elena Ferrante series [My Brilliant Friend], which has been enormously successful all over the world. We acquired Maltese, a Mafia show, last year. Some incredible, high-profile pieces are coming [out of Italy], like The Name of the Rose and Gaddafi, which is from the makers of Gomorrah. Italy has learned the game of taking foreign money and putting it to good use to make the shows high-bar in terms of quality. I’m delighted; after many years of being frustrated with the quality of my own country’s output, now we can champion their productions!

TV DRAMA: And you’re sourcing content from outside Europe as well?

IUZZOLINO: Absolutely. Latin America is a core territory for us, in all its diversity. Brazil has always been a very strong piece for us, both from HBO and Globo. Argentina too— we’re about to buy another show from there. We’ve gone even further afield. This past October we launched our first Japanese show, a young manga-style horror series called Crow’s Blood. It was co-produced by Hulu Japan.

That was a great success for us and Film4. We had been looking at Japan for a long time. I’m looking at a piece from Africa that is quite exciting. We saw a fantastic show from India that we wanted to bid on, but bigger and mightier forces than us came in and bought it!

TV DRAMA: There is so much out there. Has your job become harder, having to sift through all these great series being created across the globe?

IUZZOLINO: When we started, we had bought 800 or 900 hours. There was always that

slight concern of, is there going to be a feeding frenzy of such proportion that we’d be left without programming to buy because more powerful forces than us came and swept up everything! That hasn’t happened. The FAANGs have poured a lot of money into the business. That’s amazing. They’ve been championing their own originals. They’re making lots of stuff. They’re making lots of producers rich. It’s been a great thing for the sector at large. With the big boys concentrating on their originals, and with terrestrial broadcasters competing to make glossy, sexy, good stuff, everyone has become better, so the quality of drama on the market is extraordinary. I used to have to watch 20 titles to find maybe two or three. Now, every five there are a couple I’d like to buy.

That means an embarrassment of riches.

And we can raise our bar even higher.

There’s so much that is good, we can focus on the excellent. It’s been wonderful, and long may it continue.

TV DRAMA: When we last spoke two years ago you mentioned that your own originals were on the horizon. Where are you on that journey?

IUZZOLINO: We had said that would be our phase three. When we last spoke, we were in phase one of our life. Now we’re in the second half of phase two. So phase three is coming ever closer! We are further down the line. We are buying more from script. Back then it was one or two projects from script.

Now, more often than not, broadcasters or producers come to us and say, you bought three of our shows, take a look at this, which we’re starting to make in six months. We read scripts, we chip in very early on. The time will come when we’ll be able to contribute more meaningfully. As we scale up internationally, we’ll be able to buy multiterritory in a way that we were not able to in the beginning.

Crow ’s Blood was the first Japanese drama picked up by Walter Presents.

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ZDF Enterprises’ Wild District.

Creator Cristian Conti, star Juan Pablo Raba and ZDF Enterprises’ Robert Franke discuss the new series Wild District.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

F

rom the creators of Narcos, Wild District follows the story of a man who escapes the Colombian armed conflict only to find himself facing a new, more personal war. The ten-part series, which features a mix of drama and action, was conceived by Cristian Conti, co-founder of the Bogotá-based production house Dynamo. The idea came to Conti more than ten years ago, after he sat down with former guerrilla fighters who were going through the process of being reintroduced into society following the signing of the Colombian peace agreements. “The stories I heard were so sad and terrible,” says Conti. “I thought, these people deserve to have their stories heard, but the time wasn’t right back in 2006 because the situation in Colombia was too tough.” Once he saw the peace process coming together, Conti felt the timing was right, and the series began to take shape.

ZDF Enterprises came on board early in the process, codeveloping the show—its first co-production in Latin America— with Dynamo. Robert Franke, VP of ZDFE.drama at ZDF Enterprises, says that the company was enticed by the concept and by Dynamo’s track record. “We heard the pitch and thought it was really relevant, given the fact that the peace process is continuing in Colombia,” says Franke. “At the same time, we thought it would be something that resonates very well internationally, and it makes for a compelling background to tell a story about somebody who has to find new meaning in the world after leading a life of violence.” Wild District was produced as Netflix’s first Colombian original, with ZDF Enterprises holding rights for the rest of the world. It has been renewed for a second season by Netflix.

At the center of the action is Jhon Jeiver, alias “Yei Yei,” played by Juan Pablo Raba (Narcos, 7 Años, Six). Yei Yei was kidnapped by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) at age 13 and trained as a one-man army. A lethal guerrilla fighter, he escapes the jungle and tries to reinsert himself in society and reconnect with his long-lost family. He links up with Prosecutor Daniela León, played by Cristina Umaña (Narcos, Sala de Urgencias), and must infiltrate a dangerous criminal organization run by another ex-FARC. “It’s probably the most complex role I’ve ever played for many reasons, one of them being what it meant for Colombia, for the history of my country,” says Raba. “It was interesting that Cristian was able to develop a universal story based on something very local, not centered on the guerrilla or its ideologies. It focuses simply on one person with specific qualities, with the post-conflict in Colombia as a backdrop.”

For Conti, it was important to make a series that would resonate internationally but would also accurately portray the reality in Colombia today. “I really wanted to focus on Bogotá and the idea of a Latin American metropolis and how it ticks. I found, through the main character of Yei Yei, a way to look at it from the eyes of somebody who has never seen it before.”

Franke adds, “Even though the backdrop is that of a political conflict in Colombia, the core is a very human story. It’s about finding your place in life. That is certainly something that everyone can relate to.” Plus, he adds, “There aren’t that many action shows around that really deliver on their promise. We find this very compelling. Action works in every market; there is always an audience for it.”

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ZDF Enterprises’ Wild District.

Ani Korpela and Alan Sim reveal the original programming strategy at Finnish SVOD operator Elisa Viihde.

By Mansha Daswani

L

ike SVOD platforms the world over, Elisa Viihde in Finland is using distinctive, original programming to drive its subscriber-acquisition strategy. Owned

by Finnish telecoms company Elisa, the platform, which marks its tenth anniversary this year, has upped its investments in local content over the last few years, with strong results to date. Of note, its thriller Bullets won the Coup de Coeur award at the MIPDrama Buyers Summit last year, up against its own Arctic Circle as well as shows from

Elisa Viihde’s Shadow Lines.

Movistar+, ITV and Sky Deutschland. “We’re an SVOD service and we’re competing against much bigger budgets, bigger companies—and little old us pulled it out of the bag!” says Alan Sim, executive producer and commissioner at the platform.

This year, Shadow Lines, a 1950s-set spy thriller, is the only Finnish project to be selected for the MIPDrama Buyers Summit.

The platform’s original scripted efforts started about five years ago with comedies. “They were quicker to produce and less expensive to make, while we figured out what possible models we could use in terms of getting the budgets higher,” says Ani Korpela, head of content at the platform. Elisa Viihde then tapped into its relationships with the local creative community, as a leading buyer of Finnish movies, to attract production companies and directors eager to enter the new golden age of television. However, “We needed [partnerships] to get the budgets bigger,” Korpela notes.

At first, “when we started talking to people, asking if they wanted to co-produce or distribute [our shows], they were very polite but not that into it,” Korpela says. That has all changed in the last two years, and Elisa Viihde now works with a variety of distributors, including Sky Vision, About Premium Content and Lagardère Studios Distribution. “The message is, the Finns are coming!” Sim says.

The platform plans to keep its original drama output at a manageable size, Korpela says; last year it rolled out five new shows and two series with returning seasons. “We need to concentrate on the quality. There’s marketing as well. If people are getting something new every week, they won’t notice anything anymore.”

The company is, however, “experimenting more,” Sim says.

“Arctic Circle and Bullets are both mixed language. All the Sins is all Finnish. As a Finnish service, we want to make things that are Finnish and attract local audiences. We don’t want to make a Europudding. The stories have to feel organic. There has to be a real reason for doing it. Something like All the Sins, which is set in a religious community, we read the scripts and thought it felt particularly Finnish, but it could equally feel like a [show set in] Deep South Mississippi. So, it feels very local, but a distributor can sell this, and could probably also sell the format.”

The team at Elisa Viihde is also balancing how it uses big data and algorithms to determine the content lineup.

“Data tells you what [subscribers] have been watching, but it doesn’t tell you what they might be watching in two years,” Korpela says. “We try to mix the data, the insights of our executive producers, focus groups. At the end of the day, it’s a creative decision.”

“You have to have a gut instinct,” Sim adds. “It’s about using the data cleverly but also having a feeling about shows, about people and talking to producers, finding out what they’re making and what people are up to. You have to have your feet on the ground with what’s going on, and you can only do that by building relationships.”

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ON THE RECORD

ome to some of the best-known media brands— including CNN, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network— WarnerMedia owns and operates bouquets of channels, websites and apps that reach millions of viewers around the world.

Gerhard Zeiler has witnessed the development of the international television business from multiple perspectives and learned that a brand is relevant only when its programming is must-see, entertaining and engaging. After working as a spokesman for ministers and chancellors in his native Austria, he was secretary general at the Austrian public broadcaster ORF. Then he became CEO of the German commercial station Tele 5 and CEO of RTL 2 in Germany. Zeiler returned to ORF as CEO before leaving to run RTL Television, where he helped turn the broadcaster into the market leader. In 2003 he was elevated to head up the RTL Group, where he championed the concept of a family of channels—a group of channels, each targeting a different segment of viewers—in response to the audience fragmentation.

In 2012, Zeiler was named president of Turner International, where he has overseen a group of media businesses during a time of great transition. As audiences

are fragmenting even more rapidly, due to so much choice from linear, on-demand and streaming menus, brands need to be relevant and offer addictive programming, and they must also be available on whatever screen, device or destination viewers want them. WarnerMedia must not only curate content for linear channels, which have the unique ability to create must-see events, but also go directly to the consumer and serve content to passionate communities of fans.

Zeiler spoke to World Screen earlier this year and outlined Turner International’s many accomplishments and assets.

Cartoon Network has been diligently placing its content, characters and games everywhere young viewers are, on all screens, in an array of consumer products, theme parks and even branded hotels and cruise ships. The Turner channels have been producing hit local dramas in Germany, Spain and Latin America, while also serving passionate sports fans in myriad ways.

In March, WarnerMedia’s CEO, John Stankey, announced a major reorganization of the company in which Zeiler was promoted to chief revenue officer, in addition to overseeing Turner’s international businesses.

We reached out to Zeiler and asked him about his new role and responsibilities.

GERHARD ZEILER WARNERMEDIA

By Anna Carugati

WS: You were recently appointed WarnerMedia’s chief revenue officer. Tell us about this new role.

ZEILER: John Stankey wanted a single, unified WarnerMedia affiliates and advertising sales group and asked me to lead it. This role comes in addition to the strategic oversight for Turner’s international businesses and will add responsibility over all WarnerMedia network affiliate sales and advertising sales businesses for me. The whole new organization model of WarnerMedia means that we finally act as one company, and that’s absolutely the right thing to do: cooperate more. While Time Warner/WarnerMedia always was a giant, it did not always act as one. Playing together as one team will help us attract even more and better creative people, help us in our engagement with our fans, and it will help us with our sales business. One more thing I like about this setup: a strong commitment to advertising. I am really looking forward to this new challenge.

WS: How do you define television today? Is it still meant to attract mass audiences or does it target passionate communities of fans?

ZEILER: It’s the golden age of television. There has never been more video consumed than there is today. There is so much choice; it’s a viewer’s paradise. For us, it means we need to be where the consumer wants us to be. Of course, depending on the brand, we still want to reach a mass audience, but the people we are after are the fans. I’ll give you an example with Cartoon Network. We are in [more than 400] million homes currently. But it’s not enough to only have linear channels. We need to 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 207

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The acclaimed drama 4 Blocks, commissioned in Germany by TNT Serie and now in its third season, was picked up by Amazon for a global rollout. do much more. We run apps, [we have] Cartoon Network Watch and Play, we develop games, we feed YouTube channels and we organize a lot of events. We have a water park in Thailand. A Cartoon Network cruise ship is being built, as well as a Cartoon Network hotel. That’s how we serve our fans. We need to be in their homes, and we need to be available when fans want to connect with us.

WS: How are you evolving brands as viewing habits change?

ZEILER: It has to be through a 360-degree commitment. Let’s lead with Cartoon Network again—I want to share two examples with you. First, one of the hit shows we have is The Amazing World of Gumball. As an extension, our people developed Gumball VIP, which combines the linear TV viewing of the show with second-screen activity.

Kids answer quiz questions and take part in a worldwide competition—it’s integrated and interactive. Another example is Toony, our own Cartoon Network YouTuber—a puppet that speaks the YouTube language.

WS: How is Turner offering its content directly to the consumer?

ZEILER: We started with a product called Toonix on the kids’ side together with HBO in the Nordic countries. We are pleased with the development of our subscriber numbers.

While this is part of an HBO product, we are also making offers outside the hard bundle and are working with other distributors for our Toonix app. A Boing app in Italy triggered more than 1 million downloads after only four weeks. In December we also launched it in Spain, and we quickly registered almost half a million downloads. We are still in the experimental phase, as we discover what works and what doesn’t, but we have to [be in the direct-to-consumer market]. One thing is clear: all subscription services want kids’ content because kids’ content helps reduce churn.

WS: Turner has had success with sports as well.

ZEILER: Sports and Turner belong together.

Look at the NBA, NCAA and Major League Baseball in the U.S.—this is part of Turner’s DNA. I’m really proud and very happy that in Latin America we are now revolutionizing the fútbol fan experience. Together with Fox, we bought [the rights to] Argentina’s first division soccer league for the next ten years for a premium service that is hugely successful— it has more than 2 million subscribers after the first year. That’s much more than anyone would have imagined. In Chile, we control Canal de Fútbol and exclusive rights to broadcast all Chilean professional soccer matches for a period of 15 years. In Brazil, we have contracts with seven Série A clubs. As 208 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

TNT and TBS do in the U.S., we use TNT and Space in Brazil to offer sports in two superstations. We show the Champions League and a few Série A games. That will be an important new pillar for our business.

WS: How is the Latin American business?

ZEILER: Latin America is our powerhouse. We are incredibly successful with our content.

Turner has a 25-percent audience share in basic pay TV pan-regionally and is the industry leader in each country except for Brazil, where Globosat is number one. In Mexico, we [alternate with] Televisa—every single week, one of us is number one, one is number two. In all the other countries, we are number one. For five years in a row, Cartoon Network has been number one in the kids’ segment. Our entertainment channels are also really successful, with TNT, Space, TNT Series and Warner Channel all within the top 15. Latin America is huge for WarnerMedia.

WS: So Latin America is still a strong market, even with the economic and political challenges so many countries are facing?

ZEILER: We hope we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Brazil was difficult in recent years. Previously, it had experienced an incredible explosion of pay TV, as the middle class finally had enough money to

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afford pay TV. But in the last three years subscriptions went down slightly, by 1 million per year, due to the economic upheaval and political uncertainty. We now hope for a turnaround in Brazil. Mexico is still growing.

Chile is still growing. Colombia and Peru are significantly growing. Argentina already has quite a high pay-TV penetration. It is doing well despite the difficult economic situation.

WS: Do you see growth in Europe and Asia?

ZEILER: Yes, I do see growth—not in every country, but especially in the two European countries with a rather low pay-TV penetration so far: Spain and Germany. In Spain, Telefónica and Vodafone did a good job in the last two years. We saw a significant increase in penetration. And in Germany, we are also growing. In Asia, parts of Southeast Asia are problem children. Five years ago, I believed that the pay-TV markets in Indonesia and the Philippines were ready to grow significantly, but so far, expectations haven’t been met. India, on the other hand, is still doing great. India will grow for the foreseeable future.

WS: How does Turner stand to benefit from the AT&T merger? I’ve read that AT&T’s advertising business, Xandr, is working with Turner.

ZEILER: I have always been a proponent of the AT&T/Time Warner deal because I’ve always favored content and brands marrying data and direct-to-consumer capabilities. If executed well, this is a marriage made in heaven.

The two [most important] strategic priorities for AT&T and WarnerMedia are, first, directto-consumer and, second, increasing the value of advertising.

Xandr is AT&T’s division that deals with advertising. What is the current situation when it comes to digital advertising? Only two companies get the bulk of the money: Google and Facebook. The third with the potential to grow is Amazon. A lot of advertisers want more choice; therefore, the media networks need to deliver the same standard of addressability as the digital giants do. We need to combine data with the great content we have.

Last but not least, AT&T has more than 300 million direct-to-customer relationships.

From a strategic standpoint, that is all you need to develop a much more valuable offer for advertisers. Of course, now this has to be executed well, and it will probably take a little bit of time.

The top priority, as John Stankey, my boss, announced, is the direct-to-consumer business. We will start in the fourth quarter of this year in the United States. Please understand that I can’t say more today, but one thing is for sure: this is a priority not only for WarnerMedia but also for AT&T. WS: This reminds me of the beginning of commercial television in Europe in the 1980s—so much was driven by pent-up advertising demand.

ZEILER: When I started at ORF in Austria in 1986, we had an ad department that was not selling—it was allocating advertising. And the maximum an advertiser could get was seven spots a month! Sometimes, because the head of advertising had some friends to please, he gave one or two companies eight spots per month, creating an uproar. That is the reason why private television boomed

Christiane Amanpour anchors Amanpour, CNN International’s flagship global-affairs interview program, which also airs in the U.S. on PBS. 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 209

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The Amazing World of Gumball was the first series to come out of Cartoon Network Studios Europe and has been a hit for the channel across the globe. so much when it started: there was a need for it.

WS: Today, we hear so much about algorithms— they suggest what we should watch next, and streaming services use them to decide what to acquire or produce. In this datadriven landscape, what role does gut instinct still play?

ZEILER: There is so much change in our industry that we must approach our work with an open mind every day. I hope I have one. But still, like many people in the creative industry, I am also a bit reluctant to think that algorithms and data will dominate the creative process. I still believe creative instinct is, and hopefully will be in the future, more important than data alone. But data will help, no doubt about it.

WS: Tell us about some of the programming successes across Turner’s services.

ZEILER: Let me start with 4 Blocks, a crime story about Lebanese drug dealers in Berlin— that was a huge hit, and we sold it successfully to Amazon Prime Video. Further, we produced Arthur’s Law, a black-humor comedy. Our American sister company TBS bought the broadcast and remake format rights, a first. Then, we co-produced the crime series Hackerville together with HBO Europe. In Spain, we have a new comedy called Vote for Juan, about a Spanish agriculture minister who goes for the party leadership. You can best describe it as a Spanish “male Veep.” It instantly became the most-

watched TNT original production in the history of TNT Spain.

In Latin America, we produced six series last year, and this year we will probably double the amount. We focus on local productions. Some we produce on our own and some we co-produce with other broadcasters in Argentina. A biopic in Brazil, Os Irmãos Freitas, tells about the most famous boxer there and his brother. A biopic in Mexico, Bronco, is in production and tells the story of a famous ranchero band. We shifted programming budgets from acquisitions to original production. That’s the future, and that’s where we have to go.

On the kids’ side, we do a lot of programs in Asia, such as Lamput and Beat Monsters.

In Europe, we produce the global animation hit The Amazing World of Gumball. The same team created the Apple & Onion series and games, as well as the sci-fi sitcom Elliott from Earth. This is all new content that comes from international markets to attract fans worldwide.

WS: And CNN remains one of Turner’s top brands?

ZEILER: CNN is the gold standard when it comes to independent news. The brand positioning of CNN, whether CNN in the U.S. or CNN International around the world, is so easily described. First, the stories are told with an unbiased approach.

“Facts First,” as they say. Second, whenever there is breaking news, CNN is there reporting about it. The fact that our colleagues 210 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

are doing something right is proven by the fact that in the last year we won 33 awards, including Emmys, AIBs and Peabody Awards—I can’t even list them all. That is the success of CNN and CNN International. We are also the most digital news company worldwide.

When it comes to digital, nobody has a reach like CNN has. Jeff Zucker [chairman of news and sports at WarnerMedia] and his team have done an incredible job in recent years.

WS: Much of what you have mentioned goes beyond traditional linear channels.

How have you been able to diversify Turner’s revenues?

ZEILER: We knew that linear was not enough.

We had to find innovative ideas to get to our clients and viewers, but also come up with ways to monetize our content and brands.

So, one diversification we developed is what we call location-based entertainment. That was an initiative we set up four years ago.

We are not in the business of investing in theme parks ourselves; instead we find partners who specialize [in theme parks]. That’s our way to present our Cartoon Network brands in, as I said earlier, a water park, hotel or cruise ship. I mentioned our YouTuber puppet called Toony and Gumball VIP. When it comes to consumer products, Turner’s international goal is to triple revenues within the next five years. And there is one thing we must never forget: all these innovative ideas are developed by our people. We have a people-first policy. They define the future of our company.

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TVKIDS

WWW.TVKIDS.WS

APRIL 2019

MIPTV & INTERNATIONAL EMMY KIDS AWARDS EDITION

OTT Demands / Preschool Shows / Media-Participations’ Claude de Saint Vincent / Rai’s Luca Milano Mondo TV’s Matteo Corradi / Serious Lunch’s Genevieve Dexter / Pop’s Sarah Muller / Gloob’s Tatiana Costa

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12 TV KIDS

CONTENTS

Outside the Box

FEATURES

32 DIGITAL NATIVES Leading distributors discuss how they are working with OTT platforms.

According to a recent assessment by Forbes, an 8-year-old boy is YouTube’s highest-paid star, raking in an estimated $22 million in the 12 months to June 2018.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Kids ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvkids.ws

Naturally, after reading a figure that staggering, I had to head over to the site to see just what this pint-sized power player is doing to earn this fortune. One of the platform’s top “influencers,” with some 18 million followers, the child star behind the YouTube channel Ryan ToysReview simply opens and plays with toys on camera—albeit doing so with a rather adorable grin and giggles.

While it may be head-scratching to some that kids would want to watch another kid playing with toys, the “unboxing” phenomenon is one that has hit YouTube and other social platforms in a big way. Similarly, there are scads of “Let’s Play” videos that allow people to watch other people playing video games, and the viewing numbers for them are beyond impressive.

These unboxing and Let’s Play videos are, for the most part, not very high quality; they’re often quite low budget and feature rudimentary editing. Nevertheless, they are notching up millions of views and providing stiff competition for kids’ time and attention against slick 3D animations and live-action shows with bigger price tags.

Between apps, video games, streaming platforms, linear channels and the like, children have a lot of options when it comes to how they can spend the limited screen time their parents allow. What does it take for a show or brand to stand out in this world of overabundant choice? This is a question the creative community is currently grappling with and one that those in the kids’ content business are keenly aware of.

In this issue of TV Kids, we hear from distributors of children’s programming about how digital platforms have shaken up the industry. There’s plenty of preschool content on on-demand services, as we hear in a special feature spotlighting this demographic. Executives from Media-Participations, Rai Ragazzi, Mondo TV, Serious Lunch, Pop and Gloob share insights into how their companies are dealing with the demands of the kids’ marketplace. Even with all the upheaval in the children’s landscape, the general sentiment coming from those working in the sector remains largely the same: good stories with relatable characters will always find an audience, regardless of the platform youngsters are choosing to watch them on.

—Kristin Brzoznowski

GET DAILY NEWS ON KIDS’ PROGRAMMING

32 42 SMALL WONDERS Spotlighting what’s new in the preschool space.

INTERVIEWS

50 Media-Participations’ Claude de Saint Vincent

54 Rai Ragazzi’s Luca Milano

58 Mondo TV’s Matteo Corradi

60 Serious Lunch’s Genevieve Dexter

63 Pop’s Sarah Muller

66 Gloob’s Tatiana Costa

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14 TV KIDS

4K Media Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS / Contra / Frogger Even more than before, 4K Media is focused on building out its franchises, creating content and managing its brands, including the Yu-Gi-Oh! IP. In addition to series such as the more recent installment Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS—which premiered last year on K2 in Italy and TELETOON in Canada— 4K Media is looking to distribute some 800 episodes from the anime franchise’s vast library. In Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and high-speed dueling merge into a fighting extravaganza. Additional titles in the franchise include Yu-Gi-Oh! The Darkside of Dimensions, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-GiOh! Duel Monsters. Further, the company has an eye on growing its game-based Contra, Frogger and Bomberman IPs using a 360-degree approach to engage fans of the brands.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum

9 Story Media Group Moon and Me / The Hollow / Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum From Teletubbies creator Andrew Davenport comes Moon and Me, a new series about a group of toys that magically come to life that’s already proving successful on CBeebies.

“There is a handcrafted feel to Moon and Me that is a timely counterpoint to the prominence of technology in kids’ lives today,” says Alix Wiseman, 9 Story Distribution International’s senior VP of business development and acquisitions. The company is also showcasing at MIPTV Slap Happy Cartoons’ serialized mystery series for the over-8 set, The Hollow; and Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, based on Brad Meltzer’s Ordinary People Change the World book series, which tells the stories of important historical figures in their childhoods before they made their notable cultural contributions.

“We have some fantastic new content to share, including shows in development and series in production.”

—Alix Wiseman

Allspark (formerly Hasbro Studios) Transformers Rescue Bots Academy / Power Rangers Beast Morphers / Zoids Rebranding as Allspark from Hasbro Studios, the company is returning to MIPTV with its new animated Transformers series Transformers Rescue Bots Academy. The latest installment of the Power Rangers franchise, Power Rangers Beast Morphers will also be a highlight at the market for Allspark. Zoids, in which rebels team up with the titular mechanized beasts to battle a common enemy of tech-obsessed villains, is returning to the U.S. market with a brand-new series. Back with fresh seasons are My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (season nine) and Transformers Cyberverse (season two). “Whether it’s the emphasis on leadership and teamwork in Transformers or friendship and acceptance in My Little Pony, buyers know that these characters and stories resonate with viewers,” says Stephen Davis, Hasbro’s executive VP and chief content officer.

Transformers Cyberverse

“We are excited to refine our brand in the industry under the moniker ‘Allspark,’ which is a fun homage to the life force in Transformers.”

—Stephen Davis

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16 TV KIDS

Ricky the Dinosaur

APC Kids Roger / Fox and Hare / Ricky the Dinosaur Stop-motion 3D series Roger from Je Suis Bien Content has finished production in time to be among APC Kids’ highlights at MIPTV. Following the friendship between a little girl and a clumsy alien on a tropical island, it’s a series Lionel Marty, APC Kids’ managing director, believes has great international appeal. “Fox and Hare has already shown it resonates with public broadcasters, as demonstrated by the dozens of presales we have secured around Europe thanks to its really interesting look, which mixes clay and 3D animation,” says Marty. The show is an adaptation of the book series of the same name, and it has already found homes in Belgium, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. There’s also 2D preschool series Ricky the Dinosaur, in which two little city-dwelling dinosaurs and their family manage to make the everyday extraordinary.

“We remain faithful to our development curation strategy, which is focused on bringing high-profile content to global audiences.”

—Lionel Marty

Australian Children’s Television Foundation Hardball / Little J & Big Cuz / Balloon Barnyard Hardball is the Australian Children’s Television Foundation’s (ACTF) newest series to be launched at MIPTV. The fishout-of-water comedy follows a preteen boy as he moves from New Zealand to Western Sydney and finds himself competing in a high-intensity schoolyard handball competition. Animated series Little J & Big Cuz shadows two cousins living with their grandma in the outback. Animated preschool property Balloon Barnyard introduces two lovable balloon donkeys with superhero ambitions and a barnyard full of balloon animal friends. “The breadth of the content, the style and the positive values of diversity, multiculturalism and inclusion give each series broad appeal,” says Roberta Di Vito, ACTF’s international sales manager.

“Quality programming is always in demand worldwide, and for this reason, our series resonate well with audiences.”

Balloon Barnyard

—Roberta Di Vito

Bejuba! Entertainment Ruff-Ruff, Tweet & Dave / Olly the Little White Van / Where in the World?

Bringing comedy and adventure to the preschool set, RuffRuff, Tweet & Dave features the topic of choices as a central element in each episode. The main characters in the Bejuba!

Entertainment series are Ruff-Ruff, a puppy who’s always running around sniffing out fun things to do; Tweet, a fluffy yellow bird who loves to sing; and Dave, a quirky, inventive blue panda. In addition to being lead characters, Ruff-Ruff, Tweet and Dave act as the three possible answers to a series of multiple-choice games and questions within the adventures that help the trio decide what to do or how to understand the world around them. Bejuba! Entertainment also has for the preschool demo Olly the Little White Van. The live-action series Where in the World? skews a little older, targeting kids 5-plus.

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Olly the Little White Van

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18 TV KIDS

Olobob Top

CAKE Olobob Top / Pablo / Space Chickens in Space Commissioned by CBeebies in the U.K., ABC in Australia and S4C in Wales, preschool series Olobob Top follows the adventurous magical tree-living trio of Tib, Lalloo and Bobble.

“Twenty-six new adventures combine a striking visual style with humor and continue themes of creativity, friendship and teamwork, which will appeal to children and parents everywhere,” says Ed Galton, CAKE’s chief commercial officer and managing director. Pablo, the first children’s series in which the central character has autism, shows a boy’s imaginative drawings coming to life and helping him confidently take on the world. CAKE’s new co-production Space Chickens in Space combines off-the-wall comedy and a distinctive design as it tells a story about a chicken sibling trio that winds up enrolled in an elite intergalactic academy.

“CAKE continues to work with partners distributing and developing content that will work successfully on multiple levels and platforms.”

—Ed Galton Taffy

Cyber Group Studios Gigantosaurus / Sadie Sparks / Taffy Cyber Group Studios has fresh episodes of three key in-house productions or co-productions: Gigantosaurus, Sadie Sparks and Taffy. These three shows are “having amazing success with our clients,” says Raphaelle Mathieu, the company’s senior VP of sales, acquisitions and new media. Cyber Group is also offering titles from independent producers “that we are proud to distribute and bring to children worldwide,” says Mathieu, highlighting Ernest & Rebecca and Purple Turtle. “I believe in the potential of Ernest & Rebecca and Purple Turtle to become strong assets for channels and platforms and to find their way in the hearts of children.” She adds, “We want to bring buyers worldwide programs that will address the wide variety of needs coming from all the different markets, but always from the best creators and greatest storytellers.”

“Cyber Group Studios is proud to bring to MIPTV comedy, adventure and edutainment series from the best talents worldwide.”

—Raphaelle Mathieu

DHX Media Up in the Air / Bajillionaires / Rev & Roll The latest live-action offering to join DHX Media’s catalog is Up in the Air, an aspirational and heartfelt series created

by Frank van Keeken (The Next Step, Wingin’ It) about three generations of gymnasts reconnecting and strengthening family ties over the backdrop of the Olympics. Also in the live-action genre for DHX is Bajillionaires, which follows “a group of neighborhood pals as they try to invent an amazing product, change the world and maybe even make a bajillion dollars in the process!” says Josh Scherba, president of DHX Media. Aimed at both boys and girls, the 3D animated preschool series Rev & Roll celebrates fun, adventure and friendship, as pals Rev and Rumble help out around town and explore the wilderness, ever ready to rev and roll.

Rev & Roll

“We’re looking to continue to partner with world-class broadcasters, streaming platforms and creators.”

—Josh Scherba

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School of Roars 20 TV KIDS

GoldBee Chop Chop Ninja / The Athena / School of Roars Ella Balinska, who will appear in the Charlie’s Angels reboot alongside Kristen Stewart, stars in the GoldBee title The Athena as a former model who ditches her career to pursue a new one as a creator, enrolling in a prestigious art school. Based on a mobile game, Chop Chop Ninja is an adventure series for the 6- to 9-year-old set that GoldBee is presenting to the market. It features Iro and his friends at the Ninja Academy who apply their ninja training to everything they do. School of Roars tackles the rite of passage of leaving home to go to school. “It’s one of the biggest things you’ll do in your life, wherever you live,” says Christophe Goldberger, the managing director at GoldBee. The show is generating strong ratings in Italy, following on success in the U.S. and U.K.

“Full of fun and laughter, School of Roars addresses the universal theme of leaving home to go to school for the first time.”

—Christophe Goldberger

Guru Studio True and the Rainbow Kingdom / Pikwik / Big Blue Recently greenlit for a fourth season by Netflix is Guru Studio’s flagship preschool series True and the Rainbow Kingdom, which centers on a hero armed with kindness and care for the world around her. The show “is doing extremely well on CBC Kids in Canada and its fan base on Netflix is growing strong,” says Jonathan Abraham, senior director of sales and new business development at Guru Studio. “We’re excited to have True available for linear free and pay TV worldwide this year.” Pikwik, acquired by Disney Junior and Hulu in the U.S., follows a hedgehog named Suki who delivers surprise-filled parcels to Pikwik’s residents. Underwater adventuring siblings Lettie and Lemo lead a quirky submarine crew in protecting their ocean-covered planet’s denizens in Big Blue, a new 2D animated series with Canada’s CBC.

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

“We have an incredibly strong lineup of originals that we can’t wait to introduce to buyers.”

—Jonathan Abraham

Jetpack Distribution Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty / Oswaldo / The Cul de Sac Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty will be showcased at MIPTV by Jetpack Distribution on the heels of its recent global launch on Nickelodeon. “It combines four of the most popular themes for 6- to 11-year-olds and focuses on empowerment and being yourself,” says Dominic Gardiner, Jetpack Distribution CEO. “This is very pertinent right now!” About to air on Cartoon Network in LatAm, Italy, the Middle East and Africa and on Disney in Southeast Asia is Oswaldo, an animated comedy with a lovable penguin as its protagonist. Starring Riverdale’s KJ Apa, The Cul de Sac is a live-action sci-fi drama that targets older children with dystopian themes and genuine frights. Gardiner adds, “We are now selling movies and have acquired four family films from Perplexia Pictures, all set in exotic locations.”

Oswaldo

“We now have a burgeoning catalog of 900 half-hours of content.”

—Dominic Gardiner 230 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures 22 TV KIDS

Mattel Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures / Thomas & Friends As the Barbie brand celebrates its 60th birthday, Mattel is highlighting the second season of its award-winning series Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures. “With more fun, positive messaging and imaginative stories than ever before, what starts out as a summer job at an epic new waterpark turns into an international adventure,” says Frederic Soulie, senior VP of content distribution and business development at Mattel. Thomas & Friends, a title in the company’s preschool content library, takes the beloved tank engine from the streets of Rome to Brazil, uncovering mysterious legends and making new friends along the way. “We have also just announced a development slate of 22 animated and live-action TV programs based on our storied brands and franchises,” says Soulie.

“This is a very exciting time to be a part of Mattel.”

—Frederic Soulie

Mediatoon Distribution

The Fox-Badger Family

Martin Morning / The Minimighty Kids / The Fox-Badger Family Martin Morning is back with a brand-new graphic design in CGI that showcases the titular character’s daily transformations into a myriad of figures—like a caveman, an astronaut and even a pharaoh—but these changes don’t stop Martin from having to go to school. The previous 2D series sold into over 150 territories and was translated into 18 languages. The Minimighty Kids, now in its third season, follows a group of children who turn their flaws into superpowers and “shows us that nobody is perfect, a heartwarming and inspiring lesson that makes it a standout series,” says Jérôme Alby, managing director at Mediatoon Distribution. Lastly, The Fox-Badger Family, adapted from the children’s book series Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox, tells the story of a blended family that teaches lessons about tolerance, kindness and finding your own path.

“We take pride in building long-term relationships with our partners and continuously energizing the content we manage.”

—Jérôme Alby

MISTCO Aslan / Momo / Atishoo The animated series Aslan features a young boy who causes some trouble while coming up with new inventions but always takes away valuable lessons. The central character in Momo is a bunny gifted with a special ability for finding lost things who lives in a forest with his friends. Atishoo has an eponymous lead character, described as curious and active, who overcomes problems and goes on adventures with his friends. “It is a very entertaining show, with songs in each episode,” says Aysegul Tuzun, VP of sales and marketing at MISTCO, which represents series from Turkish broadcaster TRT. Tuzun highlights that TRT’s kids’ content is reviewed by editors and deemed appropriate for children of all age groups. “TRT is the only company that invests in the Turkish animation industry so aggressively,” she adds.

“All three of these shows have been sold to many territories worldwide for linear TV and VOD platforms, and we’ve received very positive feedback for each of them.”

—Aysegul Tuzun Aslan 232 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Mondo TV Group MeteoHeroes / Robot Trains / YooHoo to the Rescue

MeteoHeroes is an adventure-comedy that addresses climate change, ecology and respect for nature through the escapades of six children who transform into superheroes that control the weather. “This combination of action, comedy, strong personalities, friendship, diversity and a focus on issues like climate change is, we feel, a winning one that will have multiterritory appeal,” says Matteo Corradi, Mondo TV’s CEO. Meanwhile, Robot Trains is back for a second season, introducing new characters and storylines for the transforming locomotives of Train World. Also on Mondo’s slate is YooHoo to the Rescue, a 3D CGI Netflix original series based on the Aurora World plush toy line.

Similar to MeteoHeroes, YooHoo to the Rescue has strong environmental themes.

“We’re continuing to commit to diverse, innovative programming.”

—Matteo Corradi

Rainbow

2 Happy Farmers / Winx Club 8 / 44 Cats

The adventures of Summer and Tubb, sibling bears who run a farm, are at the center of Rainbow’s preschool edutainment property 2 Happy Farmers, which encourages kids to connect with nature and educates them about protecting the environment. “Living outdoors, cultivating and farming are activities that kids really need to relate to, especially in our technologic era,” says Andrea Graciotti, Rainbow’s head of sales for TV series, movies and co-productions. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Winx Club, a franchise set in a magical universe inhabited by fairies and other mythical creatures, and will see the animated show be adapted by Netflix into a live-action series for young adults. In 44 Cats, which is in production on its second season, the music of feline foursome The Buffycats is used to explore universal themes like diversity and friendship.

“Rainbow has been pushing the boundaries for years now, becoming a global content company that offers a quality portfolio of entertainment products.”

—Andrea Graciotti

44 Cats

Serious Lunch

Bo & To’s Family / Gigglebug / Operation Ouch!

Serious Lunch has been working with Comma Studio in Seoul to bring the stop-frame animation series Bo & To’s Family to the international market this year. The story is set in and around Bo & To’s Café, where two cats run circles around their owner and barista, Mr. A. “Bo & To’s Family is a non-dialogue comedy with a lot of charm that can reach children and adults alike,” says Leila Ouledcheikh, director of global sales at Serious Lunch. Meanwhile, Gigglebug, with its tagline “Laughing Together,” focuses on the titular character with an irresistible laugh that often gets him out of sticky situations. CBBC has commissioned eighth and ninth seasons of Operation Ouch!, an edutainment series that sees twin doctors teach kids about the human body, medicine and biology.

“Operation Ouch! has traveled in an extraordinary way, and its ratings show a very high level of co-viewing.”

Operation Ouch!

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—Leila Ouledcheikh

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Showlab Miracle Tunes / YoYo / Whiskey & His Friends The Japanese IP Miracle Tunes is a live-action and 3D animation hybrid, and Showlab has customized the European version of it. “It has a special live-action focus on music and comedy for little girls mainly between ages 4 and 9, and for the time being, we are focusing on growing the brand in Italy and Spain,” says Guido Bertè, general manager of consumer products and kids’ content at Showlab parent company Prodea Group. Showlab is also highlighting YoYo, a comedy for kids 4 to 7 centered on a set of twins, and Whiskey & His Friends, a series for preschoolers 2 to 5 featuring a little spider and his friends. “Our goal is to create a whole range of compelling and engaging children’s projects that will become part of our heritage,” says Alfio Bastiancich, Showlab’s general manager of animation and youth programs.

“The lineup of shows we will showcase at MIPTV features customized stories based on books or successful IP.” —Guido Bertè Heidi

Studio 100 Media & m4e Heidi / Tip the Mouse / Wissper Studio 100 Media and m4e’s Heidi, a CGI animated series based on the famous 19th-century children’s book by Johanna Spyri, is back for a second season. “The brand has been and will always be a real worldwide evergreen, detached from any cultural expectations, representing universally valid and timeless values,” says Dorian Bühr, head of global distribution at Studio 100 Media and m4e. Also on the company’s slate is the preschool series Tip the Mouse, which follows the titular character as he grows up, embarking on all kinds of adventures in the meadow where he lives. Meanwhile, in the animated series Wissper, a 7-year-old girl talks to animals and helps solve their problems. “The show is designed to attract kids and families as well, offering a unique story about a cute animal whisperer and her animal friends,” says Bühr.

“Our mission is to create brands that are content-driven and entertain kids and families on every platform and wherever they are.”

—Dorian Bühr

Superights Pat the Dog / Helen’s Little School / Clay Time Pat the Dog, Superights’ animated series about the eponymous pup who is always saving the day, returns for a second season. “Broadcasters will discover new characters, backgrounds, funny adventures and also special episodes about Christmas and Halloween themes targeting 4- to 10-year-old kids,” says the company’s deputy managing director for sales and acquisitions, Nathalie Pinguet. In the preschool show Helen’s Little School, the titular 5-year-old achieves her dream of becoming a teacher, even if it is in an imaginary school and her students are her toys come to life. Meanwhile, Clay Time travels the globe, aiming to stimulate preschoolers’ imaginations with short-form episodes set in a world made of clay. The series is accompanied by tutorials to allow kids to sculpt their own clay worlds.

Clay Time

“With around 20 series in its catalog, Superights covers all genres and targets.”

—Nathalie Pinguet 236 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Lucy Lost

Xilam Animation Moka’s Fabulous Adventures! / Coach Me If You Can / Lucy Lost The adventures of an unlikely pair—a reckless crocodile and his rhinoceros friend—take center stage in Xilam Animation’s new animated comedy series Moka’s Fabulous Adventures!

“Not only will audiences be able to enjoy the highly entertaining comedic storylines as Moka and Cherry explore their kingdom together, as the series progresses, they will also see the characters grow and evolve together,” says Morgann Favennec, Xilam’s executive VP of global sales development.

The company is also offering up another animated comedy, Coach Me If You Can, which sees a mad sorcerer turn a famous football player into a ball; with the help of a hapless young player, he’ll start his journey back into human form.

Lastly, Xilam is introducing Lucy Lost, an adaptation of the best-selling novel Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo.

“We continue to actively look for co-production and collaboration opportunities with partners who share our high-quality standards.”

—Morgann Favennec

Zodiak Kids Little Big Awesome / The Kicks / Lilybuds Several forms of mixed media, including puppets and live action—all set against an animated backdrop—create the quirky world of Townopolis, where Gluko, a bouncy jelly blob, and his best friend Lennon explore in Little Big Awesome. The Amazon original The Kicks, based on a book by Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan, sees a young girl rise to the occasion and rally her losing soccer team as she tries to lead them to victory. Also on Zodiak Kids’ slate is Lilybuds, a preschool comedy that follows the adventures of a group of tiny magical gardeners. The show “has been a great success for us to date, and we are dedicated to bringing this lovely and enchanting preschool comedy to more audiences internationally,” says Delphine Dumont, Zodiak Kids’ senior VP of sales, acquisitions and co-productions.

“As ever, we are passionate about our catalog, and with a number of new titles up our sleeve, we are looking forward to reconnecting with our buyers.”

Little Big Awesome

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SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS: WWW.SUBSCRIPTIONS.WS

—Delphine Dumont

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A family using Hopster.

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David Wood hears from leading distributors about how they are working with digital platforms. hildren in the U.K. spend about two hours online in a typical day, 20 minutes more than they spend in front of a TV set, British media regulator Ofcom reported in a study earlier this year.

Perhaps the most significant finding in the detailed study, which measured viewing habits in that busy children’s broadcasting market, was that while time spent online had stayed the same from the previous year, TVviewing time fell from about 2 hours to 1 hour and 52 minutes.

YouTube is the primary online destination, with about 80 percent of respondents having used the platform. In terms of SVOD, nearly 50 percent of kids and 32 percent of preschoolers watch services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and NOW TV. Will Disney+ soon be part of that mix? Perhaps. The platform is set for a U.S. launch later this year. International expansion is likely, but no details have emerged yet.

The tidal wave of on-demand launches has caused enormous upheavals across the traditional kids’ TV landscape, changing viewing patterns and disrupting revenue streams in its wake.

C

RISING TIDE As Dominic Gardiner, the CEO at Jetpack Distribution, points out, it’s hard to overestimate the impact of OTT. “There used to be only three main commercial competitors— Disney, Turner and Nickelodeon. Suddenly, there are two other major players in Netflix and Amazon, which have succeeded in changing the landscape. It doesn’t matter what market you are in—kids’ TV or car manufacturing—if you suddenly get two new competitors on your doorstep, it gets everybody thinking.”

YouTube is just another complication, Gardiner adds.

“Three years ago, ratings suddenly fell off a cliff. What

happened? Well, in a nutshell, half of the world’s kids—in the West, at least—inherited an iPad. This had an immediate knock-on impact in lost revenue. Plus, established players are now confronted with having to spend less on content and more on technical development to compete.”

In part, lost revenues on linear platforms have been offset by the growth in distribution and commissioning opportunities on the new platforms.

Dorian Bühr, the head of global distribution at Studio 100 Media and m4e, explains, “The arrival of the OTT platforms resulted in a shift within the home-entertainment business from physical towards digital sales. These new revenues have not replaced the loss from the DVD market yet, but still make a substantial contribution and show immense potential for further growth in the near future. Not counting AVOD revenues, we now generate approximately one quarter of our distribution revenues from OTT/digital platforms.”

Mediatoon Distribution also reports a dramatic redistribution in revenues, with DVD falling fast and digital on the up.

Jérôme Alby, the company’s managing director, says that revenues from OTT are growing. “In 2008 it made up 2 percent to 3 percent; in 2018 it was up to a third. But DVD revenues are going down fast.”

At CAKE, OTT revenues are increasing year on year.

For the last two years they have made up over 50 percent of the company’s revenues.

While the growth curves of platforms such as Netflix are widely predicted to plateau soon, OTT/digital share will continue to increase as linear broadcasters evolve in the face of the on-demand challenge.

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9 Story teamed up with Scholastic to produce The Magic School Bus Rides Again for Netflix.

officer, Natalie Osborne. “What we expect to see going forward is a second wave of digital proliferation, as traditional free- and pay-TV channels launch their own OTT platforms. Disney, Nickelodeon, France Télévisions, BBC, ITV and many others are all launching their own services. Linear and OTT are now converging, so more and more, we are looking at this as part of the same revenue stream.”

MUST-HAVES

No longer do IP owners have to produce their own app or build an end-to-end SVOD service from scratch. They can choose to launch on preexisting distribution platforms, a useful option for those who feel they may struggle to scale up quickly or for those who do not have the funds to do so on their own.

Lower barriers to launching an on-demand service have also resulted in a new generation of niche services such as adfree preschool pay platforms Hopster, PlayKids and Azoomee.

“It’s admirable what they are doing, and we are looking at content deals with them,” Jetpack’s Gardiner notes. “For these players, the name of the game is all about distribution—getting kids or their parents to download their apps.”

Given the proliferation of new services, are linear platforms still relevant in an increasingly on-demand world?

For the time being, at least, the answer appears to be yes.

“For now, a linear TV launch is still the gold standard for a successful L&M campaign,” says 9 Story’s Osborne. “That

For linear platforms, adding a digital offering isn’t really a choice anymore, insists Ed Galton, the chief commercial officer and managing director at CAKE. “Delivery systems are collapsing, and traditional channels need to find new opportunities to stay relevant, with many now offering an on-demand service of their own. With more platforms launching, there is a greater demand for these rights, and we foresee continued growth.”

Another factor fueling the growth of digital is the fact that launching an OTT service has never been easier. In the early days of streaming platforms, players would need to acquire or produce content, create a bespoke app and then organize the distribution, as well as find a content delivery network, all of which had the potential to be a very expensive process, especially since costs were a lot higher back then.

Fast forward to today.

Content delivery costs have plummeted and there are many different ways to enter the market. Based on the Hasbro action figure, Allspark’s Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters premiered on Netflix.

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CAKE is working with Rovio on Angry Birds content for digital and linear, including Angry Birds Blues.

Jetpack Distribution’s My Petsaurus is available on the BBC iPlayer Kids app in the U.K.

being said, it is possible that OTT will be able to anchor an L&M success in the future.”

Studio 100 Media’s Bühr adds, “We still need our traditional linear partners to finance our shows and to build strong L&M campaigns. These linear partners are, however, not always happy to share rights with OTT platforms. If there is an opportunity to sell in a second window, we prefer to work with the bigger platforms on a non-exclusive basis, allowing us to make deals with smaller local players in the market. For bigger brands, we tend towards exclusive deals with bigger platforms, in as far as our linear broadcast deals allow for it.”

CAKE’s Galton adds that the contribution of a linear TV launch to audience numbers and brand awareness continues to be substantial and is certainly one of the elements that helps to build a strong campaign.

“However, a ‘Netflix Original’ is also a valuable brand endorsement, which can reap huge rewards,” Galton notes. “In addition, retailers are understanding the

growing significance of YouTube and are specifically asking about exposure on the platform. Lucas the Spider, an original series of YouTube shorts, achieved significant numbers, helping to shift 40,000 plushies in just over ten days. So, while a linear TV launch can play a significant part, it is no longer the only route to market.”

BRAND-SAFE Linear platforms still have a few significant advantages, such as the almost-universal approval of preschool parents.

With many parents perceiving the digital world as a kind of unregulated Wild West, the safety issue is one that some popular online platforms—notably YouTube—are struggling with. Stories of kids encountering inappropriate content and advertising are common. This is not the case for SVOD providers such as Netflix, Hopster and Azoomee.

Bühr acknowledges that the security of content and safety of viewers can’t be taken for granted. “We create and manage our YouTube content and channels ourselves. That’s still the best way to control what happens with your content.”

CAKE’s Galton adds that there’s plenty that producers and distributors can do to ensure that content remains in a “brand-safe” environment. “Multichannel services try to put provisions in their agreements enabling them to have the choice to broadcast on all platforms. However, in our agreements, we restrict broadcast to kids’-specific platforms only. We manage our own YouTube channels through our digital arm, Popcorn Digital, and although advertising placement is done by YouTube using algorithms and is therefore difficult to control directly, we take care to make sure that all our content is fully optimized to help ensure it is recognized as family content. We also work closely with YouTube to make sure that our titles are exposed to family-friendly advertisements and are specifically available in the YouTube Kids app.”

Osborne points out that 9 Story employs specific controls to safeguard content. “We block ads by sensitive categories to make sure appropriate and brand-safe ads run in the content. In light of recent YouTube events, we’ve ensured stricter controls by further refining our comment filters and manually reviewing all comments made on our official channels.”

She adds, “For additional digital platforms that run on an AVOD model, we make sure that the streaming services are kidSAFE COPPA and GDPR compliant. The onus is on the platform to ensure advertising that is completely appropriate, and we’ve seen successful results. For closed VOD systems such as SVOD and TVOD,

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Nonlinear platforms might initially take bigger packages of shows to build up their inventories, but when the rights expire and renewal comes, they are much choosier. “And when it comes to taking new shows, it becomes much harder because now those OTT platforms are pickier,” Alby says. “They are more aware of what is working on their platforms.”

MATTERS OF SCALE

Studio 100 and m4e’s Maya the Bee has been licensed to digital and linear services across the globe.

we research and vet the platforms to make sure that their offering is reputable for our content to sit alongside the entire portfolio.”

While three or four years ago OTT players were buying bulkier preschool packages to beef up their schedules, now they are selecting shows with more caution.

As Mediatoon’s Alby points out, “All channels at launch need a lot of content fast. The difference is that with a linear broadcaster, at least half of the shows they take are likely to work well, and you can be pretty sure that many of our successful shows, like Garfield, will be renewed.”

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Volume certainly helps in the new landscape, Alby states. “Our catalog has grown a lot over the last few years. It’s about 3,000 hours of animated TV shows and movies. That’s both from our internal production studios and thirdparty agreements. That allows Mediatoon Distribution to release a great diversity of shows.”

That mix includes shows of varying lengths, with the proliferation of digital platforms encouraging producers to venture out of traditional episode durations. For example, this year, Mediatoon is rolling out Garfield Originals, consisting of 3-minute shorts, commissioned by France Télévisions.

The way the OTTs work is very different from traditional broadcasters, adds Jetpack’s Gardiner. “Because they are primarily tech companies, their approach to content is very scientific. It’s all about metrics, audience measurements, performance and brand-awareness scores. They are very clued-up on what works and what doesn’t and are much

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more mature and selective. Effectively, they have gone all ‘nouvelle cuisine’ on us.”

CAKE’s Galton observes that there is “no hard-and-fast rule to the deals you can do. It will depend on the territory and competition in the marketplace, but as a general rule, the more new platforms grow and mature, the more influence they have.”

Galton adds that CAKE is developing a number of shows with global SVOD platforms that insist on exclusivity to all rights. He adds that while traditional broadcasters are currently reluctant to option second windows on digital-first content, they may ultimately have to change tack and work with the new ecosystem of rights.

SHARING IS CARING “As platforms grow and command more influence, broadcasters may have to put aside their resistance,” he declares. “We are now in the process of launching our YouTube original series Angry Birds On the Run. A fantastic response from fans made us feel that there were additional distribution opportunities to be had, leading us to reformat the series into longer-form specials with the view of introducing to broadcasters and platforms. As we move increasingly into producing original content for YouTube, we think that some content may translate and migrate effectively onto linear channels.”

9 Story’s Osborne notes the uptick in global SVOD deals on the kids’ side. “We’ve had a number of series greenlit by Netflix in the last few years, including The Magic School Bus Rides Again, Charlie’s Colorforms City and the holiday special Angela’s Christmas.”

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Allspark, formerly Hasbro Studios, used a digital-first strategy for Hanazuki: Full of Treasures, which premiered on YouTube. It was the company’s first original IP not based on an existing toy or gaming brand. “It was a really interesting experiment to see if we could launch a new property on a digital platform like YouTube and actually get the audience,” says Finn Arnesen, the senior VP of international distribution and development. “We now have a second window on linear. So we flipped the rollout model around. We’re always trying to find new ways to bring things to market and innovate in terms of where our audiences engage with our properties.”

DIGITAL FIRST Allspark is also deploying new distribution strategies with Equestria Girls, an older-skewing spin-off of My Little Pony. A digital series premiered on YouTube and is being re-versioned for the linear-TV market.

The future of distribution will be dealing with a mixed economy of OTT players and traditional brands with their own SVOD options, insists Mediatoon’s Alby. “At the end of the day, the decision about how to launch or distribute a new show will always be about numbers. The winner will be the platform that comes up with the best deal and the best promotion offered around your brand.”

Osborne concludes, “A key consideration going forward will be making sure content is available wherever kids are watching, and that might be on YouTube, Netflix and a traditional linear channel. Plus, it’s important to remember that, irrespective of platform, licensing success is only possible if you have great content.”

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Superights’ Bo Bear.

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David Wood explores the latest innovations in the alwaysbooming preschool space. ome things about the kids’ preschool market don’t seem to change. Notably, content is abundant, a trend that shows no signs of abating as producers cater to a proliferation of distribution channels.

“Demand is coming from everywhere,” states Nathalie Pinguet, the deputy managing director of sales and acquisitions at Superights. “The preschool programming distribution business is in very good health. Linear channels are still providing very good opportunities, and the nonlinear market is growing with new platforms day after day.”

Lionel Marty, the managing director of APC Kids, adds that other factors underpin the preschool boom.

“Preschool is the most universal genre and the least costly to produce, so there will always be a lot of it, as illustrated by the content currently flooding streaming platforms. It’s also often driven directly or through partnerships with toy manufacturers.”

As Marty notes, there is plenty of preschool on ondemand platforms, with the genre seen as a must-have for retaining subscribers. He observes that a closer examination of the preschool lineups of OTT platforms and linear broadcasters reveals some differences in their preschool ambitions.

“The new streamers often focus on the younger end, as this age target felt neglected by traditional broadcasters, either because of regulations in certain countries (France, for instance) or simply because most rating measurement systems began at 4-year-olds, making anything younger commercially irrelevant. Traditional broadcasters still demand more of the upper ‘bridge’ end, as they aim for content capable of appealing to a wider age range of viewers.”

Pierre Sissmann, the chairman and CEO of Cyber Group Studios, argues that the sheer amount of preschool content is simply a sign of a healthy market. Of course, the challenge for preschool producers in a saturated market is making a show stand out from the crowd.

S

“If you had very little content in the preschool market, that would be a bigger problem,” Sissmann notes. “The fact that the market is expanding is a sign that it is healthy. The good shows will do well and the less good will not be recommissioned, so to succeed, you need to create the best shows using the best talent.”

Maria Bonaria Fois, the CEO of Mondo TV Iberoamerica, concurs that the preschool market is in a robust state of health. “Content is originating from many more channels— linear broadcast, OTT and informal channels like YouTube and social media. I don’t think the amount of preschool content vying for viewers’ attention will decrease anytime soon. But in a crowded market, it is important to consider that quality is, more than ever, an important differentiator.”

Olivier Dumont, the president of Entertainment One (eOne) Family & Brands, points to one recent development in preschool: “The market is very polarized at the moment. It seems like a handful of shows with significant production and marketing budgets are very successful, like PAW Patrol and our own Peppa Pig and PJ Masks. At the other end of the spectrum, homegrown preschool shows with smaller budgets are finding it increasingly harder to break out.”

LINEAR LEGACIES It is fair to say that the linear public-service broadcasters remain a significant force in preschool programming, as they are likely to demonstrate more commitment to shows and offer greater input into their successful development.

“Local pubcasters remain the go-to commissioners and privileged partners, as the projects benefit from their editorial guidance and insight,” says APC’s Marty. “Global linear channels allow for an international, simultaneous launch. The trick is to identify which is a better fit for the show’s DNA. Kid-E-Cats has found its home on Nick Jr., 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 253

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preschool hit—with the exception, perhaps, of PJ Masks. The VODs have yet to show their ability to forge these types of cultural phenomena with their global audience.”

BRIDGING THE GAP

Cyber Group is working with Aadarsh in India on the new preschool show Purple Turtle.

reaching more than 170 countries, whereas Fox and Hare has already appealed to a dozen different pubcasters across Europe.

“As far as the SVOD players are concerned, they have only recently started shifting from giving a second life to established properties to commissioning new content, so we’re exploring partnerships in that arena as well.”

Frank Falcone, the president and executive creative director at Guru Studio, adds, “Despite the rapid uniform globalization of platforms like Netflix, we have not yet seen the same kind of global hits that were birthed by the traditional cable-TV system just five years ago. In fact, since PAW Patrol, we haven’t seen a major preschool brand launch that has become a breakout

Most of the demand in the preschool market is at the upper age range. “That’s because 2- to 3-year-old kids are too young for most of us to target and 8- to 9-year-olds tend to leave the animation format,” notes Allen Bohbot, the managing director of 41 Entertainment.

“So, for the most part, we are all looking at an age range of 4-to-7 or bridge.”

It’s a view backed up by eOne’s Dumont. “I still believe that, more than ever, the upper end of preschool is the most in demand, as it allows for a broader audience within the preschool audience to enjoy a show and, therefore, has an impact on the viewership and ratings of these channels. It also gives siblings more co-viewing opportunities in households with children of varying ages.”

Guru’s Falcone agrees, stating, “Since the success of PAW Patrol, there has definitely been a clear wave of imitators and a trend of chasing the upper age range, the ‘pre-cool’ demographic.”

Falcone argues that this has opened up potential opportunities for kids’ producers elsewhere. “I feel that creators have begun to neglect younger audiences who also want shows with high energy but without complicated storylines or stakes so high that they induce anxiety,” he states.

Kid-E-Cats, which is distributed by APC Kids, encompasses more than 100 5-minute episodes and airs on Nick Jr. worldwide.

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Playmates Toys is the master toy partner for Guru Studio’s Pikwik, which has been acquired by Disney Junior and Hulu in the U.S.

“I think high energy and comedy are lacking in new preschool shows—this is why we are so excited about our new show Pikwik.”

41 Entertainment’s Bohbot believes that with so much preschool content made in the last five years, the innovation tank is starting to run on empty. “Diversity and inclusion are now automatic,” he says. “3D or even 2D/3D hybrids have been done—we are running out of innovations.”

Others argue that there is always room for new approaches in a preschool market that has continued to evolve over the years.

“In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, preschool was mainly about having fun,” says Cyber Group’s Sissmann. “Then the focus moved to education and edutainment; now it has shifted again to edutainment with values. That’s the key to the preschool market today—to create properties that offer edutainment, and at the same time, promote values.”

Falcone confirms that the straight didactic tone of core curriculum shows is definitely a thing of the past. “Nesting educational content into entertainment is something we’re seeing a lot more. We rarely see that old didactic tone that slows the pace of storytelling and turns off audiences. I think core curriculum content is better delivered via apps and games now.”

LAUGH TRACK APC’s Marty adds that comedy remains a key driver. “One of the most refreshing trends has been how preschool has wholeheartedly embraced comedy, both as a way of incorporating educational elements in a more entertaining way and as a nod to older co-viewers. This is the direction we’ve been taking with our preschool shows Kid-E-Cats and Ricky the Dinosaur.”

Dumont at eOne is of the opinion that there hasn’t been a breakthrough in preschool programming in terms of

innovation since Dora the Explorer. Perhaps, he muses, that’s because innovation isn’t as important to preschoolers as strong characters and stories that attract both children and their caregivers.

But overall, he adds, there is more emphasis on diversity in programming in general, and preschool is no exception.

“Coding is also a hot topic right now, and we should expect to see more shows tackling this concept very soon.”

Green themes are high up on the list of priority themes for Mondo TV’s Bonaria Fois. “We believe we’ve developed a series that incorporates both educational concepts and diversity and inclusion in a new way with MeteoHeroes. Due in 2020, it is an animated eco-adventure about special kids who can control the weather, encouraging viewers to take a stronger interest in issues like climate change, pollution and global warming. The show is given added global relevance by ensuring that its six main characters each come from a different continent. Caring for the environment is a growing concern of young viewers and their parents, and we feel we have responded in ways that are both innovative and entertaining.

These themes, of course, have to be entertaining in their own right. Worthy themes are no use without good storytelling.”

GOING LIVE Even with good storytelling, live action is struggling to make much headway in the preschool market. There’s no sign of animation relaxing its viselike grip over the preschool market anytime soon. “Live action has been here for years, but animation reigns,” says Bohbot.

Dumont agrees, noting, “I suspect that broadcasters are always interested in alternative formats to refresh their schedules and create a point of difference. But for us, there is less focus on live-action concepts for preschoolers, as we are interested in shows that have a truly global potential and it is harder to achieve this global appeal with liveaction formats.”

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Guru’s Falcone adds that live-action shows just don’t enjoy the same shelf life as animation. “With the rapid advancements of fashion and now video-capture technologies, live-action shows can quickly become very dated.

Preschoolers are now exposed to so much they have become junior connoisseurs of pop culture—they are swimming in it every day, and they know when something looks good and is current.”

However, Superights has seen traction with the liveaction Bo Bear, which has a second season in the works.

The series was commissioned by Norway’s NRK and notched up deals with broadcasters across Europe.

Real-life experiences have also emerged as a hot trend.

“It’s one of the most recent developments in the preschool sector,” reveals Dumont. “We are all surrounded by screens— parents and children alike are craving real-life experiences that give them the opportunity to interact with their favorite characters. So stage shows, location-based entertainment in general, including theme parks and costume-character encounters, are crucial pieces of engagement for fans and a necessary part of building a true brand from a TV show.”

APP-TASTIC Another fundamental way to increase engagement is by using digital extensions to brands, says APC’s Marty.

“These are digital-native preschoolers who are familiar with an array of devices for both viewing and playing from a younger age, so allowing them to experience the property in all these different ways is very important. The success of Kid-E-Cats’ mobile game extensions is a good example. We also noticed how the show’s buyers very much welcome any

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additional content like games, puzzles and riddles that they can incorporate into their dedicated websites.”

Dumont adds, “Digital extensions are very important for the rollout of the brand, as parents are keen to have active and engaging experiences for their preschoolers in addition to passive or ‘wind-down’ experiences.”

Falcone confirms that all brand extensions are essential— and digital is just one way to engage your audience.

“Kids want to experience their favorite characters in as many ways as possible, from games to toys, live shows and now even talking to them via Alexa and other home-assistant devices and digital toys.”

WHERE’S THE MONEY? Of course, before you can start building all those digital and live extensions, you need to get the money together to finance a show in the first place.

Guru’s Falcone insists that securing long-term episodic commitments in the new ecosystem remains a challenge. “The only broadcaster we know that routinely commits to large orders is PBS. Other broadcasters rarely commit beyond a season or two at best.”

The rise in the number of on-demand platforms that commission programming has created more funding possibilities than ever before. That being said, Dumont points to the increasing difficulty of combining linear and nonlinear platforms because they are both clamoring for exclusivity. “I think this is a mistake that many platforms are making when it comes to preschool programming—exclusivity is not the most important factor,” Dumont says. “What matters most is making popular content available on your platform.”

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edia-Participations is a publishing powerhouse in France, home to the iconic graphic-novel and comic-book labels Dargaud, Dupuis, Le Lombard and Lucky Comics, among others. It is also a dominant force in the animation sector with its six studios, among them Ellipsanime Productions and Storimages, while Mediatoon Distribution brings titles from the in-house producers, as well as third parties, to clients across the globe. As CEO, Claude de Saint Vincent is leading the organization through dramatic changes in the publishing and audiovisual businesses. He tells TV Kids about the keys to bringing comic-book characters to television, embracing digital media and the strengths of the French animation sector.

By Mansha Daswani

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TV KIDS: The company has many lines of business. What role does the audiovisual segment play in the overall organization?

DE SAINT VINCENT: It has increased [in the last few years].

We took over a few libraries and we opened a new studio.

So right now our library offers more than 3,000 hours of animation, which I think should put it among the largest European catalogs. Our audiovisual activities—production, sales, direct nonlinear broadcasting—represents about 10 percent of the annual turnover of the group.

TV KIDS: How is the commissioning landscape for animation in France today?

DE SAINT VINCENT: I don’t think it has changed a lot. There are many broadcasters and we work with most of them.

However, the breaking news is the announcement, last year, that France 4 is going to progressively but surely stop its linear children’s programming broadcasts, and at the time reassess its nonlinear strategy and offerings. In addition to the main broadcasters—France Télévisions, TF1, M6, Gulli and Canal+—we have the state funds and the regional funds, which are helping production. So France and Europe, especially Belgium with the tax shelter, have become interesting territories for co-production. There are many examples, not only with us but with other producers, of non-European IP that came to life thanks to partnerships with French and European producers. For instance, Garfield, a definite American icon and IP, has been published in the French language by Dargaud for over 30 years.

And it was well adapted by a French producer, Dargaud Media, for The Garfield Show. We produced 214 episodes between 2009 and 2015. And we are right now working on a brand-new series called Garfield Originals, which is in 2D. TV KIDS: France is being celebrated at MIPTV this year.

What are the main strengths of the local animation sector?

DE SAINT VINCENT: We have many young and new animation producers; it’s a very dynamic market right now. We have the fortune of having strong regulations that require our main broadcasters to produce animation and to invest in these sectors. We really hope this will continue. And we have regional funds that are investing in promoting local studios, helping to finance our productions. We have one of the best animation schools in the world with GOBELINS. Most of its students are picked up by Pixar/Disney and other major international producers. So we have a very rich ground, schools, subsidies, interest from the government and fiscal incentives, combined with immense talents, thus making French animation number one in Europe.

TV KIDS: What challenges is the sector facing, beyond the upcoming closure of France 4?

DE SAINT VINCENT: Twenty, thirty years ago, we used to have in each country two or three major broadcasters with strong budgets. Now we have 40 poor broadcasters!

[Laughs] The audience has been decreasing, so we’re dealing with partners who are not as strong as they used to be. Worldwide actors such as YouTube, Netflix, Apple and Amazon are new sources of revenue and new competitors. And we have to deal with a world with fewer and fewer borders.

TV KIDS: How do the publishing and animation divisions collaborate to bring beloved comic-book characters to life?

DE SAINT VINCENT: By being part of a group housing several publishers, our in-house producers have the opportunity to work very closely not only with the editors but with the authors. We always associate the artist and the writer to our productions/TV shows. Some are very eager to participate in the productions. Some of them have no time for it! It’s easier for us because we know our authors very well. For instance, we’ve been working with Jim Davis [creator of

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Dargaud Media produced The Garfield Show, which is sold worldwide by Mediatoon Distribution.

Garfield] since the end of the 1980s. So we have the confidence of the authors. That’s very helpful in bringing to life those adaptations without betraying or angering our authors. The first key to successful adaptations is very close cooperation with the original artist. Last year we delivered The Fox-Badger Family, which also comes from a graphic novel published by Dargaud. We had the same director, Philippe Vidal, working on The Garfield Show for almost ten years. So we have long-term relationships with the authors, a long-term relationship with our team, and we publish over 200 graphic novels a year and have been doing so for the last 30 years. We have a huge library to look for new themes, new heroes, new subjects. At the same time, we also are developing original series, not always based on books.

TV KIDS: What digital opportunities are you exploring within your publishing business?

DE SAINT VINCENT: Nine years ago we launched a platform with all the French publishers for graphic novels and comics from France and Belgium, izneo. We have over 10,000 books available. It controls 60 to 80 percent of French graphic novel digital reading. On izneo you can access the first five pages of all those titles for free. Digital reading in France is not as advanced as it is in the U.S., so it’s still a tiny market, but in 2018 izneo’s turnover was over €3 million, so it’s starting to pick up. And it’s increasing every year by 30 or 40 percent. We would be thrilled to have the same growth in all the other media!

TV KIDS: Are the group companies producing more shortform content for digital platforms?

DE SAINT VINCENT: Yes. Garfield Originals will mostly be on websites or direct services from the broadcasters.

It’s 2.5-minute episodes. And we are currently developing a short-form series, adapted from the comic book Roger and His Humans, written by France’s number one YouTuber, Cyprien.

TV KIDS: Looking ahead, what priorities are you focusing on for the group?

DE SAINT VINCENT: Keeping production very active. We have three to four new shows coming. We’re trying to acquire additional smaller libraries. We feel that with the new worldwide market, big is becoming more and more beautiful. When you deal with Netflix, Amazon or Apple, it’s much better to have 3,000 hours of a library behind you than just one new series to propose. So we keep consolidating our library. We’re very active and we look at every opportunity.

We are publishers, we are producers, we are distributors, and we have a small video game arm called Anuman Interactive. Last year we released two important games, one with Asterix and the other one was called Gear.Club. One of the objectives will be to associate this video game company more with our production activities to be able to produce and sell at the same time a television show and a video game, and if possible a graphic novel.

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TV KIDS: Tell us about how Rai is serving young audiences on television.

MILANO: We are the Italian public broadcaster with a bouquet of many channels. Two are devoted to kids. It’s a structure that is similar to the BBC. We have Rai YoYo, the leading Italian children’s channel, and often the leading Italian thematic channel, which is devoted to preschoolers. It broadcasts for 24 hours a day. The second channel is Rai Gulp, which is more focused on kids.

Rai YoYo is 80, 85 percent animation and the rest is live shows that are mostly produced in-house. Rai Gulp is 40 percent animation, 45 percent live-action series and the rest is in-house magazines and shows. Italy is not a country with many children—we are quite old in demographics, like Germany and other countries—but we have quite a lot of children’s channels. Italy has eight free-TV children’s channels and more than 15 pay-TV channels. Rai has the number one channel with audiences in Rai YoYo. We have a strong position that is very important for public-service television.

By Mansha Daswani

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ith two television channels and an on-demand service, the Italian public broadcaster Rai is committed to serving the needs of the country’s youngest viewers, from preschoolers with Rai YoYo to kids and tweens with Rai Gulp. As executive director of Rai Ragazzi, and chairperson of the European Broadcasting Union’s TV Children & Youth Experts Group, Luca Milano is well aware of the challenges being faced by public broadcasters the world over as they compete with well-funded global giants, both linear and digital. Milano tells TV Kids about the unique position Rai Ragazzi’s services hold in Italy and the kinds of content they are delivering that children can’t find anywhere else.

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TV KIDS: What are the biggest challenges public-service broadcasters are facing in financing kids’ programming?

MILANO: There are issues with the financing of publicservice media in general. In every country, it can be difficult to show how important it is to have a national public broadcaster when all the main channels are international, mostly American. In the fields of animation and kids’ drama, we, as a public broadcaster, still have national boundaries and national scope, but negotiations are now often made at a multiterritory level. It is more and more difficult to maintain a fresh and original excellent offer. That increasingly invites us to cooperate with other broadcasters. There are mostly two ways of financing series. One is by an OTT platform or a big international group that can invest in the funding and take the rights worldwide. The other is for a producer to look for two or three national broadcasters that can put their resources together and finance the project.

It’s much more difficult for us to cooperate with OTT or big international partners because there is a conflict with VOD rights. We cannot just buy the rights for TV broadcast as we also have a VOD player that is becoming more important. Our acquisition strategies must put together VOD and broadcasting rights. It is less complicated [to cooperate with] pay-TV channels; the main problem is if the windows are long—we don’t like to wait. With OTT they ask for limitations to our VOD rights and we cannot accept that.

TV KIDS: What are you learning from your VOD platform about how audiences are engaging with content?

MILANO: We started about two years ago with RaiPlay, which now has more than 5 or 6 million registered viewers. The number is increasing because people love to see Rai’s prime-time dramas on a nonlinear basis.

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Less than one year ago we launched RaiPlay YoYo with almost all the content we have on Rai YoYo. It is the first app for children in Italy. It is completely free, without advertising and without a subscription, so it’s sort of a gift! It’s included in the license fee and it’s becoming more popular. We are now making more sections and we aim to transform it from what is now a shelf where you can go and choose all the programs into a more friendly companion for the children. For kids aged 8 and older, we want to launch something new by the end of the year. The way of consuming media by kids of 8-, 9-, 10-years-old is entirely different from preschoolers. We have to choose more original ways to present the content. Our goal is put in our offering another service for kids and maybe up to teens, [alongside] the two channels and the RaiPlay YoYo app. We also have quite a meaningful presence, especially for Gulp, on Facebook and Instagram. We are working on producing unique content for Instagram that will be launched by the end of the year.

leading investors in European animation. Since we have an obligation specific to animation, it’s more difficult for us to find funds for international acquisitions and live action. The main line of investment is coproduction and pre-acquisition. Every title costs more when we have more rights and we have editorial participation. We work with independent producers; we do not produce animation in-house. We mostly work with projects from Italian independent producers, sometimes with us also being part of the development stage.

Sometimes we prebuy series that are co-produced between Italian partners and international companies, often as a minority part of the co-production. The countries that we co-produce most with are France, Germany and Spain. We also work with Belgium.

With the U.K. it’s more about acquisitions; it is less common for Italian and U.K. companies to work together. And we have good collaborations with Canadian entities, and sometimes with Brazilian and Indian and other Asian countries.

TV KIDS: How do you balance your slate between coproductions, prebuys and original commissions?

MILANO: In Italy we have a system of quotas. It’s not as specific as it is in France, but we do have an obligation to invest in European animation. We are one of the

TV KIDS: What are some of your recent or upcoming highlights?

MILANO: In the field of preschool we are one of the main broadcasters to take part as a co-producer in the new series from Entertainment One Family and the Italian

Rai was among the commissioning broadcasters on Pat the Dog, produced by France’s Superprod and Italy’s Animoka.

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Rainbow’s 44 Cats has been a huge hit on Rai YoYo.

company Maga Animation Studio, Ricky Zoom. We support Rainbow, a long-term partner with us. We had great success with 44 Cats, the new preschool series that has been a hit since the first day of broadcasting. Rainbow produces it in Italy with one of its companies, Bardel in Vancouver. We are also working on a kids’ drama, Club 57, which is a co-production between Rainbow and Nickelodeon Latin America. It’s a series that was filmed between Italy, the region of Puglia, and Miami. It’s an important series because of the scale—it’s 60 episodes of 45 minutes, which is a huge production for our standards in children’s programs. We have several other coproductions, like Pat the Dog with Superprod/Superights and the Italian studio Animoka. There are now at least a dozen good Italian studios that are working very well with international partners. Some are specialized in CGI, some in 2D. It’s becoming easier to find co-production agreements because two years ago Italy introduced a large tax credit for animation and children’s productions.

That’s been a big help for producers.

When there are 20 children’s channels, you have to show that your channel airs content that the others don’t have. It’s very dangerous for us if children cannot identify a title with the channel brand. Last year we produced an animated special, The Star of Andra and Tati, based on the true story of two Italian sisters who were sent to Auschwitz as children and survived. It was a great success. We are now presenting it in schools and also distributing it internationally. In March we launched a drama miniseries of ten episodes called 266 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Jams about sexual harassment. An 11-year-old girl is [abused] by a friend of her parents. Her friends understand something is wrong and are able to help her. The series is meant to show children how they should not be ashamed and that they should find an adult they trust and talk to them. We are preparing a campaign with a hashtag that translates as “It’s Better to Talk About It.” In May we’ll have an in-house production about coding. It is a game show with two teams in each episode and then there will be a final competition.

They have to program the coding for robots, which must overcome some obstacles while the opposing team tries to disable the robot’s actions. It’s not so easy to make a game show on coding! In Italy coding is becoming [more prominent] in all the school curricula, so it was not difficult to find competitors that had quite good abilities.

TV KIDS: You’ll be taking part in one of the kids’ content pitches at MIPTV. What will you be looking for at the market?

MILANO: MIPTV is when we usually have to decide what shows will be finally approved to start during the summer. It’s especially important for live action. I’ve been invited to take part in a new speed-pitching for kids’ drama. Having these kinds of pitches is good. It’s much easier to co-produce animated stories because of languages and national tastes, but now and then we can also support the production of kids’ drama, as we did on Find Me in Paris with Federation Kids & Family.

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reasons, therefore, co-productions are becoming a very attractive option. They allow partners to share the financial risk but, at the same time, greatly expand the pool of talent that a series can draw on. For some time now we have been involved in co-productions—we worked with CJ ENM for series two of Robot Trains, for example; with Henan York Animation for Invention Story; and with Aurora World for YooHoo to the Rescue. Our sister company Mondo TV Iberoamerica worked with Alianzas Producciones on our first-ever live-action show, Heidi Bienvenida. Co-production has become an increasingly strong feature of our output and we’re very pleased with the results.

TV KIDS: What have been some of the key lessons from this strategy in terms of how to best partner with companies creatively and financially?

CORRADI: We’ve learned that there are a lot of good companies out there! We’ve also learned that the arrangements—financial, creative and strategic—will vary from one partnership to another. It’s a matter of doing what is best for the property. Invention Story is, unusually, a five-season commitment due to the strength of its combination of humor and learning, notably as a potential source of licensed products.

YooHoo to the Rescue is based on a hit line of plush toys. This gives it a firm base for character development, which is a strong part of the show. MeteoHeroes has a very specific theme—kids who can control the weather—so needs a partner that can help us bring it to life while being technically accurate. In this case, it’s a co-production with MOPI [Meteo Operations Italia, also known as Centro Epson Meteo or Meteo Expert].

Sometimes, we take on the co-production of an established series. For example, we were solely a distributor for Robot Trains to start with; we became a producer for series two, which takes the characters in new and exciting directions.

No two co-productions work to the same strategy, so the only lesson perhaps is to make sure that you and your partner agree on what is best for the property.

By Mansha Daswani

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ince its creation as an importer of animation into Italy more than 50 years ago, Mondo TV Group has carved out a position as a significant producer and distributor in the global kids’ landscape. Under the leadership of CEO Matteo Corradi, Mondo TV has stepped up its co-production efforts, aligning with companies across the globe to build on its portfolio of IP, which stands at more than 1,600 episodes, plus a slate of animated features.

Corradi tells TV Kids why Mondo TV’s pivot towards international co-productions has been transformative and reveals how he is positioning the company for future growth.

TV KIDS: Co-productions have become a major part of the Mondo TV strategy for the last few years. Why was this shift important?

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TV KIDS: How are you balancing the business between rolling out shows based on established brands versus original ideas?

CORRADI: We are aware that many broadcasters are happier with known quantities. But we’re also proud of the fact that we don’t rest on our laurels. It’s true that YooHoo is based on an established plush toy brand, but our take on it—a magical eco-adventure—is highly original. The same goes for Heidi Bienvenida, a modern approach to a classic story. However, we are pleased to say that most of the output we are promoting at present is highly original and succeeding on its own terms.

TV KIDS: How has your L&M and toy business been, given the challenges in that marketplace?

CORRADI: It’s still growing! Robot Trains, in particular, has attracted a lot of interest in a number of markets, and with the arrival of series two, and the master toy category well established—along with many other categories—we have high hopes for continuing growth.

In addition, thanks to a collaboration with Bitbuu Games, a company that has developed a free-to-use

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Robot Trains AR app, Mondo TV is able to pioneer new possibilities for imaginative play, giving fans a personalized experience with their favorite characters. It’s accessed by scanning the packaging of products from licensees. This is a new concept for our market and has gained a lot of coverage.

YooHoo to the Rescue evolved from a hit line of plush toys, which certainly helps the licensing program. Heidi Bienvenida has already inspired a number of category launches, which is unusual for live action. It’s been particularly successful in Italy. So, while L&M is always going to be a fast-changing business, at the moment we’re very happy with our position.

TV KIDS: How is Mondo TV working with OTT platforms, both in terms of finished sales and new commissions?

CORRADI: YooHoo to the Rescue is the first-ever Netflix original series from co-producers Mondo TV and Aurora World. Its success will, we hope, lead to more such sales. We have also agreed to a deal with SVOD provider Ameba TV for a number of shows from the Mondo TV library, including Playtime Buddies, Robin Hood, Cinderella and Turtle Hero, to roll out on the platform’s branded channels in North America. We are strongly committed to all platforms and the opportunities they can present.

TV KIDS: You’ve had great success with Heidi Bienvenida.

What other plans do you have for your live-action business?

CORRADI: Season two and a forthcoming film have certainly encouraged us to do more in live action. In fact, through our sister company Mondo TV Iberoamerica, we aim to develop more content for the youth fiction series genre, a genre that works well internationally.

In addition, a very different property is in the works at the moment, confirming our objective of expanding our audience and diversifying the Mondo TV Iberoamerica business model. It’s called 2050. A sci-fi drama made up of eight episodes of one commercial hour each, targeting viewers from young adult upwards, it tells a thrilling and highly original

new story in which messages from the past bring hope to the people of a terrible future. It is a co-production of Mondo TV Iberoamerica together with VIP 2000 TV and Casablanca from Brazil. It’s in its early stages at the moment, but the production phase for the pilot of the show has just been completed, and I have to say it looks really good!

All of these developments are driven by a growing demand for Mondo TV’s content and its services.

TV KIDS: What are the greatest challenges for animation studios in Europe today, and what are your greatest opportunities?

CORRADI: Financing, competition, cooperation and innovation: all are opportunities and challenges. But multiplatform viewing environments are the greatest challenges, and opportunities, of all.

A property can be transmitted to audiences everywhere quickly across multiple media, which is a boost for licensees, but can [also] aid targeting of innovative shows to smaller audiences willing to pay to see them.

This is a boon to animation.

On the other hand, how do you measure audience numbers when viewers are watching your show on a smartphone? How loyal will audiences be to nonlinear platforms? And will you be ready to bring shows out in multiple languages simultaneously?

Platforms are changing and, where appropriate, we will adapt to that change, though we will not overlook linear TV, which will be around for a long while.

TV KIDS: What are your primary goals for Mondo TV for 2019 and 2020?

CORRADI: We have enjoyed a lot of success in coproduction. We will continue to pursue partnerships for new projects. We want to keep growing our distribution and licensing businesses. And we are looking forward to success for new seasons of Sissi, the Young Empress, Robot Trains and Heidi Bienvenida as well as the arrival on screens of Invention Story, YooHoo to the Rescue and MeteoHeroes.

Mondo TV partnered with CJ ENM in Korea on Robot Trains.

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property. For example, Flix is based on a book by Tomi Ungerer. He was a really a great artist with very strong recognition in France and Germany. Xephos & Honeydew is based on Minecraft avatars that have some 7.2 million subscribers on YouTube. We’re developing that as an adult animation. Best & Bester with Gigglebug is our first [series] that’s not based on an established IP. We picked that up because we felt that it had a very simple idea at its core that everybody can attach to: comparison.

Each project needs its own space, so to date we’ve done one per year. Xephos & Honeydew was in year one, Flix in year two, and Best & Bester in year three. Now that those properties are fully developed, we are focusing on going out and financing those and getting them made.

There’s always the danger at that point that you forget to start optioning or developing that fourth property, so we are looking around for what that fourth is going to be at the moment, but we haven’t found it yet.

TV KIDS: Will all the Eye Present IP be represented through Serious Lunch?

DEXTER: Not always. Where a co-production means that the majority of the rights have to go elsewhere, then Serious Lunch will retain some of the properties. That relationship is an evolution, so watch this space! As I’m the shareholder in both of them, I would love Serious Lunch to be able to distribute all of the programs that Eye Present makes. Sometimes that’s not possible. It’s part of the rationale of keeping the production and distribution separate so that you have more flexibility in terms of your partnerships and financing models.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

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n 2011, Genevieve Dexter set up Serious Lunch with an eye to leveraging her experience in the kids’ space—she had previously founded CAKE—to build long-lasting brands. While the distribution company has been rolling out its highly curated catalog around the world, Dexter has also set up the London-based CG/2D animation studio Eye Present.

TV KIDS: How do you approach selectively acquiring for the Serious Lunch catalog?

DEXTER: The main consideration is that we look after brands, we are brand-builders, as opposed to large catalog distribution. We find that in the long run, that is what produces the [best] results. The likelihood of a series to carry on into season three, four, five and six is one of the key considerations for us.

TV KIDS: In regard to Eye Present, what are you looking for in a project that the company would take on?

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TV KIDS: What is your sense of the overall health of the kids’ content business at present?

DEXTER: From a distribution perspective, we have found that there is a drop in the amount of content available to distributors. That does tend to be cyclical. I remember in the ’90s, people were paying big minimum guarantees for kids’ content, though it excluded boutique kids’ startups at that time. When I set up CAKE in 2001, that was no longer the case. We couldn’t find significant minimum guarantees from distributors to close financing but were able to find the gap elsewhere and in so doing retained the distribution rights. Skip forward ten years and the birth of Serious Lunch coincides with the rise of Netflix and Amazon providing us with large license fees in individual territories, but skip forward another five years and the same clients are moving to new business models that provide producers with a one-stop shop and it makes life difficult for a distributor to find new content. That’s a big shift.

From the Eye Present point of view, as a young production company, the SVOD one-stop shop has provided us with a lot of opportunities, so we hope by straddling both production and distribution we can benefit from the cyclical changes in the market. In the more traditional production-finance models, it’s all about gaining the confidence of the major broadcasters to commission your work once they are convinced by the creative.

Now that we’re in season three of Messy Goes to Okido for CBeebies, we’re hoping that our next two projects, Flix and Best & Bester, are going to fly and that we have earned that confidence.

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TV KIDS

TV KIDS: What’s the rough breakdown for Serious Lunch’s sales across platforms?

DEXTER: Our business is still quite traditional. We tend to deal mostly with pay and free TV; we’re not doing so many local SVOD deals at a distribution level much anymore. I think that’s largely driven by a change in the SVODs, in that they used to be happy to pick up individual territories and now that position has changed quite substantially. They are getting much tougher on what they require and that is often hard to marry with our interest in IP and distribution rights. Multiterritory SVOD commissioning terms now mirror studio deals and co-commissions require a lot of the finance to come from elsewhere and also to be compatible with your financial plan, which is often hard. As a second-window acquisition, it is a requirement that your show be a number one-rated program in key territories. The vertical integration of the SVOD platforms is already happening with inhouse licensing and merchandising teams and homegrown animation studios. Right now, the public broadcasters are hurting a little bit and we are happy to ease that with ever more inventive ways of funding our shows that they commission. Another way that we adapt and survive is that Eye Present produces content targeted to a wide range of ages and platforms.

TV KIDS: How has the financing for kids’ programming changed, and what are the current models you’re using?

DEXTER: There’s the old-fashioned way—with a local broadcaster, two- or three-way co-pro, tax credits, subsidies, distribution guarantees and VC funding— and then there’s the one-stop-shop method, where your program is being funded largely by a multinational platform. When you go to market with a project, it starts to become clear early on which path you’re going to be going down. I really enjoy European co-production. It is hard, but the tendency to want to simplify everything and not really integrate with other cultures is quite sad really. You can make good and long-lasting relationships, which can lead to bigger things at a corporate level. If you can do a coproduction together, you can pretty much do anything together.

TV KIDS: Where do you see the opportunities ahead?

DEXTER: One of the business areas that is growing is experiential live performance. We [had] the Operation Ouch! stage show in London this [past] Christmas at the Apollo Theatre. We also have an e-store for Messy Goes to Okido. As you start to see what people are doing on your website, you can double-down on the items that they’re enjoying and remove the items that are not getting any traction. The analytics that you can derive from it are huge. If we can actually crack this direct-to-consumer licensing and merchandising program, it might not generate huge amounts, but let’s say now it’s generating £100,000 a year; in a few years’ time, maybe it will be generating £600,000 a year. That’s good revenue if it continues to build. We’d like to perhaps offer that service to our third-party brands once we’ve honed it.

The Serious Lunch distribution slate includes, from the top, Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter and Operation Ouch!, while sister outfit Eye Present is developing IP such as Flix and Best & Bester.

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our position as the U.K.’s number one commercial kids’ channel.

TV KIDS: What has been the programming strategy for Pop? MULLER: Historically, Pop has very much been an acquisitions-based business and that has been phenomenally successful, so we will continue to secure great titles that our audience will love in this way. But we are thinking carefully about how we can enter the originals space, too. Meanwhile, we are actively looking for exclusive brands that we can really make our own, offering producers and suppliers the opportunity to be part of the Sony family. Top performers [include] Pokémon and Grizzy & the Lemmings.

TV KIDS: What about for Tiny Pop? MULLER: It’s the same effective strategy. The Pop universe is a strong mix of recognizable and exclusive titles, and Tiny Pop is no different. Top shows are Super Wings, Masha and the Bear and Zafari, and again, we are looking for real brands that we can grow and make our own, like, for example, Care Bears. Care Bears is a much-loved and recognizable family brand, the new series of which we will be premiering in April. We are the U.K. linear home for the super-brand My Little Pony, and also—this is very exciting—Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck is not only an opportunity to work with the world-famous Sesame Workshop, but also to bring a much-loved character to our audience.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

S

arah Muller joined Sony Pictures Television Networks (SPTN) as its VP of children’s and youth entertainment programming just over a year ago. No stranger to the kids’ content business, Muller was previously at Channel 5, where she was responsible for the children’s brand Milkshake! She also spent ten years at the BBC, including as CBBC’s head of acquisitions and creative director. For the last year, Muller has been leading the programming and development of SPTN’s linear and AVOD kids’ brands, including Pop, Tiny Pop, Pop Max and the recently launched AVOD service, Pop Fun. She tells TV Kids about what’s guiding the strategy for each of those offerings.

TV KIDS: It has been a year since you joined SPTN. What are some of the successes of the last 12 months?

MULLER: It’s been quite an exciting 12 months. It’s hard to choose between the Tiny Pop rebrand that brought it firmly into the Pop family, the Pop app launch on PS4, the overhaul of our digital strategy to offer our audience more choice across new platforms—like our Pop Fun app and our YouView and Freeview players—or the significant uplift in our sponsorship business. Of course, we also maintained 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 273

TV KIDS: What has been working well over on Pop Max? MULLER: Pop Max has a very loyal following, and it’s Pokémon and Power Rangers all the way, with a liberal dose of laughter and cheekiness sprinkled all over.

TV KIDS: What is new for the Pop app? How does your approach for the app differ from your linear strategy?

MULLER: Sneak peeks of favorite titles and a refreshed catch-up service are all-new features for the app. Now the app properly reflects what we’re doing on-air and gives the audience a fully immersive 360-degree experience. There’s been a real emphasis on games, too, as they support key brands and enhance the user experience further. Apart from being an obvious part of the Pop world, the app engages the audience in a totally different way and, hopefully, drives eyeballs back to the linear channels, leveraging the value of existing content at a low cost.

TV KIDS: Is there anything in particular you have your eye on for acquisitions across the channels and platforms?

MULLER: We want two things: excellent comedy and live action.

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shows are present in 44 countries on free TV, pay TV, VOD and in-flight entertainment platforms. We firmly believe that Gloob’s content will have much to contribute to the international kids’ programming space.

TV KIDS: What are the main territories where Gloob’s programming is present?

COSTA: For our live-action shows, the main territories are Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But we take pride [in knowing] that our content transcends cultural barriers and has landed in territories like China and Scandinavia. In Latin America, we’ve launched content in Uruguay. We’re very excited about the new partnerships in development, as well as the great results the channel is garnering in Brazil.

TV KIDS: Are international buyers looking for more shows with female leads?

COSTA: Buyers are looking for content that sends a positive message. It’s crucial that shows have a long life cycle so they can reach kids on linear and nonlinear platforms. Gender is important from a commercial perspective, but it depends on each platform’s strategy.

Girl empowerment is currently an important trend. I think it’s fundamental that girls be the stars of their own adventures, but we also have to look for content that presents boys in different settings from the traditional ones. Just like girls, boys have been excluded from many topics and stories, and it’s time that they participate in different journeys and adventures—this needs to become a trend. It’s also important not to forget that music is a key element in kids’ content.

TV KIDS: What types of co-production opportunities are you exploring?

COSTA: We’re in a very competitive market, where costs are increasingly on the rise. Co-production is key because it allows us to expand our production value. At Gloob, we need to be creative to secure financing and to collaborate with the appropriate partners. One of our main goals is dedicating time and effort to establishing solid partnerships that are relevant in Brazil and around the world.

By Rafael Blanco

O

perated by the Brazilian media giant Globosat, the kids’ channel Gloob offers animation and live-action programming that promotes positive values to its target audience. Many of Gloob’s original shows have been sold to broadcasters in markets around the world. Tatiana Costa, the general director at Gloob, talks to TV Kids about the challenges and opportunities that come with working in the kids’ space, where consumption habits are changing rapidly and therefore it has become increasingly important to deliver high-quality content that keeps young ones engaged.

TV KIDS: Is Gloob content available in countries other than Brazil?

COSTA: Gloob is not available as a linear channel anywhere else apart from Brazil. However, we’re focused on distributing our original content, and thanks to our highquality standards, in a little over two years it has been recognized by many broadcasters around the world. The 276 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

TV KIDS: In a world where there are so many options available, what are kids currently looking for?

COSTA: Kids are looking for character-driven stories. It’s vital that content presents strong characters. At the end of the day, it has to do with compelling stories. This is core to every hit that we’ve had. We’re making sure that storytellers are always thinking about the characters. Without good stories and characters, the property doesn’t have a chance to grow and reach as many viewers as possible.

TV KIDS: Where do you see opportunities for growth this year and looking ahead?

COSTA: We are 100 percent focused on developing successful content and IP that can travel, as well as generating significant change in the Brazilian audience. Additionally, all of the brands and franchises we license must include a 360degree strategy. In other words, they should be relevant for OTT platforms, linear television and social media. We are focusing on developing high-quality content with commercial appeal that aligns with Gloob’s values. This is our challenge in the coming years.

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IN CONVERSATION

others, across Europe, AsiaPac, Latin America, the Middle East iacom spent $340 million to acquire the adand Africa. It has two key free-TV footholds—in Argentina, with supported streaming video platform Pluto Telefe, and in the U.K., with Channel 5—and is a major player in TV at the beginning of this year. At the time, the teeming Indian market via its Viacom18 joint venture. The CEO Bob Bakish called the transaction an linear channels are still key touchpoints as Viacom executes “important step forward in Viacom’s evolution.” on its mission of creating entertainment experiences that drive At the heart of that evolution, which Bakish has conversation and culture. But, as Lynn tells World Screen in been working on since taking the reins at Viacom in late this wide-ranging interview, there 2016, is IP creation and exploitaare many more opportunities for tion. Unveiled in 2018, the new the company to expand.

Viacom studios strategy is an VIACOM INTERNATIONAL Viacom International Studios aggressive step toward addresshas a raft of new projects in ing the seemingly unending thirst MEDIA NETWORKS the works while continuing to for content from third-party outlicense scripted series, entertainment formats and lets, both in the U.S. and across the globe. Unlike some of its kids’ shows from the company’s deep library of owned U.S. compatriots, Viacom is looking to create more partnercontent. Elephant House Studios, which grew out of ships with the broader media ecosystem rather than keep its Channel 5’s in-house production team, has begun making production prowess just for its own channels. shows for third-party outlets. At MIPTV, VIMN will be repIn the U.S., MTV Studios and Nickelodeon already have a resenting content from Awesomeness, the digital studio it range of projects underway with streaming services, while acquired last year, for the first time. And Pluto TV, the other Paramount Television has shows set across the basic recent acquisition, has international ambitions as it eyes cable, premium and streaming landscapes.

AVOD opportunities across the globe.

Outside the U.S., David Lynn, president and CEO of VIMN is also stepping up its relationships with telecom Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), is on a similar operators who are expanding into the video business, offering path to transform the business. The channels, of course, apps, linear channels and premium services. And it is ramping remain core to VIMN’s operations. VIMN—which delivered up its activities in live experiences and recreation as it looks for record revenues and profitability in fiscal 2018—operates new ways to engage with ever-fickle youth audiences.

MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and BET, among

DAVID LYNN

By Mansha Daswani

WS: Viacom acquired Awesomeness last year. How does that brand fit into the company’s international portfolio?

LYNN: This is going to be one of our key areas of focus at MIPTV this year. VIMN will be representing Awesomeness for the first time at the market.

Awesomeness is a great addition to Viacom’s overall TV studios strategy, which aims to grow our revenues from creating new IP for third parties as well as licensing our deep library of content. As we all know, there’s a global arms race going on between broadcasters, MVPDs and streaming services, with everybody competing to secure the best original IP and library content. We’re seeing that some of our competitors are becoming increasingly vertical and they’re holding back content for their own services. That represents a good opportunity for Viacom, and we’re looking to take advantage of that growing global demand for premium IP, utilizing both our libraries and our studios.

Awesomeness fits into that wider strategy.

Initially, we’ve announced that we will be responsible for distributing its content outside the U.S. But we’re also exploring other opportunities to help Awesomeness expand internationally, potentially including remakes of its original content for local markets around the world.

WS: Tell us about the overall Viacom International Studios business. How are you working with both your own outlets and third-party entities?

LYNN: We’ve been expanding rapidly into the TV studios business over the last few years, right across Viacom. In fact, Viacom has set a growth target of 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 279

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A co-venture between VIMN in EMEA and Viacom International Studios in Latin America, Atrapa a un Ladrón is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. $1 billion in revenues from its global TV studio business by 2020. Paramount Pictures has re-established its TV studio over the last few years. It has been growing rapidly and had some great successes—13 Reasons Why on Netflix, Jack Ryan on Amazon and Catch-22, which is coming up on Hulu. More recently, MTV and Nickelodeon have established studios in the U.S.—MTV has announced they’ll make The Real World for Facebook Watch, and Nick is making a number of projects for Netflix, including Pinky Malinky.

We’ve been moving into the TV studios business internationally as well. Last year we launched Viacom International Studios, first in our Americas business. When we bought Telefe a few years ago, it had really strong production capabilities making fantastic content for its own schedule. We’ve pivoted and started to use those great development and production capabilities to produce content for third parties as well across the continent. We took the Telefe studio and combined it with our existing TV studio in Miami—as well as Porta dos Fundos, a digital comedy producer in

Brazil that we acquired a majority stake in—to create VIS Americas. We’re already the third-largest distributor of Latin American content globally. We’re producing in lots of different genres, from scripted to comedy to reality to kids. This year we’ll have 900 hours of new content available for sale. We announced at NATPE a host of different deals with broadcasters and telcos in Latin America: titles like 12 Segundos with Mega (Chile) and Imagen (Mexico) and R with Claro Video (Mexico). These are in addition to numerous other deals, including a number we’ve done with the SVOD players in Latin America, like Borges with Netflix and Homens? with Amazon.

WS: Are you seeing more demand for Spanish-language scripted content today?

LYNN: We’re seeing growing interest across the whole region. That same arms race between broadcasters, MVPDs and streaming services is happening in Latin America.

We see an increasing opportunity for the U.S. Hispanic market as well. We’re also taking our Spanish-language scripted content and looking for opportunities to create 280 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

English-language versions. We’re working closely with Paramount Television to identify scripted projects from their development slate that we believe have international potential, and we’re also developing drama through Paramount Network International in Europe and VIS Americas. We’re combining those scripted development pipelines and taking them to market to seek out coproduction partners among MVPDs and broadcasters across Europe and other international markets.

WS: Tell us more about your production activities in Europe, and where Channel 5 fits in with those plans.

LYNN: When we acquired Channel 5, it had a small in-house production team. Over the last few years, we’ve been scaling that up.

We’re now at the stage where Elephant House Studios [formerly Channel 5 Productions] will make about 200 hours of content this year. The majority will be for Channel 5; it’s already had some big successes with shows like Cruising with Jane McDonald, which won Channel 5’s first-ever BAFTA. Elephant House Studios is also producing

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more hours for Viacom’s flagship pay-TV networks in the U.K.–we’ve announced it’s making a version of Cribs for MTV U.K. And we are now starting to produce content for third parties. Our first external commission is for ITV, and we have other deals in the pipeline.

I’m looking for other opportunities to grow our international TV studios business over time. A couple of years ago we took a minority stake in a leading Israeli production company called Ananey Communications, which is producing content not just in Hebrew but also in the English language for the international market. Ananey has enjoyed some real success with shows like Greenhouse Academy for Netflix.

WS: What factors do you have to take into consideration as you determine which approach you’ll take in any given market?

LYNN: A lot will depend on the strategies of the established players and how we see each market evolving. If you take a market like India, where we already have a very strong AVOD service in place through voot, we’re looking for new growth opportunities in SVOD. We’ll bring new products to market according to the opportunities that exist, always seeking to build out those extra tiers over time.

WS: In an era of skinny bundles, how do the Viacom channels maintain their musthave status?

LYNN: Ultimately, our success will be built on the enduring strength of our brands and our content. We’re lucky to have really premium, distinctive brands, and also brands that are youth-skewing. A lot of the skinny bundle services are looking for that youth skew, which we are great at providing. Take Sky’s NOW TV in the U.K.—we’re the largest third-party provider of channels on that service. We’re focused on maintaining premium brands that consumers want to

WS: What are your plans for IP creation in Asia?

LYNN: Over the last few years we’ve been scaling up our production of content for our own networks in Asia. We now have original local productions on MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. That in-house production capability gives us a foundation from which to launch a TV studio business. We’ve made some moves in China, where we announced our first major content collaboration, Deer Squad, a kids’ animation with iQiyi. I see opportunities to grow our TV studio business across Asia.

WS: Viacom’s latest acquisition was that of the AVOD platform Pluto TV. What are your international ambitions for that service?

LYNN: There is a lot of excitement around the Pluto acquisition. We’re getting a lot of inbound interest [from distribution partners] in what we’re going to do there. It’s a great product with proven appeal to young digitalfirst audiences. I see it as another great opportunity to exploit the deep content libraries that we have. We’ve announced that we’re going to be launching a U.S. Hispanic service over the coming months.

That will have a lot of synergies with our business in Latin America, so we’re also going to be rolling out the service in that region. Pluto is already in the U.K. and Germany. Pluto TV fits very nicely with our three-tiered distribution strategy—we see the market dividing further into premium, basic and free. We’re obviously already well established in the basic pay-TV tier. We’ve been increasingly launching services in premium, including Paramount+ and Noggin.

And Pluto gives us a big addition in the free space. Our strategy is to roll out products and services in each of these tiers as [broadly] as possible in every major international market. Having those three different elements to our distribution strategy means we can adapt to each market.

Viacom International Studios is representing content from Awesomeness, including Light as a Feather.

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Viacom’s studios model launched in 2018 with a slew of deals, including one that brought the Nickelodeon-produced Pinky Malinky to Netflix globally. engage with. By investing in and focusing on six flagship brands [BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Paramount], we make sure that when operators are selecting what channels they would like include in those skinnier bundles, we have very strong offerings that touch different demographics and different genres.

WS: You’ve had a lot of activity with telco partners as they ramp up their video offerings. Are the needs of telco operators different from those of your more traditional pay affiliates?

LYNN: In mobile, different operators are trying to evaluate what is the right and best video strategy to go to market. We have a host of different deals and products and services that we’ve launched around the world, and we’re flexible when it comes to commercial models. At this stage, we have 20 different deals in place with 16 different operators—that covers about 5 million subs across 30 different countries. We have linear channels in some cases. Sometimes our deals cover only one country; sometimes they are pan-regional, like our Telefónica deal in Latin America. We provide streaming apps for all our flagship brands. We’re increasingly bringing our premium VOD services to the mobile space as well.

We’ve launched Paramount+ on mobile in

the Nordics, and we’re about to launch MTV Play in the U.K. with a leading MNO. WS: How are you growing the live-experience and recreation sides of Viacom’s global business?

LYNN: I’m focused on accelerating the transformation of our business model as the market continues to evolve. We’ve already talked about making a much bigger play in digital video—new premium services, Pluto in free and bringing new rights to our existing MVPD partners. On top of that, we’re making a big push to diversify our business.

Part of that is our TV studios strategy; part of it is about developing and expanding our existing consumer-products business. We’re moving into new areas as well, two of those being live events and recreation.

We’ve been growing the live-events side a lot over the last few years. This year we’ll have 90 different events across the world.

The strategy covers all our brands—for example, MTV’s World Stage and the EMAs, Nickelodeon’s KCAs and SlimeFest, and Comedy Central Fest—and we’re bringing new brands to market. We just staged our first VidCon in London. VidCon is an influencer event that we acquired last year, and we’re helping them expand internationally. We just announced six European Bellator MMA events. We had over a million people go to a Viacom event last year.

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The second part of our real-world strategy is our recreation business, which we have plans to expand rapidly. We’re going to double the number of recreation touchpoints over the next five years to more than 30 different touchpoints around the world. In particular, we’re growing our theme-parks business—for example, in China, we’ve just signed a licensing deal for a sixth Nickelodeon theme park. All of [them] will start to [open] over the next four or five years. We’ve also moved into the hotel space—we’re opening our second Nickelodeon hotel at the end of 2019 or early 2020 in Mexico.

WS: Against the backdrop of seemingly constant change, what priorities will you be focusing on at VIMN in the 12 to 18 months ahead?

LYNN: Our strategy is all about maintaining strong growth in our core TV business while accelerating the transformation of the business model through innovation and diversification.

In terms of our content licensing and distribution strategy, there is a distinction emerging between us and some of our competitors. We see our competitors becoming more vertical and keeping more content for themselves.

We’re very focused on forging deeper content relationships with our existing partners, helping them strengthen their content offer and bring new services to market.

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TVFORMATS

WWW.TVFORMATS.WS

APRIL 2019

MIPFORMATS & MIPTV EDITION

State of Formats / Dance Shows Craig Plestis / BBC Studios’ Sumi Connock

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12 TV FORMATS

CONTENTS

Long Live Entertainment

FEATURES 26 FIGHTING FOR FORMATS Distributors discuss the major issues at play in the format business today.

26

With the persistent talk about “peak TV” and the deluge of scripted series in the marketplace, entertainment shows have (rather unjustly) taken something of a backseat when it comes to industry buzz.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Formats ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvformats.ws

Accompanying all the chatter regarding the endless array of high-quality dramas hailing from around the world are moans about the lack of a full-scale global entertainment juggernaut to launch in recent years.

Don’t declare the quest for the Next Big Thing fruitless though. It seems there’s a nice wave of innovation hitting the entertainment sector. From singing competitions with celebrities in zany costumes to dance shows featuring athletics on par with a sporting event, entertainment is surely showing its might. TV Formats speaks with Craig Plestis, who is responsible for bringing the wacky costume-clad celeb singing show The Masked Singer to the U.S., and takes a deep dive into dance series.

Part of this innovation is, perhaps, being driven by the streamers, which are making some bold moves in the unscripted arena. The FAANGs have announced a number of recent reality-based originals to accompany their already quite hefty scripted slates. While some are being touted as global series, there are others that promise local treatments.

The question remains of how to deal with the “live” factor that is so intrinsic in many of the big competition shows that are popular today, but producers and distributors are already rising to the challenge to come up with ways to make unscripted entertainment a viable play for on-demand platforms.

As traditional channels strengthen their offerings in a bid to lure viewers to linear, they too are getting bolder in their choices. Yes, there are still many long-running format behemoths holding onto peak-time slots, but that doesn’t mean commissioning has come to a halt. In prime time, there are opportunities to use the big brands as leadins for new entertainment shows. There are still plenty of formats being stripped in daytime and access prime as well. Also, interest in scripted formats continues to rise.

Even markets like the U.S. have opened up to adapting scripts, and not just from the typical format-creation hubs either. BBC Studios’ Sumi Connock discusses the appetite for scripted formats in a Q&A in this issue.

You can read an in-depth review of what distributors have to say about the state of the format business in our special feature.

—Kristin Brzoznowski

34 DANCE FEVER A look at the latest innovations in dance formats.

34 INTERVIEWS

38

Craig Plestis

40 BBC Studios’ Sumi Connock

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14 TV FORMATS

Armoza Formats Muna / Red Lines / The Conflict Armoza Formats has a heavy focus on scripted this time around at MIPTV. Among its offerings are Muna, inspired by the true story of a successful and free-spirited Arab-Israeli photographer, and Red Lines, which takes viewers into the complex world of the district attorney’s office. “Muna and Red Lines are the perfect examples of universally relatable and engaging stories,” says Amos Neumann, COO of Armoza Formats. “With their unique takes and compelling plots, the series have been acclaimed by the Israeli press and viewers.” Meanwhile, the social experiment The Conflict gives individuals the chance to see their dispute from a new point of view, as actors bring to life arguments and those involved watch from the sidelines. The format is being licensed as 60-minute episodes.

The Conflict

“MIPTV continues to be an important market for us to maintain relationships with our clients as well as to stay on the ‘pulse’ of the industry.”

—Amos Neumann Shipwrecked

Banijay Rights Catch! / Shipwrecked / Temptation Island Four celebrity-led teams of top athletes and parkour pros vie for victory in “catch”-inspired games in the aptly titled Banijay Rights format Catch! “The games at the heart of Catch! are universally appealing and recognizable, and the show can be scaled up or down as required,” says Andrew Sime, VP of formats at Banijay Rights. Other format highlights the company is showcasing are the paradise-set Shipwrecked and Temptation Island reboots. While the former is a battle-of-the-islands popularity contest to win over new arrivals and become the biggest tribe, the latter puts couples’ commitment to the test by throwing them into the single life surrounded by available men and women. “The production values [for Temptation Island] are extraordinary, and it is one of the highest-rated programs in Belgium and the Netherlands,” says Sime.

“Rebooted for a new generation, while remaining true to the original format, Shipwrecked feels very current.”

—Andrew Sime The Split

BBC Studios One Hot Summer / The Split / My Big Day: Home or Away Originally airing on BBC Three in the U.K., One Hot Summer sees 13 young people from different backgrounds travel across a country for one month. “One Hot Summer isn’t a popularity contest,” explains Sumi Connock, creative director of formats for BBC Studios. “It is about real people meeting for the first time and different worldviews colliding in one extraordinary experience. Will they bond or break?” She calls it “a unique experiment that puts the ‘real’ back into reality TV.” BBC Studios recently picked up the scripted format rights for the BBC One legal drama The Split, about a family of female divorce lawyers, and the company is also offering the wedding format My Big Day: Home or Away, in which each episode features one couple who is not sure how they should celebrate their nuptials.

“With the growing trend for brilliantly scripted, powerful dramas and comedies, a key focus will be on scripted formats.”

—Sumi Connock 296 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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300: War of United Voices

CJ ENM My Friend from Another Century / 300: War of United Voices / Somebody The reality format My Friend from Another Century takes a different approach to the universally relatable issue of the generation gap. “It’s not the subject of a social experiment or documentary, but material for lighthearted entertainment,” says Jihee Kim, CJ ENM’s head of global content development. In the format, a high-profile elder, such as a politician or actor, meets his match in a lovable and opinionated kid to carry out a to-do list of activities together. “It’s hilarious to see them argue, play, learn and develop a friendship unique from their peers,” she adds. The company is also presenting 300: War of United Voices, in which superfans perform together with a top musical artist, and Somebody, a hybrid dating-reality show in which dancers of various genres look for someone they can connect with.

DRG

“300: War of United Voices shines a spotlight on today’s fan culture.”

—Jihee Kim

The Brigade

The Brigade / Small Fortune / The Ultimate Spy The DRG format The Brigade combines elements of a competitive cooking show and a travelogue. “The Brigade is an authentic format about real chefs working as a team to improve their skills and knowledge, and therefore, differs from the many cookery shows that only feature celebrities and home cooks,” says Elin Thomas, DRG’s executive VP of sales.

“It also gives viewers unique insight into how restaurant kitchens around the world actually work.” Small Fortune is a new prime-time entertainment format, billed as “the world’s smallest physical game show.” In the series, teams of friends and family members compete in tiny games, set in miniaturized worlds, to win big money. The Ultimate Spy is a competition-driven reality format that goes inside the world of espionage to see who has what it takes to become a spy.

“We have a track record for finding the right format for broadcasters and producers and then working closely with them on the ground to make sure the very best localized versions get made.”

—Elin Thomas

Global Agency Upgrade The reality game show Upgrade watches as a film crew drops into viewers’ homes and offers them the chance to upgrade their old household items by answering trivia questions. The out-of-studio game show is filmed in the players’ own houses, where they are asked a series of quiz questions. If they answer the majority of them correctly, they can win a variety of electronic appliances or furniture on the spot. If they lose, their household items are going to be locked away for 30 days. “Upgrade is the ultimate reality game show,” says Izzet Pinto, Global Agency’s founder and CEO. “It’s simple, fun, suspenseful and, most importantly, everyone wants to play because everyone has something in their home that they want to upgrade.”

Upgrade

“We just started to represent the rights for Upgrade to make the show a bigger international hit.”

—Izzet Pinto

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Hunan TV Super-Vocal / Do-Re-Mi: I Love My City / The Rocking Bridge The singing competition Super-Vocal, on offer from Hunan TV, sees pop music blended with opera. “It focuses on 36 of the most talented yet often overlooked classical singers, offering them a well-deserved opportunity to shine and win a place in the nation’s first-ever ‘popera’ vocal group,” explains Lester Hu, head of formats and international business at Hunan TV. “This recently launched prime-time format has already made a splash in China.” Further highlights include Do-Re-Mi: I Love My City, which follows the current user-generated content trend to discover the hidden gems of a city through social media, and The Rocking Bridge, a fast-paced, comedic game show that requires teams of seven participants to remain standing on a swinging bridge for 60 seconds in order to win.

“Proven successful by the largest audience in the world, these are the must-see original formats from China, proudly brought to you by Hunan TV.”

—Lester Hu

Inter Medya

Exathlon

Exathlon / The Perfect Couple / The Box Challenge Inter Medya is bringing to the market the sports-reality format Exathlon, in which two teams of physically fit contestants compete at specially built challenge locations.

They all want the same thing: to be the champion. The company is also presenting to MIPTV buyers The Perfect Couple, a dating-reality show that Inter Medya developed in partnership with DMT Producciones. The format sees men and women competing to win keys to rooms inside the only house on an island, but the twist is that there is not enough space for everyone. “This fast and exciting format will attract the crowd,” says Can Okan, founder and CEO of Inter Medya. He adds that The Box Challenge, developed by the company’s in-house creative team, “is definitely a crowd favorite.”

“Exathlon contestants, who are chosen after certain sports and conditioning tests, compete in highly challenging parkours to perform at their highest level.”

—Can Okan

Nippon TV Beat the Rooms In the game show Beat the Rooms, the contestants are challenged not to do something. They must beat the games in many rooms, all while facing conditions such as “do not breathe,” “do not slip,” “do not fly off” and more. Red Arrow Studios International and Nippon TV partnered on the show.

Beat the Rooms has been commissioned straight-to-series for Nippon TV’s main channel in Japan. “Beat the Rooms is a creation of East meets West,” says Tom Miyauchi, who oversees format sales and international business development at Nippon TV. It features hallmarks from “crazy Japanese game shows” along with the “well-structured mechanics of Western game shows,” he explains. “It is a fast-paced game show, which can be easily re-created as a short-form online series on various platforms.”

“We are confident that this is the game show that everyone was waiting for.”

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—Tom Miyauchi

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The Sex Clinic

Passion Distribution Paradise Hotel / Mums Make Porn / The Sex Clinic Sexy singles pair up and compete for a life-changing cash prize at a tropical resort in Paradise Hotel. In each episode, the singles vote off one of their fellow residents to make room for a new guest. “Having first aired on FOX in 2003, Paradise Hotel has become an international hit, produced around the world in more than 12 countries and has never been off the air in Sweden, Denmark and Norway,” says Agnes Mbye, senior sales manager for formats at Passion Distribution. The company is also showcasing Mums Make Porn, about a group of charismatic mothers with teenage children who are given the tools to create their very own porn film to showcase their version of happy, healthy sex.

The Sex Clinic provides an unfiltered view of young people’s sex lives and sexual health problems.

“The Sex Clinic is a funny, mischievous and educational series revealing some of the more outrageous aspects of young people’s sexual health and sex lives.”

—Agnes Mbye Street Stars

The Story Lab No Sleep No Fomo / Street Stars / Kick the Habit The Story Lab is bringing to MIPTV No Sleep No Fomo, which drops two celebrities into a city with a time limit of just 60 hours to complete the ultimate bucket list. Fotini Paraskakis, the company’s executive VP for entertainment, calls it a “high-adrenaline travel format, which can be formatted using global talent to attract the younger demographic. It is scalable and flexible as a format and can play out across an array of platforms.” The Story Lab is also introducing Street Stars, which gives buskers and grassroots talent the opportunity to perform for the public and online communities, and Kick the Habit, which challenges well-known celebrities to quit smoking for good. “Kick the Habit takes a regular health-awareness show and turns it on its head,” says Paraskakis.

“The Story Lab is committed to supporting innovative content ideas and great talent.”

—Fotini Paraskakis Sweet Kiss Bitter Kiss

TV Asahi Sweet Kiss Bitter Kiss / Girls Running Up Hill The idea behind TV Asahi’s romantic reality format Sweet Kiss Bitter Kiss is that of on-screen couples hitting it off in real life. “We noticed it is familiar news around the world to hear of an actor and actress falling in love for real after starring as a couple in love in a film or a TV drama,” explains Mayumi Nakamura, the company’s head of format development and sales. “Sweet Kiss Bitter Kiss is a format that tests this common outcome in a realityshow setting, where four pairs of promising young actors and actresses play the same romantic scene.” There’s also the short-form Girls Running Up Hill, in which a girl runs up a hill and cameras follow her until she finishes at the top. “We define it as the ‘shortest human documentary,’” says Nakamura.

“There are so many dating shows in the market, but Sweet Kiss Bitter Kiss is innovative in bringing romantic-drama acting into the reality-show setting.”

—Mayumi Nakamura 302 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Distributors discuss the biggest issues at play in the format business today.

By Joanna Stephens

Global Agency’s Auction Queens.

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here’s a reason why FOX’s The Masked Singer is currently the most talked-about format on the planet. And it has nothing to do with its surreal conceit, bonkers costumes or the fact that it comes from South Korea, arguably the hottest TV territory du jour.

According to Rob Clark, Fremantle’s director of global entertainment, it’s because it’s utterly, ludicrously frivolous. “I’ve got a theory,” he says. “In times of uncertainty, people don’t want serious. So in 2019, we’ve got Trump and Brexit and a downturn in China and revolution in Venezuela and Germany heading into economic headwinds and, lo and behold, what are people watching? Masked celebrities dressed as llamas.”

Clark is, in fact, making a serious point about the key issues impacting the global formats industry as we head into MIPTV, notably the legacy broadcasters’ relationship with risk, the industry’s current conviction that the Next Big Thing will emerge from a non-traditional format territory—probably South Korea—and, indeed, whether the Next Big Thing is even still a thing in today’s fractured, fragmented marketplace.

The success of The Masked Singer, which started life as King of Mask Singer on Korean channel MBC in 2015, nods to all these trends. The U.S. iteration rolled out in January on FOX and was watched by more than 9 million mesmerized Americans, making it the highest-rated unscripted debut on any U.S. network in seven years.

“Hats off to FOX for The Masked Singer—which is in itself a sign the linear broadcasters realize they need to innovate and take more risks to compete with the SVODs,” says Clark, observing that, even a couple of years ago, such a left-field format would never have been ordered. “But I’m a bit exasperated with everybody hailing Korea as the new land of milk and honey. Korea’s certainly a very creative place, but the fact remains that, while hit formats can

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come from anywhere, the likelihood is that they’ll come from where they usually come from.”

This chimes with Harry Gamsu, VP of non-scripted at Red Arrow Studios International, who says that, in terms of volume, “the usual suspects”—the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and the Nordic territories—continue to top the list of the company’s new format launches. But he adds that the success of The Masked Singer should serve as a warning to all distributors “not to ignore the emerging players.” He adds, “The formats game is now a mature business and those countries that used to focus on importing IP are now well-versed in the practice of creating original content.”

Of note, Red Arrow is working with leading Japanese media group Nippon TV on the brand-new game show Beat the Rooms.

CREATIVE POWERHOUSES This uptick in local format generation has also resulted in a boom in the number of format prospectors mining the world for inspiration. One effect of this, says Lisa Perrin, the CEO of creative networks at Endemol Shine Group, is that news of a format with potential star power travels far, fast. “Good ideas are the worst-kept secrets,” she adds.

While Perrin agrees with Fremantle’s Clark that discoveries like The Masked Singer are rare, she says that Endemol Shine’s global network of 120 operating companies is constantly trawling for fresh ideas. “I think we’ll see a lot more formats from Asia because this region is not only incredibly innovative but the audience there also consumes a lot of television,” she predicts. “And Latin America is also a very exciting place to be at the moment.”

Global Agency’s founder and CEO, Izzet Pinto, has also found Latin America to be a rich source of new ideas.

Israel, India and, more recently, France, are also proving to be creative hotspots for the Turkish distributor, which is rolling out Upgrade from Israel and Auction Queens from 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 309

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Red Arrow Studios International and Nippon TV are working together on the game-show format Beat the Rooms.

France at MIPTV. “Actually, the most surprising place I’ve found a format is in myself,” Pinto adds, describing how a music video inspired him to devise Keep Your Light Shining in 2015. Local versions of the singing-talent format have now been made in Turkey, Germany, Ukraine, China, Thailand, Brazil, Angola and Mozambique.

Rabbit Films is looking to position Finland as a key hub of innovative ideas, arriving at MIPTV with a slate that includes Couples’ Party, which Jonathan Tuovinen, COO and head of international, describes as a “saucy studio show.”

He notes, “Strengthening existing partnerships and creating new ones in Europe and the U.S. are always part of our mission.

But we’ll also be making our way towards Asia and Australia with our catalog as we’re operating with a global mindset.”

HOT TICKETS

that “big, successful formats enable channels to launch and build innovative new programming around them,” to quote Red Arrow’s Gamsu. Those who don’t say that the mega-formats’ stranglehold on prime time makes it harder to cut through with new ideas—particularly in a linear broadcast market that remains risk-reticent, if not downright risk-averse.

Fremantle’s Clark is in the former camp, dismissing the argument as “nonsense put about by producers who don’t have a mega-format.”

Like Gamsu, he believes that, far from stifling innovation, tentpole franchises attract huge audiences to networks, fertilizing the ground for “new green shoots” of creativity. “In any industry, success breeds success,” he adds. With a mega-brand portfolio that includes Idol, The X Factor and Got Talent, not to mention format pioneers Family Feud and The Price Is Right, it’s hard to disagree.

Over at Endemol Shine—itself no slouch on the mega-format front, with Big Brother, MasterChef, Deal or No Deal and The Wall in its vault—Perrin makes the point that, as long as there are eager audiences for the big old brands, broadcasters will keep serving them up.

Perrin has spotted signs that the linear broadcasters are becoming “braver and more innovative” as they engage in a battle for eyeballs with the SVODs. But Sarah Tong, director of sales at Hat Trick International, says risk-aversion is still alive and well. “Something that’s a bit different is a tough sell when competing against mega-brand formats such as The X Factor and MasterChef, which continue to be remade worldwide year after year.”

Another sign of risk-aversion, Tong adds, is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to persuade buyers to take a punt on a format that hasn’t rated in another territory.

“Often a broadcaster will say they love a show, but if it

Pinto likens the chances of finding yourself in possession of a hit format to winning the lottery. Interestingly, he claims that drama—Global Agency’s other major content pillar—is a much easier sell. “One in four of our dramas goes on to do well for us, which is a 25-percent hit rate. But with formats, it’s a lot tougher. Every year, we get pitched about 250 formats, but only about ten of those will be strong enough to add to our catalog. Out of those ten, perhaps two will go on to sell, which means you’ve got a 1-percent shot at success.

But even though the chances are low, if one of those two formats hits the jackpot, it’s a game-changer and will deliver revenue for years.”

There’s been much talk about the continued domination of the mega-format franchises, and the lack of new ideas strong enough to challenge their iron grip on global schedules. Where you stand on the question of mega-brands crowding out innovation appears to be linked to whether you are fortunate enough to own one. Those who do claim Banijay Rights’ Temptation Island has returned in a number of markets, including the U.S. 310 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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The Story Lab is showcasing the celebrity travel adventure series No Sleep No Fomo.

doesn’t fit exactly into the slot criteria they’re looking for, then they’re not going to take a risk on it,” she says. Broadcasters will also wait to see how a format has performed in another market before deciding whether to commit. Tong references Rich House Poor House, which didn’t take off as a format until it had proved itself to be a ratings winner on both Channel 5 in the U.K. and SBS6 in the Netherlands. The show, in which families from opposite ends of the wealth spectrum trade places, has now been licensed in Belgium, Germany and Poland.

RISKY BUSINESS But Andrew Sime, the VP of formats at Banijay Rights, thinks a bit of risk-aversion is not a bad thing for the formats industry, since it serves to reinforce the value of their product. “We can help to reduce the risk by offering broadcasters a catalog of proven hits and the production expertise to execute them successfully and on budget,” he points out.

If the legacy broadcasters remain cautious, however, the SVOD platforms are far more willing to take risks, facilitated by deep pockets, an insatiable appetite for content and, significantly, freedom from scheduling and timeslot constraints. Sime notes that, while it’s still early days in terms of global SVOD commissions, demand is growing for formats across the major platforms as they seek to replicate their successes in scripted. Banijay Group–owned Bunim/Murray signed a multi-territory deal with Facebook Watch for its classic format The Real World.

“We shouldn’t be referring to [the streamers] like they are all the same,” adds Michael Iskas, president of The Story Lab Global, a division of Dentsu Aegis Network. “Different digital platforms are looking for different things—different formats, different lengths, different genres. We have started building relationships and have developed some ideas with the social platforms.”

Of note, The Story Lab UK and youngest Media collaborated on Date or Dump for the social network UNILAD. No Sleep No Fomo, meanwhile, was adapted for Asian OTT platform Viu.

“We are building relationships on the back of the needs that the streamers have in terms of their audiences,” Iskas notes.

Hat Trick’s Tong and Red Arrow’s Gamsu both cite the impact of the streamers on the traditional licensing models.

Gamsu says more value is being placed on rights and exclusivity as the market becomes ever more crowded and competitive, while Tong observes that the emergence of the VOD platforms has resulted in linear channels becoming less keen to share or window rights, on the understandable grounds that they don’t want to share their audiences.

STREAM ON But Gamsu reflects the general view when he says that the SVOD giants’ move into unscripted ultimately means more format buyers. Fremantle’s Clark calls it “nothing but good news—it’s a major market for us, and a market that didn’t exist five years ago.” Endemol Shine’s Perrin is also upbeat: “I think the SVODs riding into town and getting into unscripted and local-language content is super exciting. Yes, it’s challenging, because we have to engage with them in a different way, but we shouldn’t be frightened. For all of us in scripted and non-scripted, it’s a massive opportunity.”

Meanwhile, opinion is divided on the value of production hubs, which reached their zenith in the heyday of Wipeout and Fort Boyard. Clark says he’s never been a fan, other than for big, physical formats that require minimal emotional investment from the studio audience. “If the audience doesn’t understand the language, know the host and celebrities, or appreciate the eccentricities of the local contestants, it kills the show,” he adds.

But Red Arrow’s Gamsu says that the hub approach is being revisited as broadcasters look for smarter ways to stage the big visual productions that are back in fashion.

“We’re seeing more ideas where a hub model could be the solution to bring grander, more expensive shows to broadcasters of all sizes,” he adds. This resonates with Banijay’s Sime, who says hubs can reduce costs and simplify the production process for big-ticket formats with expensive sets,

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such as Survivor and Fort Boyard. “But for mid-range titles, a hub can be a false economy,” he cautions. “For all our productions, we work closely with the original producers and the new licensees to ensure we find the best solution.”

All, however, agree that partnerships are the bedrock of the formats industry, pivotal to creating shows that deliver both creatively and commercially. “Everybody needs to have genuine creative buy-in and be prepared to share the risk of a project,” says Red Arrow’s Gamsu of the symbiotic relationship between broadcasters, producers and distributors. “This also means that each partner, importantly, is able to enjoy the commercial upside.”

Sime reports that Banijay partnered with Korea’s SBS to create and develop the interactive music format Fan Wars.

He believes the marriage of SBS’s local cultural knowledge and creativity and Banijay’s international development expertise has been a significant factor in the show’s success. Now, Banijay’s global production and distribution network is being leveraged to roll the format out.

So where next for the formats industry? Live events? Realtime interactivity? A step-changing, earth-shaking Next Big Thing—or lots of next little things, to cater to the varied tastes of lots of little audiences? Endemol Shine’s Perrin thinks all bets are off. “The Next Big Thing could be a Marie Kondo-type show on Netflix or something classic like The Voice that catches fire Couples’ Party hails from Rabbit Films in Finland.

and blazes its way around the world. I’ll be very happy if the Next Big Thing looks like All Together Now, which was our fastest-traveling format of 2018.” From Endemol Shine-owned Remarkable Television in the U.K., the singing-talent format launched on BBC One last year and, at the last count, had sold into 12 territories, including Brazil and Australia.

NOW WHAT? “Daring creative ideas,” is the mantra at The Story Lab, Iskas says. “Strong creative ideas that bring something new to the audiences, to the broadcasters, the streamers and the market.

We always try to find simple and single-minded creative ideas that deliver pure entertainment but also have a visual DNA that sets them apart from the competition. Game of Clones, for example, has such a strong visual DNA. It’s been selling across the world.”

In today’s disrupted world, where the old-school entertainment brands are competing against any number of distractions, the Next Big Format feels increasingly like yesterday’s fantasy. “There’s such a variety of linear and digital platforms looking for such a diverse range of programming that I can’t see there being a future for one Next Big Thing,” says Hat Trick’s Tong. “What works for digital may not for linear and vice versa, plus there are so many niche channels.”

Red Arrow’s Gamsu takes a similar view. “The days of a new format traveling to 20-plus countries within a year of launch are long gone. The formats business has matured and it’s a slower build these days. The turnover of new formats is higher than ever, so getting broadcasters to stick with and grow a new show can be a challenge.”

For Red Arrow, the way forward is a mix of innovation and evolution, Gamsu adds. “We are always looking at how we can take a successful genre and move it forward with a different take or twist.”

Banijay’s Sime believes that, when it comes to live or topical entertainment, nothing beats the power and punch of television. “Big formats like Survivor can still bring countries to a standstill,” he says. While Sime concedes that smash hits are rarer these days, the demand for “great new formats” remains as strong as ever.

One contender from the Banijay stable is Brainpool’s Catch!, a sports event format—inspired by the classic children’s game—that is launching at MIPTV. “The games at the heart of Catch! are universally appealing and recognizable, and the show can be scaled up or down as required,” Sime says.

Scalability is also on Rob Clark’s mind, as he muses on the definition of the Next Big Thing, “When we talk about the Next Big Thing, I assume we mean a successful show that travels to a number of territories? My trouble with that is that the impetus behind a new format should never be world domination. It should be about making the right show for your audience. Then, if your audience likes it and you’ve followed certain rules—scalability, returnability, universality and content that’s transferable and promotable— you may have a successful format on your hands. So I don’t encourage people to think in terms of the Next Big Thing. We just concentrate on making the best shows we can.”

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all3media international’s Flirty Dancing.

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Kristin Brzoznowski checks in on the latest innovations in dance formats. rtistry and athleticism are on full display, creating moments that are both visually arresting and filled with emotion—these are qualities that a good dance show can deliver. With this come the benefits of reaching mass audiences, making noise in a schedule and creating a long-running franchise that can sit as a staple in a broadcaster’s grid for years to come. It’s no wonder, then, that producers and distributors have been looking to the dance floor to inspire the next big entertainment hit.

The resounding success of Dancing with the Stars in the global market is proof that dance-themed formats can translate into big business. The celebrity-filled ballroom spectacle has been going strong for well over a decade, and the show continues to anchor prime time on many channels around the world. And there’s a new crop of dance series ready to sashay their way into the hearts of viewers and up the ante on what audiences have come to expect.

“The thing with dance is, whether you’re a dancer or not, you can still relate to it; that’s why it’s such a great topic for an entertainment show,” says Amelia Brown, managing director of Fremantle’s Thames. “Even if you have two left feet, you can still appreciate someone who is a beautiful dancer and, most importantly, feel moved by it. That’s why dance has always been in favor.”

Thames teamed up with Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment on the buzzy dance talent show The Greatest Dancer. The format, which Fremantle hopes will follow in the footsteps of its other Syco co-produced megahits Got Talent and The X Factor, features dancers from all disciplines and shifts the focus to the human stories of those taking part. “It’s not just about the dance, it’s about the person and their experience

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and having everyone be part of that experience,” says Brown, who serves as an executive producer on the BBC One series, which has been ordered for a second season.

“Throughout the show, it’s about what dance means to that person,” she adds. “It’s not necessarily about, is this the best dance routine you’ve ever seen; it’s about what makes the greatest dancer, and that could be a number of things. It could be how they tell their story, how they interpret the music or how they make the audience feel. All those elements help make The Greatest Dancer stand out.”

START A REVOLUTION

The stand-out element in Armoza Formats’ Dance Revolution is best described as “the revolution moment,” when stateof-the-art technology captures a 360-degree snapshot of each dancer’s most spectacular moves. The freeze-frame is used to showcase the dancer’s precise movements and form and reveals intricacies that empower the judges to make their decisions about the contestant’s fate in the competition.

“The key element here is that it was not created just to add to the production value; it’s an integral part of the storytelling of the format,” says Avi Armoza, CEO of Armoza Formats. “It’s a key tool for the judges to evaluate the dancer, and it’s a key moment from the point of view of the dancer to prove their capability and improve their dance from one stage to another.

The success of the format is its ability to integrate the technology and visual elements into the storytelling.”

The show was produced by Quebecor Content and Fair-Play for TVA in Canada, where it garnered around a 35-percent market share.

Meanwhile, the combination of dancing and dating drives the USP of all3media international’s Flirty Dancing format. “The contributors have a very different motivation from those taking part in other dance shows,” says 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 317

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Armoza Formats’ Dance Revolution uses state-of-the-art technology to capture a 360-degree snapshot of dancers in action.

Nick Smith, the company’s executive VP of formats. “They are not trying to win money or forge a career in dance; they are looking for love. There is much more on the line for them. They will generally not be as experienced dancers as you’ll see on other dance formats, but their nerves from performing publicly coupled with the tension from dancing with someone they have never met before, let alone danced with, brings another dimension to the format.”

DANCE TO ROMANCE

The dances in Flirty Dancing all take place in striking locations, “which gives a cinematic feeling to the show,” says Smith. “No matter how much money you spend on creating a beautiful set, it will always be an artificial environment. Being set in the real world adds to Flirty Dancing’s authenticity.”

The dancers in Keshet International’s Masters of Dance, meanwhile, are at the top of their game, delivering high-energy, physically-demanding performances in each show. “The athleticism is something that has really spoken to a lot of viewers,” says Kelly Wright, the company’s senior VP of distribution and new business. “Normally, when you say dance show, broadcasters think it’s a little bit niche, a little bit soft, a little bit too female-skewing. If you look at the demographics in Israel [on Keshet 12]—and to be fair, it is a female-skewing channel—we had 42 percent male viewers on a dance competition across 20 episodes. In Germany [where it aired on ProSieben], more men were watching the show than women. It’s opened up this incredible art to the masses. The fact that we’re able to reach a really strong male audience and attract them away from sports or other programming that airs at the exact same time as our primetime competition is unprecedented in the genre.”

Sports terminology is even part of the description of the format’s core components. “We have teams and coaches; it’s tournament-style, with battles and duels,” explains Wright. “It’s a language and format that speak to a wide audience. It’s not esoteric. It’s not artsy-fartsy. It’s really strong and impressive. The themes of the battles as

well bring out so much dynamic creativity on behalf of both the dancers and the dance masters that you watch it with your jaw on the floor.”

THE PERFECT PANEL The “dance masters” that she is referring to are also integral to the format. These professionals—established dancers or choreographers whose talent and expertise have earned international acclaim—are as involved and fiercely competitive as the dancers themselves. “It’s not a panel like you would see on other more generic talent shows, where the judges have zero skin in the game and are just sitting back saying ‘Oh nice, cool,’ ” says Wright.

“Here, it’s a dog-eat-dog competition between people who are extremely proud. They are perfectionists; they have super-specific aesthetic values that they want to see enacted perfectly on stage. They become so intensely involved in the competition. It’s not even necessarily about beating the other masters; it’s about bringing out the very best performance that they can onto the stage.”

Thames’s Brown shares a similar sentiment about what the panelists in a dance competition should bring to the table. “Credibility is number one,” she says, adding that it’s important to ensure that a range of dance styles are covered by those credible captains. Brown then lists passion and camaraderie as the next most essential qualities, trailed by the relationships and dynamics between them. “That’s touch and go because you never really know you’ve got that chemistry until you’re filming halfway through day one,” she says.

“When you get the mix right and the chemistry is right, that’s worth its weight in gold.”

Brown adds that it’s equally important for the hosts on a show like The Greatest Dancer to have credibility. Pepper in some charisma and it’s a winning combination. The caliber of those credible hosts, judges and mentors can also make “a massive difference in who wants to audition and the general vibe of the entire show,” she notes.

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A series the scale of The Greatest Dancer is positioned for prime time, though Brown adds that it could even play on the earlier side of the peak slots.

Armoza asserts that a show like Dance Revolution is a peaktime play, as it delivers family entertainment. “In terms of the budget and the ability of the broadcaster to recoup their investment, it’s most suitable for prime time,” he says.

BRAND PLANS Armoza, working with Omnicom Media Group-owned Highway Entertainment and Canadian broadcaster TVA, has come up with an innovative funding model for Dance Revolution to help with the costs. “The current reality of the TV market, and especially the commercial TV market, calls for a new model of investment and participation,” says Armoza. “Omnicom is able to provide any potential broadcaster with additional funding based on cooperation for unsold media. This gives broadcasters the added value of additional funding into the production of the show.”

Keshet International’s Wright echoes the idea that what works best for dance formats today are large-scale shows that do require substantial investment. “To replicate the show that we did in Israel, it’s a massive studio, two stages, there are CGI graphics, in-studio voting, a voting bar and everything,” she says. “That’s really the only way to showcase the scale of the dances as well.

They are all themed, so they use props and different costumes in every single dance in every battle. You need that kind of space to showcase a dance troupe. There’s no way of getting around that. But, the auditions are much more intimate. They’re hosted in a smaller space.”

Even though Flirty Dancing is relatively new to the marketplace, having launched on Channel 4 in the U.K. in January, there’s already talk about how the format can be built out, according to all3media international’s Smith. “We have clients excited about what they can do with the format, including incorporating the odd celebrity in their adaptations and special themed editions set around national holidays.”

The feel-good appeal of Flirty Dancing should pique broadcasters’ interest. “Much like a rom-com, audiences are left with a beam on their face (having potentially shed a few tears along the way),” he adds.

The show also rated strongly, particularly with the much-coveted younger demo, he says.

DRAWN TO THE DANCE FLOOR

Keshet International’s Masters of Dance is also a draw with younger viewers. On ProSieben, the series’ average share in the 14-to-29 segment was double that of the adult audience 30 to 49, Wright explains. With a VOD program running alongside the show, and video clips of performances that go viral, the format is able to reach these young audiences in a variety of ways.

“Technology, audience engagement, all those elements enable you to build a new language of communication with the viewers and engage them wherever they are,” adds Armoza.

The viral sharing of the “revolution moments” from Dance Revolution has also driven interest in the show, he says. “You can go on Instagram or Facebook and see stunning visual moments that connect with people. This is something that you want to watch again and again. It helps to strengthen the whole brand when you interact with it across all platforms.”

Syco Entertainment and Thames teamed up for BBC One’s The Greatest Dancer, which Fremantle is selling globally.

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TV FORMATS: I understand you discovered the show while out to dinner?

PLESTIS: I was at dinner with my wife and daughter. We went out to have Thai food. I still think to this day that if we had decided to have Indian or Mexican or Italian, there would be no Masked Singer right now! So we’re at a restaurant and my back is to the TV. My daughter said, Dad, look at this, there is the craziest thing on. I turned around and all the diners in this small restaurant were watching the TV screen. I saw a kangaroo in black pleather singing a pop song. At that moment I said, Oh my gosh, I love this! It was bizarre. It was flypaper. It was in a foreign language and you didn’t know what was going on, and it was still working. I found out that it was a hit format in Korea, it was a hit show in Thailand. And no one had the [U.S.] rights. It was so bizarre and so strange, I think people looked at it and said, That’s a crazy show, no one is going to buy that here. I got the rights fairly quickly, with the help of Steve Wohl at Paradigm. I called Rob Wade [president of alternative entertainment and specials] at FOX on a Friday night and said, I need to come in Monday. I was so passionate about it. I worked the whole weekend. I was pulling things off YouTube. I cut a reel. I pitched it and he loved it. FOX was the right home at the right time for this brand. Also, Rob Wade did Dancing with the Stars. Who thought ballroom dancing would work in the States?

That was a gamble that paid off.

TV FORMATS: Did you have to make adjustments to the format to make it more suitable for an American audience?

PLESTIS: We did. The Korean format has a smaller burst of people and one winner. And they carry over a King of Mask Singer every few episodes. I liked the idea of

By Mansha Daswani

D

escribed by fans and detractors alike as “bonkers,” “bizarre” and “wacky,” FOX’s The Masked Singer is arguably the buzziest new entry in the reality entertainment space in years. Although it’s not really new, having been driving conversation and ratings in Korea for years as King of Mask Singer, while a recent Thai adaptation scored an International Emmy nomination. Originated by MBC in Korea, the show was brought to America by Craig Plestis, whose production company, Smart Dog Media, is housed at Endemol Shine North America. The veteran producer—who helped launch America’s Got Talent, The Biggest Loser and Deal or No Deal, among other reality hits, when he ran alternative programming at NBC—shares with TV Formats his journey with The Masked Singer. Plestis also weighs in on how social media helped turn the quirky Asian format into one of FOX’s top-rated shows this season, with a second season already in the works.

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following a character, not eliminating one so quickly as the Korean format does. The outfits, first of all, are really expensive. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on an outfit and then it’s done! Also, I like the idea of figuring out who it is. There’s a scientist who did a video about why The Masked Singer works. It’s all about the idea of figuring out the mystery and uncovering that mystery and then seeing the results. Weeks go by and you get that pent-up energy—I need to figure it out! When the singer is revealed, it releases a huge amount of endorphins and you get a thrill that you were right in your calculations. This show follows that simple dynamic. And there’s the spectacle.

TV FORMATS: How did you go about finding your masked singers?

PLESTIS: It’s not as easy as you would think! The first season for formats is always difficult. And you have to wear a 100-pound outfit, a mask, and no one is going to

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know who you are! What worked in our favor is we cut a really good sizzle using the formats around the world. The people who said yes got it. They understood the idea of the mystery. They all had a reason to do it. They wanted to sing out of their genre or prove they could actually sing. And of course, it helps if you can say, look at the track record; it’s a huge hit in Korea, it’s a huge hit in Thailand. These celebrities are savvy. They took a look at the data in the same way the network did and said, OK, I’ll take a gamble as well. Our panel and hosts also took a chance on a fresh format.

TV FORMATS: How do you maintain the secrecy on set?

PLESTIS: We have a really big legal team! The NDAs are crazy. There’s a huge security task force. We have a small group of producers and a handful [of executives] at the network who know. We kept the circle of knowledge small. And when the unmasking happens, we ask the limited number of people in the audience to keep it quiet.

TV FORMATS: Do you think that the audience grew from week to week because new viewers were discovering the show on Twitter?

PLESTIS: This is a unique phenomenon that will change the course of what we do with TV shows and formats for a long time. It’s a new way to engage the viewer.

Even just a year ago it was easy to be passive and sit there and watch a performance and say if it’s good or bad. It’s not like that anymore. What we’ve done with the guessing game of who is under the mask has opened up a whole dialogue and engagement level,

online as well as on the couch. Families are watching and having debates at home. You have to do that for viewers, especially on a broadcast level. How do you get them to engage? Luckily, we figured it out.

TV FORMATS: What are the major lessons from season one that you will bring to season two?

PLESTIS: We’re going to have a brand-new set of characters. You’ll see even more bizarre outfits. And even more bizarre choreography and performances. And we’ll be keeping that guessing game alive in season two. Do we give as many clues out as we did in season one? We don’t want to make it so difficult that no one guesses it. If you watch a clue package hard enough, you can figure it out. If you want to be an armchair detective, I want to give you all the tools to figure out who is underneath the mask. And we’ll keep it fun.

We live in such a divisive world right now. With everything going on in the news, it’s nice to take an hour out of your life to sit with your family and watch a show together, have fun, yell at the TV screen. This is the one show everyone can watch together.

TV FORMATS: Are you looking for other undiscovered gems on the international market?

PLESTIS: There are a lot of good formats and a lot of bad formats. Sometimes it’s not always 100 percent. You look for the magic ingredient that no one has done before or has been reinvented in a fresh way. I have a few already that I’m working on from Asia.

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T

he format business at BBC Studios has long been defined by big, prime-time, family-friendly entertainment brands like Dancing with the Stars and The Great Bake Off, not to mention game-show staples such as The Weakest Link. In the last year, however, the company’s trade in scripted formats has been booming, with adaptations of hit dramas like Life on Mars, Doctor Foster and Mistresses, and continued interest in The Office. As creative director for formats at BBC Studios, Sumi Connock is working across a range of genres, aligning with sister production houses and independents to feed the needs of broadcasters and platforms worldwide. She tells TV Formats about new trends in the market and her approach to rebooting classic brands.

By Mansha Daswani

TV FORMATS: It’s been a year since the BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide merger. What have been some of the significant benefits for your format business?

CONNOCK: We work much more closely with all our global production offices. It’s about having a real creative network and creative hub, particularly in the territories that are originating and developing for themselves, so the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Working closely together has been great. We have new genre managing directors, with Suzy Lamb coming into entertainment and Hannah Wyatt coming into factual entertainment. It’s been great to have big new creative minds coming into Studios.

And we’ve had new indie partners, like Expectation Entertainment, Peter Fincham’s company with Tim Hincks. They have some brilliant new things going on.

TV FORMATS: What trends in the market are you meeting with your new format slate?

CONNOCK: We’re seeing a big rise in factual entertainment with a purpose. We have Our Dementia Choir, which is all about using musical therapy to improve the lives of people who have dementia. One of our big titles for MIPTV is Life After Prison (working title). It follows a group of exconvicts as they leave prison during their first year on the outside. [In the U.K.] of every 100 people released from prison, 50 percent of them will be back inside prison within 12 months. Flicker Productions in the U.K. has done this brave look at ex-convicts [for Channel 4]. It’s really emotional, human stories. There is a lot of self-shot footage. It’s a fascinating insight. We have three new factualentertainment formats we’ll be talking about at MIPTV. Dating and relationships is a theme that is always in demand. What are the new ways of looking at it? We’ve

acquired Dating Detectives, which is a Zig Zag format, a pilot for CJ ENM in Korea. What is the twist on dating?

We get real-life detectives and use their skills to look at potential partners—hidden-camera filming, cutting-edge forensics, interrogations, psychological profiling. It’s pretty intense! Again on the relationship side, we have Couples on the Couch, which is a BBC Studios production for BBC Three, so slightly younger-skewing. It’s real-life couples bringing their sexual and emotional issues into a specially created clinic where they can have some therapy. We’ll also have footage of them in the car journey on the way to their first appointment.

They’ll also meet other couples in the waiting room of the clinic. After their first session, they’ll be sent away with their “homework.” They will do some personal video diaries at home. They’ll come back in and each see the therapist individually. Then they have a third visit to talk about the impact of the therapy and the next steps.

In the Instagram world, everybody thinks everyone else has perfect lives and perfect sex lives and their bodies are amazing. That is putting a lot of pressure on young people. [The format features] refreshing, open and honest discussions about their sex lives and their relationships and what they want from each other.

In the daily strippable space, we have a BBC series for BBC One called Home Is Where the Art Is. It’s an accessible way to do art. Each episode follows one couple looking to get a piece of art for their home. They have a budget they want to spend. We have three prospective artists from the local area who come and visit the house.

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BBC Studios has stepped up its trade in scripted formats, among them Doctor Foster.

to make their piece of art, one of them gets it bought. It’s a lovely, warm, creative show, bringing some infotainment into the home.

There’s been quite a big rise in physical game shows. With those game shows, it’s about how you keep the audience engaged. We’ve got two or three in development. It’s something I’m seeing quite a lot of from all of our creatives when they come and talk about their slates.

TV FORMATS: You’ve had a lot of scripted formats activity lately. What’s driving that side of your business?

CONNOCK: In terms of scripted, we are going from strength to strength. We had a huge rise in our scripted formats, particularly in Asia. We are the number one non-Asian distributor of scripted formats in Asia. Life on Mars is huge for us. We did it in Korea. It was on a pay-TV channel and was number one in its time slot across the country. It’s a brilliant adaptation. We’re doing Life on Mars in China. We did the first adaptation of Doctor Foster in France for TF1. It peaked at 6.1 million viewers, won its time slot; it was 84 percent up on the competition and number one for adults 18 to 34.

They are a slightly slower burn in terms of speed of travel. Our biggest scripted formats are Life on Mars, Luther, Doctor Foster, The Office and Criminal Justice.

Big characters are working. Dr. Gemma Foster, David Brent, Gene Hunt, John Luther. Same with Thirteen and Ivy Moxam. That’s one that we will see beginning to travel more.

TV FORMATS: How are you dusting off classic brands in the BBC library to introduce them to a new generation of viewers?

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CONNOCK: There are two different ways that can happen.

Suzy Lamb has a real track record of doing heritage reboots. She was previously at Thames, where she did The Price Is Right and All Star Family Fortunes. Originally when she was at the BBC she worked on a lot of heritage titles. We brought back The Weakest Link for a Christmas special in the U.K.—that performed really well. So sometimes it’s because someone in the U.K. wants to bring a show back out. Elsewhere we work with our creative networks team. We say, What is the demand out there at the moment? We know game shows are in demand. We know there have been lots of reboots. So we will re-look at the materials and we’ll start talking to the international production territories. Can we take one of these tentpole titles and put it back into the market? We’ll think about what we could do, how it could be refreshed. Weakest Link came back in France. At Showcase we announced that RTL 4 in the Netherlands is bringing Weakest Link back. Cyprus did 360 episodes. They brought it back with a slightly more comedic host, so it didn’t go down the stern, dismissive route. It was more sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, a bit more playful. That has done brilliantly well in Cyprus and it’s coming back in other territories as well.

TV FORMATS: What excites you most about what’s happening in the entertainment format space today?

CONNOCK: I like that some broadcasters are taking risks.

It’s not our format, but I really like The Masked Singer.

It’s just completely bonkers but warm and playful. It has a panel, but it’s not three judges in chairs! It’s a playalong game. What’s exciting about that show is that broadcasters are willing to take risks. Similarly with physical game shows. The universal themes of dating, food and relationships are still there, but it’s always interesting to see what that little twist is.

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EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

or all the concerns about linear channels losing audiences to streaming services, there is at least one terrestrial broadcaster that has maintained its market-leading position for the past seven years: ZDF. The German public broadcaster has a mix of programming that remains meaningful and relevant to a broad swath of the country’s audience. Its schedule runs the gamut, with everything from entertainment shows, high-end dramas that touch on social issues from the past and present and factual and current-affairs programs that offer context and discussion around pressing domestic and international topics. Its daily program heute, the newscast of record for Germans, saw its audience share increase in 2018.

Serving all members of German society is at the heart of ZDF’s mission as a public-service broadcaster. As society becomes increasingly polarized, ZDF Director-General Thomas Bellut feels that the broadcaster has a responsibility to promote democratic debate and dialogue among people with differing opinions. Bellut, who began his career as a journalist, is proud that ZDF’s news division combats “fake news” on a daily basis—this is particularly critical in the run-up to the European elections. And in children’s programming, aside from providing engaging

entertainment and factual programming on ZDF and on KiKA—the children’s channel run jointly by ZDF and the other German public broadcaster, ARD—Bellut wants to help children become savvy media consumers.

Amid all of the successes ZDF is enjoying as a channel, Bellut is intent on extending its content offering through a bouquet of websites, digital channels and apps, including funk, an online destination that targets a young audience. But Bellut doesn’t want to use the internet only to reach younger viewers. He wants ZDF to help explain the big, challenging issues to Germans of all ages and become “the first port of call” for culture on the internet.

As Bellut tells World Screen, ZDF strives to hold up a mirror to all aspects of German life. And in today’s interconnected world, Bellut also wants to bring the world to German citizens. For 25 years, ZDF Enterprises, the broadcaster’s commercial arm, has been participating in co-productions with a range of international partners, making programs available to ZDF that it may not have the resources to produce on its own. ZDF Enterprises also sells the best of ZDF’s content to outlets around the world. Its revenues, in turn, help the public broadcaster fulfill its mission.

THOMAS BELLUT ZDF

By Anna Carugati

WS: ZDF maintained good ratings in 2018. What programming strategies led to such strong performance?

BELLUT: In 2018, ZDF was the most-watched German TV channel for the seventh year in a row, with a market share of 13.9 percent. Viewers know that on ZDF they get high-quality programs with a wide range of content. Our program offering ranges from high-end series, such as Bad Banks and Parfum, to ambitious documentaries and satire. This programming formula works well. Nevertheless, we want to continually surprise our audience by providing new formats.

WS: What do viewers expect from ZDF? They have so many choices and even have to pay extra for several of them. What is ZDF’s unique selling proposition to license fee payers?

BELLUT: Our viewers expect a full range of programs that provide information, education and entertainment and give them an objective view of world affairs.

However, ZDF’s programming has a strong focus on information, which amounts to more than 40 percent of the overall schedule. Last year, heute journal was the most successful news magazine on German television, with a market share of 14.1 percent. The ZDF political talk show maybrit illner was also one of the leading discussion programs in 2018, with an average market share of 12.4 percent and 2.54 million viewers on average. And a program like auslandsjournal, which has been reporting foreign news for the last 45 years, demonstrates another of ZDF’s strengths: its global network of correspondents.

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Der Bergdoktor is a long-running series on ZDF that is sold internationally by ZDF Enterprises as Mountain Medic.

WS: The German population has become more diverse. Have societal changes been reflected in news or even in drama programming?

BELLUT: With our program offering we want to regularly reach everyone in Germany, regardless of their age, gender, background or level of education. That is why ZDF’s programming naturally also reflects changes in society. Social change—for example, issues concerning gender equality, the upbringing and education of children, the relationship between the young and the old, and the distribution of wealth—is a subject that is continually covered in a very wide range of programs, from information formats like 37°, plan b and ZDFzoom to dramas. A current example of a production featuring LGBTI characters is the ZDF thriller Getrieben, which was broadcast on February 25, 2019.

WS: How is ZDF making its programming available on multiple platforms and devices?

BELLUT: ZDF makes its programming available via a range of different linear and digital channels. Our most important online offering is ZDFmediathek. This online channel is gaining more and more viewers. The popular ZDF dramas Ku’damm 56/59, Bad Banks and Parfum topped the list of all nonlinear channel offerings in 2018. The series Ku’damm 56/59, in particular, broke all records: the first episode of the second series was watched 2 million times, making it the most successful program so far on ZDFmediathek. Overall, 35 percent of Germans watch videos from ZDF’s online offering live or on catch-up at least occasionally, corresponding to a reach of 25 million users. The ZDF family of channels also includes ZDFinfo, the most successful documentary channel in the German television market. It achieves very good ratings,

particularly in the target group of 14- to 49year-olds. To reach target groups that don’t use our own online offerings, we also show our video content on third-party platforms— particularly YouTube and Facebook. Our satire formats heute-show and NEO MAGAZIN ROYALE are particularly in demand there, as are our science brands Terra X and Lesch & Co. WS: How has the online service funk been received? Does ZDF have plans to launch other streaming services?

BELLUT: We are very happy with the success of funk. Launched in October 2016, it is reaching more and more young viewers: 66 percent of 14- to 49-year-olds are familiar with funk or at least with one of the funk

formats. Almost 50 percent of the target group have watched its content at least once.

In a time of increasing polarization on the internet, the ARD/ZDF content network provides information as a public service for a young target group. In all, funk makes more than 60 regular formats available in the areas of information, education and entertainment.

But we don’t just ask ourselves how we can reach a younger audience. We also want to address the question of how ZDF can create a space for debates, encounters and even some surprising discoveries in a society that is becoming increasingly fragmented. As a social institution, we seek to challenge the loss of a culture of democratic debate and improve people’s overall understanding. One response is ZDFkultur, which has been broadcasting since

Cash or Trash is a format from ZDF Enterprises that is based on the hit ZDF series Bares für Rares.

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heute journal is the most popular news magazine on German television, and ZDF is expanding the format from 15 minutes to 30 minutes every Sunday.

February 13, 2019. We are concentrating our high-quality cultural programs in this digital cultural environment, editorially curating them and creating new digital content with a broad range of topics. Together with strong partners, such as museums, libraries, theaters and concert halls, we are offering a wide variety of opinions, knowledge and creativity. In short, with our new digital offering, ZDF is presenting itself as the first port of call on the internet for culture.

WS: What is the impact of Netflix and Amazon on the German media market?

BELLUT: Streaming services represent competition that must be taken seriously. We are building on our online media library and continually refining it. Our first priority is to provide German TV viewers with high-quality, modern programs that are on par with those of our international competitors and to make them available via all channels. Our audience success demonstrates that we are on the right track with this aspiration.

With our highly polished series and miniseries, we are setting new quality standards and initiating social debate. The scope of content ranges from [period dramas] such as Tannbach and Ku’damm 56/59, to Bad Banks, which is set against the backdrop of the banking crisis. This year we will start shooting our international co-production Der Schwarm.

Frank Schätzing’s successful novel is being made into a high-end series that is sure to be another major TV event.

WS: We live in complicated times, and complicated times call for thorough, verifiable news coverage that doesn’t stop at headlines— it should also provide context. ZDF has always offered a variety of news and currentaffairs programming. Given these challenging

times, is ZDF broadening its news offering even further?

BELLUT: In recent years there has been much debate in German society about the credibility of the media. However, surveys indicate that people trust public-service television. Together with the daily newspapers and the weekly magazines, public-service broadcasting achieves the highest credibility ratings from the German population. Nevertheless, we have noticed a significant increase in demand for reliable information and education. We, therefore, see it as a logical step to extend heute journal from 15 minutes to 30 minutes on Sunday evenings—the most-watched evening of the week—starting on March 31, 2019.

With our discussion programs, we want to promote dialogue within society and counteract division. That’s why we are expanding our expertise in this genre. In the future, the range of topics dealt with in programs like maybrit illner, Was nun, …? and Markus Lanz will be opened up further and the number of female guests will be increased. We consider this to be a key element of our public-service mandate.

Our online offering heute.de will also be expanded with interactive graphics, maps and animation as well as texts supported by multimedia. And, last but not least, it will include tailor-made online videos, created by a team of news and video editors working together in one newsroom.

WS: In how many different ways are you providing news and updates to viewers throughout the day?

BELLUT: We give our viewers news whenever and wherever they want it: from heute at 7 p.m. to heute journal, heute+ and heute Xpress to heute.de and the heute app, which are 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 329

available at all times on all platforms. The heute family scores points with viewers by offering a wide variety of informative programs via all channels. In addition, the news formats are continually and consistently being enhanced—on television, online and on social media.

WS: In many countries, people get the majority of their news from social media sites like Facebook. How do most Germans get their news? Do traditional media such as newspapers and TV newscasts attract readers and viewers? How do viewers regard ZDF’s heute?

BELLUT: Television is by far the most frequently used source of news in Germany.

And TV viewers particularly appreciate our competence in providing them with information, as I have already described. To give you another example: the market share of the 7 p.m. edition of heute increased last year to 17.1 percent from 16.3 percent in 2017.

WS: How is ZDF combating fake news, especially with the European elections coming in May? BELLUT: Fake news is dealt with by the ZDF editors as part of their daily work—in their research when checking the authenticity of photos and video, and as a topic to be reported on. With regard to our own work, two essential considerations are transparency and error management. Following the example of The New York Times, we have placed a “Corrections” section on our news homepage heute.de. We use this page to point out errors that we have made in our reporting and to correct them. In the run-up to the European elections, we are also setting up a #ZDFcheck team, as we have done before for

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ZDF has a strong commitment to children’s programming with services such as the daily newscast logo! and KiKA, a joint venture with ARD. other elections. For example, the team examines statements made by politicians to verify their accuracy. The results are processed and published on TV, online and on social media.

WS: Besides offering entertainment programming, how does ZDF serve children? Since children are the citizens of tomorrow, is ZDF also offering them factual information or helping them understand and use media wisely?

BELLUT: For 30 years now, ZDF has been producing logo!, the only daily news program for children on German television. Throughout this time, we have been covering complex news topics in this program in a way that makes them appropriate for children and easy to understand. For more than 20 years, KiKA, the children’s channel from ARD and ZDF, has been reliably providing children of all ages with information and guidance, and parents hold the channel in high esteem.

In addition to the TV offering, there is the preschool portal kikaninchen.de, the children’s offering kika.de, the adults’ offering erwachsene.kika.de and KiKA teletext, HbbTV and third-party platforms (YouTube and Facebook), as well as mobile apps. These telemedia offerings are free from advertising and sponsorship and provide a variety of multimedia content that is designed to be interactive and appropriate for children. As we do in the TV offering, we provide information,

education, advice and entertainment for children between the ages of 3 and 13 on the internet. This offering has also been designed to be a safe space where young users can explore the internet in fun way and gain media skills at the same time.

WS: How does ZDF Enterprises contribute to ZDF? What is your vision for ZDF Enterprises?

BELLUT: ZDF Enterprises has been successfully acting as an independent market player for more than 25 years. The company has vast experience, an outstanding reputation and interacts with ZDF as its shareholder based on the arm’s length principle. Its two main areas of business are the rights and license trade and the management of an efficient portfolio of media companies [it owns stakes in].

Due to its experience in international activities, its comprehensive network, and its proficient staff with extensive knowledge of worldwide markets and industries, ZDF Enterprises is able to provide us with information on the latest programming trends and production and economic developments at a very early stage.

As a public broadcaster, ZDF cannot operate as flexibly or take the same risks in the marketplace as a private company. For this reason, ZDF Enterprises is often our co-production partner in the realization of important projects 330 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

at both a national and international level, acquiring additional rights at its own risk.

At the same time, the company’s global success also strengthens ZDF’s reputation as an innovative and high-quality broadcaster.

And finally, ZDF Enterprises is economically successful and its profits contribute to the fulfillment of our mission as a public broadcaster.

WS: What are the most significant opportunities and challenges facing ZDF in the next 12 to 24 months?

BELLUT: In the coming years, we will face the challenge of introducing a younger audience to our various information and entertainment offerings and making it easy for them to find that content. To this end, we are going to expand our online service Mediathek and our news offering heute.de appropriately.

A further challenge is the current boom in TV series. It is leading to increased competition for the best creatives and the best material.

This applies not only at an international level but also in Germany. ZDF, as the largest purchaser in the German TV production industry, is well positioned. Our skillful and experienced editors work closely and well with a lot of producers. As a result, we will continue to be the first contact for creatives in Germany and thus be able to offer our viewers highquality series and miniseries.

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MIPDOC & MIPTV EDITION

Science Docs / Medical Series National Geographic’s Gary Knell / CuriosityStream’s Clint Stinchcomb

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Real-World Impact

FEATURES 16 HOOKED ON SCIENCE Producers and distributors are upping the stakes in science docs.

The music industry is finally facing its own “Me Too” reckoning, thanks in large part to two high-profile, contentious doc series released in the last few months.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Real ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvreal.ws

The first, Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly, featured a slew of women who claimed to have been abused by the R&B singer. On the heels of that series, Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney in Chicago’s Cook County, asked victims to come forward to authorities. About six weeks later, Kelly—who was previously acquitted of child pornography charges in a long, drawn-out trial from which he managed to emerge with his career intact—was indicted on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

The second, HBO and Channel 4’s riveting Leaving Neverland, focuses on Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege that Michael Jackson molested them when they were children. The two-parter led to radio stations ceasing to play his music, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis pulling Jackson memorabilia and producers of The Simpsons yanking the episode that featured the singer from all future runs.

This isn’t the first time that a documentary has forced action—think back to Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line, which was instrumental in overturning the murder conviction and death row sentence against Randall Dale Adams. Granted, not everyone is convinced by the explosive revelations in these two titles. Kelly’s supporters remain committed to the idea that he didn’t do anything wrong, claiming that the accusers are just seeking fame and fortune. Ditto with Jackson’s fans, who are steadfast in their belief in his innocence despite seemingly overwhelming evidence that he was engaged in inappropriate behavior with young boys (you’ll recall that these aren’t the first accusations against the late singer).

In Kelly’s case, jurors will have to weigh the evidence and determine his guilt or innocence. Jackson is not here to face his accusers, but the damage to his legacy is irreparable, the allegations by Robson and Safechuck too disturbing to ignore.

More than any other genre, documentaries, when done well, have the power to effect real change in the world. That’s the driving force at National Geographic Partners, according to Chairman Gary Knell. “A stunning set of photographs or a television program can move people to do something,” he says in an interview that appears in this edition. This issue of TV Real also features Clint Stinchcomb, the president and CEO of CuriosityStream, on his strategy for building out the SVOD platform, plus in-depth reports on the latest developments in science and medical docs.

—Mansha Daswani

16 24 DOCS ON DOCS The demand for medical documentaries has never been higher.

24 INTERVIEWS

30 National Geographic’s Gary Knell

36 CuriosityStream’s Clint Stinchcomb

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Jesus: His Life

A+E Networks Jesus: His Life / Damian Lewis: Spy Wars / Surviving R. Kelly The series Jesus: His Life tells the story of the biblical figure by looking at who he was as a man through the eyes of the people closest to him. Meanwhile, Damian Lewis (Homeland, Billions) is fronting Damian Lewis: Spy Wars. “We are capitalizing on the intense intrigue surrounding the world of espionage,” says Ellen Lovejoy, VP, head of content sales for the Americas and formats at A+E Networks. “We take that international appeal and dig into different agencies and actual stories from the past.” In the documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, women share allegations about sexual, mental and physical abuse inflicted by the eponymous music star. “Our premium factual content provides worldly stories via powerful personal testimonies and expert interviews that grasp audiences and empower them to take action,” says Lovejoy.

“Premium factual is part of our DNA and has been over our 30-plus-year history.”

—Ellen Lovejoy

Albatross World Sales Going Nuts: Tales from the Squirrel World / Wineman: The Gálvez Guide to Intelligent Wines / We Are Half the World Going Nuts: Tales from the Squirrel World is a look into the lives of the little furry creatures that takes viewers on a pintsized, albeit wild ride. The documentary focuses on various squirrel species’ survival in extreme environments. “Who doesn’t love squirrels?” asks Albatross World Sales’ managing director, Anne Olzmann. “The cuteness factor is definitely convincing.” Wineman: The Gálvez Guide to Intelligent Wines is a travel doc that follows vino-savvy host Joaquín Gálvez as he visits the vineyards and regions famous for producing the world’s best wines and learns the secrets of its creation from locals along the way. Also from Albatross comes We Are Half the World, a look into the international struggle for women’s right to vote through the eyes of 20th-century suffragettes like Emmeline Pankhurst and Marguerite Durand.

We Are Half the World

“We’re thrilled to meet existing buyers as well as connect to new potential clients out of the documentary sphere.”

—Anne Olzmann

Autentic Distribution The Woodstock Bus: Finding the Light / Terrorism Close Calls / 24H Europe: The Next Generation Autentic Distribution’s slate of new programs is led by The Woodstock Bus: Finding the Light, which follows a road trip to find one of America’s lost art treasures. Released in celebration of Woodstock’s 50th anniversary, the docuseries sees the original artist resurrect, restore and repaint the bus. Meanwhile, Terrorism Close Calls teaches viewers about terrorist schemes that military and intelligence services around the world have thwarted and includes testimony from leading counter-terrorism experts. A fly-on-the-wall expedition to explore the European continent and its young people unfolds in real time in 24H Europe: The Next Generation. “This program of parallel worlds and contradictions is a contemporary document and a manifest for a future in the making,” says Autentic Distribution’s general manager of sales, Anne Hufnagel.

The Woodstock Bus: Finding the Light

“We are always looking for the top-notch and best international documentary programs and series.”

—Anne Hufnagel

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Distribution360 Titanic: Stories from the Deep / Born by Fire: The Secret History of Glass Blowing / WW2 Treasure Hunters Distribution360 has a factual slate stocked with history fare this MIPTV, including Titanic: Stories from the Deep. The series is “breaking new ground in historical programming,” says Diane Rankin, senior VP of international sales and acquisitions. “With the use of cutting-edge technology, the personal objects salvaged from the underwater resting site of the wreck tell us brand-new stories of love, fate, secrets and heroics.”

Born by Fire: The Secret History of Glass Blowing takes viewers on a journey through the world of glass, “tracing its origins from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day, where avantgarde artisans turn molten liquid into stunning works of art,” says Rankin. There’s a second installment of WW2 Treasure Hunters, continuing to follow missions to save buried and undiscovered artifacts that are in danger of being lost forever.

“Distribution360 is thrilled to be expanding further into the history genre.”

—Diane Rankin Born by Fire: The Secret History of Glass Blowing

Beyond Innovation

Globalive Media Beyond Innovation Globalive Media offers business content featuring leaders and innovators from all corners of the globe. “With Beyond Innovation, we’re spotlighting people whose work is having a profound impact on the way we live and do business, and we’re uncovering those next big things that are going to revolutionize the world we live in,” says Michael Bancroft, executive producer and co-host of Beyond Innovation. Globalive Media is selling the second-run rights for the series, which has 26 half-hour episodes in season one. The company is also in the preplanning and production stages for season two. “We believe the series will have great appeal for buyers at MIPTV because it’s truly global in reach, traveling to cities worldwide and speaking to the current climate of the borderless economy in which we all live,” Bancroft says.

“Globalive Media produces thoughtful television programming about business, technology and innovation from around the world.”

—Michael Bancroft

Kew Media Distribution Griff Off the Rails: Down Under / Silent Witness: Murder in Amish Country / Haunted Hospitals Kew Media Distribution is highlighting three factual programs that were each produced in a different territory. In the Australia-made six-parter Griff Off the Rails: Down Under, British comedian Griff Rhys Jones offers a modern look at the country, traversing it by train. “Griff Off the Rails: Down Under will be of interest not only to travel enthusiasts but will also showcase the beauty of the Australian landscape,” says Jonathan Ford, executive VP of sales. Set within America’s Amish communities, Silent Witness: Murder in Amish Country shows how difficult solving a homicide case can be when it involves people who prefer to mete out justice from within.

Produced in Canada, Haunted Hospitals’ second season will continue telling paranormal-activity stories that take place inside various medical facilities.

Griff Off the Rails: Down Under

“We work steadily to maintain close relationships with our buyers around the world to ensure we’re constantly offering content that will satisfy their ever-evolving requirements.”

—Jonathan Ford 340 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Orange Smarty The Real Prime Suspect / Dirty Vegan / Behind Closed Doors: Through the Eyes of a Child The series The Real Prime Suspect is led by Jackie Malton, who was the inspiration behind Helen Mirren’s character in the drama Prime Suspect. “Using Jackie’s unparalleled list of contacts, she will get exclusive access to case files and have credible, in-depth discussions with the police, detectives and other professionals who were at the heart of each investigation,” says Karen Young, CEO of Orange Smarty. Daredevil and chef Matt Pritchard fronts the action in Dirty Vegan, as he sets out to prove that a vegan diet can make you fitter, stronger and healthier with food that tastes “banging.” Behind Closed Doors: Through the Eyes of a Child, from director Anna Hall, spotlights children who have witnessed domestic abuse. “This program really highlights some of the quality content Orange Smarty has become synonymous with,” says Young.

Dirty Vegan

“Despite operating in a fiercely competitive environment, Orange Smarty has built a strong reputation for its high-quality catalog and secured a raft of impressive sales worldwide.”

—Karen Young When Whales Walked: A Deep Time Journey

PBS International Woodstock / Chasing the Moon / When Whales Walked: A Deep Time Journey Woodstock and Chasing the Moon, two of PBS International’s offerings, commemorate the 50th anniversaries of seminal events. Woodstock documents the gathering that turned into “a once-in-a-century cultural phenomenon that served as a coda to the ’60s and a harbinger of the decades to come,” says the company’s VP, Tom Koch. In the same vein, Chasing the Moon, a Robert Stone film, pays homage to the historic moon landing and upends much of the conventional mythology surrounding the event. Lastly, natural-history program When Whales Walked: A Deep Time Journey is a film that explores the origins of many of the planet’s most breathtaking creatures. It “takes us millions of years into the past to unravel the extraordinary lineage of awe-inspiring animals, from ferocious crocodiles to magnificent elephants,” says Koch.

“For over 20 years, the company has extended the reach of programming beyond broadcast while generating revenue for the public television system, stations and producers.”

—Tom Koch

Rive Gauche Television I Saw the Unknown / My Misdiagnosis / Something’s Killing Me Rive Gauche Television’s return to the paranormal comes in the form of I Saw the Unknown, a new series that features ordinary people retelling extraordinary experiences in which they’ve encountered the frightening and unexplained. In the medical genre, there are My Misdiagnosis— which follows the cases of those who’ve been misdiagnosed, leading to useless surgeries and sometimes even horrible mistakes as they search for medical answers—and Something’s Killing Me. “The success of Something’s Killing Me in the marketplace has brought a third season of this compelling series already,” says Jon Kramer, Rive Gauche’s CEO. Each episode of Something’s Killing Me involves investigations into medical mysteries that imminently threaten a patient’s life.

Something’s Killing Me

“We are finding the medical genre to be of great interest to our clients.”

—Jon Kramer

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TCB Media Rights Underground Worlds / Shake My Beauty / Shocking Emergency Calls Subterranean mega-structures are explored in Underground Worlds, a docuseries TCB Media Rights is bringing to the market that will lead viewers on a tour of a World War II air-raid shelter converted into an urban farm, among other impressive constructions. The series Shake My Beauty gives a platform to those who’ve embraced their physical differences and emotional insecurities to become influencers in their own right.

According to Simona Argenti, senior sales manager at TCB Media Rights, “Shake My Beauty takes viewers on a journey of acceptance and self-empowerment, delivering an inspiring message of body positivity that has already attracted millions of viewers in the online community.” Each episode of Shocking Emergency Calls revisits dramatic and disturbing calls and depicts the real human stories behind them.

“With a market space that becomes more competitive every year, we have been busy at TCB.”

—Simona Argenti

Terra Mater Factual Studios

Borneo: Earth’s Ancient Isle

Whale Wisdom / The Sun: Inferno in the Sky / Borneo: Earth’s Ancient Isle Guided by director Rick Rosenthal, Whale Wisdom, a Terra Mater Factual Studios highlight, dives down into the ocean depths to learn about the intelligence of whales. Shifting the focus upward, The Sun: Inferno in the Sky combines the latest solar research and insights from international scientists and solar storm footage to create a close-up portrait of the sun for viewers. Borneo: Earth’s Ancient Isle explores the biodiversity of the Malay Archipelago’s tropical rainforests and sprawling cave systems, and features giant apes, pygmy elephants, airbreathing fish and thousands of different species of plants.

“From the coast to the island’s highest point—Mount Kinabalu, rising over 4,000 meters—Borneo, Earth’s ancient isle, is a place quite unlike any other,” says Sabine Holzer, Terra Mater’s head of specialist factual.

“Borneo: Earth’s Ancient Isle visits one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.”

—Sabine Holzer

ZDF Enterprises The Greatest Race / Planet of Volcanoes / Just Animals The 4K/UHD production The Greatest Race shines a light on the chariot races at the Circus Maximus, which held more than 150,000 spectators. “This documentary gives viewers incredibly rich, new insights,” says Ralf Rückauer, VP of ZDFE.unscripted at ZDF Enterprises. From the science and knowledge subgenre, Planet of Volcanoes takes viewers on an expedition to one of the world’s most active lava lakes. “We want to find lifeforms living inside the volcano that can tell us more about the origins of life on Earth as well as the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in our universe,” says Rückauer. Meanwhile, Just Animals celebrates the world’s wildlife. Rückauer calls it “a visual feast, which tours the globe and intrigues, surprises and enthralls audiences.”

“The impressive list of partners on each of these productions alone is proof of their international appeal.”

Just Animals

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—Ralf Rückauer

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Autentic’s Out of the Cradle.

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TV REAL 17

HOOKED ON

SCIENCE Jay Stuart explores how producers and distributors are upping the stakes in science documentaries.

I

n today’s digitally fragmented market, broadcasters like nothing better than highprofile programming based on the anniversary of a famous historical event to cut through the content overload and win big audiences. This year the science docs business has a golden opportunity with a megaanniversary to celebrate—man’s landing on the moon in the summer of 1969. The attention-grabbing anniversary has generated some outsized documentary projects.

SPACE RACE One of Smithsonian Channel’s biggest productions this year is Apollo’s Moon Shot, a six-part series drawing on the unique strength of the company’s affiliation with the National Air and Space Museum, the world’s largest and most popular space museum. “It’s the repository of NASA artifacts,” says David Royle, chief programming officer and executive VP at Smithsonian Networks. “That helps us both in telling the story by using the archives and by enabling us to bring the viewers closer than ever to the story. With 3D scanning, we can explore objects in fantastic detail—for example, Neil Armstrong’s space suit or the lunar module. You can get right inside the module. Did you know there’s graffiti on the wall that the astronauts wrote? We can show that kind of detail.”

At PBS, the moon mission anniversary has delivered a big sales push. “Science has always been a very popular genre for us,” says Tom Koch, the VP of PBS International, which distributes the long-running science series NOVA. “The anniversary of the lunar landing has generated huge interest in Chasing the Moon and Apollo’s Daring Mission.”

High-profile anniversaries like the moon landing are competitive. “Anniversaries are tricky,” says Céline Payot Lehmann, the head of international distribution at ARTE

Distribution. “Broadcasters want the doc on the subject.

There are lots on the market and they want the best one— and they need it on time.”

The competition of moon-sized anniversaries is not for everyone. “In 2019 we didn’t focus on the moon,” says Patrick Hörl, the founder and managing director of Autentic.

“Because big players like PBS and BBC are doing moon shows, we’re going for another 1969 anniversary with a sixpart series on Woodstock, with a psychedelic bus.”

Hörl continues, “There are only so many events in a year.

I think television series are actually more in-demand than the big anniversary-based ones. They have a greater impact on the perception of a channel than event programs. The fact is that an event program requires a lot of marketing even to get any recognition. With a series, you can build awareness over time.”

“The thing about anniversaries is that they create an atmosphere and a momentum,” counters Smithsonian’s Royle. “The press and the media talk about the anniversary and people start to focus on it. Suddenly it’s the subject people want to talk about and they become interested in the subject. They get excited and want to learn more.”

In addition to Apollo’s Moon Shot, Smithsonian has other NASA-related docs, including America’s Secret Space Heroes, about the scientists inside the space program.

PBS has found that the interest in the big anniversary has extended to other space-related programs, such as Rise of the Rockets, exploring the promising new renaissance of space travel.

Terra Mater Factual Studios is catching the momentum around the anniversary with its The Moon: Our Gateway to the Universe. Parent company Red Bull Media House, meanwhile, has its eyes on actually going to the moon. Last year at MIPTV, a partnership was announced with private space company PTScientists in its project to land the first private spacecraft on the moon. Red Bull will develop, 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 347

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Terra Mater’s Aurora: Fire in the Sky covers the history of aurora research and recent scientific discoveries.

produce and license the Mission to the Moon project’s live broadcasts, behind-the-scenes footage, feature documentaries and additional content.

Event-oriented shows aren’t always about anniversaries.

For Albatross World Sales, the strongest science sellers have been The Equalizer and its sequel Champions vs. Legends. The Equalizer enjoyed the high-profile boost of the Summer Olympics and performed well at the time of the event as a one-off special. Anne Olzmann, the managing director of Albatross World Sales, observes that one-offs in general work slightly better for free-TV and public broadcasters with a very broad audience, while longer-running factualentertainment series are more at home on pay-TV or niche-oriented outlets.

Albatross is bringing Naked Mole-Rat: Nature’s Weirdest Superhero, the winner of the NHK Science Award at Wildscreen Festival, to MIPDoc and MIPTV this spring. The one-off is produced by Taglicht Media for ZDF, ARTE, Smithsonian Channel and National Geographic.

REAL DISCOVERIES In the competitive science-docs space, having exclusive access to things that have never been seen before is also a significant advantage. ARTE is offering up Sapiens: The New Beginning, about the discovery of fossil remains in Morocco.

The finds suggest that our species is older than previously thought and originated not in East Africa but in North Africa.

ARTE has done over 15 presales.

“It’s a real scientific scoop,” Payot Lehmann says. “This sort of discovery will change schoolbooks. Scoop documentaries

are good for presales when you are in development or production. But they can have a limited shelf life because they might be overtaken by new scoops. Science moves fast.”

And scoops aren’t always exclusives, and they may even contest other discoveries. Albatross World Sales, for example, is looking for presales on Europe: The New Cradle of Humankind?, a one-off about the latest developments in our understanding of human evolution in Europe, challenging the general belief that Africa is the cradle of humankind.

Albatross has sold the visionary series Islands of the Future worldwide, leading to two sequels, Water Is Our Future and Paradise Preserved, which will be launched at MIPDoc and MIPTV.

EUREKA! “Revelatory science continues to perform,” says PBS’s Koch. New archaeological evidence takes center stage in Decoding the Great Pyramid, which sheds light on the stunning engineering of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Such big docs have become showcases for innovation and high-end production. “Technology is enabling us to show things that couldn’t be seen before,” says Smithsonian’s Royle. “It’s not just the way we tell the story that’s evolving or the better formats like 4K; it has made the science so much better. With DNA interpretations, we can show new theories in detail.”

Royle adds, “Technology has made viewers more demanding. It’s almost an arms race. The audience wants more and more. The old days of showing diagrams are gone.

You have to use high-end computer graphics and drones.”

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Talesmith and Zee Entertainment Enterprises on Life of Earth: From Space. Smithsonian is partnering with PBS to produce When Whales Walked: A Deep Time Journey, which will feature 3D animation.

PICTURE PERFECT

PBS International has done brisk business on Chasing the Moon, a six-parter about the space race.

ARTE’s Payot Lehmann agrees. “There’s a race to be impressive.” As an example, she references 700 Sharks, which featured scientists diving at night in Polynesia to study sharks. Production took two years and used the latest technology, including bullet-time cameras that allow the action to be stopped and looked at from different angles, like the effects used in The Matrix.

Tech innovations, however, don’t come cheap.

FINANCIAL FORMULA

Producing in 4K Ultra HD has become the norm for many companies, even though the actual 4K market is still small.

“Ultra HD content is already a basic requirement in the field of blue-chip documentaries from first shot to master,” says Armin Luttenberger, the head of international content sales at ORF-Enterprise. “For visually attractive content it means a significant increase in image quality in all stages of production.”

Smithsonian started making all of its originals in 4K a few years ago. “It’s not just that it looks great,” Royle says. “It allows you to show things in detail.”

Albatross’s Olzmann agrees that demand for 4K content is becoming essential for programs with strong visuals.

“We concluded several deals for the 4K version of The Borderless Sky, which would not have happened if it were an HD program,” she says. “Astro photographers armed with high-tech cameras gathering spectacular images of phenomena in the night skies—that makes for the very strong visual experience that needs to be in 4K.” Koch says that 4K is becoming increasingly important in science documentaries for PBS International. “Some key clients look to take advantage of it as the USP in their programming lineup. For a number of our platform partners, 4K is the way they can distinguish top science programming in an otherwise crowded content landscape.”

For distributors, 4K has an added benefit. “4K is really important for shelf life,” says Autentic’s Hörl. “Science shows can last for five or six years. 4K gives you added security.”

“Science is expensive,” observes Autentic’s Hörl, “for two main reasons. One, it requires research. That is costly. Second, visualization is a challenge. Often the solution is animation. And animation is very expensive because the viewers are demanding. They want animation up to the standard of feature films, and well they should.”

Autentic co-produced Out of the Cradle, a show about early humans, with NHK. The production broke ground by bringing in a new kind of animation partner, gaming company Square Enix, the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise.

“The level of detailing in gaming is breathtaking,” Hörl says. “We’re finding a new business model, putting together a broadcaster and a gaming company in production. The animation looks real.”

Sabine Holzer, the head of specialist factual at Terra Mater Factual Studios, agrees that “animation is hugely important. Doing great animation is part of the game.

Yes, the cost is high if you do it right, but either you do it right or leave it. I’m not a fan of cheap animation.”

Given the costs involved in highend science docs, international coproductions are common in the genre. They have been fundamental for the Smithsonian Channel, which worked with ITV on The Day We Walked on the Moon and with Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Secret Space Heroes features NASA engineers.

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ARTE’s 700 Sharks utilized bullet-time camera work.

At Terra Mater, 4K is seen as a must for just that reason.

“We have to do everything in 4K,” Holzer says. “It’s the way to make sure our programs have shelf life.”

Another element that adds value to a science doc is having a credible, compelling presenter. “A good charismatic science presenter can make all the difference, as in the case of Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix,” says Royle. “Science is complicated and requires explanation, but you don’t want the viewers to feel they’re being given a lesson, they want to feel smart and learn about the world they live in.”

“Having a famous English-speaking presenter can add a lot of value,” agrees Payot Lehmann. But ARTE tends to go without presenters, offering an English version and a clean international version. “Many of our buyers subtitle,” she adds. “They can’t afford to do a voice-over.”

Terra Mater partnered with the BBC, among other partners, on David Attenborough’s Light on Earth. It also made Richard Hammond’s Miracles of Nature and Wild Weather with Richard Hammond. For the international market, Terra Mater offered versions without the presenter.

“In trying to appeal to a global audience, we find buyers often seek out presenter-free science, but a good, authentic presenter can bring valuable knowledge, and audiences, to a program,” says PBS’s Koch. “In NOVA Wonders, a series where researchers are tackling some of the biggest questions about life and the cosmos, there is a knowledgeable, diverse set of presenters who successfully guide the programs and interpret the science for a wide audience.”

VIRTUAL REALITY So what’s the next big frontier in science docs? VR, potentially, assuming it doesn’t suffer the same fate that befell 3D. There’s general agreement that, like that other much-hyped technical innovation, VR has not taken off as fast as some people expected. But location VR is showing its potential in science,

according to Smithsonian’s Royle. “You can put the viewers inside a location, like a museum. They can disappear into a different world. The Science Museum in London is doing successful things, and of course, we had David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive.”

ARTE has about 20 VR productions. These are short-form products of 2 to 10 minutes each. “It’s a completely different market from television,” Payot Lehmann says. “It’s not the same buyers, not the same people. We’re mainly talking about museums or aquariums. There’s no business model yet. The price on these things is low, $1,000 or $2,000.”

IMMERSIVE APPROACHES Luttenberger of ORF-Enterprise notes, “VR content as an addon to linear perception can offer immersive experiences, but there are still questions about storytelling and the availability of suitable devices in the consumer’s living rooms.”

Koch is more optimistic than some others on the progress of VR. “It’s the exciting next step in science programming, promising to engage audiences on a truly unique, proactive level,” he says. “We have participated in a couple of VR projects that helped us navigate the challenge of bringing content alive in a meaningful way. As with any format of delivery, it always comes back to the simple premise—do you have a good story to tell?”

Whatever the format, the key, says Smithsonian’s Royle, is to be both educational and entertaining. “We have the resources of the Smithsonian and the museum is definitely involved. All our programs are sent to the museum experts and if there’s something not quite right, they send it back for us to fix.

“The world we live is so full of fake news and bad information,” he says. “It’s important to be able to give the public programs to believe in. But we also work very hard at being entertaining. We want people to watch and enjoy our programs and say to themselves, that was really a fun hour and I learned something.”

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TVF International’s Medical Revolution.

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The demand for medical documentaries has never been higher, resulting in a drive for ever more innovative programming, Neil Crossley reports. ompassion, empathy and a growing awareness of health and wellbeing are among the factors driving demand for medical documentaries. From hospital docudramas chronicling the challenges of medical staff to deeply personal and inspirational accounts of suffering, these very human and emotional stories of life-and-death struggles hold enduring appeal for audiences across the globe.

“Health and medicine have always been strong performers for us,” says Harriet Armston-Clarke, director at TVF International. “But we have seen an increase in the number of channels and platforms dedicated to this genre over the past few years, for example, S+ in Portugal. There is more information—and misinformation—than ever before. So the hunger for quality, well-researched content is greater than ever.”

As the medical documentary genre has become an increasingly crowded space, producers and distributors are honing their techniques to deliver more innovative and engaging productions.

“There are so many medical programs out there, you have to work hard to stand out from the crowd,” says Nick Tanner, the director of sales and co-productions at Passion Distribution.

“As audiences are becoming increasingly aware and informed in terms of their lifestyle choices, medical has grown in scope. Programming with a more holistic approach that encompasses health and wellbeing, diet and mental health is increasingly popular, as well as content that explores extraordinary medical conditions.”

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One of Passion’s strongest sellers is Don’t Tell the Doctor, from Arrow Media. The series follows a team of doctors who come to the aid of people who have made their medical problems worse by self-diagnosis. Another success is Darcey Bussell: Dancing To Happiness, in which the former ballerina examines how dancing can improve mental wellbeing. Tanner says this one-off documentary reflects how medical programming is responding to growing concerns about mental health. Other Passion series doing brisk business are the celebrity-fronted series Emma Willis: Delivering Babies and Dr Christian Will See You Now.

UNIVERSAL THEMES Patrice Choghi, the senior VP of international at GRB Studios, says the best medical documentary series are rooted in universal themes that appeal to the human condition. “More and more programs are beginning to throw in spectacular elements to help make a splash in an ever-crowded field,” he says. “However, the simplicity of a well-created story structure cannot be overstated. Ultimately, people will tune in, or choose not to, based on the hook the underlying stories are anchored by and the revolving cast of compelling characters.”

Choghi says that GRB’s strongest seller “without a doubt” has been the long-running Untold Stories of the ER, a docudrama series that airs on TLC and Discovery Life.

“The show generally highlights the most fantastical elements of working within the emergency room environment,” he says. “The opportunity for viewers to take a peek behind the curtain into one of the most intense work

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The slate of medical docs at Rive Gauche includes Egg Factor.

you see the patient’s inspirational journey, as well as the doctor’s commitment and compassion. In the face of staggering obstacles, both patient and physician often get a positive ending.”

Jon Kramer, the CEO of U.S. sales house Rive Gauche Television, likens the appeal of his company’s medical documentaries to that of crime series.

Suspenseful, innovative storytelling and improved reenactments are driving demand in the medical docs space, he says.

“Medical is a universal subject and an alternative to crime programming, as it caters to the same demographic. Two of our medical-related series, Something’s Killing Me and My Misdiagnosis, have been very well received. After launching these last year, we feel like there is certainly an appetite.”

Both series delve into the investigations of life-or-death medical mysteries, explains Kramer, examining puzzling behaviors that result in near-death struggles. Each episode chronicles a race against time to discover what, or who, is killing the patient.

Doctors, scientists, and in some cases, federal investigators, act as medical sleuths to solve the mysteries.

“Both series are very well done and keep the audience guessing until the very end,” he says. “The audience loyal to crime is the same for medical mysteries: 25- to 54year-old women.”

environments, with those at the front line describing their stories, has proven to be of sustained interest for years.”

Holly Cowdery, sales manager at TCB Media Rights, believes “the human aspect” of medical documentaries is driving this kind of content now, far more so than new scientific discovery-themed series. She cites as an example True Medical, one of the titles from TCB’s extensive deal with Transparent TV. The show was made for Nine Network in Australia. “True Medical shows a blind woman seeing for the first time, and a man previously confined to a wheelchair walking again. Although this is due to new technology, it’s the human emotions these stories conjure up that keep the viewer gripped.”

Advancements in technology are indeed boosting the medical docs space. Series such as Dr Christian Will See You Now use fixed-rig filming techniques to create an unfiltered and intimate feeling. Science-based productions also continue to have global appeal. Armston-Clarke Pivotal to the success of medical documentaries are the at TVF International says the company’s strongest sellers personality traits of the central characters who front them. have been The Truth About Vitamins, The Science of Sleep, Producers need to ensure that audiences will trust, believe The Cholesterol Question, MS Wars: Hope, Science and the in and warm to the doctors, consultants and other medical Internet and Medical Revolution. She attributes their success staff at the core of the series. They also need to exude natuto being “universally relevant, well-researched films with ral personality and charisma on-screen. cutting-edge new science and technological innovations.”

“In the modern TV environment, doctors need to stand out Breakthroughs in science and “myth-busting” have been the from the crowd,” says Jes Wilkins, the chief creative officer of predominant innovations in the genre, she says.

Firecracker, a sister production company to Passion Series that focus on unusual or extraordinary illnesses are Distribution. “Personality and diversity are key. They need to also strong sellers. One of Passion’s successes is The be engaging, show empathy and be credible.”

Woman Who Ate a House, about a woman with pica syndrome, an eating disorder that involves ingesting non-food items, including, in this case, the plaster walls of her home. TCB Media Rights reports brisk business with The Boy with No Brain, the story of Noah Wall, who was born with less than two percent of his brain.

Cowdery also cites Transparent’s catalog of similarly moving medical documentaries, such as Erick: The Boy with No Face and The Incredible Hulk Woman.

“I think people are always fascinated by unusual illnesses as they affect all of us,” says Cowdery, “but what separates these documentaries from the pack is that TCB’s True Medical goes behind the scenes of groundbreaking medical advances.

HOT DOCS

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Commissioned by UKTV’s W channel, Dr Christian Will See You Now has been a strong seller for Passion Distribution.

GRB’s Choghi also highlights the importance of authenticity. “In this era of ‘fake news’ and fabricated personalities, credibility is key. Taking the time to truly vet the focal characters at the center of a series is not only imperative, but absolutely necessary for the integrity of the show,” he says.

Rive Gauche’s Kramer says that “relatable characters” are essential to the success of medical documentaries, while TCB’s Cowdery highlights the importance of medical staff being able to relay information in a straightforward way.

“Contributors and presenters need the ability to translate often complicated medical language into something easily understandable and engaging to the viewer,” she says. “The audience also wants to see their empathetic side and feel the passion for what they do shine through.”

When it comes to filming medical staff and patients in hospitals, the challenges can be profound. Film crews need to be granted access. Hospitals, meanwhile, have to make sure they are complying with legal and ethical consent procedures. The goals of a production company and medical staff frequently conflict.

Clinical teams often need privacy to focus on patient problems, which restricts the footage that is allowed to be captured.

to get in the way of actual people performing their jobs. You need to create your environment as best as you can and, to the best of your ability, map out what you are aiming to capture prior to any shoot.”

The challenges of filming in hospitals were highlighted in 2012, when an article by medical staff at one of the hospitals featured in the BBC Three series Junior Doctors: Your Life in Their Hands was published in the British Medical Journal.

“During filming, the hospital followed robust procedures to assure legal and ethical consent processes for patients and staff,” the article states.

The hospital conducted a survey one month after filming started to collect views on how the filming affected doctors, clinical teams and patient care. Staff reported an overwhelming desire to maintain “normality” wherever possible. But some of the clinical teams allegedly felt underprepared and “thrown into” filming, which led to increased anxiety and stress. One consultant reported: “They asked, ‘Would you do one final interview?’ and I said, ‘Do you know what, I can’t. I really cannot go through that. It’s actually quite traumatic.’ ” All of which prompts the question, Why would hospitals agree to participate in a medical documentary series? The answer lies in their desire to promote the work of their staff and to highlight their own struggles for survival in an underfunded age.

“They provide a valuable opportunity to communicate and explain their work and the issues that they face to audiences in a relatable way,” says Wilkins of Firecracker, the company that produced Emma Willis: Delivering Babies.

“For example, there is a crisis in midwife recruitment in the U.K. The hospital trust where Emma Willis: Delivering Babies was filmed believed that the series could—and did— have a positive impact on recruitment.”

RESTRICTED ACCESS “Access can be extremely challenging indeed,” says Cowdery. “A hospital is not only a place of work but a place where life-and-death decisions are made daily. The idea that a camera crew could in any way impede this work is a huge concern and requires very detailed discussions. Privacy is also a big consideration; you are often filming people at their most vulnerable. There is a duty of care to all those who may appear both willingly and incidentally.”

It’s a view echoed by Choghi.

“As a producer, you never want

Sold by GRB Studios, Untold Stories of the ER wrapped its 13th season in 2018.

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ational Geographic is expected to be one of the pillars of the Disney+ direct-to-consumer service that will launch in the U.S. later this year. Its positioning alongside other iconic names—including Star Wars and Marvel—is a testament to how much National Geographic’s new owners value the storied brand. The move to Disney will be the second major transformation for National Geographic in the last few years, following 21st Century Fox’s $725-million deal with the National Geographic Society, in 2015, that brought together the cable channels, publishing, travel and more, under one entity. Gary Knell, chairman of National Geographic Partners (NGP), is leading the multifaceted group through its next big transition while remaining focused on the brand’s commitment to science, conservation and education.

By Mansha Daswani TV REAL: It’s been a couple of years now since the deal that brought the National Geographic publishing and television arms together. What have been the significant benefits of combining all the assets under one umbrella?

KNELL: The motivation was to try to scale up and integrate the assets. Fox and National Geographic had a joint venture on the cable side for nearly 20 years. Three and half years ago we decided to merge the print and digital assets with television so that we would have one National Geographic media group that could integrate messages, creative, marketing, etc., and not speak with a forked tongue. The idea was, especially because so much is becoming digital and more on-demand, it was all going to come crashing together anyway, so we might as well get ahead of the curve and try to pull it all together. And we could harness Fox’s global reach, led by Peter Rice, to greatly expand our footprint.

TV REAL: What overall strategy did you put into place when you became chairman last year?

KNELL: I was running the nonprofit for the first two years of its new iteration and we were trying to create a culture there of being a more impactful NGO that was focused on conservation, grantmaking and education. When I was asked to come over here, it was to help get NGP through the transition with Disney and to try to better rationalize the assets we have towards a more cohesive and coherent message around our creative catalog, and making National Geographic more of a must-have and less of a nice-to-have.

That was the agenda. It’s running two fundamentally important businesses, one on the television side and one on the media side—print and digital—and then pulling those together where appropriate.

TV REAL: Nat Geo’s Instagram feed recently topped the 100-million-follower mark. How has this 130-plusyear-old brand managed to stay so relevant in a fragmented marketplace?

KNELL: It’s pretty cool that a 131-year-old brand is now more popular than Nicki Minaj and Khloé Kardashian! Part of it is we have captured the magic of photography. Millennials entered the world as digital natives and visual learners.

Even though photography in many ways has become a commodity through things like the iPhone, great photography is not a commodity. People admire and respond to brilliant images from the world’s greatest photographers, sometimes more than the written word. We happened to be in the position to capture that if we could execute on some of these social media platforms appropriately, and fortunately we have. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and say, I follow you on Instagram! It’s people of all ages. It’s pretty amazing. And not just in the U.S. We have huge numbers in India, Europe, Indonesia, other countries around the world.

TV REAL: What are the challenges of operating a fact-based brand in an environment where “fake news” and misinformation are so widespread?

KNELL: We’ve always had a position here to follow the science. It’s a scientifically-based organization that is not political in the sense of partisan politics. But we have not shied away from controversial topics. We did a big issue on the war on science a couple of years ago that talked about the things that people from the left and right challenge for different reasons—climate change, vaccines, GMOs or other issues that people tend to pick and choose which science they want to believe based on their political beliefs. Our

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Free Solo won National Geographic an Oscar and a BAFTA this year.

view is to debunk those myths and lay out the science. People can make up their own minds on what they want to believe. We’ve got to be engaged in stating the facts around these important scientific realities.

TV REAL: Can you give us some examples of how the various divisions are collaborating?

KNELL: We’re working across the company on an initiative around space this year, because of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, called Starstruck. It began with the second season of MARS in November and includes an entire week of programming this summer, including a twohour Apollo documentary, books, magazine content, live events, space photography and educational materials.

In the future, we’ll be working on an initiative around oceans, which will be a major one for us with content across all of our platforms. We have a lot of programs about protecting marine areas around the world through the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas project. So it’s educating people about the oceans and telling the stories of the heroes of the ocean who are doing amazing things to protect places under tremendous pressure.

We look at our toolkit and try to think about what could be used to add to our storytelling capabilities. Those could be documentaries, print—magazines or books—social media, short-form videos, live events, travel, museum exhibits or educational materials in schools. We’re trying to look at our entire 360-degree approach, which is something that Disney likes as well, to figure out how we can surroundsound our consumers with the topics we want to promote.

TV REAL: How are you attracting talent, be it explorers and scientists at the Society or Ron Howard at the channel?

KNELL: Courteney [Monroe, president of National Geographic Global Television Networks] has led a push towards excellence. We doubled down on trying to attract world-class talent on shows like One Strange Rock [with Darren Aronofsky], and working with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer from Imagine on Genius and MARS, Brett Morgen on Jane, and our latest documentary, Free Solo, which just [won] an Oscar. This is a leap that I would argue National Geographic should have made some time ago. And under Courteney’s leadership, I think we’ve been able to do that well. To me it’s recapturing a space we have been in in the past and we should always be in.

The fact that we [won] an Oscar is pretty amazing given that we just rebooted the documentary film unit two years ago.

We’ve won a BAFTA and last fall we became the only network in history to win three cinematography Emmys in one year. It shows that the creative community is responding to the call of National Geographic.

TV REAL: You’ve had a commitment to mission-based organizations throughout your career with roles at Sesame Workshop and NPR before joining National Geographic.

Has that been by design?

KNELL: I guess that has been my calling. I grew up in L.A., so I grew up learning about the world through movies! I’ve always believed in the power of storytelling to change the world. It’s about coming up with compelling human stories that emote for people. [At Sesame Workshop] we were using the power of those muppets to get kids to learn letters, numbers and social and emotional lessons. At NPR we had to tell people such compelling stories that they would have what we called a “driveway moment” and stay in the car to hear the ending even after they’ve arrived at home.

And at National Geographic, a stunning set of photographs

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or a television program can move people to do something.

The world has a lot of challenges and we don’t have a lot of time to waste. I believe that there are a lot of people like me who want to be engaged and not just passively entertained.

TV REAL: What tech innovations are you most excited about in the doc space right now?

KNELL: I think that when you see Free Solo on an IMAX screen, it’s pretty breathtaking! Most importantly, the planet has some challenges that are unfortunately exacerbated by the inability of people to be in nature. We’ve done some pretty amazing virtual reality experiences that do bring you as close as you possibly can be without being there. [VR provides] that ability to give people in daily urban existence an appreciation of what’s happening in our oceans and in the wild. Those are opportunities and even, I would say, responsibilities for National Geographic to engage around.

If National Geographic doesn’t do that, who will?

Running Wild with Bear Grylls moves from NBC to Nat Geo this year.

TV REAL: What are your key priorities for the 12 to 18 months ahead as you guide the organization through its transition to Disney?

KNELL: The biggest advice I’ve given the staff is that this will be an opportunity for National Geographic to grow our presence. Disney is a huge leader in kids, in technology, in understanding consumers, in live engagement like the parks and travel businesses. Even the retail operations Disney has, with National Geographic having a presence in those. And they are betting a lot on the direct-to-consumer Disney+ and Hulu platforms. They’ve already said National Geographic is going to be one of the five brands they’ll be out there promoting,

along with Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Disney. That’s a big deal for us! We’ve now got to come up with a programming slate that meets the challenge, for both linear and on-demand.

We want to keep our publishing enterprise healthy. A lot of that is driving our subscription base more to a membership environment, in which people are “investing” in National Geographic as a cause rather than just a passive product to buy. We have a lot of work in front of us, but I think we’re well positioned in an on-demand environment. In media, we’re moving from a pre-fixe world to an à-la-carte world. The days of pre-fixe anything are certainly behind us. The sooner we can adjust to an à-la-carte world, the better. We need to be able to reach people wherever they are. Some people will want a cable package, some will want to watch our shows ondemand, other people will want to buy a photograph, other people will want to take photographs and submit them to us.

All of these avenues need to be driven by the consumer and their engagement with our brand.

National Geographic, through all of its media, as well as its nonprofit activities, is a unique construct as an organization.

There are no others like this, where you have a media company married to a nonprofit organization that is doing incredible work out in the world. The World Wildlife Fund is doing great work, but they don’t have a media enterprise. Discovery is doing some interesting shows, but they don’t have a nonprofit enterprise that is making a meaningful impact. That’s where we can drive an agenda that people will respond to, especially younger people who are magnetically attracted to brands that are impact-driven and making a difference in the world. That’s why we think we’re well positioned to grow in the future. The new partnership with Disney will give us the scale and opportunity to do that.

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to John [Hendricks, founder and chairman] about how to let the world know that CuriosityStream existed. When you’re a start-up, you can’t spend a billion dollars [on marketing]—that’s not the best use of your money! I had read about Liberty Global doing a deal with Netflix. They decided that since people were going to subscribe to Netflix, it’s better they do it in their ecosystem. So as I was talking to John, I said it might make sense to work with third-party distributors. That will make it easier for more people to subscribe, and you benefit from the promotion of working with these partners. Working with our current COO, Tia Cudahy, we did about 30 third-party agreements in a year. That increased the awareness of CuriosityStream, and it increased our subscriber count dramatically. If you only have one line of revenue, SVOD, it’s a hard business. I thought we could branch out into multiple lines. We’re a direct-toconsumer subscription service, have been from day one and will always be, but we also work with MVPDs like Comcast, Cox and DISH; virtual MVPDs like Sling TV and YouTube TV, and they package us like they would HBO or Showtime; and internationally [operators are] looking to package us more like an ESPN or Discovery in a basic bundle. We look at all the different opportunities. We intend to take CuriosityStream and get it, over time, into hundreds of millions of households. And in addition to the MVPDs, we sell to colleges, universities, libraries and corporations. And we take a light sponsorship touch on the network. It’s a fantastic time to be CuriosityStream because, as you know, over the last ten years, so many networks that started with a factual charter moved hard into reality programming. That created a

By Mansha Daswani

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n the heels of a buzzy appearance at TCA, cable TV pioneer John Hendricks announced that his four-year-old factual SVOD platform CuriosityStream had raised $140 million in private-placement funding to fuel its growth. As Clint Stinchcomb, the president and CEO of CuriosityStream, tells TV Real, that capital injection will be used to build on two priorities: ramping up the content lineup and international expansion.

Stinchcomb articulates his strategy for how CuriosityStream is breaking through in an increasingly competitive SVOD landscape.

TV REAL: When you joined the platform, what were the major strategic initiatives you identified in order to drive expansion?

STINCHCOMB: I came in to help with distribution and development in May 2017. I noticed a terrific customer proposition, with an incredible collection of the best factual programming in the world. There were about 1,300 titles. I had been talking

significant gap for a pure factual provider. It also enabled us to acquire a lot of programming from some of the best factual producers in the world because it was a buyers’ market.

The second area I identified was ramping up the programming, both the quality and the quantity. We now have over 2,100 titles on the service. We’re growing that to 3,000 by the end of this year, staying true to our charter—science, history, nature, lifestyle, technology, society, etc. At the same time, we’re going to augment our kids’ and lifestyle programming, you’ll see us do a few feature docs, and some great classic factual programming will also become part of the service.

TV REAL: Integrations with partners can take time and can be complicated. What are the biggest challenges of those partnerships and what has become easier the more you’ve done?

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Sacred Spaces. At TCA we premiered a clip of SPEED. We’ll do that kind of brand-definitional factual programming. And then we’ll have some fun with the culture as well.

We have a special leading up to the Woodstock anniversary that premieres in August. We’re optimistic that will generate a fair bit of attention. We have a lot cooking!

Premiering in April, SPEED is an original series for CuriosityStream about the history of transportation.

STINCHCOMB: Our CTO Andre Silva, Peter North [chief digital advisor] and the whole engineering team built a platform that is strong, solid and built to scale. We’ve never let integration or technology be a gating factor for anything we’ve done. We’ve worked with the biggest partners in the world. Some are more challenging to work with than others, but we have a great group of people and they’ve always been able to clear every technological hurdle. We have a linear feed for distributors who want that. It’s a great complement to on-demand. When John launched Discovery internationally in the ’90s, you had to open up offices and had to lease transponder space and do all these things. Today, provided you have the proper content rights, you can push a button and shoot [the service] out all over the world.

It’s exciting to play on a global scale.

TV REAL: You have carriage on StarHub in Singapore. What is the international expansion strategy?

STINCHCOMB: Today we have customers in 175 countries. We do a bit better in the English-speaking countries, but we see that [leveling] out. The same dynamic that exists in the U.S., where so many networks abandoned their factual charter, has happened in Latin America, Europe and Asia. So distributors are looking for factual providers. Those agreements tend to take longer than others, often 6 to 12 months, but we’re longterm focused. And the direct-to-consumer service serves as additional promotion; it gets the name out there. We’re incredibly excited about the international opportunity. We work with Niche Media Global in EMEA and China, Simma Media in Latin America and Monty Ghai in Asia. And we have a board member who has been working in China for 35, 40 years, so we have some good relationships there.

TV REAL: I understand the content slate is still about 70 percent acquired. Now that you’ve had this $140 million financing injection, are you looking to ramp up your original lineup?

STINCHCOMB: We’ll be opportunistic on the acquisition side, and we’ll do more hours as it relates to original programming, but I don’t know if the [original-to-acquired ratio] will necessarily change. There is a lot of great stuff out there. That’s the beauty of it. We’re doing some original short-form content, developing a newsmagazine-style show for the mobile age.

Working with NHK, we just released a series called The Body.

The graphics are incredible. We have a great original called

TV REAL: What goes into developing a user interface that promotes stickiness and discovery?

STINCHCOMB: One thing that is at the core of what we do is trying to incentivize people to sign up for annual subscriptions. Getting someone to sign up for 12 months gives us the opportunity to learn what they like, learn how they like to interact with the service, and ideally serve up exactly what they want to see.

Since August, about 70 percent of new subscribers signed up for annual subscriptions. We love that. Also in that area, our marketing people and our agencies tell me that within the next four to six months, more than half of our new sign-ups will occur on mobile. That means you need to simplify your mobile site. We have a lot of messages we want to communicate, but you have to force yourself to bring it right down to the most minimal level. We’re trying to make the mobile site ultra simple, ultra clean, because we know a lot of people will sign up there. These YouTube influencers that we’ve been working with are fascinating to me. They’ve been incredible for us. They’re so credible, authentic and genuine, just like the characters we want on our air. When they suggest something to their followers, people often take that suggestion—and sign up! We love that.

TV REAL: You also have those gorgeous TV spots.

STINCHCOMB: That’s the other end of the spectrum. Obviously, we have to be aggressive on the digital side with YouTube influencers and Facebook and Google display search. We’re trying to get smarter and more efficient about this every month. At the same time, there’s real value in traditional TV advertising. Part of the calculus is, what’s the right level? At a certain point, we’ll get to a tipping point where more people have heard about CuriosityStream than haven’t, and traditional TV is crucial to getting us there.

TV REAL: For your programming teams, how much are decisions based on data analytics versus just having a gut instinct about a show?

STINCHCOMB: I don’t think [the gut instinct] ever comes out of the equation. Our data scientists and engineers look at information like completions versus abandonments—did somebody watch 80 percent or more—and total views and viewers. We try to account for programming that gets promoted and programming that doesn’t get promoted. The bottom line is Steve [Burns, chief content officer] has been doing this for 40 years. We’d be foolish not to rely on his gut.

Steve and I will sprinkle in our opinions. It’s vital to use data, and it’s awesome to have that kind of data. That’s the wonderful thing about having a direct-to-consumer business. We can then share our learnings with our MVPD partners.

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APRIL 2019

MIPTV & APOS EDITION

Asian Media Trends / Astro’s Henry Tan / GMA Network’s Felipe L. Gozon

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CONTENTS

Course Correction

FEATURE 8 BIG SHIFT

Explores the major trends in the AsiaPac video sector, from rising content investments to the emergence of telcos as new power players.

In Southeast Asia’s heavily mobile, low payTV penetrated markets, two platforms have been battling for dominance over the last few years: HOOQ, backed by Warner Bros., Singtel and Sony Pictures; and Catcha Group’s iflix.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Asia ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvasia.ws

Both came out of the gate with a raft of buzzy Hollywood deals as they attempted to craft services that consumers, many of whom had never even had a pay-TV subscription, would be willing to pay for. Both have shifted gears since launch, embracing more Asian content and adjusting their models to add freemium options and AVOD as they came to terms with the fact that the SVOD market in much of Asia just isn’t ready to scale. Even Netflix is said to be exploring cheaper pricing options in some Asian markets.

“You have to keep experimenting, be agile and be ready to move—fast,” said ex-Turner exec Vishal Dembla, HOOQ’s new chief commercial officer for Southeast Asia, when I spoke with him for this edition’s feature on trends in the Asian media business. Dembla sees the race to capture audiences in Asia as a battle for engagement, a theme that came up in many of my conversations for this edition.

As channels, operators and distributors look to maximize revenues and reach, they are calibrating content lineups, business models and routes to market.

The other overarching theme that emerged from my conversations with executives from across the ecosystem is the rising prominence of local content. You’ll hear from Astro CEO Henry Tan about how IP investments have been paramount for the Malaysian entertainment provider. And Felipe L. Gozon, the chairman and CEO of GMA Network in the Philippines, discusses how the broadcast group is engaging with local audiences and increasingly bringing its content to overseas markets.

The trade in Asian IP is certainly picking up steam, bolstered by international collaborations. Recent examples include the Korean-originated The Masked Singer becoming a hit in the U.S., CJ ENM acquiring a majority stake in European outfit Eccho Rights, and Japan’s Nippon TV collaborating with Red Arrow Studios International on Beat the Rooms. In the face of FAANGs spending a lot of cash in the region, we can expect to see more partnerships in the content space as everyone looks for smarter ways to engage increasingly discerning audiences.

—Mansha Daswani

GET DAILY NEWS ON THE ASIAN REGION

INTERVIEWS

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Astro’s Henry Tan

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GMA Network’s Felipe L. Gozon

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all3media international The Feed / Cheat / Race Across the World The series The Feed delves into themes related to people’s addiction to technology, touching on the fear of what it is doing to our brains and what would happen if we had to live without it. “With the Asian market having such a focus and reliance on technology, this thrilling drama is sure to resonate,” says Sabrina Duguet, executive VP for the Asia Pacific at all3media international. Another strong proposition for the AsiaPac market is Cheat, which comes from Two Brothers Pictures. “Liar last year and Cheat this year consistently create intriguing, edge-of-your-seat drama,” Duguet says. From Studio Lambert, makers of Undercover Boss and Gogglebox, comes Race Across the World, which follows five teams of two racing from one place to another without flying.

“The growth of all3media international’s catalog is something we’re very proud of.”

—Sabrina Duguet The Garden of Evening Mists partners & cast

Astro

Astro / NJOI / Local & Original Content The Astro pay-TV offering delivers to its customers “premium and differentiated content” in HD and on-demand, says Astro CEO Henry Tan. There’s also the “freemium” service NJOI. “I believe NJOI will continue to grow because it’s a very simple and compelling proposition,” he says. “You pay for the box and install it, and then can enjoy close to 40 different channel offerings, with options to purchase skinny bundles to access premium content.” Astro is producing around 12,000 hours of local and original content annually. “This is our strong differentiator,” Tan says. “A lot of our counterparts in the region are just platforms. We are not just a platform; we are also a content producer, and a lot of our own IPs are now our flagships.”

Astro teamed up with HBO Asia for the original The Garden of Evening Mists.

“We believe that collaboration with like-minded partners is a good way to produce content for the Asian audience.”

—Henry Tan Written in the Stars

GMA Worldwide To the One I Love / Written in the Stars / Sahaya The universal themes of perseverance, compassion and love for family are at the heart of GMA Worldwide’s latest offerings for the global market, including Written in the Stars. A contemporary drama with a strong musical component, Written in the Stars follows the story of “two up-andcoming singers who are not only rivals in the spotlight, but also rivals in family and love,” explains Roxanne J. Barcelona, VP of GMA Worldwide. To the One I Love is billed as a contemporary drama with elements of a romantic comedy. It is set against the backdrop of the local elections in the Philippines. There’s also the “much-anticipated” series Sahaya, which Barcelona describes as “the story of a young lady from a tribe south of the Philippines called the Badjaws and her struggles adjusting to city life.”

“These titles portray the colorful and vibrant Filipino culture while telling stories of persistence, compassion and familial love.”

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Flour Power

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Gusto TV Flour Power / DNA Dinners / One World Kitchen The team behind Gusto TV—home to shows such as Flour Power, DNA Dinners and One World Kitchen—will be at APOS looking for strategic partnerships for the linear channel and SVOD service. “It’s ready to launch now, anywhere in Asia,” says Chris Knight, the president and CEO of Gusto Worldwide Media. “Our channel is available in multiple languages, and our popular titles are offered with Mandarin subtitles.” The company produces around 100 hours of content annually, “which allows us to keep the Gusto TV lineup fresh,” says Knight. “Our programming is packaged with turnkey multiplatform marketing solutions to engage viewers beyond the television. Our long-form content is accompanied with short-form videos, original recipes and high-resolution talent and food photography.”

“Gusto TV appeals to Asian viewers because they appreciate diverse cuisines, high production values and entertaining hosts.”

—Chris Knight Robocop on HITS Movies

Rewind Networks HITS / HITS Movies With its HITS Movies channel, Rewind Networks has “put together 40 years of the best movies on a single service to see how powerful that would become in terms of viewer stickiness and consumer love,” says CEO Avi Himatsinghani.

The results, he says, have exceeded all expectations. “The ratings and numbers in our debut market, Singapore, prove it. Every month since launch, we have been in the top three out of 15 international general-entertainment channels in the basic group.” The strategy for HITS Movies, as well as for the original HITS channel, is based on curating playlists.

“Their clear propositions have allowed a very loyal, consistent base of followers to keep coming in and out of the playlist, recommending and requesting shows and movies they love,” Himatsinghani explains.

“We know the proposition of a curated playlist like HITS works, so it makes sense to take it into more markets.”

—Avi Himatsinghani

TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific TV5MONDE Asie / TV5MONDE Pacifique / TV5MONDE Style HD Throughout 2018, TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific increased the distribution of its channels in the AsiaPac region by an additional 12 million subscribers on traditional pay-TV platforms. On top of the pay-TV distribution, which now reaches 102 million subscribers, TV5MONDE channels are available to 250 million mobile TV users in the region. “Unlike most players in Asia, we started our digital journey a long time ago, back in 2002,” says Alexandre Muller, managing director of TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific. “Therefore, a lot has already been done to match the evolving ecosystem’s requirements and needs. It is mandatory for us to build and maintain our relevance with the different business models available. Having a strong SVOD catalog, and regularly reinforcing it, is a way for us to close the loop and make our global offerings even more relevant.”

Top 14 Rugby on TV5MONDE

“We have always had a local approach while keeping the bigger picture in mind.”

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Netflix’s Kingdom.

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Mansha Daswani explores the major trends in the AsiaPac video sector, from rising content investments to the emergence of telcos as new power players. hina’s leading online video operator, iQiyi, recorded a surge in memberships in 2018. It added a whopping 36.6 million users to reach a total of 87.4 million—for reference, as of the start of this year, Netflix had 139.9 million globally. And about 98 percent of those iQiyi customers—in a market where audiences are used to getting content for free—actually pay for subscriptions. It’s an impressive leap for the Baidu-owned service, but the platform also saw its loss balloon last year on the heels of significant expenditures on original content.

In the über-competitive streaming-video space, growth comes at a cost, and acquiring customers is not cheap or easy.

But digital players, operating across a range of business models, are indeed adding value to the overall media ecosystem in Asia, creating new opportunities for producers, distributors, channels and brands.

“Over the past three years, SVOD services have helped boost the overall subscription pie across much of AsiaPac, especially in China, where pay-TV ARPUs are relatively small,” observes Vivek Couto, executive director of research firm and consultancy Media Partners Asia (MPA). “However, SVOD remains in its infancy in many markets, making recent developments an unreliable indicator for the future.”

Amid digital disruptions, Jonathan Spink, CEO of HBO Asia, expects it to be a “very tough market for the traditional linear TV channels. A lot of the operators are facing pressures. You might see a couple of casualties in the SVOD world. It’s not an easy business. We’re in a fortunate position. We have a strong

C

brand and a strong product line. HBO U.S. is producing more and more shows. If we supplement and complement [the U.S. content] with all the things we do locally, I think we’re in a really strong position.”

ON THE GO One of Spink’s priorities this year is the rollout of the OTT service HBO GO. “The biggest thing we had to do was sort out all the studio rights so we could start launching HBO GO properly,” Spink explains. “The business had long-term studio deals and the rights in those deals didn’t foresee the OTT and SVOD world. It took us a while but we managed to get all the studios on board and that’s allowing us to focus on HBO GO.” Of note, the company, after years of exclusivity on StarHub, sealed a major deal with Singtel that includes a suite of channels plus the OTT service. Singtel recently unveiled a postpaid mobile plan that includes HBO GO. HBO GO also launched on Mediacorp’s OTT service, Toggle.

Singtel is just one of many telco players across Asia that are using video to drive their mobile-broadband services.

“With over 100 million smartphone users on our network, it’s strategically imperative to us that we are an active player in the online-video space,” reports Alistair Johnston, the marketing director at Indonesian telco giant Telkomsel.

For its MAXstream VOD app, Telkomsel is inking deals with a range of linear channels, investing in original content and offering access to the HOOQ OTT service.

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TV5MONDE’s varied programming slate includes French feature films like Amis publics.

20 premium international linear channels, 12 local TV free-toair channels, over 150 hours of MAXstream original scripted content, live music performances weekly by Indonesian stars here at our Telkomsel studio and access to over 10,000 hours of HOOQ embedded content.”

According to Johnston, the app has had more than 11 million downloads to date. “We want MAXstream to be seen as an open-source platform that content providers can easily utilize to reach Telkomsel’s 90 million-plus active mobile video users,” he notes. “We also don’t limit MAXstream to just Telkomsel. The platform is accessible in Indonesia no matter what network you are on.”

At APOS, Johnston will be stressing to potential partners that in markets like Indonesia, where more people have cell phones than pay-TV services, “mobile broadband access is still the key for VOD content penetration.”

Partnering with a telco also helps OTT operators overcome severe payment obstacles in markets where credit card penetration is low.

the free-to-air channels too. Early indications are that it’s been a good start. The way you have to promote linear on OTT is very different. On a traditional platform, we’d give the partner a promo and say, please run it across your networks. That approach becomes less relevant on an OTT service, where it’s all about discoverability and getting people to click and watch. There is a lot of learning for them and us. It’s early days, but I’m excited.”

Himatsinghani is also enthusiastic about continued opportunities with legacy pay-TV players and telcos across Asia for his two channels.

The recently launched HITS Movies is Himatsinghani’s primary focus right now, on the heels of a strong launch on StarHub. “We put together 40 years of the best movies on a single service to see how powerful that would become in terms of viewer stickiness. We actioned our plan and it has beaten my wildest expectations. The ratings and numbers in Singapore prove it. Every month since launch, we have been in the top three out of 15 international general-entertainment channels in the basic group.”

In the case of the flagship HITS, Rewind expanded carriage in Taiwan, with distribution on both CNS and Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD, rolled out in Vietnam with K+ and VTVcab and launched in Myanmar and the Maldives.

“There are pockets [available]—we’re still not on True or AIS in Thailand. We want to get onto platforms like myTV SUPER, Now TV and i-Cable in Hong Kong. So there’s still work to be done on the flagship channel as well.”

Himatsinghani says he’s also looking further afield. “I’d love to see how we can explore additional feeds of the service in

OTT AMBITIONS Payment is just one of many hurdles facing digital players across Asia as they finesse pricing plans, business models, content lineups and partnerships. Southeast Asian operators HOOQ and iflix have both evolved from the SVOD-only proposition they launched with, joining Viu in the freemium space.

HOOQ embarked on the rollout of a skinny bundle in August of last year, delivering to subscribers channels that were previously only accessible to Indonesian consumers with a pay-TV subscription. These joined an array of free-toair live-streamed channels on the operator.

“If you’re solving for engagement in a 24-hour period, you have to keep experimenting, be agile and be ready to move— fast,” says Vishal Dembla, HOOQ’s new chief commercial officer for Southeast Asia. “Our objective is to be synonymous with video entertainment, regardless of whether it is linear, transactional VOD, SVOD or AVOD,” he says. “We want to work with like-minded partners, whether it’s rights-sharing, telcos or channels.”

Rewind Networks is among the operators to have aligned with HOOQ on the skinny bundle, with HITS and HITS Movies included in the package in Indonesia.

“What I love about HOOQ is it’s forward-thinking in its approach and has taken a bet on aggregating linear alongside SVOD to connect with a wider OTT audience,” says CEO Avi Himatsinghani. “They’ve been very successful in integrating

CJ ENM’s Tears of Heaven was remade in Turkey.

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The Haunted Heart is a new Taiwanese co-production for WarnerMedia.

markets like India, Korea and even Africa and Eastern Europe.

I think it’s a good time to start exploring.”

He attributes the success of both services to his “curated playlist” strategy. “Their clear propositions have allowed a very loyal, consistent base of followers to keep coming in and out of the playlist, recommending and requesting shows and movies they love. The more fans that come in, and the more time they spend, the better our ratings.”

Plus, Himatsinghani adds, these classic movies and TV shows “haven’t worked on the pure SVOD plays. If they’re available they are scattered—some on one SVOD service, some on others. And they are so deep down on the pages, even if a thumbnail pops up, people will say, I’ll watch that later, [for now] I want to watch Narcos or House of Cards or Bodyguard. On-demand works best for the latest top-ofmind content. Our curation works best on a linear playlist.”

FOREIGN FARE Alexandre Muller, managing director of TV5MONDE AsiaPacific, has also seen his business grow over the last year.

“During the course of 2018, our distribution in the region has increased by an additional 12 million subscribers on traditional pay-TV platforms,” Muller notes. “The Indian subcontinent alone represents 50 percent of this growth, the other half coming mostly from mature markets (South Korea and Japan), traditional pay-TV markets (Taiwan) and emerging markets (the Philippines and Indonesia).”

Via pay-TV platforms, TV5MONDE reaches 102 million subscribers in the region, Muller says, plus another 250 million via mobile TV services.

“Unlike most players in Asia, we did start our digital journey a long time ago, back in 2002,” Muller says of what has contributed to the company’s success. “A lot has already been done to meet the evolving ecosystem’s requirements and needs. It is mandatory for us to build and maintain our relevance with the different business models available. Having a strong SVOD catalog and regularly reinforcing it is a way for us to close the loop and make our global offering even more relevant to our partners and subscribers.”

A first-time attendee at APOS this year, Canada-based Gusto Worldwide Media is eager to expand its Gusto TV

service in the region following a launch in Singapore on StarHub. Chris Knight, president and CEO of the company, recognizes the challenges of the linear channel space globally, but sees more opportunities than obstacles.

“We’ve had great conversations with people who understand the subtleties and the intricacies, whether it’s in Korea or Vietnam or China,” Knight says. “We’re looking to create partnerships with people in all the different markets we want to get into.”

The company is being open-minded in its expansion plans, opting for a variety of different routes to market, well beyond just a traditional carriage deal with a pay-TV platform. “We have branded blocks that we’re talking to people about,” Knight says. “There are conventional content sales, which we’re always keen to do. We would like to embed our content on telephones. We would like to have our content seen on refrigerator doors as they start rolling out 4K screens, as they have now in Korea.”

CONTENT WAVE Knight is also looking to produce within the region, given the rising importance of locally produced fare for both pay-TV and OTT players. And everyone is acutely aware of Netflix and Amazon’s regional ambitions. Netflix has been spending across the region, including in India, Korea and Japan.

Amazon has focused its efforts on India and Japan, in both scripted and entertainment.

“It’s increasingly clear and obvious how important locally produced programming is,” says HBO Asia’s Spink. “We made four or five series last year; we’re doing five, six, seven this year. We have great plans to increase the number we do. They get good audiences and have the beauty of never being pirated.

And they’re working across the region. A Taiwanese one will work in the Philippines.”

WarnerMedia’s Turner channels are also producing more in the region, recently expanding into the scripted space with titles like The Haunted Heart, a Taiwanese co-production.

Indonesia’s MAXstream has set its sights on more original content after releasing the horror series Nawangsih, in partnership with Malaysia’s Astro, earlier this year. “We have a lot more planned that are already in production,” says Johnston.

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“We aim to offer digital video content for our customers, as well as empower Indonesian creatives to hone their craft by using our platform to amplify the reach of their work to the wider public.”

Korean content behemoth CJ ENM picked up a majority stake in European distributor Eccho Rights at the end of last year to further its global ambitions.

“We always hope our IP will travel worldwide, even beyond Asia, where our presence is now quite strong,” says Chul-Yeon Kim, senior VP of the global business at CJ ENM. “Our distribution strategy will remain quite unchanged. Howall3media international is seeing increased interest in its drama slate, which includes The Feed. ever, working with Eccho Rights, we Sabrina Duguet, the executive VP for the Asia Pacific at are anticipating wider global distribution. We worked together all3media international, observes that the “influence of SVOD in the past numerous times, most famously licensing the in the region cannot be underestimated. The AsiaPac audiremake rights for our scripted format Tears of Heaven to ence is now willing to leave their comfort zone, especially Turkey. We hope to come up with new strategies thanks to when it comes to drama, and enjoy more edgy and diverse their abundant network in Turkey and the MENA region.” content via the VOD services.”

Within Asia, meanwhile, CJ ENM will build on its “express Indeed, Duguet reports a boom in the company’s scripted drama” strategy, delivering shows for broadcast within 24 distribution business in the region, building on all3media’s hours of the original telecast. “It is vital to air Korean dramas strong trade in entertainment formats in Asia. within 24 hours on Asian OTT platforms,” Kim says. “Another “Historically, lifestyle programming has been the driver for critical factor that cannot be overlooked is illegal streaming us. However, we have seen a move towards broader genres, sites—to minimize these platforms it is becoming more especially within drama. We have also seen an increase in important for us to legally distribute our content within a regional and second-window deals in specific territories, as [shorter] time period.” well as a surge of deals for our scripted formats.”

Distributing to OTT platforms has been a major success story at CJ, with brisk trade with Netflix, Viu and HOOQ, Kim says. “Viu especially has been working with CJ ENM for a long time and is now There remains a significant degree of uncertainty hanging a very powerful platform in the region. over the Asian video business at present, largely because Starting last year, we embarked on a of the consolidation happening on a global level. The tighter partnership with Netflix, and big mergers—Time Warner and AT&T, Disney and they are increasing their Korean Fox—have yet to play out on the local leadership front drama acquisitions.” (at least, at the time of writing). There are many questions about how the direct-to-consumer landscape will take shape, should Disney, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal decide to bring their upcoming platforms to Asia. Amazon and Netflix are spending a lot of money on originals in Asia, which is likely to drive up the costs for everyone.

Ultimately, some basics of the business are still strong, despite the parade of disruption.

“Affordable pay-TV continues to win over new customers in India and the Philippines, while the sector remains resilient in Japan and Korea, largely through telcos that have been buying cable and DTH assets and driving IPTV growth,” MPA’s Couto explains.

“In all markets, however, the battlefield is now broadband, either as a complement or replacement for existing services, contested by incumbents and new entrants alike.”

NEXT STEPS

Gusto TV, which delivers cooking series like Fish the Dish, is looking to expand its Asian reach.

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ike legacy pay-TV platforms the world over, Astro knows it can’t afford to stand still in the new media ecosystem. Malaysia’s leading content and distribution company—reaching 23 million individuals in 5.5 million homes with its portfolio—has expanded beyond the traditional pay segment with NJOI, which delivers a portfolio of channels for free, and has dramatically ramped up its investments in original content. New CEO Henry Tan—who has been with the group for more than a decade—is working hard to redefine the company’s value proposition to consumers.

By Mansha Daswani TV ASIA: What strategy have you put into place as the new CEO of Astro?

TAN: Astro as a group is more than television: we have TV, digital, radio and we do events, movies and ground activations, etc. Within the television business, we have two offerings, the pay and free services. Pay is under the Astro brand name and free is under the NJOI brand. At a broad level, our goal is to really protect the premium pay and at the same time grow and monetize the free service. Like everywhere else in the world, there are challenges in pay. There are opportunities for us to grow and monetize the free service. Today we’re in 76 percent of Malaysian homes, with higher penetration on pay versus free. I believe NJOI will continue to grow because it’s a very simple and compelling proposition. You pay for the box and install it and then can enjoy close to 40 different channel offerings. The opportunity for us is not just to focus on growing the base, which I think will increase naturally, but to see how we can monetize that better. Currently, our NJOI average ARPU is about MYR2 ($0.5), which is very low. I see a huge opportunity for us to focus on selling skinny bundles.

This group [of consumers] is enjoying the free service, so if you try and push them a heavy bundle, I don’t think they’ll go for it. But there’s definitely an opportunity for us to push skinny bundles or sachets. We’re selling events, weekend passes, three-day access. There’s an area where we can reorganize and make the offering simpler, clearer and monetize it better.

That’s a natural opportunity and upside.

TV ASIA: How are you addressing the challenges in your pay-TV business?

TAN: Our business strength is our customer base. We are in 76 percent of Malaysian homes on television alone; you combine that with radio and we’re in more than 80 percent. The question is, how can we use these various assets within the group in a better way to help us move forward? If you look at the base as the opportunity, we have a lot of room to do better, especially in commerce. Why just sell content? There’s an opportunity to sell many other things beyond content.

The other opportunity besides commerce is broadband.

We are exploring and examining how we can bundle broadband together with our content. The combination of content and connectivity will be quite a strong value-added proposition for our customer base. The more commerce we do, the more broadband we do, we’re redefining the value proposition for our premium pay customers.

There is a third opportunity: rewards. What I mean by rewards is, if you look back, our strength is our customer base, and in addition to our customer base, we have the ability to reach, persuade and promote. Say a car manufacturer has a brand-new model. I can say, “Those people who would want

to buy your cars are already my customers. Why don’t you give me a sweet deal for my customers? I have the base and I can reach out to them quite effectively.” Then it becomes a wonderful reward mechanism because I can tell my customers, you’ll be among the first to have this new model at a special price or with additional freebies. The customers will hopefully feel quite privileged. And for the manufacturer, I help you make a lot of sales. Rewards is a concept that we would like to explore. Right now, we are still at the beginning stage, but we think this will be quite a strong proposition for our premium pay customer base. It becomes a win-win.

We can take an intermediary role and convert that into a benefit for our customers. That’s quite exciting for us. We are working on finding what the winning model for this is.

There are many reward programs and we don’t want to be just another one. We want a reward program designed for our business and our customer base. It’s not about giving these rewards to as many people as possible. It’s a privilege for the top 50 percent of Malaysian homes and Malaysian consumers.

The rewards tie back in with our commerce, which also links back in with our advertising proposition. Our advertising business is growing steadily, and we’ve been gaining quite a lot of share in that space. We are seen as the new force in advertising and marketing. We are spending a lot of time thinking about how we can redefine advertising.

There is no denying that television is still the most powerful means to persuade. However, the way it is researched, measured and reported is really [inadequate]. Our goal is to look at how can we reinvent TV’s measurement and reporting to provide the intelligence and analytics that are demanded of this new world. If we can combine that intelligence with television’s persuasion power, I think we have a real opportunity to reinvent this whole advertising business and bring it to a new level. At the same time, we’re looking at one measurement across all platforms.

Today, it’s all quite siloed. We think we have the opportunity to do one measurement that cuts across all platforms, from TV to digital to radio. We want to make TV really sexy when you combine it with the analytics. That combination, hopefully, will usher in a new era of advertising and marketing. We think we’re in a good position to do that.

TV ASIA: How are you investing in the consumer experience?

TAN: We are embarking on a review of our entire definition of the customer and the customer experience. We’re mapping out their whole end-to-end journey and reassessing how we can redefine the customer experience. How can we make it simpler and better? Doing this is in recognition that some of [our services] were designed at a different time with a different market 4/19 WORLD SCREEN 387

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Astro has upped its investment in original content across a range of genres, including feature films such as Polis Evo 2.

environment. We all know the world has changed. We are asking ourselves what is still relevant. That exercise is ongoing. In the new environment, service can be a competitive edge.

TV ASIA: I watched a presentation you gave where you talked about “liberated” content. Can you explain that thinking, and how it plays into your strategy for Astro?

TAN: In the so-called technology revolution, content has been liberated. If you think about it, content in the past was restricted and confined. It was forced to conform to certain broadcast schedule requirements; for example, everybody begging and jostling to be in prime time because prime time is when you get the most eyeballs and the most advertising and the best ROI. What’s prime time in the new world? Prime time is less critical compared to the moment of truth of when you want to watch something. So now, you should use the new opportunities to see what is best for your content. If we plan a cooking program, that’s different compared to a factual show, a newscast, a sports program or a drama series. We all don’t have to conform to a standard order of what is considered a good time slot anymore. We say, let’s find the best way to offer and deliver this kind of content. We’re no longer shackled by fixed ways of what the industry and the broadcasters term as prime time, fringe time.

TV ASIA: You’ve stepped up your content-creation initiatives. Why has this been a necessary move?

TAN: Thankfully we did that! In a world where there is lots of disruption, the one area that has helped us keep flying the flag high is our own content. When it’s your own content, you’re free to decide how you want to use it, treat it, make it available. Truth be told—and this may seem harsh—in a world where consumers have changed, we are sometimes stuck in an ecosystem with partners who can be very slow or resistant to change. Old habits do die hard sometimes! Sometimes the bigger you are, the more you’re trying to defend the status

quo. With our own content, we make all the decisions on how we want to treat it. We’re also seeing, particularly in our markets, a growing interest in local and Asian content. People ask me, where’s your empirical evidence? I say, take a long-haul flight and walk up and down the aisle and observe what people are watching! In the past it was Hollywood. If you take a flight with a lot more Asians on board, you see that Asians are consuming a lot more Asian content than ever before.

That bodes well for us. In 2017, local movies accounted for 4 percent of the box office collections; last year it was 15 percent. That’s really exciting news. The theatrical distributors hope to see the local contribution hit 30 percent.

Those are all encouraging numbers.

We see the same happening with our TV drama series. There is no doubt that our homegrown local IPs are the drivers in terms of viewership.

That has helped us a lot, especially with customers and ROI. The other area we’ve done really well in is kids’ animation.

Didi & Friends crossed 1.2 billion views on YouTube last year, with 1.7 million subscribers. And there was the progressive Islamic kids’ animation Omar & Hana. In 2018, it was rated among the top-ten videos viewed in Indonesia on YouTube.

We’re encouraged by those numbers and we hope to do more.

TV ASIA: How are you collaborating with other companies in the region to scale up your content ambitions?

TAN: We believe collaboration is a good way to move forward. We’re seeking like-minded partners who work towards a win-win. We’re open to anybody willing to work with us on that basis. For The Garden of Evening Mists, we worked with HBO Asia. It helps having them co-funding and doing the marketing and distribution in a certain way.

We also partnered with CJ ENM for Garden—they look after the international rights and distribution. We hope to be able to do more projects with partners who share the same views and vision. Everybody wants content. We need it for our own customers and our own base anyway. Someone like Telkomsel in Indonesia is focusing more on content, so we’ve partnered with them on Nawangsih, a miniseries.

They take care of the distribution and marketing on their own platform. We focus on the content side. We are hoping that will lead to more projects in the coming months.

TV ASIA: What impact are OTT services having in Malaysia?

TAN: OTT in Malaysia is mainly targeting the higher end.

There’s no denying that OTT is a strong proposition that will continue to grow, but it’s a space that we too have a presence in. We have Astro Go and we’re looking at an NJOI version of that. So OTT is not something we’re too concerned about. We are watchful and monitoring how our customers consume content, but it’s a space we’re ready to move in. Piracy is a different kind of competition altogether.

Piracy is the biggest scourge of the industry right now.

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TV ASIA: What’s driving the success of your local channels?

GOZON: We have a winning team that puts our audience front and center in developing our content and programming. Our teams are vigilant in monitoring ratings results, audience profiles, audience feedback and emerging trends.

This allows us to develop and produce content that is relevant, responsive and resonant to our market.

We take pride in being the most trusted network in the country. We remain committed to delivering original, innovative and game-changing quality content that delights our viewers.

TV ASIA: With the Philippines being such a mobile-heavy usage market, how are you serving your audiences on multiple screens?

GOZON: We ensure that our owned and earned media strategies for digital platforms are, first and foremost, relevant, responsive and measurable. We apply content strategies that are relevant to each platform’s audience, with all being accessible via mobile. Our website, which continues to contribute to our digital revenue growth, had 122 million unique browsers and 1.6 billion page views in 2018. Based on January figures, 86 percent of devices used to access gmanetwork.com were mobile devices. We also have a very engaged online community and a strong presence on social media, with GMA Network’s Facebook page at 17.5 million likes, Twitter at 1 million and Instagram at 1.1 million. GMA News’s Facebook page [has] 12.8 million [followers], Twitter 5.4 million, and Instagram 964,000.

Full episodes of our select archive titles, as well as mid-form and short-form content, are available for viewing on YouTube and our GMA app. Select current shows are also available for catch-up through our paid OTT platform partners.

Further, we have several things in the pipeline that we think will be highly relevant and responsive to the content consumption needs of the local mobile market.

TV ASIA: How has the local advertising market been?

GOZON: Advertising expenditure mirrors what is happening on the economic front. Concerns about the impact of the TRAIN Act [Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, which took effect on January 1, 2018], especially on fuel and sugar-based products, affected ad spending in the first three quarters of the year. Because of the restored spending in the last quarter of 2018 [and into] 2019, incremental election spending, as well as the 6.5 percent economic growth forecast for the country, we are confident that 2019 will be a good year.

By Mansha Daswani

F

ilipino broadcasting group GMA Network recently announced a $20 million investment to complete the second phase of its digitization project, boosting its production, post-production, content management and distribution capabilities. For Chairman and CEO Felipe L. Gozon, the upgrade is part of the group’s efforts to maintain its leadership position with audiences and revolutionize viewing experiences in the Philippines, a country where the free-toair sector remains dominant. The high-growth Southeast Asian territory, however, is racing into a digital future, with rising mobile viewing numbers, an influx of OTT platforms and increasing video investments by telco operators. Gozon shares with TV Asia how he is positioning GMA Network today and stresses the growing importance of the com pany’s international business.

TV ASIA: There is much conversation globally about the viability of the 30-second spot. How are you working with your advertising clients?

GOZON: Though the 30-second spot remains viable for television and online for us, we provide a lot of branded solutions for our clients. GMA is the preferred choice for branded content by our advertisers, and we are seeing more and more of these branded initiatives being renewed season after season.

GMA has also won campaign pitches that require the use of relevant platforms (more than just having multiple platforms) beyond the 30-second spot, specifically through targeted executions on digital, radio, on-the-ground, out-of-home, etc.

These campaigns, whether strategic or tactical, have consistently been results-driven, which may be the reason why more of these campaigns are rolled out with GMA.

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GOZON: Our recent deal with PLDT is a technology, content and distribution agreement. We see this partnership as true convergence leveraged on the strengths of both GMA and PLDT. More information about this deal will be disclosed as we progress.

We are optimistic that after our digitization project is fully implemented by the middle part of this year, with the added values from our patented digital devices (e.g., recording, messaging, interactive capabilities, etc.), we will be able to generate substantial, additional revenues from it.

GMA Worldwide is bringing the popular drama The Heart Knows to MIPTV.

TV ASIA: The Filipino telcos have become quite active in the video business, and major OTT platforms are present in the country. How are these services impacting the overall Filipino media economy, and specifically GMA’s positioning?

GOZON: Today, television remains the preferred source of delivered video content in the Philippines. Free-to-air TV viewing levels in national urban Philippines have in fact increased in 2018 compared to 2017, with GMA’s viewership also increasing.

GMA’s superior audience appeal on television also manifests online. In the same way that we study our television audience behavior, we also apply this discipline to online viewing behavior, and our online video content and distribution strategies are grounded in data analytics and viewer insights. With this approach, we are able to generate both revenues and profits from ad-based and subscription-based OTT platforms.

For ad-based OTT, our YouTube channels’ watch time in 2018 hit 28.5 billion minutes, making GMA one of online video’s top 50 channels worldwide. On the paid OTT side, we license our titles to OTT platforms. iflix shared that one of our top-rated series, Encantadia, has reached over 2 billion views on its OTT platform. Our social media accounts offer bite-size videos that are viewed by millions daily.

Based on Nielsen’s viewership data, what is being affected by these OTT platforms and has seen a steady decline is cable viewership.

A few years ago, we saw the emergence of subscriptionbased OTT platforms locally, often bundled with other services such as broadband connectivity or as value-added services to mobile subscriptions. Last year, we saw some of these OTT players integrate ad-based plays into their services. This may be because the Philippines is still largely a free content market where a pure pay-TV play has struggled to show a profit.

TV ASIA: Tell us about your recent deal with the local telco operator PLDT.

TV ASIA: How is your international business? Why do you think audiences as far away as Africa and Latin America are responding to GMA’s storytelling?

GOZON: Our consolidated international distribution business, comprised of pay-TV subscription, syndication and online publishing, contributes substantially to both our top line and bottom line. We distribute both linear and nonlinear content across 60 countries, including in North America, MENA, Europe and AsiaPac, on multiple platforms (cable, DTH, IPTV, OTT and mobile). It is truly gratifying to find that the stories we tell resonate in so many other countries. Perhaps it’s because the plots of GMA’s dramas are anchored in universal themes like love, family, courage amidst adversity and so on. These themes reflect our shared human experiences, wherever we may be in the world.

TV ASIA: What are your other major revenue drivers, outside of the free-to-air advertising business?

GOZON: Our geographical expansion through our international distribution business continues to contribute significantly to our core revenues. Radio, OTT licensing and advertising, and online publishing revenues are all growing. We also see growth contributions coming from our movie, music and event productions.

TV ASIA: There have been reports in the past about possible new investors in GMA. Is the company seeking outside investment at present or other strategic alliances?

GOZON: We do seek and are always open to value-unlocking strategic alliances. At present, we do not need outside investors for funding. While the three major shareholder groups of GMA Network are not peddling their shares, they are open to considering offers for their shares at the price acceptable to them.

TV ASIA: What are your key strategic priorities for the company in the 12 to 18 months ahead?

GOZON: Our key strategic priorities are maintaining our position as the country’s leading broadcast network through responsive programming and superior content creation, geographical growth through strategic worldwide and multiplatform content distribution, and the generation of new revenue streams via digital solutions, among others.

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TVLATINA

WWW.TVLATINA.TV

ABRIL/MAYO 2019

EDICIร N MIPTV/CUMBRE APTC

Principales distribuidores de novelas y series en Europa / Pierluigi Gazzolo de Viacom Tomรกs Yankelevich de Turner / Patricia Jasin de TV Azteca International

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EDICIÓN MIPTV/CUMBRE APTC

Ricardo Seguin Guise Director general

18

Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Editora Rafael Blanco Editor asociado Jessica Ávila Asistente editorial Simon Weaver Director online Victor L. Cuevas Director de producción y diseño Dana Mattison Gerente sénior de ventas y mercadeo Nathalia Lopez Coordinadora de ventas y mercadeo Andrea Moreno Gerente de asuntos de negocios

REPORTAJE

18 CONTENIDO QUE ENAMORA Pese a la alta competencia, las novelas y series distribuidas por compañías latinas en Europa siguen conquistando los corazones de las audiencias locales.

ENTREVISTAS

Ricardo Seguin Guise Presidente Anna Carugati VP ejecutiva y directora editorial del grupo Mansha Daswani Publisher asociada y VP de desarrollo estratégico TV Latina Marca registrada de WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010 Estados Unidos Oficina: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 E-mail: noticias@tvlatina.tv www.tvlatina.tv Para una suscripción gratis, visite suscribase.tv

24 Pierluigi Gazzolo de Viacom

26 Tomás Yankelevich de Turner 400 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

30 Patricia Jasin de TV Azteca International

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PANORAMA/POR ELIZABETH BOWEN-TOMBARI

La televisión sigue reinando Más allá de cómo las tendencias en lo que se refiere a visualización de contenidos han cambiado durante los últimos años y sin importar el territorio, la televisión sigue siendo el medio que concentra los mayores números de inversión publicitaria.

Una nueva investigación de WARC estima que la inversión publicitaria global aumentará 4,3 por ciento a US$ 616 mil millones este año, reflejando una desaceleración del crecimiento de 5,4 por ciento registrado en 2018.

El reporte del grupo titulado Global Ad Trends reporta que la televisión permanece como el medio publicitario más grande con US$ 195,5 mil millones. Esto representa una disminución del 1,3 por ciento comparado a 2018. La inversión en Internet aumentará 12,1 por ciento para llegar a los US$ 287,4 mil millones, para una participación del 46,7 por ciento del mercado general. Google y Facebook continúan dominando este segmento, y se espera que sus ingresos publicitarios aumenten 22 por ciento a US$ 176,4 mil millones, registrando una participación del 61,4 por ciento del mercado publicitario online. Excluyendo ambas plataformas, se proyecta una reducción en la inversión de 7,2 por ciento en 2019.

“Aunque la inversión publicitaria es estable en los niveles superiores, manteniendo un 0,7 por ciento del PIB global desde 2011, el mercado ha cambiado significativamente en años recientes”, señala James McDonald, editor de data de WARC y autor de la investigación. “La cantidad de dinero publicitario disponible a publishers online más allá de Google y Facebook está en declive, y las repercusiones tendrían un impacto sustancial, con varios anuncios de despidos laborales de alto perfil realizados este año por parte de estas empresas. Los grupos editoriales impresos ya han sido severamente impactados por la migración de dólares publicitarios online, y aunque los medios tradicionales, excluyendo impresos, les ha ido bien a la fecha, su recibimiento colectivo de inversión publicitaria también está disminuyendo”.

Se estima que los ingresos publicitarios de Norteamérica aumenten 3,7 por ciento este año luego de un alza del 6 por ciento el año pasado que fue impulsada por las elecciones en Estados Unidos y las Olimpiadas de Invierno. Se proyecta que Asia Pacífico registre un aumento del 5,8 por ciento, impulsada por China. Europa Occidental, que tuvo un crecimiento del 9,5 por ciento el año pasado, sólo registrará un aumento del 3,5 por ciento en 2019. Europa Central y del Este debería tener un buen 2019 con un aumento del 10,6 por ciento. América Latina, que registró una caída del 8,3 por ciento el año pasado,

"De acuerdo a InfoAdex,

la televisión sigue siendo el primer medio por volumen

de negocio en España, con una participación del 38,6 por ciento del conjunto de medios convencionales".

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tendría una recuperación este año con un aumento del 3,8 por ciento. El Medio Oriente continuará viendo una disminución en los ingresos publicitarios. En África, se espera un aumento del 4,3 por ciento este año.

Por su parte, un nuevo reporte de InfoAdex reveló que la inversión publicitaria en España ascendió a más de 12,8 mil millones de euros en 2018, reflejando un aumento del 2 por ciento comparado al año anterior, con la televisión siendo el medio principal por volumen de negocio.

La firma señaló que la tasa de crecimiento durante el año de los medios convencionales fue del 2,9 por ciento para superar los 5,3 mil millones de euros que se registraron en 2017 a más de 5,5 mil millones de euros de inversión en 2018.

La televisión sigue siendo el primer medio por volumen de negocio, indicó InfoAdex, con una participación del 38,6 por ciento del conjunto de medios convencionales. La reducción de inversión experimentada por la televisión en el año 2018 ha sido del 0,8 por ciento, situando su cifra en 2.172,2 millones de euros frente a los 2.143,3 millones del año anterior.

La televisión paga registró una inversión publicitaria de 107,3 millones de euros, 13,4 por ciento más que en 2017 cuando obtuvo 94,6 millones de euros. En las televisoras locales, se registró una disminución del 15,5 por ciento con respecto al 2017, lo que sitúa su cifra de inversión en 2,5 millones de euros.

El segmento digital continúa ocupando la segunda posición por volumen de inversión dentro de los medios convencionales y en su conjunto ha tenido un crecimiento en 2018 del 12,6 por ciento, con un volumen de inversión publicitaria de 1.743,2 millones de euros frente a los 1.548,1 millones de 2017. El porcentaje que digital supone sobre el total de la inversión en el año 2018 en el capítulo de medios convencionales es del 31,6 por ciento.

En nuestra edición de TV Latina para MIPTV 2019, presentamos un artículo en profundidad sobre distribuidores latinoamericanos y la venta de novelas y series en Europa. En el reportaje, titulado Contenido que enamora, diversos ejecutivos de la industria hablan sobre la importancia de este territorio para cada una de las compañías que representan. Además, comentan sobre la evolución de sus negocios en la región y cómo están trabajando con todas las plataformas.

También presentamos entrevistas con algunos de los ejecutivos más destacados de la industria de medios, entre ellos, Pierluigi Gazzolo, presidente de Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) – Américas; Tomás Yankelevich, VP ejecutivo y chief content officer de entretenimiento general de Turner Latin America; y Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca International.

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Limitless 10 TV LATINA

CDC United Network Manou the Swift / Limitless / John Wick

En Nueva York, un asesino a sueldo retirado vuelve otra vez a la acción para vengarse de los gánsteres que le quitaron todo. Esta es la trama de John Wick, una de las producciones destacadas que CDC United Network ofrece en MIPTV. La cinta cuenta con las actuaciones de Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen y Willem Dafoe. La compañía también presenta Limitless, protagonizada por Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro y Abbie Cornish, bajo la dirección de Neil Burger. En la película, el escritor Eddie Morra sufre una crisis de creatividad. Un día prueba una nueva droga que le permite sacar el máximo partido a sus facultades mentales. Otros destacados del catálogo de CDC United Network en Cannes incluyen Manou the Swift, Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa y Marnie’s World.

FOX Networks Group Especial Simpson: 30 años de activismo ambiental / Hostile Planet FOX Networks Group Latin America es el grupo de entretenimiento multiplataforma en Latinoamérica que desarrolla, produce y ofrece contenidos pagos de entretenimiento, deportes, películas, factuales e infantiles. Dentro de la oferta de la oferta de la compañía, FOX presenta Especial Simpson: 30 años de activismo ambiental, donde los mejores y más premiados episodios de Los Simpson promueven el cuidado del medio ambiente para celebrar el día internacional de la Tierra. Entre tanto, National Geographic ofrece Hostile Planet, que revela las historias de supervivencia más increíbles del reino animal en un planeta de cambios rápidos y constantes. El canal también estrena la tercera temporada de The Story of God, donde luego de viajar casi 120 mil kilómetros, Morgan Freeman revela los misterios de la espiritualidad y las creencias.

Especial Simpson: 30 años de activismo ambiental

HBO

PSi / El jardín de bronce / La vida secreta de las parejas

En La vida secreta de las parejas, emitida por HBO, la política, el sexo y poder convergen en esta serie creada por Bruna Lombardi y Kim Riccelli. “El contenido de HBO Latin America siempre ha sido único, narrando historias universales en ambientes localmente relevantes y que siguen expandiendo nuestro alcance a través del mundo”, destaca Xavier Aristimuño, VP de licencias de HBO Latin America. “Hay mucho espacio para crecer con nuestras producciones originales y queremos facilitar el acceso al contenido para que el consumidor lo pueda visualizar en la plataforma de su preferencia”. El canal también presenta la segunda temporada de El jardín de bronce, donde Joaquín Furriel regresa en el papel de Fabián Danubio, un arquitecto que pasó años buscando desesperadamente a su hija perdida. También se suma el cuarto ciclo de PSi.

La vida secreta de las parejas

“El sello de calidad que HBO representa es indiscutible y hemos tenido ese reconocimiento por más de 15 años en América Latina”.

—Xavier Aristimuño 404 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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Kanal D International Lost Scent / Ruthless City / Wounded Love Entre las novedades que Kanal D International presenta en MIPTV se encuentran Lost Scent y Ruthless City. “Wounded Love, el drama turco épico más vendido del año pasado, también está presente en MIPTV”, explica Kerim Emrah Turna, director ejecutivo de Kanal D International. “Durante los últimos dos años, los dramas turcos se han expandido a nuevos territorios, además de fortalecerse en las regiones donde ya están presentes. En la mayoría de los territorios como América Latina, estos contenidos se emitieron en horario estelar debido al éxito que generaron”. El ejecutivo agrega: “Kanal D fue la primera compañía que vendió contenido turco a España. Al vender Fatmagül a Atresmedia, abrimos las puertas de los medios españoles al mercado turco. Actualmente, cerramos acuerdos importantes con la mayoría de los principales jugadores”.

Wounded Love

“Los dramas turcos se han convertido en un importante generador de ratings e ingresos para las televisoras”.

—Kerim Emrah Turna

MISTCO Hold My Hand / The Circle / Beloved “Luego del exitoso lanzamiento de Hold My Hand el año pasado, hemos entrado a nuevos territorios y nos hemos asociado con nuevas televisoras”, comenta Aysegul Tuzun, VP de ventas y mercadeo de MISTCO. Además de Hold My Hand, la compañía ofrece en MIPTV The Circle, la historia de dos jóvenes valientes que han sido arrastrados a un juego oscuro creado por la mafia. Por su parte, Beloved se enfoca en la historia de amor entre Aziz y Feride, hijos de dos grandes enemigos.

“Estamos muy entusiasmados de lanzar estos dos nuevos dramas en MIPTV y nos encantaría compartir más detalles en el mercado”, dice la ejecutiva. “Hemos visto el crecimiento de nuestros socios no sólo en la televisión lineal, sino también en las plataformas online, por lo que nuestro objetivo en 2019 es mantener este impulso de concretar más negocios”.

“Este año, el objetivo es aumentar el éxito de nuestras series alrededor del mundo”.

Beloved

Record TV

—Aysegul Tuzun

Moisés y los diez mandamientos

Jesús / Moisés y los diez mandamientos “Tenemos una presencia sólida en Europa del Este, principalmente en Polonia”, comenta Delmar Andrade, director de ventas internacionales de Record TV. “Además, estamos en negociaciones con algunos grupos [de medios] en Inglaterra, España y Portugal. Europa tiene un mercado potencial muy grande y forma parte de nuestra estrategia de expansión global”. En MIPTV, Record TV ofrece Jesús, que se estrenó a fines del año pasado en Estados Unidos con una sintonía de 1,9 millones de espectadores durante su lanzamiento. También tuvo buen desempeño entre los televidentes en Panamá y Portugal. Entre tanto, “nuestro éxito más importante de todos los tiempos ha sido Moisés y los diez mandamientos”, resalta Andrade. “Fue prominente en la prensa internacional, destacándose en periódicos como The Guardian y El País”.

“Record TV tiene varias operaciones alrededor del mundo y Europa es un mercado muy importante para la compañía”. —Delmar Andrade 406 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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SPI International The Upside / Beyond the Edge / General Commander Loni Farhi, presidente de SPI International, considera que América Latina es una región con un potencial de crecimiento significativo. Por tal motivo, “estamos adquiriendo títulos importantes para apoyar este crecimiento en el mercado tradicional y digital”, dice el ejecutivo. En MIPTV, la compañía presenta The Upside, una comedia sobre la inusual amistad entre un ex convicto y un billonario paralítico. La producción cuenta con las actuaciones de Kevin Hart y Bryan Cranston. “Este año estaremos coproduciendo dos nuevas series con nuestro socio productor Philippe Martínez, con quien también nos hemos comprometido para coproducir cinco películas anuales”, explica Farhi. Una de las series se titula Salvage Marines con Casper Van Dien, y se ha iniciado la producción en Village Studios de Jake Seal en Louisiana. Otro de los destacados de SPI International es Beyond the Edge, protagonizada por Antonio Banderas y Miloš Biković. La cinta presenta la historia de un apostador talentoso que reúne a un equipo de personas con poderes sobrenaturales con el fin de ganar en los casinos. Pero se enfrentarán a un rival místico mucho más poderoso. La compañía también ofrece en Cannes General Commander, sobre un operativo de la CIA y sus jóvenes reclutas que persiguen a los criminales más peligrosos con la ayuda de un billonario de Hong Kong.

General Commander

“El mercado latinoamericano es muy importante para nosotros y vemos un potencial de crecimiento significativo”.

—Loni Farhi

Telefilms Green Book / Greta / Second Act En la pasada entrega de los premios Oscar, la película Green Book, protagonizada por Viggo Mortensen y Mahershala Ali, recibió estatuillas a Mejor película, Mejor guion original y Mejor actor de reparto para Ali. La cinta, que forma parte del portafolio que Telefilms ofrece a los compradores internacionales en MIPTV, se ambienta en los años ’60, donde Tony Lip trabaja como agente de seguridad en el Copacabana, uno de los más exitosos clubes nocturnos de Nueva York. Tony será despedido y tendrá que buscar un nuevo empleo, lo que lo llevará a convertirse en el chofer de Don Shirley, un prestigioso pianista quien contratará sus servicios para una gira por la zona Sur de Estados Unidos, en la que Tony se enfrentará a los prejuicios raciales propios de la época. Otro destacado es Greta, un thriller en el que una joven, afligida por la muerte de su madre, encuentra una cartera en el metro de Nueva York y se lo devuelve a su legítima propietaria, una enigmática viuda llamada Greta. La chica entabla una inusual amistad con ella, para consternación de su mejor amiga Erica Penn, quien está ayudando a Frances a aclimatarse a la ciudad. Frances ignora las preocupaciones de su amiga, pero los motivos de Greta pueden ser más siniestros de lo que parecen inicialmente.

Telefilms complementa su portafolio con Second Act, protagonizada por Jennifer Lopez; UglyDolls con la participación de Kelly Clarkson y Nick Jonas; y After, dirigida por Jenny Gage.

Second Act

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Universal Cinergía Dubbing Universal Cinergía Dubbing ha estado proporcionando doblaje, subtítulos y servicios de traducción a todos los mercados internacionales desde 2012. La compañía cuenta con instalaciones y tecnología de vanguardia, con la habilidad de manejar cualquier tipo de proyecto. Universal Cinergía Dubbing maneja una amplia red de estudios locales e internacionales y un grupo de actores, directores, traductores, e ingenieros de sonido que están comprometidos a conseguir una alta calidad en idiomas como el español, portugués, inglés y francés, entre otros. La unidad de sincronización de voz maneja doblaje para programas de televisión y series, telenovelas, películas, animación, documentales y series de acción. “En América Latina estamos muy bien posicionados”, comenta Liliam Hernández, presidenta y CEO de la compañía. “Nuestros estudios en México y Brasil están trabajando sin parar en proyectos para plataformas digitales y clientes de televisión. Estamos incrementando nuestra base de clientes en Europa, Asia, Estados Unidos y Canadá”. La ejecutiva agrega que la compañía realizó una rápida expansión en el equipo de ventas, enfocado en esos territorios. Una de las noticias destacadas de Universal Cinergía Dubbing fue el reciente ascenso de Elisa Aquino a VP de ventas globales y mercadeo de la compañía. La empresa también ha logrado entregar un aporte importante a los distribuidores y productores turcos en América Latina.

Instalaciones de Universal Cinergía Dubbing

“Nuestros estudios en México y Brasil trabajan en proyectos para plataformas digitales y clientes de televisión”.

—Liliam Hernández

Viacom International Media Networks Club 57 / Atrapa a un ladrón / Campanas en la noche “Queremos destacar la súper serie musical infantil juvenil, Club 57, la primera coproducción de Nickelodeon Latinoamérica y Rainbow Group, con cuota europea, filmada en Miami e Italia”, comenta María del Rosario Cosentino, gerente de venta de contenidos de Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) - Américas. “Es una propuesta juvenil donde el español e italiano se unen en la música y por el amor de los protagonistas, quienes viajan en el tiempo, [entre] 1957 y el presente, [además de] lenguas diferentes”. La música para la serie estará compuesta y producida por el cantautor argentino-venezolano Ricardo Montaner, los cantautores Mau y Ricky, y el colombiano Camilo Echeverri. Por su parte, Atrapa a un ladrón, es uno de los primeros proyectos que la compañía presenta como estudio, que mezcla la adaptación de una película de Hitchcock proveniente del catálogo de Paramount, junto a Javier Olivares, creador de El ministerio del tiempo, quien lidera creativamente la adaptación a una serie de 10 episodios. “Será [una] de las primeras coproducciones orgánicas entre Latinoamérica y Europa, VIMN SWIMEA (Europa del Sur y Occidental, Oriente Medio y África), y Viacom International Studios”, agrega la ejecutiva. “Actualmente, nos encontramos en plena etapa de preproducción”. La compañía también presenta Campanas en la noche, protagonizada por Federico Amador, Calu Rivero y Esteban Lamothe.

Club 57

“Club 57 es la primera coproducción de Nickelodeon Latinoamérica y Rainbow Group”.

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Las novelas y series distribuidas por compañías latinas en Europa, siguen conquistando a las audiencias locales.

Por Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari

La Gloria de Lucho forma parte de la oferta de Caracol Internacional.

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no de los destinos en que las audiencias han recibido con los brazos abiertos a las novelas y series distribuidas por las compañías latinas, ha sido Europa. Desde sus inicios, las producciones dramáticas realizadas en Latinoamérica, con guiones que poseen elementos de intriga, suspenso y pasión, protagonizadas por actores de ensueño, encontraron en el Viejo Continente un segundo hogar.

A través del tiempo, cada uno de los títulos producidos ha incrementado sus inversiones, con resultados reflejados en las preferencias del público y un alcance internacional.

U

CRUZANDO FRONTERAS Hace un par de años, cuando Benjamín Salinas asumió como CEO de TV Azteca, el ejecutivo fomentó un recambio no sólo a nivel de liderazgo, sino también editorial, llevando a que las realizaciones dramáticas de la compañía tuvieran un giro.

“Lo que ha pasado, especialmente en este último año, es que TV Azteca [es muy bien percibida] tanto en México como fuera del país”, dice Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca International. “Eso es gratificante porque hay un trabajo intenso detrás de cada uno de los miembros del equipo. Hay cambios que son evidentes y otros que no tanto, pero la gente los está viendo”.

La ejecutiva destaca que los contenidos de la compañía siempre han sido muy bien recibidos en todos los territorios, pero que factores como la diversificación del catálogo, así como diferentes alternativas de negocios, les han permitido llegar más rápidamente a varios lugares.

“La globalización nos llega a nosotros como distribuidores, pero también a los clientes”, agrega Jasin. “En la actualidad, es más fácil acceder a un contenido [globalmente].

Nuestra meta no es necesariamente llegar a más gente sino con una oferta más completa. [Queremos] ser la distribuidora en donde el cliente pueda encontrar un 80 por ciento de sus necesidades internacionales”.

Raphael Corrêa Netto, director ejecutivo de negocios internacionales de Globo, subraya que durante los últimos años han incrementado no sólo el volumen de producción de las series de la compañía, sino también la variedad de géneros en los cuales han invertido.

En ese marco, Europa es una región de importancia para Globo. “Existe interés de parte del público en diferentes géneros y formatos”, señala el ejecutivo. “Considerando la fragmentación, hemos liderado estrategias de operación, las cuales son puntos de inicio para hablar individualmente con nuestros socios”.

De acuerdo a Corrêa Netto, en Europa del Este los contenidos orientados a la familia generan bastante atención y las tele-

novelas de la compañía se destacan. Además, resalta el ejecutivo, Globo tiene un positivo historial en la venta de productos en la región. “El año pasado, licenciamos telenovelas al canal de televisión paga bTV Lady de Bulgaria y también vendimos los derechos de streaming de la súper serie Verdades secretas a la OTT bWeb del mismo grupo”, comenta Corrêa Netto.

En relación al desempeño de la compañía en Europa Occidental, el ejecutivo califica el territorio como estratégico para la venta de series, apostando a los formatos cortos.

Corrêa Netto sostiene además, que Globo invierte fuertemente en calidad, innovación y talento, y tienen la oportunidad de crear nuevas asociaciones con importantes jugadores internacionales. El ejecutivo cita como ejemplo la televisora alemana Sixx, dedicada a la audiencia femenina, la cual acaba de adquirir la telenovela Totalmente diva.

María del Rosario Cosentino, gerente de venta de contenidos de Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) – Américas, habla sobre la importancia de Europa para la compañía. “Queremos seguir posicionándonos en la región con distribución y alianzas de coproducción con socios estratégicos, especialmente en España, Italia, Portugal y Francia”, relata la ejecutiva. “En cuanto a Europa del Este, en los últimos años, hubo un cambio de tendencia y la mayoría de los países está apostando por la adaptación de formatos y producción propia. En este sentido, nuestro amplio catálogo de historias universales, innovadoras y de calidad, nos permitió convertirnos en uno de los principales distribuidores de formatos en la región. El gran desafío es seguir creciendo y que nuestros contenidos lleguen a más espectadores del mundo entero”.

FUERTE PRESENCIA Por su parte, María Lucía Hernández, directora de ventas internacionales de RCN Televisión, explica que todos los territorios son importantes para la compañía y por ello Europa tiene un rol significativo en su estrategia mundial de distribución.

“La promesa de venta de RCN se basa en la innovación, calidad y variedad, creando una oferta de producciones que han marcado un camino y han logrado un espacio dentro de este mercado”, expresa la ejecutiva. “Somos un jugador atractivo en Europa porque competimos con productos que tienen altísimos estándares en sus historias, talento y valores de producción, y es por esto que nuestros clientes prefieren los títulos de RCN”.

Dentro de los destacados de la compañía en el territorio, se cuentan series como Chica vampiro, “que ha demostrado tener una aceptación inmensa en países como Francia, Italia, Rusia, Israel y Portugal, entre otros”, acota Hernández.

“Adicionalmente, tenemos negociaciones vigentes en Hungría, Holanda y Polonia con títulos como Yo soy Betty, la fea, Ecomoda, y El capo 1, 2 y 3.

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Globo presenta para las audiencias internacionales el título Nuevo sol.

Delmar Andrade, director de ventas internacionales de Record TV, destaca las operaciones internacionales de la compañía y subraya la importancia de Europa. “Tenemos una fuerte presencia en Europa del Este, principalmente en Polonia, [incluyendo] acuerdos que hemos cerrado con dos grandes grupos en el país”, dice el ejecutivo. “Adicionalmente, estamos en negociaciones con otras compañías en Inglaterra, España y Portugal. Europa tiene un gran mercado potencial y es parte de nuestra estrategia de expansión global”.

MÁS ALLÁ DE LAS FRONTERAS Para Caracol Internacional, el territorio posee gran relevancia.

En palabras de Paloma García, ejecutiva de ventas internacionales de la compañía, “tenemos sólidos acuerdos con canales de cada rincón del continente, donde se están programando nuestros contenidos. Por otro lado, Europa es el escenario de importantes mercados de contenidos en los que exploramos nuevas oportunidades de negocio y atendemos personalmente a nuestros clientes”.

La ejecutiva menciona la presencia de las producciones que forman parte de Caracol Internacional en países como Francia, Polonia y España, entre ellas, Sinú, río de pasiones, Tarde lo conocí y Mariana & Scarlett.

Dentro de la misma línea, Corrêa Netto de Globo habla sobre la posición de la compañía en Portugal, donde finalizaron el 2018 con históricos resultados. En dicho país, y según el ejecutivo, el canal de televisión paga Globo está posicionado como el segundo en términos de rating y el primero en entreteni-

miento. A través de dicha señal, El tiempo no para, tuvo el mejor rating para el debut de una telenovela durante su bloque horario.

Cosentino de VIMN – Américas resalta la adaptación de Graduados en Serbia por Prva, la cual obtuvo un 27 por ciento de cuota de pantalla en el horario estelar. “Por otro lado, Markíza en Eslovaquia comenzó la segunda temporada de Sres. Papis, la cual es uno de los programas más vistos del país, alcanzado un 48 por ciento de cuota de pantalla”, relata la ejecutiva.

“En Grecia, a través de Antenna, El regreso de Lucas se ubica siempre entre los cinco programas más vistos.

Por otro lado, la productora griega Green Pixel Productions adquirió los derechos de los formatos de Educando a Nina y Amar después de amar. Por su parte, Sres. Papis fue licenciada en Hungría, Ucrania y MENA, donde actualmente se encuentran trabajando en la pre-producción y ha sido opcionada a República Checa, Bulgaria, Rumania, Rusia, Serbia, Croacia y Alemania”.

De acuerdo a Andrade de Record TV y en referencia a las producciones bíblicas de la compañía, dichas historias han sido muy exitosas, no sólo en Europa, sino en todos los países donde han sido exhibidas.

“Sin embargo”, agrega el ejecutivo, “nuestro éxito más importante ha sido Moisés y los diez mandamientos, el cual fue destacado por la prensa internacional a través de medios como The Guardian y El País. La producción tuvo gran aceptación en el mercado internacional por ser la primera telenovela basada en la Biblia. Además de estar disponible en Brasil a través de Netflix, hemos cerrado acuerdos en países de Europa, tales como Portugal, España, Inglaterra y Polonia, entre otros”.

Andrade explica que el proyecto más reciente de la compañía, Jesús, la cual ha sido recibida positivamente en los países donde se ha exhibido, registrando altos índices de ratings en territorios como el mercado hispano de Estados Unidos, Mozambique y Panamá. “En su debut en Portugal, Jesús alcanzó la audiencia récord del año”, relata el ejecutivo.

DIVERSIFICACIÓN DEL CATÁLOGO Jasin de TV Azteca International, cree que la diversificación del catálogo de la compañía y las opciones que ofrecen a sus clientes, les permiten llegar de forma más rápida a varios lugares.

“Tenemos formatos [guionados] y los estamos [distribuyendo] muy bien en Europa”, argumenta la ejecutiva. “[El tema de la expansión] pasa porque llegas a un territorio y [ese éxito] se extiende al país de al lado”.

En relación a la oferta y servicios de TV Azteca International que podrían complementar la programación de las plataformas internacionales, Jasin agrega que, “puede ser una novela,

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serie, formato o formato original y talento, además de [alguna] estrategia o tecnología que [hayamos] desarrollado”.

Considerando que Europa es un territorio donde se realiza un importante número de producciones originales locales, ¿cómo se diferencian las producciones distribuidas por compañías latinoamericanas en el Viejo Continente?, ¿qué elementos las distinguen para destacarse y encontrar el éxito buscado?

“Invertimos mucho en creatividad, innovación y talentos para que nos apoyen creando buenas historias con calidad y emoción”, relata Corrêa Netto de Globo. “Creo que esta combinación, junto con una poderosa oferta de producción y la diversidad de géneros en nuestro catálogo, hacen nuestro trabajo exitoso en Brasil, permitiéndoles navegar muy bien en diferentes continentes y culturas”.

En el caso de VIMN – Américas, Cosentino resalta que el diferencial de las producciones de la compañía en el mercado europeo radican en el catálogo, debido a su foco en todas las demografías, además de una amplia variedad y diversidad de géneros. “Ofrecemos desde producciones originales de Viacom en América Latina de Nickelodeon, MTV y Comedy Central, hasta cientos de horas de contenido original, tanto actual como de biblioteca de Telefe, sumado al contenido de humor de Brasil de Porta dos Fundos”, señala la ejecutiva.

Cosentino cita el lanzamiento de Viacom International Studios (VIS) con el cual, “nos consolidamos como uno de los mayores creadores, productores y distribuidores de contenido de Latinoamérica para el mundo. Sin duda, Europa es una región importante para nuestro crecimiento y las coproducciones son clave en este proceso”.

En ese marco, la ejecutiva destaca el título original Atrapa a un ladrón (To Catch A Thief), una nueva versión de la clásica película de Alfred Hitchcock, la cual es la primera coproducción entre VIMN SWIMEA (Europa del Sur y Occidental, Medio Oriente y África) y VIS Latinoamérica. El segundo título al cual la ejecutiva hace referencia es la súper serie juvenil musical Club 57, primera coproducción entre Nickelodeon Latinoamérica y Rainbow Group. “Creemos que este tipo de producto es altamente demandado en Europa”, comenta Cosentino. “El valor agregado en este caso, es que cuenta con

RCN Televisión lleva a Cannes la producción La ley del corazón 2.

cuota europea y permite la explotación de una gama de negocios 360”.

DE TODO, PARA TODOS En opinión de Hernández de RCN Televisión, la fortaleza del catálogo de la compañía radica en su amplitud y variedad, oferta que incluye telenovelas clásicas, comedias, melodramas clásicos, novelas, series musicales, biopics y todas las tendencias que existen actualmente.

“Sabemos hacer productos que tocan la fibra del televidente y de igual forma hacemos productos a la medida de otros mercados”, explica la ejecutiva. “Nuestras series se caracterizan por tocar temas no tradicionales, diferentes, contenido dinámico y muchas veces controversiales. Ofrecemos a nuestros clientes un portafolio con producciones de calidad, alto impacto y exitosas en su género”.

Por su parte, Andrade de Record TV, afirma que en la actualidad, el mercado internacional busca contenido que es creíble y ofrece valores a la gente. “Las telenovelas basadas en historias bíblicas, además de su religiosidad, colaboran para entender una visión del mundo en el cual vivimos”, relata el ejecutivo. “Eso es parte del éxito obtenido por estas súper producciones en Brasil y alrededor del mundo. En Record TV, seguimos por este camino a través de historias bíblicas que también incluyen todos los ingredientes que una telenovela debe tener: Pasión, odio, envidia y solidaridad”.

García de Caracol Internacional, destaca que en la fórmula que han desarrollado, ha sido fundamental el talento creativo que escribe historias con la capacidad de generar impacto global. “Nuestros contenidos de ficción se caracterizan por sus figuras pioneras, rebeldes con causa frente a la sociedad, rela-

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Protagonizada por Ana Belena, La taxista es parte del portafolio de Comarex.

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Jesús es uno de los títulos destacados de Record TV.

tos humanos que reúnen elementos narrativos que adquieren un significado universal, y han posicionado nuestras producciones en el mercado internacional”, dice la ejecutiva.

En medio de un panorama de prosperidad para las producciones latinas en Europa y de éxito al conquistar bloques horarios y audiencias, las distribuidoras han encontrado un espacio para sus títulos también en las OTT locales, aunque no con la misma necesidad de adquisición que existe en territorios como América Latina y Estados Unidos.

COMPLEMENTO A LAS PANTALLAS “Las OTT en Europa no están requiriendo contenido latino masivamente y eso va a estar cambiando”, dice Jasin de TV Azteca International. “El negocio más importante de las OTT todavía es Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos. Veo que el producto latino [todavía tiene espacios] en Europa y ahí hay un área de oportunidad que estará llegando pronto”.

Según la ejecutiva, la constante de hoy es que los programadores están solicitando mucho contenido, además de una amplia variedad, donde la telenovela sigue siendo un género muy requerido. “Por su parte, las series y los formatos, [están generando una] necesidad de producción, una búsqueda por más historias, no necesariamente ya producidas, sino también originales”, afirma Jasin. “Algunas de [nuestras] historias originales ya han sido desarrolladas y no han sido producidas, y otras han sido presentadas y por alguna razón no se llegaron a desarrollar. Lo que hacemos es tomarlas para revenderlas y distribuirlas”.

“Las plataformas digitales son el resultado de las transformaciones en la sociedad y el mercado, y tienen un rol clave en la distribución de contenidos”, sostiene Corrêa Netto de Globo. “Consideramos estas plataformas como otra posibilidad de llevar nuestro contenido cada vez más allá”.

A modo de ejemplo, relata el ejecutivo, el año pasado la compañía licenció las series Carceleros y Supermax (versión brasileña) a los servicios de streaming de AMC Networks, para ser ofrecidos en territorios como el Reino Unido, Irlanda, Nueva Zelanda, Alemania, Austria y Suiza, además

de Estados Unidos y Australia, en portugués con subtítulos en los idiomas locales.

“En el año previo, la serie limitada Ojos sin culpa, El cazador y Alemão – Los dos lados de la operación, pasaron a formar parte del servicio VOD Walter Presents en el Reino Unido y Estados Unidos”, agrega Corrêa Netto. “Nuestras telenovelas también han encontrado espacio en la arena digital. Licenciamos La guerrera, Rastros de mentiras, India – Una historia de amor y La vida sigue al servicio francés M6 web”.

Considerando que entre el 80 y 85 por ciento de los ingresos de VIMN – Américas proviene de América, Europa tiene un gran peso para la compañía, comenta Cosentino, territorio en el cual buscan recuperar su posición protagónica y crecer de forma importante, a través de alianzas con socios estratégicos.

En relación a los negocios con las OTT en el Viejo Mundo, la ejecutiva sostiene: “Las plataformas digitales juegan un papel clave en lo que respecta a la venta de enlatados, ya que abren nuevas oportunidades para distribución de contenido.

De hecho, una de las tendencias que hemos visto en estos últimos años es que nuestros títulos de catálogo, que fueron éxito en la televisión abierta, se trasladaron a estas nuevas plataformas y señales de televisión paga”.

Cosentino destaca que el hecho de controlar todos los derechos de sus contenidos es una de las ventajas con la cual cuentan en VIS, otorgándoles una mayor flexibilidad a la hora de satisfacer las necesidades de sus clientes. “El principal reto, se encuentra en maximizar las oportunidades, llegando a más territorios, coordinando una clara estrategia de ventaneo, que nos permita cruzar la mayor cantidad posible de plataformas en un mismo país”, argumenta la ejecutiva.

Hernández de RCN Televisión, coincide en la creciente importancia de las plataformas a nivel mundial, incluyendo Europa. “Cada negociación la tratamos de forma individual dependiendo de los derechos y títulos negociados”, acota la ejecutiva.

Por su parte, García de Caracol Internacional, destaca que durante los últimos años la compañía se ha posicionado como un importante proveedor de contenidos para plataformas digitales globales como Netflix, en la cual han posicionado producciones como Sobreviviendo a Pablo Escobar, Alias JJ, La ley secreta y La niña, entre otros. “Por otro lado, hemos cerrado acuerdos de SVOD en Francia, España y Holanda con varias plataformas digitales locales que están emitiendo nuestras series y novelas”, finaliza la ejecutiva.

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ENDEARING CONTENT For Latin distributors of novelas and series, Europe is one of the most important strategic territories. Throughout the years, freeTV broadcasters and pay-TV channels, as well as emerging OTT platforms, have become increasingly aware of the quality and high production values coming from LatAm companies, as well as the success these productions have garnered among local audiences. Even though Europe also produces a high volume of original content, titles from Latin America have found their way into different time slots, complementing European television offerings. Going forward, LatAm distributors look to furthering the reach of their content in the region, which includes expanding to new platforms.

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TV LATINA: El 2018 estuvo lleno de noticias para la compañía, ¿qué podría destacar?

GAZZOLO: Una de las más grandes fue la creación de Viacom International Studios (VIS) que lo lanzamos oficialmente en los pasados L.A. Screenings, donde presentamos muchos de los productos que estábamos desarrollando en forma de videos y la reacción de la audiencia fue increíble.

[De un año a esta parte], ha ocurrido mucho. Presentamos 10 propiedades y ocho de ellas ya tienen socios. Las estamos produciendo y pronto van a ser emitidas [a través de nuestros canales] y socios.

La fusión de Viacom Latinoamérica, Telefe y Porta dos Fundos fue lo mejor que nos pudo haber pasado, son compañías que producen contenido como nosotros. Tal como sabes, queremos ser dueños de nuestro propio contenido y por eso fue que adquirimos [ambas compañías]. Ahora tenemos una [amplia] variedad de géneros y una increíble cantidad de horas para ofrecer. El negocio de los estudios está creciendo significativamente, desde el 2018 ya creció [alrededor de] un 50 por ciento.

Por Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari

D

urante el último año, Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Américas ha hecho noticia por sus nuevas iniciativas de negocios y acuerdos. Encabezada por su presidente Pierluigi Gazzolo, durante los pasados L.A. Screenings, la compañía presentó oficialmente Viacom International Studios (VIS), división de desarrollo, producción y distribución del portafolio de contenido global, junto con programación en desarrollo.

A través de VIS, VIMN Américas ha anunciado acuerdos de distribución para sus formatos originales con varios socios de SVOD, televisión paga y abierta, y cientos de horas de contenido original, tanto actual como de la biblioteca de Telefe y Porta dos Fundos.

En esta entrevista con TV Latina, Gazzolo habla sobre el crecimiento del negocio de la compañía a través de VIS y las oportunidades para los canales del grupo, entre otros temas.

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TV LATINA: Además de las asociaciones, están trabajando con destacados talentos.

GAZZOLO: Sí, [en NATPE anunciamos la nueva serie Ana] con Ana de la Reguera. Estamos trabajando con escritores muy importantes, entre ellos, Javier Olivares, [creador] de El Ministerio del tiempo, con quien ahora vamos a lanzar la serie de Alfred Hitchcock, Atrapa a un ladrón.

[Una de las cosas que ocurrió] con VIS es que nos puso en el mapa con los socios, el talento y las divisiones de la compañía en Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, Paramount Television, estudio de televisión de Paramount, quiere trabajar con nosotros para crear series basadas en la propiedad intelectual que posee. Entonces, la primera es To Catch a Thief a partir de la cual estamos realizando Atrapa a un ladrón que vamos a producir con Javier Olivares. La historia se lleva a cabo en dos lugares, Buenos Aires y Cadaqués, y Paramount España se asoció con nosotros para trabajar en el país.

VIS nos ha abierto las puertas para todo. Me emociona decir que siempre hemos sido una empresa de contenido, lo que pasa es que nunca [nos hemos referido a la compañía de esa manera]. Viacom específicamente, siempre fue dueño de su contenido, pero nunca lo [ofrecimos] al mercado como lo estamos haciendo ahora. La [adquisición] de Telefe nos abrió [a muchos] géneros y con la [adquisición] de Porta dos Fundos estamos [produciendo] formatos largos, [entre ellos] Borges, que fue adquirida por Netflix y ¿Homens?, que fue vendida a Amazon.

TV LATINA: El momento actual de producción en América Latina, ¿cómo los ha impulsado a seguir incrementando los niveles de sus propias realizaciones?, ¿qué elementos debe tener una producción o un proyecto para que decidan sumarse a él?

GAZZOLO: Definitivamente, el contenido original en Latinoa mérica es mucho más grande ahora y se le han abierto las puertas para internacionalizarlo más. Creo que los SVOD como Netflix fueron parte del motivo por el cual se han roto barreras. Ese es el caso de La casa de papel y Narcos, que están entre las 10 series más vistas en Estados Unidos. Se abrió mucho la frontera y la gente entendió que el autor latinoamericano tiene historias muy buenas. Para

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TV LATINA 25

nosotros ha sido perfecto porque lanzamos los estudios en un momento donde Latinoamérica tiene un auge muy importante de contenido.

En cuanto a cómo buscamos las historias y los socios, hay mil maneras. La primera, es que hemos formado un equipo de desarrollo increíble, liderado por Mercedes Reincke (VP de desarrollo de contenido), con escritores de varias edades y experiencias, y especialidades en distintos géneros. [También tenemos] un equipo que hace muchos estudios, algo así como algoritmos [y que nos dicen] qué es lo que se está consumiendo más y [cuáles son las temáticas] que le tocan el corazón a los televidentes. Por ejemplo, en 2018, [un tema central] fue el empoderamiento de la mujer y de ahí surge la historia de 100 Días para enamorarse, que trata sobre una pareja de amigas que decide tomarse un break de sus esposos y explorarse a si mismas antes de volver con ellos.

[Luego de estos estudios], se busca al socio que uno sienta que puede ser el mejor para ese género. Pero no sólo por género, por ejemplo, si encontramos una historia que creemos que va a tener visualización continua, entonces nos acercamos a un Amazon o Netflix para que sean nuestros socios porque [este tipo de] visualización funciona para ellos. Si encontramos una historia que puede ser [para emisión diaria] de 80 episodios, entonces nos acercamos a un RCN o Televisa. Pero también buscamos socios con los que ya hemos trabajado y que ya han tenido experiencia desarrollando y localizando contenido de otros países dentro de su región porque ellos sí entienden el valor del formato. Hay quienes no lo entienden y quieren darle demasiadas vueltas a la historia y al significado, y es ahí donde ya no queremos trabajar porque sabemos que no vamos a tener el mismo éxito que tuvimos en el país donde se desarrolló.

Mega de Chile es otro ejemplo de una de las empresas con las que mejor trabajamos porque nos entendemos muy bien en cuanto a valorizar nuestro formato.

Finalmente, también buscamos terceros que nos traigan historias. Estamos hablando con Atresmedia y hemos estado trabajando con Mediapro.

También colaboramos con otros canales abiertos que nos traen historias que nos interesan. Entonces el origen [de cada historia] viene de todas partes, pero lo más importante es trabajar con gente que entiende el espíritu del libro o formato y no lo quiera cambiar demasiado.

Creo que, dependiendo del género o target, va a haber un cambio en cómo se van a consumir los canales. Siguen siendo canales [lineales], pero algunos se van a consumir mucho más en VOD, mientras que otros lo harán pasivamente. No creo que sea el fin de los canales, [sino] el cambio [se reflejará] en cómo se consumen.

TV LATINA: Considerando dichos cambios en los hábitos de consumo, ¿cómo siguen satisfaciendo las necesidades de sus audiencias a través de las múltiples plataformas?

GAZZOLO: Hicimos algo increíble porque ya teníamos [los canales de] televisión paga con contenido producido por nosotros. Adquirimos Telefe que es una televisora abierta tradicional produciendo contenidos para una audiencia más tradicional. Luego adquirimos Porta dos Fundos, que es un canal de YouTube para otro tipo de target que consume el contenido [que ellos realizan]. Mezclamos todo [el contenido de los canales de televisión paga, de Telefe y de Porta dos Fundos] y con ello llegamos a todos [los tipos de audiencia].

No obstante, cuando se produce o se desarrolla un show, por ejemplo, Amar después de amar que fue uno de los shows más importantes de Telefe en el 2017, se realizó el episodio lineal, pero después, basado en un personaje de ese capítulo, se produjo una historia de la vida de ese personaje para telefe.com.

Entonces, estamos trabajando mucho en 360. No creo que lo digital signifique [ofrecer] un contenido diferente. Para mí, digital significa [que existen otras maneras de consumirlo], ya sea formato largo o corto. Pero una vez que estás desarrollando la historia, desde [ese momento] se piensa en cómo se puede [dar vida a] las extensiones digitales.

TV LATINA: En medio del panorama de medios actual, ¿cuáles son las oportunidades de negocio que visualiza para cada canal de la compañía?

GAZZOLO: Los canales de televisión paga van a seguir creciendo en Latinoamérica y el consumidor todavía [consumirá programación] lineal. Pero la realidad es, y esta es mi opinión y no necesariamente la de la compañía, que [incluso] cuando tienes el canal lineal disponible, el VOD de [dicha] señal que vive en el mundo OTT del cableoperador, cobra una mayor importancia. [Ese es el caso de] Flow de Cablevisión en Argentina, NET NOW de Net Brasil en Brasil, DIRECTV NOW de DIRECTV e izzi en México con izzi app.

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 419

Campanas en la noche es una de las más recientes producciones de Telefe.

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26 TV LATINA

canales del grupo. En Latinoamérica, Turner posee más del 25 por ciento de cuota de pantalla, así es que somos el grupo más fuerte de televisión paga en la región y nos estamos [expandiendo]. Antes, nuestro foco estaba puesto en entretenimiento y niños, ahora también tenemos deportes en Brasil, Argentina y Chile, [donde] acabamos de adquirir el Canal del Fútbol (CDF). La idea es expandirnos y tratar de [ofrecer] deportes en la gran mayoría de los de países.

TV LATINA: ¿Qué influyó en la decisión para que Turner entrara al negocio de los deportes en América Latina?, ¿era un área que les faltaba abarcar?

YANKELEVICH: Más allá de eso, sentíamos que para fortalecernos en el negocio de televisión paga y derechos, y más que en el deporte, el fútbol en Latinoamérica era muy necesario, sobre todo el local. Existen varios canales que manejan derechos internacionales, pero no [así los locales], que fue donde nos enfocamos. No es que no nos interesen los derechos internacionales, pero el foco [es el fútbol local].

Además, manejamos distintos formatos. En Argentina, TNT Sports es un canal premium que emite la mitad de los partidos del campeonato [local] y la otra mitad es emitida por FOX Sports, con quienes nos asociamos para la [creación] de este canal. Ambas [compañías] trabajan en conjunto porque el paquete de fútbol se le vende al usuario con la posibilidad de ver los dos canales que son premium.

En Chile, CDF es un canal premium a través del cual se emiten los partidos, pero además, tenemos un canal básico que estamos reformulando para que sea mucho más atractivo para la audiencia.

En Brasil, teníamos canales básicos [bajo la marca] Esporte Interativo, la cual sigue existiendo, pero como pro-

Por Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari

D

esde que Tomás Yankelevich asumió como VP ejecutivo y chief content officer de entretenimiento general de Turner Latin America, la compañía se ha enfocado fuertemente en la realización de producciones originales locales, la búsqueda de socios para el desarrollo de contenidos y la adquisición de derechos televisivos deportivos.

Así es como hasta el último trimestre del año pasado, la compañía había desarrollado más de 9.500 horas de programación para sus marcas de entretenimiento general, Chilevisión y terceros. Entre los socios coproductores se incluye a Mediapro, Plataforma y Comarex, y Dopamine.

Yankelevich conversa con TV Latina sobre las diferentes aristas del negocio de Turner en la región, evolución de las mismas y el foco en México y Brasil en lo que respecta el desarrollo de producciones originales.

TV LATINA: ¿Cómo se desempeñaron los negocios de Turner en América Latina el último año?

YANKELEVICH: Con el grupo de canales que manejo, entretenimiento, incluyendo [el canal de televisión abierta en Chile], Chilevisión, hicimos de todo, [incluso con] todos los 420 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

ducto digital. Cerramos los canales básicos y la Champions League, sobre la cual Esporte Interativo tenía los derechos, se está emitiendo en TNT y SPACE. Este es un modelo más parecido al de Estados Unidos con la NBA, en donde [la grilla está compuesta de] entretenimiento general, películas y series, además de deportes. Este modelo también es muy interesante sobre todo con una economía en escala regional, donde tenemos los derechos internacionales para [un evento como] la Champions League y que puede viajar en toda la región.

En el caso de Brasil, normalmente los derechos deportivos se adquieren por un lado para Latinoamérica y para Brasil por el otro. Tenemos la suerte de haber adquirido los derechos de [los partidos de] varios clubes. En marzo-abril arranca el campeonato brasileiro y vamos a tener partidos locales en la pantalla de TNT. TV LATINA: ¿Les interesa seguir con esta estrategia en otros países de la región?

YANKELEVICH: Sí, por supuesto que nos interesa. [No queremos] armar un canal de deportes si no tenemos [los dere-

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El equipo de profesionales de TNT Sports lleva las alternativas deportivas a sus audiencias.

chos] del mismo país. No tenemos problema de sumar derechos deportivos en otros países, pero si no tenemos un derecho que nos permita generar un canal premium, no vamos a armar canales deportivos. Entonces lo que termina ocurriendo es que tienes un canal [incompleto] porque los derechos deportivos son muy caros y los cableoperadores no tienen la posibilidad de pagar a una tercera y cuarta compañía que está [ofreciendo] deportes. Desde el punto de vista económico y artístico, no tiene mucho sentido. Si [incursionamos] es porque tenemos los derechos locales que son los que [impulsan] que la gente quiera suscribirse a un servicio.

TV LATINA: Realizaron un nuevo anuncio en relación al acuerdo con Mediapro.

YANKELEVICH: Sí, casualmente, compramos los derechos de las eliminatorias para el mundial de Qatar de la selección chilena para el país y lo hicimos en conjunto con Mediapro.

A partir de ese acuerdo nos sentamos y dijimos, ‘¿qué más podemos hacer?’. El acuerdo que cerramos se inició este año y se extiende por cinco años. [La producción de Las Bravas F.C.] es el primero de los proyectos en el cual hemos estado trabajando desde el año pasado y estamos muy orgullosos. Si todo resulta bien, se estrenará este año o el próximo.

TV LATINA: El presupuesto anual de este acuerdo, ¿abarca producciones específicas en determinados géneros?

YANKELEVICH: Puede ser media serie, una serie o dos series, todo depende de cómo se realice la inversión y de que se sume otro socio, además de Mediapro. Trabajamos en conjunto con ellos y siempre tratamos de tener las puertas abiertas y ver quién más se puede sumar.

TV LATINA: Desde que se integró a Turner, el foco de la compañía han sido las producciones originales. ¿Cómo ha evolucionado la empresa en ese sentido?

YANKELEVICH: Antes de que yo llegara a Turner, existía la intención [de producir], pero no estaba el proceso interno acompañando la producción original. Turner es una compa422 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

ñía que siempre se basó en las adquisiciones y le fue muy bien con ello. Cuando llegué, me invitaron con la intención de impulsar la producción original por varios motivos.

El primero y principal era [la presencia] de las OTT, [ya que] era evidente que la gran mayoría de los principales estudios que eran y son los que nos proveen contenido, iban a tomar la decisión de ir directo al consumidor, y si van directo al consumidor y nos quedamos sin contenido, es un problema. El objetivo estratégico a largo plazo es poder generar contenido para hacer una transición lógica si es que en algún momento [los estudios] nos dejan de vender.

El segundo objetivo era tener derechos propios. Para todos nuestros canales en Latinoamérica, hacemos una inversión muy fuerte en adquisición de contenido, pero es para cable básico. Si queremos sumar un determinado contenido a una de nuestras plataformas o si queremos llevarlo a una red social, estamos limitados. El mundo de hoy pasa por la multipantalla. Ya no hablamos de canales, sino de marcas y si no tenemos nuestro propio contenido [no podremos ofrecerlos a través de diversas pantallas]. La idea de producir, tener propiedad intelectual y manejarla en las plataformas que [tenemos] era la idea original y afortunadamente la estamos llevando adelante.

TV LATINA: ¿Cómo están supervisando que la vida de estas series originales se extiendan más allá de la pantalla lineal?

YANKELEVICH: Para hacerlo, siempre buscamos los derechos. Luego, en la gran mayoría de los casos, [producimos] un spin-off de [un título ya emitido], así existe un atractivo que vive sólo en una pantalla y que te lleva a digital.

Después, tratamos de generar un contenido que no sólo tenga una temporada sino múltiples y que [nos permita] trabajar con una plataforma digital. En ese sentido, le hemos vendido contenido a Netflix y Amazon. No tenemos problema de compartir derechos, siempre y cuando nuestra marca siga vigente.

WarnerMedia está lanzando una plataforma a fin de año en Estados Unidos y en breve tendremos esa plataforma dentro de la compañía, [por lo que] vamos a poder convivir en ambos mundos.

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Por Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari

E

n el recién pasado NATPE, Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca International, celebró su primer año a la cabeza de la compañía. Desde dicha posición, ha liderado los negocios de la empresa tanto en materia de distribución de contenidos como de los canales de televisión paga del grupo.

En esta entrevista con TV Latina, la ejecutiva realiza un balance del desempeño de TV Azteca International durante 2018 y habla sobre los retos y desafíos que ha enfrentado dirigiendo los negocios de la compañía, entre otros temas.

TV LATINA: ¿Cuál ha sido el balance del último año, tanto en términos de distribución de contenidos como de canales?

JASIN: Me gusta hablar de las dos cosas porque una de las estrategias desde que llegué a TV Azteca es mirar TV Azteca International como una sola unidad de negocio. Este tiene dos áreas, la venta de contenidos y la de televisión paga, con nuestros cuatro canales. Para mí era importante unir estrategias porque finalmente se trata de una sola visión que es exportar nuestro contenido fuera de México a través de terceros cuando licenciamos o a través de nuestros propios canales. Fue un año intenso en cuanto a cambios de estrategias, adaptándonos a la movilidad y a lo que está pasando en la industria.

En términos de señales, ya sabemos que la televisión paga no está en crecimiento en cantidad de cableoperadores.

Hemos tenido que hacer algunos ajustes en cuanto a cómo mirábamos [esta industria] y si es que íbamos a seguir expandiéndonos en términos de venta de señales. [Llevamos] los canales lineales a las plataformas digitales y empezamos a realizar contenidos de marca que nos han generado ingresos desde otra perspectiva.

En cuanto a la venta de contenidos, hemos tratado de llegar a mercados donde no teníamos presencia, además de diversificar nuestro catálogo. Una buena distribuidora tiene que tener más que un gran catálogo en [términos de] cantidad, [sino también] en variedad porque hay múltiples necesidades en el mercado y es difícil mantener un contacto continuo con el cliente si no puede ser abastecido con un abanico de posibilidades.

TV LATINA: A partir del giro de la compañía, ¿cuál ha sido el recibimiento de los contenidos por parte de los compradores?

JASIN: Lo que ha pasado, especialmente en este último año, es que tanto dentro como fuera de México, TV Azteca es percibida [de forma positiva]. La gente dice, ‘¡qué bien están haciendo las cosas!’ y eso es gratificante porque hay una labor intensa detrás de cada uno de los miembros del equipo y hay cambios que son evidentes y otros no tanto, sin embargo, la gente los está viendo. Uno quisiera que algunas cosas ocurrieran más rápido, pero son procesos que se deben cumplir [en su propio] tiempo. Los resultados a nivel percepción tanto de los clientes, como de los programadores y socios, son muy buenos. Luego vienen los cambios estratégicos, en rating, el posicionamiento en pantalla, el liderazgo en horarios donde no teníamos y la preferencia de la gente en muchísimos segmentos. Eso es lo que se percibe interna y externamente.

TV LATINA: ¿Cómo están trabajando en la expansión y consolidación internacional de la compañía?

JASIN: Siempre hemos tenido buena llegada en muchos lugares, pero creo que la diversificación del catálogo y las opciones que [les estamos entregando a los clientes] nos permiten alcanzar con una mayor agilidad a varios lugares. Este también es un tema de la industria. La globalización nos llega a nosotros como distribuidores, pero también les llega a los clientes.

En la actualidad, es más fácil acceder a un contenido [globalmente]. China, al cual es difícil de llegar, cerrar [un negocio] y consolidarse, es un país que ahora está estrenando nuevas novelas. Tenemos formatos [con guión] y los estamos [distribuyendo] muy bien en Europa. También [trabajamos] en el mercado anglo de Estados Unidos. [El tema de la expansión] pasa porque llegas a un territorio y [ese éxito] se extiende al país de al lado.

Nuestra meta no es alcanzar más gente sino llegar con una oferta más completa, ser la distribuidora en donde el cliente pueda encontrar un 80 por ciento de sus necesidades internacionales en TV Azteca International. Puede ser una novela, serie, formato o formato original y talento, además de [alguna] estrategia o tecnología que [hayamos] desarrollado. Esa es la visión que tenemos de una distribuidora, que sea más que una vendedora de programas.

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TVLISTINGS

WWW.WORLDSCREENINGS.COM

APRIL 2019

MIPTV EDITION

THE LEADING SOURCE FOR PROGRAM INFORMATION

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IN THIS ISSUE 3

21

4K Media

Jetpack Distribution

9 Story Media Group

Kanal D International

4

Keshet International

A+E Networks

Kew Media Distribution

ABS-CBN Corporation Albatross World Sales

22

all3media international

Lionsgate Entertainment

6

Madd Entertainment

Allspark (formerly Hasbro Studios)

MarVista Entertainment

APC Kids

Mattel

Armoza Formats

Mediatoon Distribution

Atlantyca Entertainment

8 Atresmedia Televisión

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM)

Australian Children’s Television Foundation

Mondo TV Group

Autentic Distribution

Multicom Entertainment Group

Banijay Rights

Nippon TV

Bejuba! Entertainment Boat Rocker Studios

24 NTV Broadcasting Company

Orange Smarty

Calinos Entertainment

ORF-Enterprise

Caracol Televisión

25

CBS Studios International

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

Passion Distribution PBS International

CDC United Network CJ ENM

Pure Flix/Quality Flix

CJ ENM Animation Division

Rabbit Films

Crown Media International Distribution

Rainbow

Cyber Group Studios

26

14

Record TV

DHX Media

Red Arrow Studios International

Dick Clark Productions

Rive Gauche Television

Discovery, Inc. Distribution360 Dori Media Group

RTVE Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport

DRG

27

16

Serious Lunch

Eccho Rights

Showlab

Electric Entertainment Endemol Shine International Escapade Media

18 Filmax

Smithsonian Channel Star India Studio 100 Media/m4e STUDIOCANAL

Fremantle

28

Gaumont

Superights

Global Agency

TCB Media Rights

Globalive Media Globosat

19

Telefilms

GMA Worldwide GoldBee

The Story Lab

GRB Studios

TV Asahi Corporation

Guru Studio

TV Azteca International

Gusto Worldwide Media

Twofour

20 HBO Latin America Hunan TV

Moon and Me The Hollow (Kids 8-12 animation adventure, 10x22 min.) Three teens join forces to find a way home after waking up in a strange realm filled with magic portals, perplexing puzzles and vicious beasts.

Dr. Panda (Kids 3-6 animation, 39x7 min.)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Panda City, where every day Dr. Panda tries out a new job working together with his friends.

Anne of Green Gables Collection (Family live-action movies, 3x88 min.) A retelling of L.M. Montgomery’s story of Anne Shirley, a girl

O (1-416) 530-9900 m distribution@9story.com

w 9story.com

Viacom International Studios

30 Viacom18/IndiaCast Media Distribution

Imagina International Sales

WWE

Incendo

Xilam Animation

Intellecta

ZDF Enterprises

Inter Medya

Zee Entertainment Enterprises

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie (Animation, 1x90 min.)

Heroic Yugi squares off against archrival Kaiba in an adventure even more dangerous when the imaginary monsters in their playing cards become real and an old evil enters the fray.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V (Animation, S1-3: 148x30 min.) Yuya Sakaki’s dream is to become the greatest “duel-tainer” in history–and he just might pull it off when he discovers a technique that lets him summon many monsters at once.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL (Animation, 146x30 min.)

When aspiring duelist Yuma meets Astral, a mysterious visitor from another universe, it seems like destiny. Yuma needs Astral to teach him how to duel, and Astral needs Yuma to help him regain his memories!

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s (Animation, 123x30 min.)

Once the playground to legendary duelist Yugi Muto, the sprawling metropolis of New Domino City has since been transformed into a futuristic society where dueling has kicked into overdrive.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (Animation, 155x30 min.) Follows a new generation of duelists at the Duel Academy—a highly competitive boarding school where pencils and books have been replaced by Duel Disks and monster cards.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Animation, 236x30 min.) Meet Yugi and his best buds Joey, Tristan and Téa, who share a love for Duel Monsters.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors 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 Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

9 STORY MEDIA GROUP

Terra Mater Factual Studios

29

Hat Trick International

Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum (w.t.)

(Kids 4-7 animation adventure comedy, 74x11 min. & 1x55 min.) Follow the adventures of Xavier, Yadina and Brad as they travel back in time to meet famous heroes of the past and learn how to be their own heroes of the present.

One Life Studios

CAKE

12

Stand: R7.B12 Contact: Jennifer Buzzelli, sales cnslt.; Kristen Gray, GM, SVP, operations & business & legal affairs; Mark Kirk, SVP, digital.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS (Animation, 46x30 min.)

Duelists worldwide plug into LINK VRAINS to compete in fast-paced competition. But this cyberspace is under attack by a team of hackers determined to destroy the virtual realm.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions (Animation, 1x110 min.) A decade after the finale that bid farewell to the franchise’s original storyline, this movie marks the return of the original creator, the iconic hero and the classic characters idolized worldwide.

Mediterráneo Audiovisual

MISTCO

10

O (1-212) 590-2100

23

ATV

BBC Studios

4K MEDIA

Lightning International

Alfred Haber Distribution

Artist View Entertainment

TV LISTINGS

Stand: R7.E75 Contact: Natalie Osborne, chief strategy officer; Alix Wiseman, VP, business dvpmt. & acq.; Stephen Kelley, snr. dir., dist.; Federico Vargas, snr. dir., dist.; Jennifer Ansley, VP, mktg. & comms.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Moon and Me (Kids 2-5, 50x22 min.) Inspired by well-loved tales of toys that come to life, the story of a special friendship between two characters from completely different worlds. From the creator of Teletubbies.

Clifford the Big Red Dog (Kids 2-5 animation, 78x11 min.) Join Emily Elizabeth and her big red dog, Clifford, as they explore their island home and go on big new adventures.

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 429

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Listings ©2019 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreenings.com

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TV LISTINGS

mistakenly sent to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm.

Through the Woods (Kids 3-5 animation, 10x3 min.) Follow Rider and his beloved dog Wolfie as they venture into their backyard woods in search of adventure.

Garfield and Friends (Kids 6-11 animation comedy, 121x22 min.) This classic series revolves around sarcastic Garfield, a lazy feline whose only desires in life are lasagna, catnaps and avoiding Mondays.

The Magic School Bus: Rides Again (Kids 48 animation adventure, 26x22 min.) Follow eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle and her eager students on a new set of science-based adventures aboard the magical school bus.

Let’s Go Luna! (Kids 4-7 animation adventure, 76x11 min. & 1x44 min.) Three friends traverse the globe with their parents’ traveling performance troupe. At each of the Circo’s stops, Luna the Moon guides the trio as they get to know the local region and its people.

U.S. military intelligence officer that stunned the world in 2017 by exposing a secret government UFO program teams up with experts on new investigations into mysterious encounters from long ago.

The Clinton Affair (Factual, 8x60 min.) Twenty years after the start of the explosive investigation of Monica Lewinsky and the Clintons, director Alex Gibney focuses on the extraordinary sequence of events that divided Americans.

Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal (Movie, 1x120 min.) The sequel to the hit Lifetime feature Harry and Meghan: Becoming Royal continues the love story between silver screen starlet Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

Presidents at War (Factual, 2x120 min.) Tells the story of World War II through the experiences of eight remarkable soldiers who went on to further serve as the nation’s Commanders-in-Chief.

The First 48 Presents: Homicide Squad Atlanta (Crime, 6x60 min.) Follows a group of detectives working together to solve one case: the murder of a young woman found naked and shot to death in a neighborhood park.

A+E NETWORKS

ABS-CBN CORPORATION

w sales.aenetworks.com

w internationalsales.abs-cbn.com

Stand: P3.C1 Contact: Patrick Vien, exec. mng. dir., intl.; Edward Sabin, exec. mng. dir., intl.; Richard TulkHart, mng. dir., intl. content dist. & coprod.; Melissa Madden, SVP, intl. mktg.; Vicky Kahn, SVP, corp. & intl. comms.; Ellen Lovejoy, VP/head, content sales, Americas & formats; Glen Hansen, VP/head, content sales, AsiaPac; Hayley Babcock, head, format prod. & acq.; Robyn Hurd, VP, content sales, EMEA; Michael Oesterlin, VP, intl. content sales; Bryan Gabourie, VP, content sales; Helen Jurado, snr. dir., content sales; Eleisha Gorman, snr. dir., intl. mktg.; Mauro Sala, dir., content sales, EMEA; Marica Giessen, dir., content sales, EMEA; Pooja Nirmal Kant, dir., intl. content sales; Moreyba Bidessie, dir., intl. scripted dvpmt. & sales; Tierra Johnson, publicity, intl.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Damian Lewis: Spy Wars (w.t.) (Factual, 8x60 min.) Featuring Damian Lewis, this series will reveal the remarkable true stories behind some of the most gripping and important international spy operations of the last 40 years.

Stand: P-1.F74 Contact: Laarni Yu, sales head, EMEA; Macie F. Imperial, head & VP, integrated pgm. acq. & intl. sales & dist.; Rachel Simon, acq. head.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The General’s Daughter (Action drama, 40x45 min.) Rhian Bonifacio, a military nurse in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, was trained to be a spy in the army by her adoptive father to seek revenge against their mortal enemy, a highranking general.

O (1-212) 210-1400 m intl.sales@aenetworks.com

Jesus: His Life (History/religion, 8x60 min.) A never-before-seen approach to the sweeping story of the life of Jesus Christ, told through the eyes of the men and women closest to him.

Surviving R. Kelly (Factual, 6x60 min.) More than ten survivors emerge from the shadows and unite their voices to share their stories of abuse by R&B singer R. Kelly.

Lost Gold of World War II (Factual, 8x60 min.) Delving into the last great mystery of WWII, investigators and engineers, using the latest technology, search for an immense treasure buried by the Japanese in the Philippine jungle.

Many Sides of Jane (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) A 28-year-old mother of two, recently diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), allows cameras to follow her journey through life with more than nine personalities.

Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation (Factual, 6x60 min.) The former

ALBATROSS WORLD SALES

O (49-341) 3500-2560 m info@albatrossworldsales.com

w www.albatrossworldsales.com

Stand: P-1.K19 Contact: Anne Olzmann, mng. dir.; Polina Axenova, snr. sales mgr.; Claudia Zell, sales mgr., Eastern Europe; Linda Kujawski, sales & mktg. coordinator.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Going Nuts—Tales from the Squirrel World (Nature & wildlife doc., 1x52 min.) This blue-chip documentary explores some of the most fascinating squirrel species and shows how they became so successful dealing with extreme environments.

O (632) 415-2272 m internationalsales@abs-cbn.com

The General’s Daughter

Jesus: His Life

upon saving the life of a stranger, the calculated and reserved businessman Nick meets the impulsive and optimistic photographer Ali, who believes in destiny.

Los Bastardos (Family drama, 40x45 min.)

Don Roman sires five sons from five different women; their lives will become intertwined when they start learning the truth about their identities.

Betrayal (Drama/romance, 40x45 min.) Tells the story of Lino and Jacky and their star-crossed love for each other, which began when they were still children.

Asintado (Action/drama, 102x45 min.) Two sisters separated by a tragedy end up in a brutal rivalry.

Now & Forever (Family/drama, 59x45 min.) Eva, the long-lost heiress of the Cortes clan’s wealth, meets the recognized successor, Inno; a love will eventually flourish between them and the pieces surrounding Eva’s identity fall into place.

The Blood Sisters (Family/drama, 70x45 min.)

Erika, Carrie and Agatha are triplets who were carried by a surrogate mother and separated after an agreement made by their parents fell through.

The Good Son (Family/drama, 88x45 min.)

Following the sudden death of Victor Buenavidez, his loved ones are left shocked by the revelation of his deepest secret: he had two families. Did one of his own loved ones kill him?

The Secrets of El Paraiso (Drama/suspense, 40x45 min.) As rich businessman Adrian and young professional Michelle fall in love, they find out they’re connected in more ways than one.

Alone/Together (Romance, 1x120 min.) College sweethearts Christine and Raf meet again for the first time since their breakup eight years ago.

First Love (Romance drama, 1x122 min.) In what appears to be a serendipitous encounter

Going Nuts—Tales from the Squirrel World Magical Iceland (Nature & wildlife doc., 1x52 min.) Explores the challenges and extraordinary strategies of some of Iceland’s most remarkable creatures and reveals their lives on an island of extremes.

Nature’s Dress Code—Who Wears What and Why? (Nature & wildlife doc., 1x52 min.)

This film presents what’s en vogue in the animal world and tells fascinating stories about the functionality of the wild outfits.

Wineman—The Gálvez Guide to Intelligent Wines (Travel, 20x45 min. & 6x30 min.) Joaquín Gálvez has a natural ability for communicating and captivating his audience with his innovative, charming and down-to-earth approach to wine.

Cities by the Sea (Travel, 10x52 min.) With the curious eyes of a stranger, the series wanders through a selection of the most interesting sea cities of the world.

Naked Mole-Rat—Nature’s Weirdest Superhero (Science, 1x52 min.) The naked mole-rat lives to a very old age, never gets sick, and is practically impervious to pain. Scientists want to know why.

Paradise Preserved (Science, 5x52 min.)

Tells the stories of five exceptional and beautiful landscapes, which represent role models for new approaches to nature conservation.

We Are Half the World (History, 2x52 min./1x90 min.) Docudrama about the international fight for women’s right to vote, told through the eyes of fascinating protagonists such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Marguerite Durand.

Ice Cold Passion—Leni Riefenstahl and Arnold Fanck Between Hitler and Hollywood (History, 1x52 min.) Leni Riefenstahl and Arnold Fanck: an affair escalating among the eternal ice of Greenland, before turning cold forever.

Garibaldi—Freedom Fighter and Womanizer (History, 1x52 min.) With the help of his descendants, historians and collectors, the film investigates the man of many legends and contradictions: Giuseppe Garibaldi.

ALFRED HABER DISTRIBUTION

O (1-201) 224-8000 m info@haberinc.com

w www.alfredhaber.com

Stand: P-1.L50 Contact: Alfred Haber, pres.; Andrew Haber, VP, intl. sales; Steven Weiser, VP, domestic & intl. sales; Patricia Villagran, intl. sales exec.

430 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 62nd Annual Grammy Awards (Awards/ music show, 1x210 min.) It is all about the performances on the world’s most popular and prestigious televised music awards show, to be broadcast in over 190 territories worldwide.

Help! My House is Haunted! (Reality, 12x60 min.) From Zak Bagans, a series that finds answers to unexplained supernatural phenomena to help families reclaim their properties from unwelcome spirits.

Shallow Grave (Reality, 8x60 min.) A murder has been committed elsewhere, likely cleaned of evidence, and then dumped at what investigators call “the deposition site” or shallow grave.

Elvis All-Star Tribute (Music/variety, 1x120 min.) Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, John Legend and more celebrate the 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s legendary 1968 “Comeback Special.” bublé! (Music, 1x60 min.) Superstar Michael Bublé performs classic songs along with several of his popular, original tunes.

Motown 60: A Grammy Celebration (Music, 1x120 min.) The brand-new salute to the legendary record label features an all-star lineup of performers, including Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder.

Hitched in Vegas (Reality, 10x60 min.) Reality series that follows loving couples and their wedding parties in the Wedding Capital of the World.

Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul (Music, 1x120 min.) This brandnew CBS special salutes the extraordinary career of 18-time Grammy winner Aretha Franklin with an incredible mix of talent.

A Legendary Christmas with John and Chrissy A Legendary Christmas with John and Chrissy (Variety, 1x60 min.) Music, comedy and holiday spirit fill the air when John, Chrissy and their children try to create the perfect Christmas celebration.

2020 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (Awards, 1x120 min.) Actors vote solely for actors in honoring the year’s finest film and television performances.

ALL3MEDIA INTERNATIONAL

O (44-20) 7845-4350 m rachel.glaister@all3mediainternational.com

w www.all3mediainternational.com

Stand: P3.C10 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Ms Fisher’s MODern Murder Mysteries (Drama, 4x120 min./8x60 min.) Ms Fisher is every bit the embodiment of style, glamour and adventure in this all-new crime drama set to the colorful backdrop of 1964.

Diary of an Uber Driver (Drama, 6x30 min.)

Based on the popular blog. Ben learns from his passengers’ stories to piece together his place in the world.

Back to Life (Drama, 6x30 min.) Miri has just been released from a decade in prison. She is desperate to move on, but will anyone in her small town let her?

Race Across the World (Format, 60 min. eps.) Four pairs race from point A to B without flying. With limited funds and no phones, it’s the ultimate globetrotting expedition. Who will make it?

Play Your Pets Right (Format, 60 min. eps.)

Watch the nation’s pets battle it out in hilarious games that test their speed, agility, reaction time and focus, cheered on by their proud owners.

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TV LISTINGS Stretch Armstrong (26x22 min.) Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters are a team of unlikely heroes fighting to protect Charter City from a slew of dastardly villains.

Luna Petunia (33x22 min.) Follow Luna Petunia as she journeys into the magical land of Amazia, where toys come to life and adventures can be found around every corner.

Julius Junior (52x22 min.) Julius Junior and his friends build a playhouse out of a simple cardboard box, but when they walk inside they discover not-so-simple adventures await.

Glitter Force (70x22 min.) Defending the Earth from fairy tale villains isn’t an easy job, but the Glitter Force proves that nothing is more powerful than friendship.

that threatens to shake the entire country.

Can she stop it before she crosses too many red lines?

The Conflict (Fact-ent., 60 min. eps.) The firstof-its-kind social experiment that gives two conflicted individuals the chance to reconcile as they watch their dispute performed by two wellknown actors.

My Life in 60 Seconds (Comedy, 18x30 min.)

Famed comedian Zvika Hadar is jobless and at home with his seven kids—all he wants is a minute to himself.

Ms Fisher ’s MODern Murder Mysteries Kitchen Cook Off (Format, 60 min. eps.) Home chefs compete in teams serving three courses to three judges. With no time to stop, who will survive eliminations to be crowned champion?

Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens (Factual, 2x60 min.) Monty discovers the true essence of Japan’s best gardens, examining how a mix of history and new innovations shape these gardens today.

Her Majesty’s Cavalry (Factual, 6x30 min.)

This series delves into what it takes to make the grade of Her Majesty’s Cavalry as the regiment prepares for a period of unprecedented change.

Ski A&E (Factual, 10x60 min.) Follow the dedicated team of emergency rescuers and doctors who help save lives, limbs and holidays at Val Thorens, deep in the heart of the French Alps.

APC KIDS

O (33-1) 8508-7017 m lionel.marty@apckids.com

w www.aboutpremiumcontent.com Stand: P-1.E58 Contact: Lionel Marty, mng. dir.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Kid-E-Cats (Preschool 2D, 104x5 min.) Three little kittens, Cookie, Pudding and kid sister Candy, are forever ready to jump into action with endless enthusiasm and energy.

ALLSPARK

(FORMERLY HASBRO STUDIOS)

O (44-208) 569-1234 m internationalsales@hasbro.com

w allspark.hasbro.com

Stand: R7.D32 Contact: Finn Arnesen, SVP, intl. dist. & dvpmt.; Nina Scales, VP, intl. sales dist.; Nuno I, sales dir., AsiaPac; Sheetal Merchant, sales dir., EMEA; Gilbert Cheng, sales dir., Greater China; Lucy Mackrill, intl. dist. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (221x22 min.) In the village of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle and her five pony friends learn all about the most powerful magic of all: the magic of friendship.

Zoids (52x22 min.) A freewheeling group of young rebels joins forces with giant living mechanized beasts to challenge the technology-obsessed villains who have stolen Earth’s natural resources.

Roger Roger (Kids 6-9 CGI, 78x7 min.) The lively adventures of a little girl, the carefree, joyful and occasionally perky Fatou, and an alien, the clumsy Roger, on a tropical island.

Fox and Hare (Kids 3-7 CGI, 26x11 min.) The cheerful adventures of the most unexpected forest friends: Fox, with a taste for the finer things in life, and Hare, who is more responsible and gentle.

Ricky the Dinosaur (Kids 3-7 2D, 52x5 min.)

Fun stories around a family of city dinosaurs: little Ricky and her sister Tira—who can turn everyday situations into something extraordinary—and their parents.

Memories of Nanette (Kids 6-9 2D, 52x13 min.) When 9-year-old Nanette arrives in the countryside for the first time, she discovers an environment very different from the city.

Zoli & Pokey (Kids 6-9 2D, 52x13 min.) Pre-teen Zoli’s life is transformed by the sudden arrival of his genius scientist Dad, who has turned into a dog.

The Wish (Family live action, 24x26 min.) A young angel is sent to Earth to help 12-year-old July make her wish come true: to spend Christmas with her whole, rather dysfunctional, family.

Power Rangers Beast Morphers Transformers Cyberverse (36x11 min.)

Bumblebee is on a critical mission—only, he can’t remember what it is. It’s a good thing Windblade has found him to help repair his memory to complete their mission before the Decepticons find them.

Transformers Rescue Bots Academy (52x11 min.) A group of young Bots fresh from Cybertron have the honor of being the first-ever class to enroll in Earth’s Rescue Bot Training Academy and learn how to become Earth heroes through hands-on experience.

Power Rangers (929x22 min., S26: Beast Morphers) Set in the future, a secret agency combines a newly discovered substance called “Morph-X” with animal DNA to create the Power Rangers Beast Morphers team.

Micronauts (26x22 min.) When a team of alien explorers comes to earth in pursuit of evil, they discover in our world they are the size of action figures.

ARMOZA FORMATS

O (972-3) 540-8333 m info@armozaformats.com

Muna Mind Blowing (Fact-ent., 30 min. eps.) Nimrod Harel gives viewers a fascinating and unique perspective into the mind of an illusionist using a state-of the-art glasses camera.

The Four (Singing competition, 90-120 min. eps.) Four finalists are announced in the first episode—but they shouldn’t get too comfortable because in every episode talented hopefuls will try to steal their seat.

Dance Revolution (Dance competition, 11x90 min.) Prime-time dance show where contestants will be judged with a 360-degree shot of their most spectacular “revolution” moment.

Sex Tape (Social-experiment format, 60 min. eps.) Three couples take part in a dramatic and spicy therapy, watching their own sex tapes to fix their relationships.

Singerella (Factual, 60 min. eps.) One unsuspecting and talented girl will be surprised with the chance of a lifetime—to perform with a musical icon and fulfill her dreams.

Still Standing (Game show, 60 min. eps.) Contestants fight to be the last one still standing and win $1 million by out-guessing ten opponents in fast-paced and dramatic trivia battles.

ATLANTYCA ENTERTAINMENT

O (39-02) 4300-101 m distribution@atlantyca.it

w www.atlantyca.com

Stand: R7.A20 Contact: Caterina Vacchi, head, animation dept., exec. producer & dist. dir.; Niccolo Sacchi, exec. producer & dir.; Alessandra Dematteis, dist. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Bat Pat (2D, 104x12 min., S2 in prod.) Bat Pat and the Silvers will help new creatures with weird and unbelievable problems not just in Fogville, but all around the world.

ARTIST VIEW ENTERTAINMENT

O (1-818) 752-2480 m jay@artistviewent.com

w www.artistviewent.com Stand: P-1.F5 (IFTA) Contact: Scott J. Jones, pres.; Jay E. Joyce, VP, worldwide sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS U2: Dream Out Loud (Doc.) A heartfelt collection of experiences from fans representing 25 countries ranging in age from 12 to 72. Their stories bring to life the incredible journey that U2 fans have been on since 1980.

w www.armozaformats.com

Stand: R8.B3 Contact: Avi Armoza, CEO; Mihal Brezis, SVP; Amos Neumann, COO; Sharon Levi, head, sales; Karina Dolgiej, sales dir.; Louise Melzack, sales dir.; Salome Peillon, sales dir.; Noa Benattar, sales dir.; Michal Itzhaki, head, acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Muna (Drama, 8x30 min.) During a time of war, Arab-Israeli photographer Muna must choose with whom her loyalties lie as she is torn between her heritage and her heart.

Red Lines (Drama, 13x60 min.) An upand-coming lawyer uncovers a conspiracy

Grace (Romantic comedy, 1x100 min.) A young woman is hired as the housekeeper to a very accomplished but reclusive writer who is spiraling out of control.

30 And Single (Romantic comedy, 1x97 min.)

During their final year of high school, two friends make a promise to each other—if they are both 30-years-old and single, they will get married.

Relish (Drama, 1x97 min.) Five teenage outcasts, led by a rebellious transgender male, escape a private treatment facility and embark on a wild, life-changing road trip.

Axcellerator (Action/sci-fi, 1x90 min.) When a car thief stumbles onto a teleportation device and the girl of his dreams, the invention of the century takes them on an adventure of a lifetime.

Narco Soldiers (Action, 1x90 min.) Crime thriller that explores the resurgence of the Caribbean drug routes and one couple’s violent, Bonnie-and-Clyde-style rise to power.

Abducted (Action, 1x90 min.) After his young daughter is kidnapped, a war hero takes matters into his own hands while detectives try to unravel the mystery surrounding the unusual crime.

Between Waves (Romance/adventure, 1x90 min.) When a best-selling author has a midlife crisis, he returns to his coastal hometown and embarks on a wild adventure in a desperate attempt to reclaim his youth.

Above Ground (Thriller, 1x90 min.) When Julie’s ex-husband Thad disappears, the Sheriff, who is in love with Julie himself, won’t search for him.

The Meanest Man in Texas (Drama, 1x90 min.) Based on a true story and best-selling book. Convicted murderer Clyde Thompson, also known as the “Meanest Man in Texas,” finds redemption.

Grace

432 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Bat Pat Berry Bees (2D, 52x12 min.) Three extraordinarily talented 10-year-old girls named Bobby, Lola and Juliette have been selected by the B.I.A. (Bee Intelligence Agency) for those special spy missions in which only child agents can be involved.

Geronimo Stilton (2D, 78x23 min.) Inspired by the book series of the same name, focuses on the life and adventures of the super-famous mouse journalist and his family as they scour New Mouse City for scoops.

Nutri Ventures (2D, 52x23 min.) In a world where foods bestow super powers, an evil man has replaced them with a single industrial compound. A group of kids embarks on an adventure to discover the remaining lost foods and their Nutri-Powers.

Toy Cop (CGI, 52x5 min.) A preschool action series in which the heroes are Hammer, TP, Toto and Scien, four brave toys called to maintain the peace in the room of 5-year-old Dory.

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TV LISTINGS

Dive Olly Dive (CGI, 104x11 min.) The fun-filled underwater escapades of two research submarinesin-training who, under the guidance of Diver Doug, discover the marvels of Safe Harbour.

ZDFE.junior Catalog Atlantyca also distributes programs of ZDF Enterprises’ Junior catalog, including H20, Scream Street, School of Roars, Zoom, Lexi and Lotti and Dance Academy.

Balloon Barnyard (Preschool animation, 26x7 min.) Pip and Streak are two loveable balloon donkeys with superhero ambitions who work together to solve problems around the farm with their fellow balloon friends.

Ready for This (Teen live-action drama, 1x42 min. & 12x24 min.) Six teenagers, all elite within their own field, come to live at Arcadia House in pursuit of their dreams.

Bushwhacked (Tween/family adventure, 39x24 min.) Weaving adventure, travel, food, wildlife, history and culture, Kayne goes on the adventure of a lifetime with Indigenous co-hosts Brandon (series one) and Kamil (series two and three).

ATRESMEDIA TELEVISIÓN

O (34-91) 623-0500 m sales@atresmediatv.com

w international-sales-atresmedia.com Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Jose Antonio Salso, head, acq. & sales; Diana Borbón, sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Presumed Guilty (Presunto Culpable) (Drama, 13x70 min.) After the death of his father, a scientist living in Paris returns to the fishing village where he was born and must confront the ghosts of his past.

More Than 100 Lies Slaughterhouse (Matadero) (Drama, 10x70 min.) In a small town, the owner of the local abattoir is murdered. Things get more complicated when a gang of drug traffickers appears on scene in this rural thriller with dabs of black humor.

The Secret of Old Bridge (El Secreto de Puente Viejo) (Telenovela, S1-30: 65x30 min. each, S31) A midwife crosses paths with the rich stepmother of her ex-lover, the father of the son who was ripped from her at birth.

Down Below (Allí Abajo) (Comedy, S1: 13x70 min., S2: 15x70 min., S3: 16x70 min., S4: 15x70 min., S5) A hilarious love story of a traditional guy from the north and a jovial and gracious nurse.

Privileged Observer (Enviado Especial) (Doc., S1: 7x60 min., S2: 8x60 min.) The journalist Jalis de la Serna travels across the globe, helping us become aware of a world in the process of change and challenge.

Locked Up (Vis a Vis) (Drama, S1: 16x50 min., S2: 19x50 min.) A fragile young woman, betrayed by her lover and arrested for fraud, must learn to survive and fight to prove her innocence in a detention facility as she awaits her trial.

People Talking (Gente Hablando) (Drama, 6x8 min.) A series that deals with universal subjects through conversations between two characters.

More Than 100 Lies (+ De 100 Mentiras) (Short series, 7x20 min.) Four high school students hide a big secret that could be revealed by a mysterious hacker.

Bandit (Bandolera) (Soap opera, S1: 1x70 min. & 65x50 min., S2-7: 65x50 min. each, S8: 78x50 min.) A student from a wealthy family runs away to seek adventure, becoming a bandit in order to help the most disadvantaged.

ATV

Foster Mother Foster Mother (Drama, 45x45 min.) Alev is sent to prison after trying to kill her baby. When Alev is released, she will have to fight her sister, who raised the child, to get her daughter back.

Grand Family (Drama, 283x45 min., S4 ongoing) Hizir, a high-ranking member of a weapons smuggling syndicate, attempts to hold his family together and survive without choosing between his wife and his mistress.

Don’t Leave Me (Drama, 147x45 min., S2 ongoing) Arzu, her husband Cengiz and her two sons, Tarik and Emre, live together in Ankara.

Love and Hate (Drama, 280x45 min.) Ali, who spent his youth in prison and didn’t learn to love, and Mavi, who never loved anyone, get to know each other only by the letters they exchange.

Now it’s time to meet face to face.

Orphan Flowers (Drama, 388x45 min.) Eylül is left in an orphanage. While bad days are ahead of her, she manages to form good friendships.

Wedlock (Drama, 137x45 min.) A lie told by a desperate mother for her child turns lives upside down.

She Was Pretty (Romantic drama, 28x120 min.) Childhood sweethearts find each other again as adults.

Stolen Life (Drama, 100x45 min.) A young woman loses her life and Asiye takes on that identity. But her past will never stop chasing her.

Torn Apart (Drama, 66x45 min.) Yusuf is a humble fisherman living with his family. Pinar is the daughter of Istanbul’s richest family. A terrible incident crosses their paths, leading them to take revenge on the people who destroyed their lives.

AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S TELEVISION FOUNDATION

O (613) 9200-5500 m roberta.divito@actf.com.au

w www.actf.com.au

Stand: P-1.B84 Contact: Roberta Di Vito, intl. sales mgr.; Tim Hegarty, intl. sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Hardball (Tween live-action comedy, 13x24 min.) A fish-out-of-water story about Mikey, who moves from New Zealand to Western Sydney and finds himself in the thick of the ultra-competitive schoolyard game of handball.

Little J & Big Cuz (Kids 4-6 animation, 13x12 min.) Little J and Big Cuz are busy with the ups and downs of playground and classroom.

There’s always something surprising going on whether it’s at school, in the backyard or beyond.

Little Lunch (Tween live-action comedy, 26x12 min. & 2x24 min.) Every episode takes place during morning snack time—tackling the big issues on the school playground.

O (90-212) 354-3701 m info@atvdistribution.com

w www.atvdistribution.com

Stand: P-1.J2 Contact: Müge Akar, content sales deputy mgr.; Emre Görentaş, content sales deputy mgr.; Emir Düzel, content sales deputy mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Lifeline (Drama, 69x45 min., S2 ongoing) Sold to a businessman as a child bride, Nefes suffers at the hands of her husband’s abuse.

Hardball

AUTENTIC DISTRIBUTION

BANIJAY RIGHTS

O (44-20) 7013-4000 m sales@banijayrights.com

w banijayrights.com

Stand: C20.A Contact: Tim Mutimer, CEO; Caroline Torrance, head, scripted; Emily Elisha, head, factual; Steve Quirke, head, mktg.; Andrew Sime, VP, formats.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Wisting (Drama, 10x45 min.) Homicide detective Wisting wrestles with the most challenging case of his career: a wanted American serial killer living in Norway.

O (49-221) 4848-200 m sales@autentic-distribution.com

w www.autentic-distribution.com

Stand: R7.F2 Contact: Patrick Hörl, mng. dir.; Anne Hufnagel, GM, sales; Mirjam Strasser, sales dir.; Sophie von Kontz, sales & acq. mgr.; Julian Althaus, intl. sales mgr.; Petra Wersch, sales & mktg. coord.; Andrea Lang, head, intl. acq.; Alexandra Böhm, head, intl. coprod.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Woodstock Bus—Finding the Light (History, 5x52 min.) Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, we are going on a road trip to resurrect the bus that became an iconic symbol.

Call of the Wild (Fact-ent., 10x45 min.) The series shows countless tricks for how to identify toxic food, treat injuries and interpret nature’s signs correctly.

The Woodstock Bus—Finding the Light 24H Europe (People & places, 24x60 min.) 24 hours, 25 countries, 66 protagonists—young Europeans lead us into their world to share their lives, dreams and realities.

Balkan Boom Towns (People & places, 5x52 min.) Explore the boom towns of the Balkan region and experience what makes this region so special.

Creative Minds—Conquering Abandoned Land (People & places, 5x30 min.) Join us on the journeys of dedicated young people who have reconquered a piece of Europe with their creative concepts.

Counts (History, 2x52 min./4x30 min.) The demand for a sovereign state of Catalonia goes back to the ninth century. With existing references in mind, we reproduce a politically charged period.

Terror! (History, 6x50 min.) Revisits iconic terrorist attacks with firsthand interviews, archival footage and reconstructions piecing together what exactly happened during those horrific moments in history.

Deltas of the World (People & places, 5x52 min.) See the fascinating diversity of the deltas on our planet, from the arctic to the tropics, on the border between land and sea.

Terrorism Close Calls (History, 10x50 min.) A true crime story that uncovers facts behind the world’s deadliest terror plots, giving insight into the investigation that stopped the threats.

Into Bulgaria’s Mystic Mountains (People & places, 2x45 min.) This journey of discovery through Bulgaria’s mountains is a trip into one of the most diverse landscapes in Europe—and still an adventure.

434 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Wisting Hierro (Drama, 8x60 min.) A hidden corpse with signs of a brutal murder is brought up to the sea surface in a small island of volcanic origin.

Temptation Island (Ent., 11x60 min.) Living in separate houses full of sexy singles, couples put their love to the test and discover if there is another partner they are more compatible with.

SAS: Who Dares Wins (Human interest, S4: 6x60 min.) Twenty-five men and women are sent to the punishing Andes Mountains for the ultimate test. Who will pass SAS selection?

The Making of Me (Human interest, 3x60 min.)

Filmed across three years, follows a group of people as they each share their own incredibly personal and challenging journey to change gender.

Abused By My Girlfriend (Human interest, 1x60 min.) Follows Alex Skeel, a 23-year-old man who suffered horrific abuse during his relationship with his girlfriend Jordan Worth.

Catch! (Ent. format, 60 min. eps.) Physical entertainment format in which four teams compete against each other in games inspired by variations on the classic game of catch.

Fully Booked (Cookery ent. format, 60 min. eps.) Two restaurants compete to impress a panel of 30 customers, with different tastes and expectations, who ultimately vote for their favorite experience.

Family or Fiancé (Ent. format, 60 min. eps.) In this episodic social experiment, newly engaged couples bring their families together to try and change the way they feel about their partners and unions.

Shipwrecked (Adventure reality format, 60 min. eps.) Tribes of beautiful people compete to attract new members to their apparently idyllic island communities.

BBC STUDIOS

O (44-20) 8433-2000

w www.bbcstudios.com/sales Contact: Andre Renaud, VP, global format sales, content sales, Italy & Iberia; Ava Mustos, acq. mgr.; Cathy Sibbering, TV sales mgr.; Elizabeth (Liz) Tang, acq. mgr.; Emily Herd, sales exec., formats, Western Europe; Emma Hardie, commercial dir., fact-ent., ent. & formats, content partnerships; Hana Hadzikaric, sales exec., factual; Jayne Stanger, head, creative network; Jessica Wirdemann, account mgr. & business mgr., Germany; Kamila Budzilo, sales exec.; Kenza Yarhfouri, exec. dvpmt. & brands, France prod.; Lottie Wilson, head, acq.; Magdalena Garbacz, format mgr., global markets, CEMA; Margarita

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TV LISTINGS

Jacue-Martinez, sales exec., formats, Western Europe; Mark Reynolds, dir., unscripted, content partnerships; Matt Forde, mng. dir., intl. prod. & formats; Melanie Rumani, head, acq.; Nicki McDermott, head, fact-ent., ent. & formats, content partnerships; Philipp Schmid, GM, Germanspeaking territories; Russell Minton, head, intl. prod. consultancy; Ryan O’Dowd, SVP, ent. dvpmt., L.A. prod.; Soumya Sriraman, pres., BritBox; Sumi Connock, creative dir., formats; Tommaso Muffato, sales exec., Middle East.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Earth From Space (Natural history, 4x50 min.)

Cutting-edge technology tells the story of life on Earth from a brand-new perspective. Can the view from space inspire us to look after our planet?

Earth’s Sacred Wonders (History, 3x50 min.)

Discover the remarkable acts of faith performed at some of the world’s most iconic landmarks.

Spectacular blue-chip filming showcases these incredible sites of worship.

Earth’s Sacred Wonders The Planets (Science, 5x50 min.) Uses groundbreaking visual effects to bring to life the most memorable events in the history of the solar system.

Our Dementia Choir (Doc., 2x50 min.) Actor Vicky McClure recruits people with dementia to form a choir in this exploration of the miraculous effects music therapy can have on dementia patients.

The Split (Drama/scripted format, 12x50 min.)

A powerful series exploring family, love, loyalty, and the divisive business of divorce. From Emmy- and BAFTA-winning writer Abi Morgan.

The Mallorca Files (Drama, 10x45 min.) Two mismatched detectives—an ambitious young British detective and her laid-back German partner—solve crimes on the stunning island of Mallorca in this adrenaline-fueled series.

Summer of Rockets (Drama, 6x50 min.) The emotive new thriller from BAFTA and Emmywinning writer Stephen Poliakoff. Toby Stephens and Keeley Hawes lead a stellar cast.

Don’t Forget the Driver (Comedy, 6x30 min.)

Toby Jones stars in a comedy about identity, family and finding a place to call home.

MotherFatherSon (Drama, 8x50 min.)

Thrilling drama starring Richard Gere, in his first major television appearance in 30 years, Helen McCrory and Billy Howle. From Emmy-nominated writer Tom Rob Smith.

Pure (Drama, 6x45 min.) A young woman negotiates life while dealing with a form of OCD that gives her graphic X-rated thoughts at the worst possible times.

Where in the World (Kids 5+ live-action factual, 20x15 min.) Celebrates the lives of eight young children living in eight different countries around the world.

Tutu Circle Square (Kids 4-6 2D comedy, 40x7 min.) On a little island, Vanessa the Dragon is the lynchpin in the community, always forging connections between her neighbors and encouraging them to help each other out.

Wishfart (Kids 5+ 2D comedy, 52x11 min./26x30 min.) Dez, 15, the first ever leprechaun of his kind, is still learning how to wield his powers, so the wishes he grants go sideways, get out of control and spin in extraordinarily random directions.

Tutu (Preschool CGI comedy, 104x7 min.) Adventurous, funny and very curious, Tutu is a small kangaroo who loves playing and exploring the world with his friends Rafa, a roller-skating giraffe, Nina, a lively and funny flea, and Linda, a sheep.

The Grimes (Preschool 2D comedy, 15x5 min.)

Meet the Grimes, the world’s filthiest family.

Luckily, they have a Magic Bathroom that cleans them up at the end of every grimy adventure.

Ben and Hairy (Kids 5+ 2D non-dialogue comedy, 20x2 min.) Ben wakes up one morning to find he has a Yeti in the house and brings him to work hoping none of the guys will notice.

Shutterbugs (Preschool/bridge 2D comedy, 52x11 min./26x30 min.) The Shutterbugs are a crack team of friends that investigate unusual activities in their hometown of Murky Marsh.

BOAT ROCKER STUDIOS

O (1-416) 591-0065 m sales@boatrocker.com

w www.boatrocker.com

Stand: R7.K8 Contact: Jon Rutherford, mng. dir. & pres., rights; Natalie Vinet, VP, factual pgmng.; Gia DeLaney, VP, kids & family pgmng.; Jessica Watson, dir., global sales & acq.; Kelsey Griffin, snr. mgr., global sales & mktg.; Fabien Ching, asst. mgr., lic., Asia.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mary’s Kitchen Crush (Food/lifestyle, 30x30 min.) In each episode, Mary Berg demonstrates her culinary skills and creativity with three to four original recipes inspired by someone who has made a meaningful impact on her life.

BEJUBA! ENTERTAINMENT

O (1-310) 428-7192 m tatiana@bejuba.com

w www.bejuba.com

Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Tatiana Kober, pres.; Emilie Pasquet, head, sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Ruff-Ruff, Tweet and Dave (Preschool CGI, S1: 52x11 min./26x30 min., S2: 52x11 min./26x30 min.) Ruff-Ruff, a puppy, Tweet, a fluffy yellow bird, Dave, a quirky, inventive blue panda and Hatty the Hamster go on fun-filled adventures in fantastical lands, where they play games and make exciting discoveries.

Olly the Little White Van (Preschool CGI, 78x5 min., 4x50 sec. interstitials, 26x5 min. in dvpmt.) Follows Olly, an adorable, big-hearted and cheeky little white van.

Mary ’s Kitchen Crush Unexplained: Caught on Camera (Ent./paranormal, 8x60 min.) Whether it’s poltergeist activity caught on a mobile phone or a mythical creature captured on the dashcam of a car, our team of specialists will provide their expert opinion as they try to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

Cavendish (Comedy, 8x30 min.) Mark and Andy haven’t been to Cavendish since their parents split up more than 30 years ago. Now they’ve returned to their hometown to take care of their grumpy and ailing father and are learning that nothing much has changed over the years.

Vintage Tech Hunters (Science/tech., 14x30 min.) Bo and Shaun are constantly looking for

rare and nostalgic technology: because to the right collector, those items are worth a fortune.

History in the Making (History/civilization, 26x30 min.) Now in its second season, presents the process—using original techniques—in the recreation of items of historical importance.

Late Nite Eats (Food/travel, 26x30 min.) In its second season, food expert Jordan Andino visits brand-new cities and exceptional restaurants that reign supreme in the late-night food scene.

Kingdom Force (Kids 4-7 action/adventure, 52x11 min.) Kingdom Force is a rescue crew led by the fearless wolf Luka. This team has a carnivorous appetite for danger and thrills and there’s no operation they can’t pull off with the help of their giant rescue robot.

The Strange Chores (Kids 6-11 comedy/adventure, 26x11 min.) Two teenage wannabe warrior heroes and a super high-spirited ghost girl master the skills they need to replace the world’s greatest (and oldest) monster hunter by doing his strange, supernatural chores.

Love Monster (Kids 2-5 comedy/adventure, 52x7 min.) Our slightly hairy, googly-eyed hero navigates all kinds of challenges and adventures in a world in which he is one of a kind.

Bitz & Bob (Kids 2-5 educational/adventure, 42x11 min., 44x4 min. & 1x22 min.) Bitz and Bob are two siblings who love making things and going on imaginative adventures with their toys.

CAKE

O (44-207) 307-3230 m info@cakeentertainment.com

struggling actor wins a starring role in a previously hot anime show and becomes Japan’s biggest star, rocketing LilyMu back to success.

Total Dramarama (Kids 6-12 animation, 52x11 min.) The prequel to the multi-award-winning franchise reintroduces favorite cast members and ages them down from teenagers to toddlers with hilarious results.

My Knight and Me (Kids 6-11 animation, 52x11 min.) Jimmy the Squire, best friend Cat and chivalrous Henri of Orange make the Dark Ages a little lighter and a lot more fun in this medieval comedy.

Kiddets (Preschool animation, 52x11 min.) Sister series to The WotWots, the Kiddets are learning to become space explorers who will one day go on a mission to investigate other planets.

CALINOS ENTERTAINMENT

m marketing@calinos.com

w www.calinosentertainment.com Stand: P-1.M51 Contact: Firat Gulgen, chmn.; Ismail Dursunov, deputy GM; Goryana Vasileva, business dvpmt. mgr.; Melis Idil, intl. sales dir., MENA & Europe; Ebru Mercan, sales rep., Baltics & Africa; Busra Saracoglu, project dvpmt. specialist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Revival (Drama, ongoing) Kemal wakes after almost ten years in a coma. The long-awaited reunion with his family will not be as he expected.

w www.cakeentertainment.com

Stand: R7.D18 Contact: Tom van Waveren, CEO & creative dir.; Ed Galton, chief commercial officer & mng. dir.; Bianca Rodriguez, head, sales; Julien Farcat, sales mgr.; Bassma Rassi, sales exec.; Rob Doherty, VP, prod.; Emily Whinnett, VP, creative; Caroline Sims, sales asst.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Angry Birds On the Run (Kids 8-12 & family live-action comedy, 2x22 min./4x11 min.) Three Angry Birds plushies are suddenly cast out of their game and find themselves in the real world, a strange and unfamiliar environment where nothing makes sense.

Angry Birds On the Run Olobob Top (Preschool animation, 78x5 min./39x11 min.) Tib, Lalloo and Bobble work together combining shapes, colors and patterns to create a new character who joins in their fun in this interactive series.

Pablo (Preschool animation, 104x11 min.)

Pablo, a 5-and-a-half-year-old boy who is on the autism spectrum, turns his life challenges into imaginative drawings to help him face the real world with confidence.

Kiri and Lou (Preschool animation, 52x5 min.) Kiri, a feisty little dinosaur, and Lou, a gentle and thoughtful creature, navigate a forest of feelings with laughter, song and adventure. Voiced by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, Moana).

Mighty Mike (Kids 6-12 animation, 78x7 min.)

Non-dialogue slapstick comedy featuring a refined pug who longs for a quiet life but is instead forced to defend his house from a bunch of furry intruders.

Space Chickens in Space (Kids 6-12 animation, 52x11 min.) Surreal sci-fi comedy in which a trio of chicken siblings are mistakenly taken from their homes and enrolled in an elite intergalactic academy.

Kappa Mikey (Kids 6-12 animation, 52x30 min.)

Emmy-nominated hit series in which a young

436 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Revival Forbidden Fruit (Drama, ongoing) Yıldız and Zeynep are two sisters who are very close but have very different life goals: Zeynep wants a successful career while Yıldız is looking for a rich man who would save her from her low-income life.

Our Story (Drama/romance, ongoing) In one of the poorest neighborhoods in Istanbul, Filiz has become the mother of the family, looking after her five younger siblings and her useless alcoholic father.

Woman (Drama, ongoing) After the sudden death of her husband, Bahar, living alone with her children, is surprised by the sudden appearance of the mother who abandoned her as a child and her extremely eclectic sisters.

CARACOL TELEVISIÓN

O (1-305) 960-2018/ (571) 6430-430

m sales@caracoltv.com.co

w www.caracolinternacional.com Stand: P0.B1 Contact: Paloma Garcia, intl. sales exec; Jesus Iriepar, intl. sales exec; Estefania Arteaga, intl. sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Good Bandit (Series, 60x60 min.) A mafia boss decides to change his life, get away from crime and become an honest man.

The Good Bandit

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TV LISTINGS

Big Steps (Series, 80x60 min.) Based on the controversial life of Luis Eduardo Díaz, a shoeshiner who ran for office and managed to occupy an important political position.

One Way Out (Series, 80x60 min.) Parallel stories that take place in the Bronx neighborhood, a dangerous sector of town with a mixture of failure, disappointment and despair of drug addicts, dealers, merchants of dreams, interspersed with love, faith and strong fraternity links.

The Agency (Ent. format) A competition between men and women of different sizes, heights and races, who will strive to become the new top models in the country.

while also managing her colorful dating life and the job she hates.

Tell Me a Story (Drama, 10x60 min.) Takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller.

Black Monday (Drama, 10x30 min.) The story of how a group of outsiders took on the blueblood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine and the glass ceiling.

I Can See Your Voice (Music format, 13x70 min.) Audiences and singers have to guess the terrible singer among the contestants. The singer who survives to the end wins.

Love At First Song (Music/dating format, 12x60 min.) A hybrid music/dating show where people who wish to find their soulmates are paired based on musical taste.

One Winter Proposal (Romantic comedy, 1x90 min.) Old flames are reignited and current flames burn brighter when four friends returns to the ski resort where they first met.

CJ ENM ANIMATION DIVISION

w www.cybergroupstudios.com

O (82-2) 371-8029 m sooah.kim@cj.net

CDC UNITED NETWORK

O (32-2) 502-6640 m marketing@cdcun.com

w www.cjenm.com

CBS STUDIOS INTERNATIONAL

w www.cdcun.com

w www.cbscorporation.com

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Manou the Swift (Animated film, 1x88 min.)

The little swift Manou grows up believing he’s a seagull. When he discovers he isn’t one, he runs away from home.

Stand: R8.B18 Contact: Sooah Kim, territory mgr., Europe; Susie Lee, media mgr., Europe.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Rainbow Ruby (Fantasy adventure CGI, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 52x11 min. in prod.) Ruby is a plucky little girl who transports to a whimsical land inhabited by her toys and transforms into different jobs to save the day.

O (1-323) 575-5460

Stand: R7.E2 Contact: Armando Nuñez, pres. & CEO, global dist. group & chief content lic. officer, CBS Corporation; Barry Chamberlain, pres., sales; Javier Avitia, EVP, legal & business affairs; Guy Petty, EVP, digital media; Stephen Tague, EVP, client relations, London; Teri Fleming, SVP, mktg.; Paul Gilbert, SVP, intl. formats; Meghan Lyvers, SVP, coprod. & dvpmt., Amsterdam; Giovanni Pedde, SVP, client relations, Rome; Oliver Kreuter, VP, client relations, Munich; Catherine Molinier, VP, client relations, Paris; Michelle Payne, VP, client relations, Amsterdam; Roxanne Pompa, VP, intl. formats; Jennifer Weingroff, VP, comms.; Tim Wright, VP, business dvpmt., Amsterdam; Julie Aletti de Gely, dir., client relations, London; Caroline Hurmson, director, client relations, London.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Blood & Treasure (Drama, 13x60 min.) An antiquities expert and an art thief team up to catch a ruthless terrorist who funds his attacks through stolen treasure and unexpectedly find themselves in the center of a 2,000-year-old battle for the cradle of civilization.

The Twilight Zone (Drama, 10x60 min.) A reimagining of the original science-fiction series, executive produced by Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg, Win Rosenfeld, Audrey Chon, Glen Morgan, Carol Serling, Rick Berg and Greg Yaitanes.

The Code (Drama, 13x60 min.) The military’s brightest minds take on the toughest challenges inside the courtroom and out, where each attorney is trained as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, an investigator—and a Marine.

Fam (Comedy, 13x30 min.) A woman whose vision of a perfect life with her adoring fiancé and his wonderful parents is radically altered when her 16-year-old, out-of-control half-sister unexpectedly comes to live with her.

A Million Little Things (Drama, 17x60 min.)

They say friendship isn’t one big thing, it’s a million little things, and that’s true for a group of friends from Boston who bonded under unexpected circumstances.

Charmed (Drama, 22x60 min.) This reboot of the original series centers on three sisters in a college town who discover they are witches.

In the Dark (Drama, 13x60 min.) A blind woman is the only witness to the murder of her drug-dealing friend. After the police dismiss her story, she sets out with her dog to find the killer

O (33-1) 5556-3232 m sales@cybergroupstudios.com Stand: R7.D22 Contact: Pierre Sissmann, chmn. & CEO; Richard Goldsmith, pres. & CEO, Cyber Group Studios USA; Dominique Bourse, COO; Raphaelle Mathieu, SVP, sales, acq. & new media; Olivier Lelardoux, SVP, studio & associate producer; Pierre Belaïsch, SVP, creative development cnslt.; Michèle Massonnat, snr. sales mgr.; Noémie Bourrié, intl. sales exec.; Stanislas Lefebure, digital mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Gigantosaurus (Kids 4-6 CGI-2D adventure comedy, 52x11 min.) Stars four young dinosaur friends who are about to leave the family and explore a world full of mysteries and danger.

Manou the Swift Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa (Animated film, 1x85 min.) Leo Da Vinci and his friends travel to Florencia, where they meet a storyteller who tells of a sunken pirate ship with a great treasure inside it.

Marnie’s World (Animated film, 1x84 min.)

Four crazy antiheroes on the run. Their leader is the naive Marnie, a house cat who is not allowed to leave the house and only knows about real life from television.

John Wick (Action/thriller, 1x101 min.) In New York, ex-hit man John Wick (Keanu Reeves) comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.

Limitless (Mystery/sci-fi/thriller, 1x105 min.) With the help of a mysterious pill that enables the user to access 100 percent of his brain abilities, a struggling writer becomes a financial wizard, but it also puts him in a new world with lots of danger.

Rainbow Ruby

Gigantosaurus

Robot Trains (Action CGI, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 52x11 min.) Whereas the first season deals with the growth of the members, for season two, the Rail Watch crew tries to keep the Rail World safe.

Pucca (Comedy, S1: 78x7 min., S2: 39x7 min., 3D: 78x7 min.) Revolves around the unpredictable daily lives of Pucca and her beloved Garu.

Taffy (Kids 6-12 2D comedy, 78x7 min.) Follows the non-stop, slapstick extravaganza faced by loyal hound dog Bentley when his billionaire old lady owner Mrs. Muchmore takes in an imposter posing as a wide-eyed, fluffy angora cat.

Sadie Sparks (Kids 6-11 CGI-2D comedy, 52x11 min.) A teenage girl who just wants to be popular discovers she has extraordinary powers—which can only be harnessed in partnership with an ancient and extremely grumpy magical rabbit who just wants to retire.

Purple Turtle (Kids 3-6 CGI comedy, 52x7 min.) Follows the adventures of the eponymous hero Purple Turtle and his friends Roxy the Chameleon, Zing the Rabbit, Melody the Bird and Tadley the Bear.

Mini Ninjas 2 (Kids 6-12 CGI-2D adventure comedy, 104x11 min.) Discover a new generation of 12-year-old ninjas, trained by the wise (and rather eccentric) Ninja Master to defend the Land Below the Clouds from the warlord Ashida.

Ernest & Rebecca (Kids 6-10 2D comedy, 52x13 min.) Adapted from the comic strip by Guillaume Bianco and Antonello Dalena (published by Le Lombard), tells the story of Rebecca and her “microbe” Ernest, who becomes her best friend and protector after giving her a cold.

Zak Jinks (Kids 6-10 2D adventure comedy, 52x13 min.) Follows the adventures of its eponymous hero, Zak. For Zak, school, street and home are all perfect settings for mischiefmaking.

Tom Sawyer (Kids 6-12 CGI adventure, 26x22 min.) Tom Sawyer, a boy called to adventure from the moment he wakes up, and his friends are always on the go. Each episode will tell one of their great adventures, escapades or explorations.

Zou (Kids 3-6 CGI comedy, 156x11 min.) Now in season three, follow the daily life of a 5-year-old Zebra Zou and his extended zebra family. Full of curiosity and love, Zou is now old enough to start becoming his own person.

The Pirates Next Door (Kids 6-10 CGI-2D comedy, 52x11 min.) At Dull-on-Sea, quiet life is suddenly turned upside down by the appearance of a family of pirates.

CROWN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

O (1-818) 755-1244 m franciscogonzalez@crownmedia.com

w crownmediainternational.com CJ ENM A Million Little Things

CYBER GROUP STUDIOS

O (82-2) 371-8616 m cjwatch@watchcjenm.net

w watch.cjenm.com

Stand: R8.B18 Contact: Jangho Seo, GM. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Room No. 9 (Drama, 16x60 min.) A death row inmate who has been imprisoned for 34 years wakes up as a young lawyer and seeks revenge.

Stand: R9.A16 Contact: Francisco González, SVP, intl. dist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mystery 101 (Mystery, 1x90 min.) When a college student is found dead, Amy, a professor, uses her crime fiction expertise to unravel the case.

Mystery 101

Room No. 9 300: War of United Voices (Music format, 5x70 min.) Sing and dance along with 300 others to create the perfect stage with your favorite musician. Top artists and 300 fans become one in a performance of electrifying scale and harmony.

Ruby Herring Mysteries: Silent Witness (Mystery, 1x90 min.) When consumer news reporter Ruby Herring stumbles onto a murder, she discovers a knack for crime solving.

The Story of Us (Romantic comedy, 1x90 min.)

Jamie learns that her first love, Sawyer, is the architect of a development that wants to change her beloved neighborhood and threatens her bookstore.

Love on the Menu (Romantic comedy, 1x90 min.) A chef makes a deal with a frozen food executive in order to save his restaurant.

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TV LISTINGS

DHX MEDIA

O (1-416) 363-0834 m sales@dhxmedia.com

w www.dhxmedia.com

Stand: R7.K16 Contact: Josh Scherba, pres.; Jerry Diaz, VP, dist.; Lara Ilie, VP, rights strategy; Wiebke Hoefer, snr. dir., sales; Darcee McCartney, sales mgr; Rebecca Lugo, sales mgr; Jeff Cooke, mktg. mgr., dist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Up in the Air (Kids live action, 15x30 min.) Created by Frank van Keeken (The Next Step, Wingin’ It), a series about three generations of gymnasts who reconnect as they reach for Olympic glory while strengthening family ties.

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (Sci-fi, 45x30 min. & format) Featuring five bizarre scripted reenactments, some true and some not; at the end of each episode we learn which are fact and which are fiction.

The 47th Annual American Music Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) Pays tribute to today’s most influential and iconic artists with over 16 musical performances by top acts.

Now That’s Funny (Non-scripted comedy, 26x60 min.) Some of the most entertaining viral videos in the world, presented in a lighthearted way. No host, narrated.

The 48th Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest (Music special, 1x240 min.) Bicoastal show features musical acts performing the top hits of the year and a look at New Year’s celebrations from around the world.

Celebrity Page (Ent. magazine, 70x30 min.) A leading entertainment news broadcast focusing on pop culture, gossip and celebrity lifestyle.

DISCOVERY, INC.

O (1-212) 548-5365 m cara_brugnoli@discovery.com

w www.discoveryglobalenterprises.com, sales.scrippsnetworks.com Rev & Roll Rev & Roll (Preschool 3D, 52x11 min.) Join 8year-old Rev and his best friend, Rumble, a rambunctious, powerful truck with a puppy personality, whether they’re helping around town or roaring through the wilderness.

Bajillionaires (Kids live action, 20x22 min.)

Twelve-year-old Max Graham runs a tiny startup company out of his parents’ garage with his neighborhood pals. With every flop the gang learns valuable lessons, creates closer bonds and comes one step closer to their big idea.

Stand: P4.C20 Contact: Elliot Wagner, SVP, global pgm. sales; Saevar Lemke, VP, intl. pgm. sales, EMEA & AsiaPac; Danielle Davis, VP, kids content partnerships & revenue.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Why We Hate (Factual, 6x60 min.) From acclaimed filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney, investigates the human capacity for hatred, drawing on groundbreaking research in psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary science and history.

really like when you’re lost, alone and desperately searching for a safe route back to civilization.

Mysteries at the Museum (Factual, 309x60 min.) Host Don Wildman unearths relics from the world’s greatest institutions to reveal incredible secrets from the past.

Belief (Factual, 7x60 min.) Oprah Winfrey presents this TV event that depicts how people with a wide range of beliefs search for deeper meaning and connection with the world around them.

Giada on the Beach (Food, 7x30 min.) Giada De Laurentiis and her daughter, Jade, are spending the summer on the coast and inviting friends and family to visit.

DISTRIBUTION360

O (1-416) 254-8326 m sales@distribution360.com

w www.distribution360.com

Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Diane Rankin, SVP, intl. sales & acq.; Smiljka Baljozovic, dir., sales; Ali Spizarsky, sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Titanic: Stories from the Deep (History, 4x60 min.) The personal objects salvaged from the underwater resting site of the wreck tell us brand-new stories of love, fate, secrets and heroics.

DORI MEDIA GROUP

O (41-43) 817-7050 m sales@dorimedia.com

w www.dorimedia.com,

www.dorimediadistribution.com Stand: P-1.F50 Contact: Nadav Palti, pres. & CEO; Leora Nir, CEO, Dori TLV; Givon Snir, CEO, MeMeMe Studios; Carolina Sabbag, VP, sales, Dori Media Dist.; Camila Premet, sales mgr., Dori Media Dist.

Argentina; Tali Fink, dir., acq., Dori TLV; Einat Borovich-Naim, mktg. dir.; Dana Yaffe, head, pgmng. & dir., Viva Channels.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS La Entrega (The Drop) (Crime/thriller, 10x50 min.) A series about the huge number of people who go missing in Bolivia, revealing a world of power games, sex cravings and violence.

Shepherd (Crime/thriller, S1-3: 72x60 min.) A police dog becomes key to solving gruesome crimes and saving lives.

Dumb (Crime drama, S1-3: 75x35 min.) Following the achievement of the ultimate romantic fantasy, in which Shiri and Assaf escaped abroad with millions of stolen euros, they are finally free to fulfill their love, but instead reality rears its ugly head.

DICK CLARK PRODUCTIONS

O (1-310) 255-4600 m rsullivan@dickclark.com

WW2 Treasure Hunters

w www.dickclark.com/international Stand: P0.A27 Contact: Mark Rafalowski, EVP, intl. dist.; Bob Kennedy, SVP, sales & acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The 2019 Billboard Music Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) Delivers the hottest performances live from the biggest stars in pop music.

The Football Show (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) An exclusive, off-the-pitch look into the lives of 14 superstars and legends of the game. Hosted from six of the greatest football cities.

Fail Army (Non-scripted comedy, 140x30 min.)

The worldwide leader in HD blooper videos returns. Each episode contains an average of 60 clips. No host, voice-over based.

The Football Show Unknown Champions (Fact-ent., 13x30 min.)

Revealing the most eclectic competitions around the globe, from wingsuit flying to female sumo wrestling—these incredible athletes use their amazing talents to become champions.

The 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) The Golden Globes, set for January 2020, honor both motion picture and television achievements.

Ed Stafford: Left for Dead Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman (Factual, 1x89 min.) Newman won four national championships as a driver and eight championships as an owner.

John G. Avildsen: King of the Underdogs (Factual, 1x78 min.) John G. Avildsen’s films have inspired millions of “underdogs” and shaped popular culture for decades, yet most people don’t even know his name.

Silicon Valley: The Untold Story (Factual, 3x60 min.) This Science Channel documentary series will provide a comprehensive look at the history of this place and reveal how and why it became such a fertile ground for technological breakthroughs.

Secrets of the Underground (Factual, 16x60 min.) Scientist Rob Nelson investigates the strangest underground locations in the world, using the latest technology and research to shed new light on the secrets that lie just beneath our feet.

When We Left the Earth: Moon Landing Special (Factual, 1x60 min.) Features new moon walk footage and first-person accounts from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow (Factual, 1x120 min.) Examines the remarkable role NASA plays both in our country and for our planet, celebrating past accomplishments, investigating current initiatives and surveying future plans, from the first lunar landing to the latest Mars rover to the vast network of satellites keeping watch over Earth.

Ed Stafford: Left for Dead (Factual, 6x60 min.) Ed Stafford tackles some of the planet’s most extreme environments to find out what it’s

Born By Fire: The Secret History of Glass Blowing (History/art, 1x60 min.) Takes viewers on a journey through the world of glass blowing, tracing its origins from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day where avant-garde artisans turn molten liquid into stunning works of art.

WW2 Treasure Hunters (History, 15x60 min.) These treasure hunters have made it their mission to unearth wartime relics buried across the U.K., preserve their history and bring forgotten stories back to life.

A Celtic Family Christmas (Music, 1x60 min.)

Internationally acclaimed musicians Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy and their seven children invite audiences to be a part of their holiday celebration.

Tales by Light (Factual, 12x30 min.) Offers a rare glimpse into the eyes and minds of some of the world’s best photographic storytellers, all in 4K. Smashalot! (Kids fact-ent., 12x7 min.) Armed with wrecking balls, demolition charges and sledgehammers, fans and former contestants do everything they can to tear the castle down as its biggest defender and lone occupant, Gildar, fights back.

Super Mighty Makers (Kids crafts, 13x30 min./26x11 min.) Kids are inspired to have fun and save the day with cool crafts, creativity and kindness.

It’s My Party (Kids fact-ent., 13x30 min.) Each episode pairs up two kids who have never met; one acts as the party host introducing the other, their VIP guest, to their family’s cultural celebration.

Holy Baloney (Kids animation, 10x3 min.) A game show in a refrigerator where you get to decide who is telling the truth and who is full of baloney.

Treasure Champs (Preschool animation, 30x4 min./30x15 min.) Each episode features the adventures of Barry and Kari, two animated characters who explore a different “treasure”— like kindness, wisdom and perseverance and what it means to live out those values.

440 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

La Entrega Vloggers—The Calizo Project (Docureality) Goes behind the scenes of the world of YouTube and vloggers, and combines their world with the world of television.

El Buscador (The Browser) (Interviews) A TV format centered on face-to-face interviews triggered by web contents that anyone can easily access online.

En Viaje (On Board) (Comedy, 13x30 min.) Stories about a variety of flights with characters that show different worlds and hilarious situations.

The Box (Kids reality format) Talent show for kids (aged 5 to 14), where viewers will see, for the first time, a social media star born on TV. Power Couple (Reality format) Puts love to the test like you’ve never seen before as eight couples face extreme challenges that will test how well they really know each other.

The Best of All (Shiny-floor game show) Is the average answer from a large group of people always closer to the right result than one person’s answer? This game will test that theory.

The New Black (Comedy, 12x30 min.) They live the dream—enjoying the benefits of the prestigious yeshiva student status in the orthodox society and the pleasures of modern life.

DRG

O (44-207) 845-5200 m info@drg.tv

w www.drg.tv

Stand: R8.D21 Contact: Adam Barth, SVP, EMEA & commercial dir.; Alex Powles, materials mgr.; Cristina Haraba, mktg. & dvpmt. exec; Dave Clarke, EVP, content; Elin Thomas, EVP, sales; Emmanuel

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HUNDREDS OF SCREENING ROOMS. THOUSANDS OF VIDEO CLIPS.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

worldscreenings.com

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TV LISTINGS

Grinda, sales exec.; Harry Arkwright, acq. exec.; Jess Khanom, SVP, AsiaPac; Lucy Roberts, snr. sales mgr., CEE & France; Mette KanneBehrendsen, SVP, factual acq.; Richard Halliwell, CEO; Sancha Markson, head, mktg.; Scott Kirkpatrick, SVP, North & South America.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Inner Circle (Drama, 8x60 min.) Political thriller about a man desperate to be prime minister, but only if a lid can be kept on scandals from his past.

make a new life in Istanbul. They face many dangers, but love, hope and determination propel them toward a glorious destiny.

Invisible Heroes

Detectives: My Killer Case Animal Rescue School (Factual, 6x60 min.) Obdoc series following the small number of people accepted on a grueling ten-month “job interview,” hoping to join the elite ranks of RSPCA inspector.

Detectives: My Killer Case (Crime doc., 6x60 min.) True-crime series where, step-by-step, detectives relive the twists and turns of the dramatic investigations that defined their careers.

Dynasties (History doc., 4x60 min.) A revealing look at some of the world’s most powerful and influential families, including America’s Trumps, Australia’s Murdochs, Pakistan’s Bhuttos and North Korea’s Kims.

Paranormal: Caught On Camera (Factual, 6x60 min.) From ghostly encounters and poltergeists to UFO sightings, this series brings together the scariest user-generated clips from around the globe.

Rachel Khoo: My Swedish Kitchen (Lifestyle/ food, 8x30 min.) Now living in Sweden, the popular chef shares her favorite traditional recipes and introduces viewers to her new surroundings, local food producers and craftspeople.

The Brigade (Food/fact-ent. competition format, 6x60 min.) Ten ambitious chefs travel to leading culinary destinations with a mentor, immersing themselves in the culture before a cook-off with an expert local kitchen.

Small Fortune (Ent./game-show format, 6x60 min.) Contestants can win big cash prizes by taking on the challenge of tiny games, set in perfectly miniaturized worlds.

The Ultimate Spy (Reality competition format, 10x60 min.) Sixteen people compete to become “The Ultimate Spy” by undertaking thrilling missions, cracking codes and trying to keep their cover—at all costs.

ECCHO RIGHTS

O (46-8) 5560-9380 m info@ecchorights.com

The Promise (Drama, 100x45 min.) Reyhan and Emir couldn’t be any more different, yet their lives intersect with a promise that brings them together in the most unexpected way.

Honour (Drama, 8x45 min.) A team of lawyers, used to representing victims, find themselves defending a murderer in a desperate attempt to cover up their own dark history, with secrets from the past threatening to come to the surface.

Vlad (Drama, 13x90 min.) Brand-new revenge drama tells the story of a man wronged by those closest to him.

Stiletto Vendetta (Drama, 138x45 min.) The return of a woman to the group of friends that once betrayed her ends in a grisly murder. But who is truly the guilty party?

Conspiracy of Silence (Drama, 8x45 min.) A former arms dealer on a revenge mission is stopped in his tracks by a shocking discovery— he has a family he never knew.

Elif (Drama, 1,200x45 min.) A goodhearted little girl finds herself the peacemaker in the middle of a series of family feuds in this long-running international hit. Season six coming this fall.

Cennet (Drama, 114x45 min.) All she ever wanted was a mother, but when Cennet finally finds the woman who abandoned her as a baby, her motives are fiercely questioned.

ELECTRIC ENTERTAINMENT

O (1-323) 817-1300 m sales@electricentertainment.com

Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Sonia Mehandjiyska, head, intl. dist.; Nolan Pielak, SVP, intl. dist. & coprod.; Steve Saltman, head, domestic sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Outpost (Fantasy/adventure, S1: 10x60 min., S2: 13x60 min.) Years after her entire village is destroyed by brutal mercenaries, Talon, the lone survivor of a race called “Blackbloods” travels to a lawless fortress on the edge of the civilized world, as she tracks the killers of her family.

Almost Paradise (Action/adventure, in dvpmt.)

Alex, a retired DEA agent living at a tropical resort, is recruited by the local police chief to help out on a criminal investigation.

The Outpost

Virtual Hero (Animation, 12x30 min.) Centering on Rubius, a well-known gamer and YouTuber who is one of the 100 players selected to try a new experimental VR device, the ORV goggles.

Your Home, Made Perfect (Ent.) Uses VR and visual effects for the first time on a British property show. Presented by Angela Scanlon, the series will see ordinary homes transformed by architects into extraordinary spaces.

LEGO Masters Australia (Ent.) Bringing together the most fanatical brick builders from around Australia, the scene is set for a competition unlike any other.

Mr Bean Animated (Children’s, S3: 26x15 min.; total: 130x15 min.) Comedy animation for all ages following the daily trials and tribulations of Mr Bean, aided by his best friend, Teddy.

ESCAPADE MEDIA

O (61) 411-035317 m natalie@escapademedia.com.au

w www.escapademedia.com.au

Stand: R7.B15 Contact: Natalie Lawley, mng. dir.; Jessica Stonehouse, head, sales, partnerships & business dvpmt., U.S. & U.K. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Damaged (Crime thriller, 12x8 min. & 1x90 min.) A young student witnesses a vicious attack on a total stranger. What follows is a contemporary crime noir that involves the unsolved case of the serial killer known as The Wolf. Accompanied by a transmedia experience.

ENDEMOL SHINE INTERNATIONAL

O (44-870) 333-1700 m sales@endemolshine.com

w www.endemolshinedistribution.com Stand: R8.E1 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Deep Water (Drama, 6x60 min.) Emotional thriller follows the lives of three complex women, starring Anna Friel, Sinead Keenan and Rosalind Eleazar.

w www.electricentertainment.com

w ecchorights.com

Stand: P3.B1 Contact: Fredrik af Malmborg, mng. dir.; Nicola Söderlund, mng. partner; Handan Özkubat, dir., Turkish drama; Barbora Susterova, head, LatAm & Iberia; Nixon Yau Lim, head, AsiaPac; Petra Larsson, sales & acq. mgr., CEE; Liisa Helmi, head, business affairs & sales mgr., Africa; Deborah Youn, business dvpmt. exec., Korea & Japan.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Invisible Heroes (Drama, 6x45 min.) True story of two Finnish diplomats who saved the lives of thousands of Chilean citizens during the Pinochet military coup of 1973.

Wounded Birds (Drama, 100x45 min.) Two orphans on the run from a ruthless criminal try to

Jigsaw (Action/crime, in dvpmt.) Before he died, the richest man in America liquidated almost all of his assets and hid the proceeds, leaving clues that lead to jigsaw puzzle pieces that would lead to the location of the inheritance.

The Librarians (Action/adventure, S1-4: 42x60 min.) Centers on an ancient organization dedicated to protecting an unknowing world from the secret, magical reality hidden all around.

Mercy Street (Drama, S1-2: 12x60 min.) Set in Virginia in the spring of 1862, follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposite sides of the conflict.

Modern Hero (Docuseries, 6x30 min.) A series that celebrates incredible women who are defying the odds, shattering glass ceilings, and making a difference in their careers and in the world.

Wildlands (Docudrama, 1x77 min.) A sweeping yet deeply personal account of a single wildlands firefighting crew as they struggle, for the first time, with fear, loyalty, dreams and their own demons.

Change Is in the Air (Drama/comedy, 1x94 min.)

A peaceful community is forever changed when a mysterious young woman (Rachel Brosnahan) moves in. As the quirky locals embrace her, their lives soon improve, but they can’t help noticing that their strange new neighbor has a secret.

Say My Name (Comedy/romance/drama, 1x85 min.) When a one-night stand gets interrupted by a robbery, two complete strangers are forced to navigate the seedy underbelly of a sleepy Welsh isle in order to get back their stolen property.

Robin: Watch for Wishes (Drama, 1x80 min.)

A man of words is forced to become a man of action as he takes his terminally ill son on a journey for his son to fulfill his bucket list—as the police pursue him for kidnapping.

Grantchester Tin Star (Drama, S2: 10x60 min.; total: 20x60 min.) Starring Tim Roth, Christina Hendricks, Genevieve O’Reilly and John Lynch, tells the story of a former British detective who has brought his family to Canada to create a better life in the remote environment.

Grantchester (Drama, S4: 6x60 min., total: 24x60 min. & 1x90 min.) Crime-solving vicar returns in this stylish period crime series starring James Norton, Robson Green and Tom Brittney.

Nicky Jam: El Ganador (Drama, 13x60 min. & 2x60 min.) Biopic of Nicky Jam, one of the greatest Latin urban superstars. Starring Nicky Jam as himself.

Bounty Hunters (Comedy, S2: 5x30 min., total: 12x30 min.) Comedy thriller, co-written by and starring Jack Whitehall, follows the exploits of a middle-class antiques dealer’s son who accidentally becomes embroiled in international organized crime.

Archer (Comedy, S10: 8x30 min., total: 109x30 min.) A mix of the intrigue of James Bond and the family feud antics of Arrested Development. Centered on super-suave master spy Sterling Archer.

442 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Damaged Stage Mums (Comedy, S1: 8x7 min., S2: 8x22 min.) Shaz Dicker and Trace Grogan are lovable Aussie stage mothers who are driven to do everything in their power to make their daughters famous and feed off their success.

Housemates (Reality, 4x30 min., 8x13 min., 12x1 min.) Uncovers the unique, unusual and sometimes crazy ways people have made shared housing work.

Dogfather (Reality, 13x30 min. 4K) Former mobster James Guliani turned his back on a life of crime to dedicate himself to rescuing animals.

Walking Points (Factual, 1x90 min./1x52 min.

4K) In the U.S., cancer detection dogs are being used to test for this killer disease and the results are remarkable.

Slice (Lifestyle, 13x30 min. 4K) Adam Richman takes viewers on an around-the-world eating adventure seeking out the greatest slices of local food and culture.

Undocumented (Drama/comedy, 10x30 min.

4K) When a law-abiding Australian finds out she’s undocumented while living in New York, she must build a new life from scratch, survive being separated from her family and friends back home and avoid being deported.

The Art of Killing (Drama, 6x60 min.) A Liverpudlian ex-cop with a violent past is enjoying a peaceful early retirement with his hedonistic artist wife in tropical Byron Bay, Australia, when his estranged son enters his life.

Charged & Disbarred (Factual/crime, 13x30 min. 4K) Explores real-life crimes perpetrated by those trusted with the law. Narrated by lawyer and prosecutor James Pacitti.

Food.Sail.Love. (Lifestyle, 8x30 min.

4K/HDR10) This unique culinary voyage invites the viewer to experience the local life and the preservation of precious traditions.

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TV LISTINGS

FILMAX

O (34) 933-368-555 m filmaxint@filmax.com

w www.filmaxinternationalsales.com Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Iván Díaz, head, intl.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Welcome to the Family (Comedy, S2: 13x52 min.) A comical look at the institution of family, showing courageous mothers, adopted children and dim-witted widows embarking on the journey of life together.

Kilian Jornet: Path to Everest The Miramar Murders (True-crime doc., 6x52 min.) The Miramar triple homicide is the first murder in the U.S. to have been captured entirely on a security camera.

Kilian Jornet: Path to Everest (Doc., 1x80 min.) An incredible adventure of the greatest mountain runner of all time.

I Know Who You Are (Drama/thriller, 16x70 min.) A story of intrigue, love and second chances.

The Red Band Society (Drama, 28x45 min.) A story of friendship, overcoming obstacles and the will to live.

The Chosen (Spy thriller, 1x125 min.) A thriller about the Spanish man who assassinated Trotsky.

Bikes (Animation, 1x86 min.) Action-packed 3D-animated comedy that features an array of charismatic, pedal-powered characters.

The Lunnis and the Great Fairy Tale Adventures (Kids animation, 1x84 min.) An intrepid journey through the world’s best-loved tales.

The Uncovering (Thriller, 1x108 min.) Twenty years aren’t enough to bury a dark secret.

Cesc Gay’s Collection (Films) Catalan director Cesc Gay is known for the in-depth observation of the characters he portrays; his depiction of human weakness comes tinged with gentle irony and wicked humor.

FREMANTLE

O (44-207) 691-6457 m safiah.ngah@fremantle.com

w www.fremantle.com

Stand: C11 Contact: Jens Richter, CEO, Intl.; Bob McCourt, COO, Intl.; Americas: Lisa Honig, SEVP, intl. dist.; Caroline Kusser, SVP, sales & dist., U.S.; Michela Di Mondo, VP, sales & dist., Canada; Felicia Litovitz, dir., sales & dist., Canada; LatAm & Hispanic U.S.: Sheila Aguirre, EVP, intl. dist.; EMEA: Jamie Lynn, EVP, intl. dist.; Anahita Kheder, SVP, MEA & Southeastern Europe; Amac Us, sales dir., MEA & Southeastern Europe; Karen Finnegan, SVP, sales, U.K., Eire & Scandinavia; Maximilian Bolenius, SVP, German-speaking Europe, Israel; Nick Pawsey, VP, sales & dist., CEE, Russia & CIS; Al De Azpiazu, VP, sales & dist., Western Europe; Pete Kalhan, SVP, home ent. & archive sales; Gordon Craig, head, archive sales; Australia, NZ, Japan: Paul Ridley, SEVP, intl. dist.; Katsu Waza, SVP, sales & multiplatform dist.; Asia: Ganesh Rajaram, EVP, intl. dist.; Haryaty Rahman, SVP, sales & dist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Beecham House (Drama, 6x60 min.) From BAFTA-nominated writer, director and producer Gurinder Chadha comes an epic drama following the fortunes of the owner and staff of splendid Beecham House.

Charité Baghdad Central (Drama, 6x60 min.) A crime thriller set in the ruins of a fallen city.

The Luminaries (Drama, 6x60 min.) Based on the best-selling and Man Booker Prize-winning novel, an epic love story following Anna Wetherell as she sails to New Zealand to make a living on the goldfields.

La Jauría (Drama, 8x60 min.) The first coproduction between Fremantle and Oscarwinning Fabula, starring Daniela Vega, follows a female-led police force, specializing in gender-related crimes.

Charité (Drama, 6x60 min.) Wartime drama follows our characters as they navigate challenging conditions at the leading wartime hospital in Europe.

Expedition with Steve Backshall (Factual, 10x60 min.) A global series exploring uncharted regions of our planet in a series of epic world firsts.

Enslaved (Factual, 6x60 min.) Samuel L. Jackson (executive producer) leads a team of expert divers and historians to investigate the wrecks of slave ships from 400 years ago.

I AM Patrick Swayze (Factual, 1x120 min.)

The latest chapter in the I AM collection celebrates the life and times of Patrick Swayze. I AM Jackie O coming soon.

Punk (Factual, 4x60 min.) Rock legend Iggy Pop executive produces this series that examines this DIY subculture of musical misfits and outcasts through interviews with its pioneers.

Murder for Hire (Factual, 4x60 min.) Produced

by Dick Wolf (Law & Order), delves into the dark world of contract killings, following undercover officers who commit their lives to stopping murder-for-hires before they happen.

GAUMONT

O (1-424) 281-5200 m sales@gaumont.com

NOX (Drama, 6x60 min.) A Creation Originale series produced for Canal+ about a retired cop forced back into action when her daughter disappears into the Paris underground.

The Art of Crime (Drama, 12x60 min.) A hotheaded detective teams up with an art historian from the Louvre to delve into mysteries that capture French culture and history.

Christmas Arrangement (Holiday, 1x90 min.)

Love truly blossoms in this heartwarming tale of finding love in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Shoelaces for Christmas (Holiday, 1x90 min.)

A self-absorbed teenager learns the true meaning of Christmas spirit through the support of her family and an unexpected encounter with a very special young girl.

A Christmas Village (Holiday, 1x90 min.) To save her reputation, Piper agrees to work for the owner of a failing Santa’s Village and discovers how magical Christmas is after all.

Bionic Max (Kids 6-11 animated comedy adventure, 52x11 min.) A bionic guinea pig and his goldfish best friend break out of their lab and embark on life as express delivery boys in the middle of Central Park.

Belle and Sebastian (Kids 5-9 animated comedy adventure, 52x11 min.) Tells the outdoor adventures of a courageous young boy, Sebastian, and his huge white dog, Belle, who will rush to anybody’s rescue, friend or foe, no matter what the risk.

Calimero (Preschool animated comedy, 64x13 min.) With his big heart, three eager companions, and an old mill teeming with incredible inventions, Calimero tries to put right all those things in life that are just not fair.

NOX

GLOBALIVE MEDIA

O (1-647) 993-5880 m michaelbancroft@globalive.com

w www.globalivemedia.com

Stand: In Development Zone, P-1 Contact: Anthony Lacavera, cofndr., Globalive Media & co-host, Beyond Innovation; Michael Bancroft, exec. producer & co-host, Beyond Innovation.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHT Beyond Innovation (Factual, 26x24 min.) Cohosts Anthony Lacavera and Michael Bancroft demystify the technologies transforming the world and discover the entrepreneurs and business leaders bringing them to life.

GLOBAL AGENCY

O (90-212) 241-2693 m info@theglobalagency.tv

w www.theglobalagency.tv

Stand: R8.E17 Contact: Izzet Pinto, fndr. & CEO; Pamir Guroglu, COO; Rozlin Sevindiren, head, finance; Umay Ayaz, head, acq.; Senay Filiztekin, head, drama acq.; Duygu Safak, head, mktg. comms.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Sisters (Drama, ongoing) Love and betrayal drive sisters apart with an enmity deep enough to poison their daughters’ lives when they later cross paths, leaving them destined to face the same ordeal.

Beyond Innovation

GLOBOSAT

O (55-21) 9820-72064 m tompson@globosat.com.br

w www.globosat.com.br

Contact: Beatriz Tompson, sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Medina’s World (Adventure, 15x25 min.) Goes inside the life of Gabriel Medina, the most popular surfer on the championship tour today.

w www.gaumont.us

Stand: R8.C1 Contact: Christophe Riandee, vice CEO; Vanessa Shapiro, pres., worldwide TV dist. & coprod.; Isabelle DeGeorges, pres., TV, France; Cecilia Rossignol, VP, intl. TV sales, scripted; Rod Rodrigo, exec. dir., TV sales, EMEA; Laura Laas, VP, intl. TV sales, animation; Mathilde Rottier, VP, intl. TV sales, U.S. & Canada; Ben Bishop, VP, intl. TV sales, Australia, New Zealand, Asia; Ezequiel Olzanski, VP, intl. TV sales & coprod., LatAm; Jennevie Olivieri, mgr., TV acq. & coprod.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS El Chapo (Drama, 34x60 min.) From Univision’s Story House Entertainment, explores the rise and ultimate downfall of drug kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán over a span of three decades.

Narcos (Drama, 50x60 min.) Chronicles the real-life rise to global power and wealth story of the world’s most infamous drug lords. The latest installment focuses on Mexico’s cannabis trade and the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel.

offers them the chance to upgrade their old household items by answering trivia questions.

The Villa: Battle of the Couples (Reality format) Eight famous couples are each given 50,000 euros, which they fight to hold onto by completing challenges until there is only one pair left.

Auction Queens (Fashion format) People come on the set to sell women’s clothes or accessories, carefully pre-selected by the production, at auction.

Momsters (Cooking format) A cooking competition where five brides and their mothers-in-law compete together as teams to cook the best meal.

The Legend (Singing talent show format) The only talent show format where the contestants decide their destinies.

Evermore Gulperi (Drama, ongoing) A woman struggles to fulfill her dreams in the face of a tyrannical family determined to control her every step, battling alone to win the hearts of the children turned against her and carve out the loving life she craves.

Evermore (Drama, S1: 51x60 min., S2: 129x60 min., S3 ongoing) The passionate love between a wealthy businessman and a poor singer struggles to survive in a battle against deep-rooted family traditions that prize power over romance.

Daydreamer (Dramedy, ongoing) A fun-loving daydreamer sets off on a tumultuous journey of romantic adventure, leaving behind her father’s grocery store to tame the wild heart of a world-famous photographer and teach them both about love.

Meryem (Drama, 90x60 min.) A car accident transforms three people’s lives, drawing them into a triangle of love, lies and revenge that threatens to destroy them, unless love can overcome hate.

Upgrade (Reality game-show format) The game show that comes into the viewers’ homes and

444 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Uncommon Places Mission: Antarctica (Adventure, 13x25 min.)

Director of photography Sylvestre Campe takes his daughter Cleo and the adventurers Pedro Oliva, Marcela Witt and Karina Vela on an expedition to Antarctica aboard the “Abel Tasman.”

The Scoundrels (Fiction, 13x30 min.) Features 13 women, one in each episode, and their evil acts against friends, family or co-workers.

Uncommon Places (Factual, 32x25 min.) Didi Wagner travels all around the world looking for what is not in the travel guides.

Family’s Seasoning (Factual, 76x30 min.)

Rodrigo Hilbert opens the family cookbook and shows how good he is in the kitchen.

Bono, The Surfing Dog (Factual, 9x25 min.) Bono is a 6-year-old Labrador and two-time world surfing champion who lives a routine around the sport and travels around the world with his owner, coach and friend, Ivan Moreira.

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TV LISTINGS 19

GMA WORLDWIDE

O (632) 8333-7633/7634 m gwi@gmanetwork.com

w www.gmaworldwide.tv

Stand: P-1.E67 Contact: Roxanne J. Barcelona, VP; Cirilo A. Estrada, sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS To the One I Love (Drama/romantic comedy, 20x45 min.) Gelay struggles to get to the bottom of her father’s murder while trying to figure out the affairs of her own heart.

To the One I Love Written in the Stars (Drama/musical, 50x45 min.) A young singer’s rise to fame leads to the unraveling of her true identity and the despicable secrets of her family.

Kara Mia (Drama/fantasy, 40x45 min.) Two sisters grow up as unique individuals, each with her own face and mind, but are trapped in one body due to a rare genetic malformation.

Dragon Lady (Drama/fantasy, 50x45 min.)

Celestina, born with dragon-like features, must unleash her potential, be brave, powerful and empowered like a dragon lady to seek justice and revenge.

Sahaya (Drama/fantasy, 40x45 min.) Will a young woman’s new world bring her happiness and peace? Or will she return to her roots to find her purpose and destiny?

Borrowed Embrace (Drama, 40x45 min.)

Miren and Adrian discover that the child they adopted is the daughter of the man responsible for the death of their only child.

Silent Shadow (Drama, 55x45 min.) Rachel discovers that her fiercest rival for the man she loves is a transgender woman who is none other than her former husband.

Color of My Blood (Drama, 34x45 min.) Two long-lost brothers become enemies vying for the love of one woman and the love of their family.

The Way to Your Heart (Drama, 83x45 min.)

Onay, a little person with achondroplastic dwarfism, has two daughters with contrasting personalities—one loves her unconditionally, while the other is ashamed of her condition.

The Heart Knows (Family drama, 77x45 min.)

A man with autism faces the challenge of becoming a parent after a prostitute seduces him and claims he is the father of her baby.

ToonMarty The Worst Witch (Live action, 13x25 min.)

Mildred Hubble is a first-year student at Cackle’s Academy for Witches, and is living every child’s dream—learning how to do real magic.

The Athena (Live action, 26x26 min.) Nyela Malik, a young model whose career implodes when she dares to complain about a famous designer treating her like an object, wins a place at London’s most prestigious art school.

School of Roars (Preschool animation, 52x7 min.) Going to school for the first time is one of the biggest things you’ll do in your life.

Lassie (Animation, 26x26 min.) The beloved collie comes to life in an animated TV series that is adventurous, humorous and a whole lot of fun.

Zoom, The White Dolphin (Animation, 52x13 min.) Yann and Marina experience thrilling adventures on an island paradise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. An extraordinary friendship blossoms with a mysterious white dolphin.

Mako Mermaids (Live action, 68x26 min.)

Mako is a magical island that a pod of mermaids calls home. Their peaceful lives are turned upside down when a merman develops a connection with the island that poses a threat to their existence.

Little Roy (Preschool live action/animation, 52x14 min.) Follows the everyday adventures of 5-year-old cartoon boy Roy O’Brien as his abilities and enthusiasm cause mayhem with his real-life family.

GURU STUDIO

O (1-416) 599-4878 m jonathan.abraham@gurustudio.com

w gurustudio.com

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS True and the Rainbow Kingdom (Preschool, 30x22 min.) Follow our intelligent and compassionate heroine, True, and her hilarious best friend, Bartleby the cat, as they come to the rescue of Rainbow City’s whimsical citizens.

GRB STUDIOS

O (1-818) 728-4140 m sales@grbtv.com

DNA Dinners Flour Power (Food/cooking, 26x30 min. 4K) Set in a retro-style kitchen, the host inspires viewers with simple to extravagant baked treats. Accompanied by 85 recipes, webisodes and photography.

Spencer’s Big 30 (Food/cooking, 26x30 min.

4K) Shot in real time, features healthy, familystyle meals made in around 30 minutes for about $30. Accompanied by 115-plus original recipes, webisodes and photography.

Watts on the Grill (Food/cooking, 13x30 min.

4K) This cooking series is all about delectable barbeque and inspiring viewers to entertain guests outdoors. Accompanied by 61 recipes, webisodes and photography.

Fish the Dish (Food/cooking, S1: 15x30 min., S2: 15x30 min. 4K) Celebrates sustainability while demystifying cooking seafood. Accompanied by 120-plus recipes with videos and photography.

One World Kitchen (Food/cooking, S1: 30x30 min., S2: 24x30 min., S3: 28x30 min. 4K) Features international cuisines (Italian, Indian, Thai, Argentine, Japanese, Cantonese, Lebanese and Greek). Accompanied by 320-plus webisodes, recipes and photography.

The Latin Kitchen (Food/cooking, 15x30 min.

4K) Explores three Latin cuisines (Mexican, Venezuelan and Spanish) with three hosts.

Turnkey marketing package includes 60 recipes, webisodes and photography.

The Urban Vegetarian (Food/cooking, 15x30 min. 4K) Set in an upscale kitchen, celebrates delicious vegetarian cuisine. Accompanied by 45-plus recipes, webisodes and photography.

A Is for Apple (Food/cooking, S1: 30x30 min., S2: 24x30 min. 4K) Recorded on a one-of-akind set accompanied by 160-plus recipes with webisodes and photography.

HAT TRICK INTERNATIONAL

O (44-207) 7184-7777 m intsales@hattrick.com

w www.grbtv.com

Stand: R7.K17 Contact: Gary R. Benz, CEO; Scot Cru, pres.; Patrice Choghi, SVP, intl.; Mehmet Gunduz, VP, intl. sales & acq.; Melanie Torres, sales cnslt.; Torquil Macneal, sales cnslt.; Anthony Kimble, sales cnslt.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Untold Stories of the E.R. (Health/format, 140x60 min.) These real stories demonstrate the dramatic nature of medicine practiced under pressure.

GOLDBEE

O (34) 665-467-853 m christophe@goldbee.es

w www.hattrickinternational.com True and the Rainbow Kingdom Pikwik (Preschool, 52x11 min.) Follows thoughtful Suki the Hedgehog, who leads her team to help deliver surprise-filled parcels to the colorful residents of Pikwik.

Big Blue (Kids 5-9 comedy, 52x11 min.) Siblings Lettie and Lemo lead their quirky submarine crew to solve the ocean’s mysteries and find the origins of a new magical recruit named Bacon Berry.

Justin Time (Preschool, 74x11 min. & 2x22 min.) Justin and his imaginary pals Olive and Squidgy star in the biggest stories of all time, told from every corner of the world.

Stand: R7.F24 Contact: Sarah Tong, dir., sales; Sarah Bickley, snr. sales exec.; Elfyn Morris, snr. sales exec.; Jonathan South, sales exec.; James Mill, mktg. & materials exec.; Hana Zidek, acq. exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Drag Lab (Factual/format, 4x60 min.) An outrageous and emotional series about one of the U.K.’s most fearless and fabulous drag collectives, The Family Gorgeous, who believe we all need to find our inner drag.

GUSTO WORLDWIDE MEDIA

w www.goldbee.es

Contact: Christophe Goldberger, mng. dir.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Chop Chop Ninja (Animation, 40x11 min. & 40x1.5 min.) Follows the antics of a clumsy ninjain-training and his friends as they protect their island home from a villainous organization.

ToonMarty (Animation, 40x11 min.) With every bend, bounce, flip and spin, Marty makes sure everyone feels included in his Marty party—and he makes sure there is one every day.

Cleo & Cuquin (Preschool, 78x7 min. & 26x2 min.) In each episode, Cleo and Cuquin, with the help from their four siblings, will find solutions for all kinds of small situations. At the end of every adventure, Cleo will know what she wants to be when she grows up—or at least for that day.

behind your favorite celebrities’ massive fortunes and fallouts.

Showdown of the Unbeatables (Competition/format, 9x60 min.) Inventors and entrepreneurs pit their products and machines against each other in the ultimate head-to-head battle.

On the Case (Crime, 226x60 min.) Explore intriguing murder mysteries through in-depth interviews with witnesses and suspects and examine the forensic evidence that helped unravel the mystery.

Irreconcilable Differences (Factual, 10x60 min.) Our panel of industry insiders exposes the details of Hollywood’s most controversial divorces.

Verdict On Demand (Court TV, format) A real judge and a well-known host solve the escalating and long-running conflicts that people can no longer resolve by themselves.

Whacked Out Sports (Clip show, 100x30 min.) Features hysterical professional and amateur sports mishaps, crashes and bloopers from all around the world.

Masterpiece (Factual, 22x60 min.) A team of art experts take on the ultimate challenge of reconstructing masterpieces. Home viewers will be asked to tell the difference between a reconstruction and the true masterpiece.

Occult Crimes (Crime, 20x60 min.) The stories of murderers who take their orders from Satan; these real-life demons are determined to gain immortality by committing heinous murders.

O (1-613) 730-1728 m sales@gustoworldwidemedia.com

w www.gustoworldwidemedia.com

Occult Crimes Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter (Fact-ent., 42x60 min.) This roundtable interview series features the hottest A-list stars and directors from the year’s most acclaimed films and television series.

Cashed Out (Factual, 10x60 min.) Whether it’s drugs, dishonest accountants, or greedy parents, our Hollywood insiders know the real stories

Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Corey Caplan, snr. dir., intl. sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS DNA Dinners (Food/cooking, 16x32 min. 4K) Follows an individual’s journey as they discover their ancestry and uncover their unique background through cuisine. Accompanied with recipes and short form content.

Bonacini’s Italy (Food/cooking, 30x30 min.

4K) Features celebrity chef Michael Bonacini as he cooks sumptuous Italian fare. Marketing package includes 64 recipes, stylish webisodes and food photography.

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 445

Australia with Julia Bradbury Warren (Comedy/drama, 6x30 min.) Warren (Martin Clunes) is a pedantic driving instructor who suddenly finds himself in his mid-50s with a job he doesn’t enjoy and a family he never asked for.

Australia with Julia Bradbury (Factual, 8x30 min.) By prop plane, helicopter, camel, boat, 4 x 4 and on foot, Julia Bradbury (Countryfile) is on an epic journey to discover modern Australia and its people.

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20

TV LISTINGS

Hypothetical (Ent. format, 8x60 min.) The panel show all about hypothetical situations. The host presents comedians with bizarre scenarios to see how they would react, and awards them points accordingly.

James May’s Big Trouble in Model Britain (Factual, 2x60 min.) Introduced and narrated by model train enthusiast James May (Top Gear), follows a year inside Hornby Hobbies, an iconic British toymaker on the brink of collapse.

Psychopath with Piers Morgan (Factual, 1x60 min.) Piers Morgan comes face to face with Paris Bennett, a criminal more intelligent, more cunning and more manipulative than any of those he has encountered before.

Car Crash: Who’s Lying? (Factual, 1x60 min.)

A young man is killed in a devastating crash. As the investigation gets underway, a dark mystery emerges: Who was the driver? Who were the victims? Who’s lying?

Mega Air (Factual, 8x60 min.) From the delivery of multi-million-pound racing cars to the transport of a film set, this series follows high-pressure air shipments from departure to arrival.

Derry Girls (Comedy/drama, 12x60 min.)

Returning for series two. Set in Derry Northern Ireland in the 1990s, a candid comedy about life as a teenage girl living among conflict.

HBO LATIN AMERICA

O (1-305) 648-8100 m internationalsales@hbo-la.com

w screeningroom.hbolag.com

Stand: R9.A8 Contact: Emilio Rubio, CEO; Luis Peraza, pres., networks; Xavier Aristimuño, VP, lic.; Carolina Padula, snr. dir., acq.; Vanessa Cruz, lic. & new business lead.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Psi (Drama, S4: 10x60 min.) Created by renowned psychiatrist Contardo Calligaris, the fourth season of this Brazilian series will closely examine cases of paranoia.

The Bronze Garden (Drama, S2: 8x60 min.)

Fabián Danubio will take on the role of an investigator, exclusively devoting himself to an old, unsolved case.

Psi Secret Life of Couples (Drama, S2: 10x60 min.) Sexologist and therapist Sofia Prado directs a center for alternative therapies for couples.

Magnifica 70 (Drama, S3: 10x60 min.) 1975.

The government is torn between Geisel's group, in favor of a gradual opening, and the far right Minister of Defense. With Vicente at the head of the Censorship Department, the group meets again.

Sr. Ávila (Drama, S4: 10x60 min.) Señor Ávila struggles between life and death, but with a new and unexpected ally he now has a goal and a path.

The Business (Drama, S4: 12x60 min.) Karin is about to launch her book. Everyone is planning the best way to tell the truth to their families.

producer; Lester Hu, head, formats & intl. business; Amelie Zhou, snr. mgr., intl. business.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Super-Vocal (Music competition format, 60/90 min. eps.) A classical crossover music competition in which 36 young male vocalists compete to win a place in the nation’s first ever popera idol group.

O (1-514) 937-3333/ (1-310) 614-2416

m greardon@incendo.ca

w www.incendo.ca

Stand: P0.A1 Contact: Jean Bureau, pres.; Jean-Philippe Normandeau, COO; Gavin Reardon, intl. sales & coprod.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Disasterland (Drama, 10x60 min.) In search of a greater sense of purpose, Kristine Turner makes a radical mid-life decision to train as an emergency responder at the world’s most prestigious training facility.

Strange Love (Drama, 398x30 min.) An intense love-hate relationship between two individuals in a new perspective, highlighting the dilemma of how they cannot do without one another, and at the same time cannot be with each other.

Love Gamblers (Drama, 448x30 min., ongoing) The Oberoi family owns the biggest industries and hosts the most lavish parties. The ghosts of the past keep coming in front of them.

Family Secrets (Drama, 312x30 min.) Seventeen-year-old Anami, abandoned at birth and adopted by a family in Banaras, returns as the sole yet reluctant heir to a royal family in Bihar and a saga begins.

The Wait for Love (Drama, 120x30 min.) After a torrid romance, Prince Madhav Singh leaves a hurt and humiliated movie actress, Kamini, at the altar.

Kamini delivers their love child and swears to never let her experience the ordeal she went through.

Super-Vocal The Rocking Bridge (Game-show format, 60 min. eps.) The only bridge in the world that tries to shake you off into the water. Friends and families work together to win big prizes.

Do-Re-Mi: I Love My City (Competition/reality format, 60/90 min. eps.) Discover the hidden gems of your city through social media. Do our celebrities have what it takes to impress the audience?

The Sound (Competition/reality format, 60/90 min. eps.) The world’s first celebrity voice-acting competition reality show.

Postbox of Miracles (Fact-ent. format, 45/50 min. eps.) Kids make unfulfilled childhood dreams come true for seniors.

IMAGINA INTERNATIONAL SALES

O (34-91) 728-5738 m info@imaginasales.tv

w www.imaginasales.tv

Stand: R7.N1 Contact: Beatriz Setuain, dir.; Esther Agraso, head, sales; Miguel García, sales mgr., LatAm; Marta Piedade, sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Juan for President (Comedy, 8x30 min.) They were looking for a serious, charismatic politician.

Instead, they got Juan, a clumsy Minister of Agriculture aiming to reach the Presidency of the government.

The Sniffer (Detective procedural, 24x52 min.)

A nose that knows everything, even what you’d rather keep to yourself. An extraordinary sense of smell is as much a curse as it is a gift.

Side Games (Thriller, 8x50 min.) An ambitious executive for a regional soccer club will be immersed in a thrilling game of corruption, violence and power.

I’m Alive (Thriller, 26x70 min.) After being sent back to Earth to hunt down his own murderer, Inspector Vargas learns that second chances don’t come for free.

The Paradise (Thriller, 8x50 min.) A detective arrives in “Little Finland” in southern Spain to help local authorities solve murders investigations. In a place so bright, the truth is hard to see.

HUNAN TV

O (86-0731) 8287-1224 m chelsea.yang@hunantv.com, eric.liu@hunantv.com

w www.linkedin.com/company/hunantv Stand: P-1.F6 Contact: Cheng Ding, pres.; Nikki Luo, VP, research & dvpmt.; Xin Shen, creator & exec.

INCENDO

The Sniffer

Love, Romance & Chocolate Love on Safari (MOW, 1x90 min.) American web designer Kira Slater inherits her grandparent’s wildlife reserve in Ukuthula, South Africa, but struggles to keep her grandfather’s legacy alive while also turning a profit.

Love Blossoms (MOW, 1x90 min.) Perfumer Violet, desperate to formulate her late father’s unfinished signature scent, hires an inexperienced botanist with an uncanny ability to identify scents.

Love, Romance & Chocolate (MOW, 1x90 min.)

Twisted (MOW, 1x90 min.) Kara and Tyler are planning on getting married when Tyler’s exgirlfriend returns from rehab, pulling her into a twisted game of cat and mouse.

Mean Queen (MOW, 1x90 min.) Julie hopes for a fresh start when she is hired as a replacement high school teacher, but things take a dark turn when her daughter Miya becomes fast friends with the school’s resident mean girl.

Mad Mom (MOW, 1x90 min.) What was supposed to be a benign first meeting of the in-laws quickly turns into a dangerous competition between Amber’s mother, Sharon, and her future mother-in-law, Jill.

Radio Silence (MOW, 1x90 min.) One year after the traumatic on-air suicide of a caller named Alexis, radio host Dr. Jill Peterman reboots her show only to be the target of attacks orchestrated by a caller using the same name.

Thicker Than Water (MOW, 1x90 min.) The Petrovic family is stricken with grief after the death of their son. When a new young tenant moves into their home, life seems to improve for the family, until a shocking secret is revealed.

The Sisterhood (MOW, 1x90 min.) Ashley is having a rough year when her sister introduces her to a women’s group, The Sisterhood, hoping she will feel empowered to change her life. The Sisterhood delivers everything it promises, but the benefits come at a steep and possibly illegal price.

There Was a Beautiful Woman The Threshold (Drama, 104x30 min.) Swadheenta confesses her love for Adarsh during his engagement to another girl. They have to convince Adarsh’s mother that they should be together. On the wedding day, tragedy strikes.

This Is Love (Drama, 1,162x30 min., ongoing) The story of Raman and Ishita, who are connected by their common love for the little Ruhi.

There Was a Beautiful Woman (Drama, 216x30 min.) Durga changes her identity and comes back to rewrite her own destiny and see the justice that was denied to her.

INTER MEDYA

O (90-212) 231-0102 m info@intermedya.tv

w www.intermedya.tv

Stand: C16.D Contact: Can Okan, CEO & fndr.; Ahmet Ziyalar, COO; Hasret Ozcan, general counsel; Bahar Toker Sarac, mktg. & PR exec.; Nesrin Eyüpoglu, mktg. & PR exec.; Emre Okan, new business dvpmt. exec.; Sibel Levendoglu, sales exec.; Beatriz Cea Okan, sales exec.; Elena Pak, sales exec.; Pelin Koray, sales exec.; Sinem Aliskan, sales exec.; Naz Yigit, content dvpmt. & acq. exec.; Leyla Apa, team asst.

INTELLECTA

O (359) 888-308180 m marketing@intellectasrl.com

w www.intellectasrl.com

Mehmed, The Conqueror

Stand: P-1.D51 Contact: Christina Vlahova, GM; Anna Kraeva, VP, business dvpmt., Russia & CEE; Giuseppe Zappala, VP, business dvpmt., Western Europe.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Love Conquers All (Drama, 260x30 min.)

Anurag and Prerna fall deeply in love but are forced apart by his family.

The Singing Star (Drama, 312x30 min., ongoing) The magic in her 7-year-old voice moves stoned hearts, and many have acknowledged her musical genius, yet her mother refuses to let her sing.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Bitter Lands (Drama) The story of a legendary love that begins in Istanbul during the 1970s and continues in the fertile lands of Çukurova in southern Turkey through the trials of evil, ambition, and tyranny.

The Pit (Drama, S1: 107x45 min., S2) Çukur, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Istanbul, is ruled by the Koçova family. Although they are closely related to crime, the family has its own rules.

Mehmed, The Conqueror (Drama, 18x45 min.) In 1451, after receiving the news of his

446 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

*LIST_419_ALT2.qxp_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 3/21/19 2:59 PM Page 21

TV LISTINGS 21 father’s death, Mehmed departs from Manisa to Edirne to Payitaht with one dream in his mind...conquering Constantinople.

Flames of Desire (Drama, 186x45 min.) In an effort to become friends again after a huge dispute, Bayram and his best friend Salih plan to marry their children to one another when they are of age.

Exathlon (Sports reality format, 150 min. eps.)

Two teams of physically fit and athletic contestants compete in highly challenging parkours at specially built locations.

The Perfect Couple (Reality dating format, 6090 min. eps.) Eleven men and eleven women looking for love compete for rooms in a luxurious house in the Caribbean.

JETPACK DISTRIBUTION

O (44-203) 561-5881 m dominic.gardiner@jetpackdistribution.tv

KANAL D INTERNATIONAL

O (90-212) 413-5666 m sales@kanald.international

w kanald.international

Stand: R9.A32 Contact: Kerim Emrah Turna, exec. dir.; Ekim Koyuncu, sales exec., CEE; Mikaela Perez, sales exec., LatAm & Spain; Salmi Gambarova, sales exec., CIS, Asia, Australia; Selim Türkmen, sales exec., Western Europe, MENA, Africa; Burcu Anış, mktg. & operations exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Lost Scent (Romance drama, ongoing) A mysterious woman settles into Kalender, a famous little town with its flower cultivation and essence production, determined to reveal the buried secrets and take revenge for her lost childhood.

w www.jetpackdistribution.tv

Stand: R7.C26 Contact: Dominic Gardiner, CEO; Gillian Calvert Ridge, head, sales; Sophie ‘Kido’ Prigent, sales dir.; Rhiannon Lyons, sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Cul de Sac (Kids 9-16 live-action drama, S1-3: 18x22 min.) Rose wakes one day to find all technology has turned on its head and the adults have vanished.

Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed (Kids 6-11 3D, 52x11 min.) Features 10-year-old Dennis and his pet dog Gnasher in Beanotown, a world full of imagination, comedy and adventure.

Daisy & Ollie (Kids 4-6 2D, 52x7 min., 1x22 min. & 22x1.5 min. nursery rhymes) Encourages young children to be curious and question the world around them.

Yoko (Kids 4-6 2D, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 14x12 min. in prod.) Follows the adventures of three children whose playful energy and enthusiasm awakens the magical creature Yoko.

Talking Tom & Friends (Kids 6+ 3D, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 28x11 min., S3: 28x11 min. in dvpmt.)

Based on the global app sensation, the TV series follows the gang’s adventures as they make their own show.

Busing (w.t.) (Factual, 3x45 min. tape & format) Two schools from one of Britain’s most racially divided areas participate in an ambitious experiment to integrate teens—with explosive, exciting and ultimately uplifting results.

Prison Girls: Life Inside (Factual, 4x45 min.)

Unlocking real stories while exploring the impact of time in prison on female inmates, this series delivers a stark and truthful insight into this uniquely pressurized environment.

River Hunters (Factual, 8x45 min. tape & format) Presenter Rick Edwards and expert river detectorist Beau Ouimette visit some of the most historically significant sites across Britain to search for archaeological treasures underwater.

The Great British Garden Challenge (Factent., 6x45 min.) Britain’s best professional garden designers are pitted against each other in a competition that takes unloved spaces and transforms the lives of truly deserving recipients.

The Hit List (Game-show format, 60 min. eps.)

Three couples compete for a chance to win the grand prize in this music game show where you can’t help but play and sing along.

The Joint (Fact-ent., 2x45 min. tape & format) People from all walks of life test whether cannabis really can bring about more harmonious connections and deeper conversations in this new fixed-rig relationship format.

KEW MEDIA DISTRIBUTION

O (44-207) 851-6500

Double Trouble Price of Passion (Romance drama, 32x130 min./95x45 min.) Ferhat is a hit man working for his criminal uncle. Asli is a young and idealistic doctor. One day, their paths cross in the most unexpected way.

Wounded Love (Historical drama, 57x130 min./168x45 min.) The story of one of the most tragic heroes of his time, who is condemned to face the ruination of his family while he can do nothing to stop it.

Double Trouble (Action drama, 12x135 min./40x45 min.) Two policemen who hate each other make a common enemy.

Twins (Family drama, 45 min. eps. ongoing) Memo lives with his uncle and his mother, collecting scrap pieces from the suburbs of Istanbul; Can lives in the grip of his grandfather Mümtaz in a large mansion with his father Onur.

KESHET INTERNATIONAL

w www.kewmedia.com

Stand: C15.A6 Contact: Steven Silver, fndr. & CEO, Kew Media Group; Peter Sussman, fndr. & chmn., Kew Media Group; Greg Phillips, pres.; Jonathan Ford, EVP, sales; Mark Benmore, SVP, sales; Jennifer Askin, VP, sales; Stephen Joy, VP, sales; Tom Bairstow, VP, sales; Hana Palmer, VP, sales; Becci Payne, dir., sales; Anton Romalijskij, sales mgr.; Carrie Stein, EVP, global scripted series; Vicky Ryan, EVP, commercial affairs; Graham Begg, VP, business development & producer relations; Jennifer Brinkworth, EVP, mktg. & comms.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Clink (Drama, 10x60 min.) A drama set in the fictional BPS Bridewell Women’s Prison. Many of the inmates come from dark, hopeless places, but the friendships they form can ignite real flames of hope.

O (972-50) 846-7316 m info@keshetinternational.com

w www.keshetinternational.com

Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty Kitty is Not a Cat (Kids 6-10 2D, 52x12 min.)

The party is over when a young girl arrives on the doorstep of a household of cats.

Wolf (Kids 4-6 2D, S1-2: 156x7 min.) Wolf is friendly, endearing and always up for adventure.

He wants to try everything and anything and has a new idea every minute.

Barefoot Bandits (Kids 6-11 2D, 20x22 min.)

A comedy adventure series full of aliens, vegetable zombies, lizard people, pirate ghosts and more.

Oswaldo (2D comedy, 52x11 min.) Follows the misadventures of a school-aged penguin, Oswaldo, who was adopted and raised by human parents and who faces his biggest challenge—surviving school.

Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty (Kids 611 2D, 52x11 min. & 1x30 min.) Centers around a spirited and adorable kitty named Felicity who acquires magical and majestic powers.

Stand: R8.C9 Contact: Keren Shahar, COO & pres., dist.; Revital Basel, mng. dir., networks; Kelly Wright, SVP, dist. & new business; Rose Hughes, VP, sales; Anne Roder Botbol, snr. sales mgr; Marta Csizmadia, snr. sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 2025 (Reality game-show format) In the nearfuture city of 2025, contestants play a game of strategy where status, options and fate are determined by the social currency they obtain.

Around the World by Train (Factual, 6x45 min.) Sir Tony Robinson takes a whirlwind journey around the globe on some of the world’s most historical railways, learning local traditions and histories along the way.

Busing

Line of Duty The Dead Lands (Drama, 8x60 min.) Based on the globally successful film of the same name, offers a new chapter, set in a time before time, in which warrior Waka Nuku Rau must find honor in a land ravaged by the supernatural.

Line of Duty (Drama, S5: 6x60 min., S1-4: 22x60 min. & 1x90 min.) Return of the hit police corruption series from the makers of Bodyguard.

AC-12’s investigation into a gang of violent criminals uncovers a shocking secret.

Frankie Drake Mysteries (Detective drama, S2: 10x60 min., S1: 11x60 min.) Set in 1921, follows Toronto’s first female private detectives as they solve cases the police can’t, and other detective agencies won’t.

The Cavern Club: The Beat Goes On (Doc., 1x73 min.) Presented and narrated by Paul McGann (Luther), tells the untold, colorful story of the self-proclaimed “greatest club in the world.”

Body Hack 3.0 (Non-fiction, 8x60 min.) Todd Sampson, adventurer and human guinea pig,

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will take on some of the biggest challenges of his life as he embarks on an epic exploration investigating some of the world’s most extraordinary people.

High Maintenance (Non-fiction, 8x60 min.)

Every engineering marvel, be it a structure, building or technological system, needs constant monitoring and maintenance to avert disaster.

Silent Witness: Murder In Amish Country (Non-fiction, 6x60 min.) Features some of the most extraordinary and challenging murder cases to ever face the police: all the killings take place in the closed and secretive world of America’s Amish community.

The Movies (Doc., 12x60 min./6x120 min.) Indepth examination of the cultural, societal and political shifts that framed the evolution of cinema, from the first sound movies of the 1930s to the blockbuster franchises of the 2000s.

Griff off the Rails: Down Under (Non-fiction, 6x60 min./6x30 min.) British comedian and travel enthusiast Griff Rhys Jones is boarding the trains of Australia to present a very modern look at the land down under.

LIGHTNING INTERNATIONAL

O (852) 2815-7481 m james@lightninginternational.net

w www.lightninginternational.net

Stand: P3.B16 Contact: James Ross, CEO; Amanda Yang, GM. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Flying Chef (Food/travel, 7x30 min.)

Renowned chef Nathan Huxham, who has cooked for the likes Robin Williams, the PM of Australia and Paris Hilton, presents a new adventure cooking show.

The Flying Chef The Merger (Movie, 1x120 min.) A hilarious and heartfelt story of a town struggling in racism, and stuck in its ways.

Boats N Bikes (Travel, 10x30 min.) The hosts travel the U.S. and Cuba on ultra-cool motorcycles, exploring the world of boats.

Bo66y (Doc., 1x120 min.) This documentary pays tribute to the winning team’s golden-haired captain Bobby Moore.

Time Travel Girl (Anime, 12x30 min.) The series has two heroines and features historical figures who help solve the mystery of creation.

Eullenia (Thriller, 3x60 min.) A smart psychological thriller that explores timely elements of the power of the wealthy, social injustice and the exploitation of developing countries.

Art & Design (Culture, 6x30 min.) From sculptures to tattoos, photographer to smartphone art, learn what inspires artists and designers, glance into the world of contemporary art and be uplifted by the dedication they have to their craft.

Who Killed Jim Thompson, the Thai Silk King? (Doc., 1x60 min.) In 1967, Jim Thompson walked out of a small cottage in the highlands of Malaysia and has never been seen again. His disappearance became an enduring mystery.

Luxury Hunters (Lifestyle, 6x30 min.) Our hosts will take you to the most prestigious properties to show you luxurious living, with some high-end fashion, food and unusual transport.

Uncaged (Doc., 20x30 min.) The hit animal show that explores a unique location every week, including Antarctica, Alaska, the Amazon, the Galapagos and more.

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TV LISTINGS

LIONSGATE ENTERTAINMENT

MADD ENTERTAINMENT

w www.lionsgate.com

w www.madd.tv

Stand: C15.A8 Contact: Sam Ellis, contract & sales mgr., U.K.; Laura Hockton, sales asst., intl. TV sales, U.K.; Nazneen Sethi, VP, intl. TV sales, U.K., Turkey & Greece; Nicky Woods, SVP & head, EMEA, intl.

TV sales; Suzy Feldman, SVP, worldwide TV mktg. & PR; Mark James, dir., sales, intl. TV, U.K.; Jamie Phillips, dir., intl. TV sales, EMEA; Paula Warwick, cnslt., intl. TV sales; Gisela Asimus Minnbergh, VP, alternative pgm. sales, U.K.; Elissa Shenkman, VP, events, worldwide TV mktg.; Agapy Kapouranis, pres., intl. TV & digital dist.; Jim Packer, pres., worldwide TV & digital dist.; Gabriella Ballabio, cnslt., home ent. & TV dist., intl. TV sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Sweetbitter (Drama, 14x30 min.) The story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the rich and grimy backdrop of exclusive restaurants.

Stand: P-1.J69 Contact: Özlem Özsümbül, intl. sales mgr.; Ateş İnce, mng. dir.; Deniz Cantutan, sales mgr.; Alaa Elabasy, sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS One Litre of Tears (Drama, 39x45 min., ongoing) The story of an 18-year-old who is diagnosed with an incurable disease. Based on a true story from a diary.

O (1-310) 449-9200 m general-inquiries@lionsgate.com

O (90-212) 273-2434 m info@madd.tv

My Little Girl

Sweetbitter Vida (Drama, 16x30 min.) Two MexicanAmerican sisters from the Eastside of Los Angeles return to their old neighborhood, where they are confronted by the past and the shocking truth about their mother’s identity.

The A List (Drama, 13x30 min.) In what appears to be an idyllic island summer camp, dark secrets will turn the “holiday of a lifetime” into a twisted nightmare.

The Rook (Drama, 8x60 min.) A young woman wakes up in a London park suffering amnesia.

Pursued by paranormal adversaries, she grapples with supernatural abilities of her own as she fights to uncover her past and resume her position at the head of Britain’s most secret (supernatural) service.

The Spanish Princess (Event series, 8x60 min.) The story of Catherine of Aragon, who finds her future as Queen in question and at the mercy of a divided Tudor court under the threat of enemies both abroad and closer to home.

BoJack Horseman (Comedy, 61x30 min.)

BoJack Horseman was the legendary star of a hit 1990s sitcom; 18 years later, the washedup former celebrity is trying to find his way back to fame through a muddle of selfloathing, alcoholism and failed relationships.

Now Apocalypse (Comedy, 10x30 min.) This surreal coming-of-age story follows Ulysses and his friends who are on various quests pursuing love, sex and fame.

Florida Girls (Comedy, 10x30 min.) Follows four girlfriends who are partying below the poverty line in Small Town, Florida, trying to navigate their very relatable problems as they try to better their situation.

Ambitions (Drama, 11x60 min.) A multigenerational family saga centered around one woman who recently relocated and is intent on revitalizing her marriage. She finds herself going head to head with some of the most powerful and deceitful players in the city.

Burning Obsession (Drama, 168x45 min.)

Gülru was born in the suburbs and grew up in the servants’ quarter of a mansion where her father worked as a gardener.

Crash (Drama, 100+x45 min.) An accident involving four cars, four lives, four people. Fate will never tear them apart.

My Little Girl (Drama, 100+x45 min., ongoing) An 8-year-old girl goes in search of her father after the death of her aunt.

Persona (Drama, 12x60 min.) Agâh, who is retired, is in his 60s and living an ordinary life.

Nevra working in the homicide department. Their lives will soon intersect.

Phi (Drama, 22x60 min.) Based on a trilogy of novels by Akilah Azra Kohan, explores the true meaning of life through the five characters’ lifechanging journeys.

The 8th Day (Drama, 17x45 min.) Bahar’s life is turned upside down when her mother is killed.

Wings of Love (Drama, 73x45 min.) Leyla is a divorced mother of a small son, forced through circumstances to live in the family home. In desperation, she decides to marry Haşmet.

Bottled with Love (Romance, 1x90 min.) In this Hallmark movie, a woman frustrated with dating writes her true love desires in a letter and puts it into a bottle she throws in the ocean.

Love on Repeat (Romantic comedy, 1x90 min.)

A woman repeats the same day over and over as she tries to get back together with her boyfriend but finds love in unexpected places.

My Evil Stepdad (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A daughter uses online dating to find the perfect match for her widowed mother, but discovers he has dark intentions with darker consequences.

The Narcissist (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A woman falls in love with a man who is charming and seems too good to be true until his deadly secrets are revealed.

Poisonous Protege (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A woman is determined to uncover the mystery of her sister’s death at a wellness spa and discovers a complex murder scheme involving the protégé.

Home for Harvest (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A woman returns to her hometown and is lovetorn between her ex-boyfriend pretending to change his old ways and the charming new man she meets with better intentions.

Accusations and Lies (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A woman becomes the prime suspect of her husband’s disappearance and must find the truth before she’s convicted for a crime she did not commit.

Fatal Getaway (Thriller, 1x90 min.) When a woman rents a property for vacation, the owner is charming but may also be responsible for the recent disappearances near the coastal town.

The Model Murders (Thriller, 1x90 min.) An inspiring model falls victim to a malicious fashion photographer who kidnaps her, and her mother will stop at nothing to find her.

O (33-1) 5326-3100 m info@mediatoon.com

w www.mediatoon-distribution.com Stand: P-1.E61 Contact: Jérôme Alby, mng. dir.; Béatrice Nouh, snr. intl. sales mgr.; Mélanie Errea, sales & business affairs mgr.; Fanny Gilabert, sales & business affairs exec.; Sofia El Khyari, mktg. & comms. dir.; Julien Papelier, mng. dir., Dupuis; Léon Perahia, producer; Laurent Duvault, producer; Claude de Saint Vincent, CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Martin Morning CGI (Adventure, 52x13 min.)

Every morning Martin wakes up as a new character. One day he could be an astronaut, the next a knight—it’s always a complete surprise.

O (44-207) 554-2500 m content_sales@mattel.com

w www.mattel.com

Stand: R7.B2 Contact: Frederic Soulie, SVP, content dist./business dvpmt.; Christopher Keenan, SVP, content dvpmt. & prod.; Adam Bonnett, exec. producer, Mattel TV; Alex Godfrey, snr. dir., content dist.; Rob David, dir., content creative, MCC&D. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures (Animation, S2: 26x22 min.) Join Barbie as she navigates a summer job and school year at West Malibu High. The new season begins with “Barbie and the Missing Mermaid,” where Barbie and her friends embark on an epic international adventure solving an underwater mystery.

O (1-424) 274-3000 m sales@marvista.net

w www.marvista.net

My Evil Stepdad

MEDIATOON DISTRIBUTION

MATTEL

MARVISTA ENTERTAINMENT

Stand: R9.A9 Contact: Fernando Szew, CEO; Jody Cipriano, head, dist. & acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS A Winter Princess (Romance, 1x90 min.) A princess takes a break from her royal duties to work incognito at a ski resort where she finds true happiness and love in this Hallmark movie.

world adventures continue in series 23 as he explores new locations, Italy and Brazil, meeting new friends and learning about new cultures with fast-paced action and storylines.

Thomas & Friends Big World Big Adventures The Movie (Animation, 1x80 min.) Thomas is inspired to embark on an ambitious trip around the world, traveling across five continents, discovering magnificent new sights and cultures.

Wellie Wishers (Animation, 13x11 min.) A sweet and lively group of friends play in their whimsical garden. While the girls play, they learn about the natural world and experience the magic of their imaginations.

Enchantimals Tales of Everwilde Barbie Dreamtopia (Animation, 26x11 min.)

Enter a world of endless and whimsical adventures with Mattel’s newest animated preschool series.

Barbie Vlogger (Animation, 60x5 min.) Barbie shares information about her life, inspirations and favorite things. She loves to do silly challenges with her friends Ken, Harper, Ryan, and her sister Chelsea.

Enchantimals Tales of Everwilde (Animation, 26x11 min.) Step into the fantastical world of the Enchantimals, a group of lovable halfanimal, half-human girls who share a special bond with their cuddly animal besties.

Thomas & Friends Digs & Discoveries (Animation, 20x11 min. & 3x22 min.) Thomas’ big

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Martin Morning CGI The Minimighty Kids Collection (Kids comedy, 234x8 min. & 1x26 min.) The Minimighty Kids teach us that we are all superheroes, and that even the worst flaws can be transformed into superpowers.

The Fox-Badger Family (Adventure/comedy, 52x12 min.) When the Foxes and Badgers form a new family, everyone must adapt. Luckily, when love is involved, their home is filled with laughter and happiness.

Lucas etc. (Comedy, 52x7 min.) Lucas’s life with his stepfamily isn’t going to be easy. Luckily, he can count on his limitless imagination to get him out of sticky situations.

Bobby & Bill (Young kids comedy, 104x12 min.) The three buddies are inseparable, and together they go on crazy and fun adventures.

With his cheeky and unusual pets by his side, Bobby can do (almost) anything.

Yakari (Kids adventure/edutainment, 156x13 min.) Yakari goes on great adventures in the wilderness with his best friends. He is the bravest little Sioux boy and has a magical gift.

Little Furry (Preschool comedy, 78x7 min.) Little Furry is an endearing character who throws himself into extraordinary universes where anything is possible.

Teen Crumpets (Comedy, 52x13 min.) The wacky family is back, with a focus on the teens.

Follow the musical, spiritual, ecological and romantic adventures of Pfff, Caprice, Cassandra, Marylin, Larry and Cordless.

MaXi (Kids comedy, 26x11 min.) Dive into the fantasy world of Vakarma, where music, nature and laughter intertwine. Follow the incredible adventures of Mara and Xilo.

Miru Miru (Kids edutainment, 50x5 min.) Miru is a curious little sea otter with a big imagination.

Join Miru on a remarkable journey of friendship and discovery.

*LIST_419_ALT2.qxp_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 3/21/19 3:07 PM Page 23

TV LISTINGS 23 century, Ertugrul is struggling to find a home for his tribe and the woman he is in love with.

The Prisoner of Love (Romance drama, 227x45 min.) The story of two young people who end up in a contractual marriage while hating each other.

The Last Emperor (Drama, S1-2: 189x45 min.) Sheds light on the real-life story of the last, strongest Ottoman Emperor, Abdulhamid Han, who faced many schemes to dethrone him.

Aslan (Animation, 39x11 min.) Aslan is a little inventor who loves to imagine and create new devices with his friends and grandpa.

MEDITERRÁNEO AUDIOVISUAL

O (34-91) 396-7306 m rcachero@mediaset.es

w www.sales.mediaset.es Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Silvia Cotino, head, sales; Rocío Cachero, intl. sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS State Secrets (Political thriller, 13x75 min.)

Revolves around an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister.

Dangerous Moms (Black comedy, 13x75 min.)

Four mothers will accidentally be part of a murder and will see themselves trapped in a delirious spiral of crimes to protect their secret.

State Secrets Our Guys (Drama, S2: 3x75 min., S1: 3x75 min.) Another military mission to be accomplished by the parachuting team in Afghanistan.

Unauthorized Living (Drama, 13+10x75 min.)

A story about passions, strong rivalries and conflicted interests within a family, whose household head is a Galician drug-dealing leader suddenly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Truth (Thriller, 16x75 min.) An enigmatic young woman turns up in a coastal town claiming to be the little girl who mysteriously disappeared nine years earlier. Is she telling the truth?

I Know Who You Are (Thriller, 16x75 min.) A successful lawyer, who wakes up with amnesia, will have to find a way to prove his innocence even though he is unsure of whether or not he is guilty of having killed his 23-year-old niece.

Monica & Sex (Factual, 8x50 min.) The singer Monica Naranjo travels around the world to see how sexuality and affection are expressed in different places. Shot in Brazil, Mexico, Japan and Spain.

Crazy Trip (Reality, 42x12 min., 6x50 min.) In this cross-media reality show, five influencers go on a mystery trip. They will not know the destination or who their companions are.

Pampliega’s Passport (Factual, 9x60 min.)

Antonio Pampliega, who was held by Al Qaeda in Syria for 299 days, travels around the world giving voice to conflicts of worldwide interest.

The Power of Women (Factual, 5x60 min.)

The stories of inspiring, brave and fighting women.

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER STUDIOS (MGM)

Perpetual Grace, LTD Four Weddings and a Funeral (Romantic comedy, 10x60 min.) Four American friends reunite for a fabulous London wedding. But after a bombshell at the altar throws their lives into turmoil, they must weather a tumultuous year of romance and heartbreak.

Condor (Drama/action, 20x60 min.) Based on the Robert Redford thriller Three Days of the Condor, tells the story of a low-level CIA employee who returns from lunch to discover that everyone in his office has been killed. On the run, he becomes ensnared in a web of intrigue involving higher-ups.

The Handmaid’s Tale (Drama, 36x60 min.) The story of a young woman’s struggles to survive in a dystopian society where women are forced into surrogate motherhood. Based on Margaret Atwood’s classic novel and winner of multiple Emmys.

The Addams Family (Animated movie) Animated action-comedy follows the Addams family, whose lives begin to unravel when they face off against a crafty reality TV host while also preparing for their extended family to arrive for a major celebration.

Fighting with My Family (Drama, 1x107 min.)

Reformed gangster and wrestler Ricky and his wife Julia make a living performing with their children Saraya and Zak, who are about to learn that becoming a WWE Superstar demands more than they ever imagined possible.

The Hustle (Comedy, 1x93 min.) Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star as female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, who team up to take down the dirty rotten men who have wronged them.

TKO: Total Knockout (Reality competition, 10x60 min.) Contestants race through a daunting obstacle course one at a time while the four other players man battle stations along the way, firing overthe-top projectiles in an effort to knock them off and slow them down.

Creed II (Drama, 1x128 min.) The next chapter in the Adonis Creed story follows his life inside and outside of the ring as he deals with newfound fame, issues with his family and his continuing quest to become a champion.

Child’s Play (Horror) Follows a mother who gives her son a toy doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature.

MISTCO

w www.mistco.tv

Stand: R9.A30 Contact: Chris Ottinger, pres., worldwide TV dist. & acq.; Barry Poznick, pres., unscripted TV; Paul Bischoff, EVP, intl. dist., EMEA; Charles Farmer, SVP & mng. dir., U.K., China & European coprod.; Greg Robertson, SVP, AsiaPac; Matt Vassallo, SVP, intl. TV dist.; Caroline Edwards, SVP, sales, Australia; Shaila Chopra, VP, intl. TV dist.; Lesley Drukker, VP, intl. TV dist.; Deblina Charkabarty, VP, TV dist.; Guro Viddal, VP, TV dist.; Ludo Attal, VP, unscripted TV & formats; Alexander Bushnell, VP, unscripted dvpmt.; Craig Read, mgr., TV dist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Perpetual Grace, LTD (Drama, 10x60 min.)

James (Jimmi Simpson), a young grifter, attempts to prey upon Pastor Byron (Sir Ben Kingsley) and Lillian Brown (Jacki Weaver), who turn out to be far more dangerous than he suspects.

Stand: P-1.N51 Contact: Aysegul Tuzun, VP, sales & mktg.; Beyza Nur Torun, sales & mktg. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Hold My Hand (Romance drama, 150x45 min.)

The love story between a well-educated, beautiful girl, Azra, and a spoiled boy, Cenk, starts with a tragedy but later becomes fortune.

The Circle (Crime drama, 150x45 min.) The story of two brave young men in a dark world. Cihangir (Serkan Cayoglu) and Kaan (Kaan Yildirim) are dragged into a game created by the mafia.

Beloved (Romance drama, 150x45 min.)

Focuses on the love story between Aziz and Feride, who are the children of two fierce enemies.

One For All (Drama, 150x45 min.) Based on a true story of an ice hockey coach and his small town team, which reach the European Championship.

Resurrection: Ertugrul (Drama, 360x45 min., S5 in prod.) In this great story from the 13th

w www.mgm.com

MULTICOM ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

O (1-310) 693-8818 m info@multicom.tv

w www.multicom.tv

Hold My Hand Momo (Animation, 39x13 min.) Story of a bunny named Momo, who has a special ability to find lost items, and his friends.

Ege and Gaga (Animation, 62x7 min.) A little boy named Ege and his best friend Gaga, a talking crow, explore nature and their surroundings.

Stand: R7.F26 Contact: Irv Holender, chmn.; Niloo Badie, VP, sales & dist.; Jesse Baritz, dir., content sales & acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Follow Me (Horror/thriller, 1x90 min.) Sophie, a British YouTuber, brings her two friends Jessica and Lisa along for a trip through Southern California.

Tensions rise between the three girls as messages from an unknown source flood in from social media and one of their missing phones.

MONDO TV GROUP

O (39-06) 8632-3293 m silvia.darchivio@mondotvgroup.com

w www.mondotvgroup.com

Stand: P-1.M2/N1 Contact: Matteo Corradi, CEO; Paolo Zecca, chief prod. officer; Alessandro Venturi, intl. sales mgr.; Theo Kouroglou, intl. sales mgr.; Maria B. Fois, GM, Mondo TV Iberoamerica; Dimitri Papanikas, sales exec., Mondo TV Iberoamerica; Valentina La Macchia, dir., consumer products.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS MeteoHeroes (2D comedy adventure, 52x7 min.) Addresses issues like climate change, ecology and respect for nature through the amazing adventures of six children who transform into superheroes with power over the weather.

Robot Trains (Comedy adventure CGI, S2: 52x11 min.) A co-production between Mondo TV and CJ ENM, season two introduces Rail Watch, the trusted robot train guardians of Rail World, who transform from trains to robots to protect their home and its vital energy supplies.

O (90-216) 695-1300 m info@mistco.tv

O (1-310) 449-3000 m bgurstein@mgm.com

Invention Story (CGI comedy adventure, 104x11 min.) Co-produced with York Animation, the tale of a creative young fox whose inventions delight the inhabitants of Carrot Town and infuriate the angry, jealous mayor.

Bat Pat (2D comedy adventure, 52x11 min.)

Co-produced with Atlantyca Entertainment, the series maintains the fast-paced quirky character humor of a traditional comedy mixed with some unexpected adventures.

Sissi the Young Empress (CGI comedy adventure, S3: 52x11 min.) Sissi has now achieved her love dream with her beloved Franz but still gets “in trouble” with the Empress mother Sofia.

MeteoHereos Heidi Bienvenida (Live action, S1: Heidi Bienvenida a Casa, 60x45 min./120x24 min., S2: Heidi Bienvenida al Show, 60x45 min./120x24 min.) Coproduced with Alianzas Producciones, a modern, live-action adaptation of the famous story of Heidi, with a mix of music, humor, comedy, color, magic and extraordinary characters.

YooHoo to the Rescue (CGI comedy adventure, 52x11 min.) Five friends, based on the wildly popular Aurora World plush toys, help endangered animals in a show that aims to inspire respect for the environment.

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The Remarkable Life of John Weld Fat Legs (Drama/comedy, 1x96 min.) After a breakup, aspiring actress Anna travels to Paris to the home of her best friend, Jean.

Blood 13 (Thriller, 1x99 min.) A reckless female detective faces a gruesome crime scene in a basement bathroom during a murder investigation. To bring the killer to justice, she risks everything.

Boonie Bears: The Adventurers (Animation) Carly, a bright and headstrong girl; Briar and Bramble Bear, brothers sworn to protect nature; and Vick, their stubborn but adept guide, find themselves on the journey of a lifetime.

Boonie Bears: A Mystical Winter (Animation, 1x96 min.) Bramble stumbles upon the lair of Neva, the Spirit of Winter, and forms a long-lasting bond with the mystical creature.

The Remarkable Life of John Weld (Bio./drama, 1x77 min.) From humble beginnings as a cliff-jumping stunt double to criticallyacclaimed journalist, screenwriter and bestselling novelist, John Weld led a remarkable life.

For Now (Comedy/drama, 1x81 min.) Australian siblings grieving the death of their beloved parents while trying to build a future for themselves are joined by a group of friends on a fun road trip up the Californian coast.

NIPPON TV

O (81-3) 6215-3036 m nippontv-ibd@ntv.co.jp

w www.ntv.co.jp/english

Stand: P-1.F55 Contact: Kenichi Hirose, board dir. & operating officer; Nobuo Mizuta, operating officer & pres., prod.; Atsushi Sogo, pres., intl. business dvpmt.; Kako Kuwahara, mng. dir., intl. business dvpmt.; Yuki Akehi, PR snr. mgr., intl. business dvpmt.; Fusako Nagashima,

*LIST_419_ALT2.qxp_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 3/21/19 10:47 AM Page 24

24

TV LISTINGS

head, formats, intl. business dvpmt.; Tom Miyauchi, format sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Eri Watanabe, sales & lic., intl. business dvpmt.; Keisuke Miyata, sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Midori Miyashita, sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Hiroki Iwasaki, pgmng. dept.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Beat the Rooms (Ent./game-show format, 60 min. eps.) In each episode, two teams of four try and “beat” two game rooms, each one holding missions that test their ability to overcome crazy physical or mental obstacles.

Weakest Beast (Drama/romance format, 10x60 min.) The ultimate love story about two individuals who are too afraid to follow their gut instincts and allow their hearts to guide them to romance.

Without Family (Drama format, 25x60 min.) A 12-year-old girl is forced to be resourceful as she deals with a drunken father and her hospitalized mother.

Cover-Up Band (Crime/history drama, 16x50 min.) Crime drama set in the 1970s about the musicians involved in the theft of stolen antiques and an undercover police band, formed to catch the criminals.

Bullet (Action/crime drama, 10x48 min.) A series about a corporate conspiracy and a special ops commander who uncovers it. A bullet in his brain holds a clue to several murders.

ORANGE SMARTY

O (44-1273) 359030 m info@orangesmarty.com

w www.orangesmarty.com Brass Sun

Beat the Rooms May Tomorrow Bring Sunshine (Drama format, 10x60 min.) An attractive single mother is given the chance to work as a weathercaster.

The Happy Prince (Drama/romance format, 11x60 min.) A story that depicts the challenges of living sincerely with courage, strength and hope despite the heartbreaking obstacles to love.

Love of My Life (Drama/romance format, 10x60 min.) A boy and a girl from opposite social backgrounds meet and fall in love.

Your Home is My Business! -2nd Attack(Comedy/drama, 10x60 min.) The second season of the hit 2016 series continues to follow the escapades of a real-estate saleswoman who is known for closing the deal 100 percent of the time, no matter who the client is.

Mr. Hiiragi’s Homeroom (Drama, 10x60 min.)

Holding 29 students captive, a teacher will do anything to find out the truth behind the suicide of a classmate a few months ago.

Your Turn to Kill (Mystery, 20x60 min.) A newlymarried couple, having just bought their first home, are convinced that a happy and peaceful life is about to begin until people in their building suddenly start dying.

NTV BROADCASTING COMPANY

O (7-495) 725-5718 m sales@ntv.ru

w sales.ntv.ru

Stand: R7.E65 Contact: Timur Weinstein, general producer; Vadim Ostrovksy, dir., prod. dept.; Marina Kataya, head, intl. sales dept.; Anastasia Lisova, CMO; Olga Bayramova, PR dir.; Anastasia Khlebnikova-Arnold, intl. sales mgr.; Anna Horutz, intl. sales mgr.; Natalia Stogova, intl. sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Reluctant Hero (Crime drama/comedy, 10x48 min.) A loser is diagnosed with inoperable tumor that shrinks when he commits heroic, selfless acts. Now he helps the police with the most dangerous cases.

Brass Sun (Drama, 6x48 min.) A war series about young army musicians, who have no combat skills but must protect innocent civilians from guerillas.

Kingdom of Shani (Action adventure 3D, 24x24 min.) Shani, Yam and Yami beat mythological super villains while battling their own personal demons.

Chaamp (Sports drama, 1x155 min.) The journey of Shiba from a poverty- and griefstricken 14-year-old to a full-grown successful boxing champion.

Kilkariyan (2D animation, 20x10 min.) Brings to life folklore and lost legends to impart important life lessons.

Herbs & Spices (Food/lifestyle, 16x24 min.)

Teaches viewers the healing benefits of spices and herbs along with the right way of using them in Indian recipes.

Five Minutes of Silence (Action drama, 34x50 min.) After becoming a reluctant member of an emergency response team, a young man finds his calling, saving lives in harsh mountain conditions.

Dr.Driver (Medical drama, 20x48 min.) Former ER doctor working as an ambulance driver must find his way back to practicing medicine again because he only wants to help people.

Shepherd (Crime drama/comedy, 48x48 min.) A classic police procedural featuring a detective and his dog.

Beyond Death (Mystery/thriller, 16x48 min.) An elderly detective and a young neuroscientist solve mysterious cases on the verge of traditional science and the paranormal.

The Crow (Crime/thriller, 12x50 min.) A beautiful woman in law enforcement repeatedly hits the glass ceiling and meets with discrimination.

Schubert (Crime/thriller, 10x48 min.) The story of a modern superhero with a unique hearing ability who solves the most mysterious crimes.

Stand: P-1.B60/C72 Contact: Amy Kemp, head, sales; Lynn Lugsden, head, formats.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Secret Lives of Slim People (Human interest, 4x30 min.) Closely examines and unlocks behaviors and eating patterns of people who appear to be naturally slim.

Dirty Vegan (Lifestyle/cooking, 4x30 min.) Dirty Sanchez daredevil Mathew Pritchard sets out to prove that a vegan diet can make you fitter, stronger and healthier with food that tastes “banging”.

Inside Jaguar: A Supercar is Reborn (History/ tech./engineering, 1x52 min.) With exclusive behind-the-scenes access, documents the reengineering of the Jaguar XKSS, which lays claim to being the world’s first supercar.

ONE LIFE STUDIOS

O (91-22) 2676-6377 m connect@onelifestudios.in

w www.onelifestudios.in

Stand: P-1.E57 Contact: Rahul Kumar Tewary, producer/mng. dir.; Sonal Gupta, snr. dir., synd. & alliances; Smriti Chandel, mgr., dist. alliances; Mausam Punjabi, mgr., dist. alliances.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Chandragupta Maurya (Costume drama, 260x30 min.) The saga of a reluctant boy and an adamant teacher who together created a united India against foreign invaders and protected it from an internal enemy, King Dhananand of the Nanda Dynasty.

Porus (Costume drama, 299x22 min.) King Porus, one of the most iconic rulers of ancient India, defends his motherland against Alexander the Great.

Porus

ORF-ENTERPRISE

O (43-1) 87878-13030 m contentsales@orf.at

w contentsales.orf.at

Stand: P-1.L1 Contact: Beatrice Cox-Riesenfelder, mng. dir. & CFO; Armin Luttenberger, head, content sales intl.; Marion Camus-Oberdorfer, sales dir., GST & dist. investment; Monika Kossits, sales mgr.; Johannes Stanek, sales mgr.; Alexandra Hopf, sales mgr.; Mario Leonhardsberger, digital content dist. mgr.; Franka Giesemann, sales mgr., home ent., VOD. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Greece—The Wild Side (Nature, 2x52 min.)

Greece is a land of unique contrasts, with wild animals that have disappeared from the rest of Europe, archaic relationships, as befits one of civilization’s sources.

Cuba’s Wild Revolution (Nature, 1x52 min.)

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and one fifth of its territory is protected habitat for spectacular wildlife.

Wild Austria—Created by Water (Nature, 2x52 min.) Austria’s Alpine glaciers, ancient seas and mighty rivers have carved out giant mountains, caves and lakes, which are key to its wildlife today.

Passion and Power—Queen Victoria’s Secrets (History, 1x52 min./1x45 min.)

Looks behind the clichés and court propaganda to reveal who Victoria really was: a strongwilled and passionate woman, an intrepid monarch who fought for Britain’s supremacy.

Beauty and Despair—Austria’s Empress Sisi (History, 1x52 min./1x43 min.) She was perhaps the most unusual empress of the 19th century, Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi to the Habsburg family.

Walking on Sunshine (Fiction, 10x45 min.)

The series is set in the weather department of the Austrian public broadcaster and is about the people who forecast the weather.

Suburbia—Women on the Edge (Fiction, 30x48 min.) Five women, whose biggest challenge so far has been surviving their daily shopping tours, are taken by complete surprise when one of them is suddenly divorced.

The Secret Lives of Slim People Behind Closed Doors: Through the Eyes of a Child (Human interest, 1x60 min.) BAFTA Award-winning director Anna Hall goes into unchartered territory, finding and talking with children who have witnessed domestic abuse.

Trevor McDonald and the Killer Nurse (Crime, 1x52 min.) Sir Trevor McDonald investigates the extraordinary case of one of Britain’s worst serial killers: Beverly Allitt, a young female nurse who murdered and attacked children in her care.

A Place In The Sun: Series 11 (Lifestyle, 90x48 min.) The series with property experts helping house-hunters search for their dream home in the sun is now in series 11.

Call the Cleaners (Human interest, S2: 6x30 min.) Tackling domestic dirt like you’ve never seen before, from squalid homes and drug dens to blood spills and hoarders.

Series two.

Celebs on the Ranch (Fact-ent./format, 10x60 min.) Ten celebrities are thrown in at the deep end as they try to cope with life on a ranch.

Chimp Babies (Wildlife, 1x52 min.) Featuring world-renowned chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall, a unique and uplifting insight into one of our closest living relatives.

Coast vs Country (Lifestyle, S3) The series returns with the property experts competing to find house hunters their dream homes, either on the coast or in the country.

450 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Wild Austria—Created by Water Fast Forward (Fiction, 60x45 min.) Angelica Fast is in her mid-30s, a divorced single mother and a successful investigator at Vienna’s criminal investigation department.

The Csárdás Princess (Music, 1x140 min.) In 2018 the Vienna Volksoper celebrated its 120th anniversary with a new production of Emmerich Kálmáns “The Csárdás Princess.”

Carnival of the Musicians—Igudesman & Joo feat. Vienna Symphonics (Music, 1x86 min.) “UpBeat” is the follow-up to their highly successful show, “BIG Nightmare Music,” and takes us on a stormy journey through all imaginable genres.

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TV LISTINGS 25

PASSION DISTRIBUTION

O (44-207) 981-9801 m sales@passiondistribution.com

w passiondistribution.com

Stand: P4.C18 Contact: Emmanuelle Namiech, CEO; Sean Wheatley, head, acq.; Nick Tanner, dir., sales & coprod.; Agnes Mbye, snr. sales mgr., formats; Eliana Barbosa, sales mgr.; Alex Dubard, sales mgr.; Tom Burton, sales mgr.; Michelle Choi, sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Paradise Hotel (Reality/format) A group of sexy single people live in a luxurious resort vying against each other to see who can stay in paradise the longest. Each week the singles choose a partner with whom they must share a room.

Chasing the Moon This film by Robert Stone reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much of the conventional mythology surrounding the lunar landing.

Country Music This highly anticipated series from Ken Burns explores the history of country music, from its deep roots in ballads, blues and hymns performed to its worldwide popularity.

Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies This film analyzes the present-day landscape and contextualizes it by looking back at key epochs of history when propaganda defined nations and kept populations in check.

Something in the Air Investigates the risks in the air we breathe that can affect our brains and our DNA, and how new technology is changing the equation for the better.

Lost Viking Army Bioarchaeologists investigate a 9th century mass grave in a rural English village. Will the remains unlock a legendary Viking fighting force that once invaded England?

Decoding the Great Pyramid New archeological evidence sheds light on the stunning engineering of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Life with Dog (Family/drama, 1x106 min.)

After the mysterious death of his wife, Joe Bigler rescues a dog and with that dog comes a new understanding of love, mercy, and compassion.

RAINBOW

O (39-071) 7506-7500 m info@rbw.it

The Royal Beverlys Prayer Box (Family, 1x103 min.) With his sister suffering from terminal cancer, a young boy takes it upon himself to get God’s attention by answering the prayers of members of his church in hopes that God will heal his sister.

RABBIT FILMS

O (358-50) 593-3891 m jonathan.tuovinen@rabbitfilms.com

w www.rabbitformats.com

Contact: Jonathan Tuovinen, COO & head, intl.; Olli Suominen, CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Most Endangered Species with WWF (Fact-ent., 8x60 min.) Travel series featuring the world’s most fascinating endangered animals. A real scientist travels with a comedian to the outermost corners of the world.

Best Christmas Food Ever One Hour That Changed The World: The Moon Landing (Doc., 1x60 min.) Celebrates the historic 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in a fresh and distinctive style.

How The Other Kids Live (Fact-ent., 3x60 min.) Three families, three play dates, three radically different households.

My House and Other Animals (Doc., 2x60 min.) Across the country, an army of extraordinary people have opened their homes and their hearts to all kinds of creatures great and small.

Superfactories (Doc., 8x60 min.) Factfilled series lifts the lid on the production of superfactories.

Grime and Punishment (Doc., 6x60 min.) Follows the people who have to deal with the sharp end of our trash mountains, horrible hotels and revolting restaurants.

Best Christmas Food Ever (Lifestyle, 10x60 min.) Michelin-starred Chef Paul Ainsworth and popular home cook Catherine Fulvio host a festive feast.

The Sex Clinic (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) Each client who walks through the clinic doors has a different story to tell and a very specific problem that needs solving.

Mums Make Porn (Fact-ent., 3x60 min.) A group of five charismatic mothers with teenage children are given the tools to create their very own porn film and showcase their version of happy, healthy sex.

PBS INTERNATIONAL

O (1-617) 208-0747

w pbsinternational.org

Stand: P-1.G66 Contact: Tom Koch, VP; Germaine Deagan Sweet, mng. dir., coprod. & drama acq.; Betsy LeBlanc, dir., sales; Anna Alvord, snr. sales mgr.; Nanci Church, sales mgr.; Sarah Marks, mktg. & strategy mgr.; Richard Kingsbury, GM, PBS America; Katie Cook, head, pgmng., PBS America.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Woodstock Explores what took place among the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half-a-million strong throng of young people who gathered for three days of peace and love in 1969.

Country Music Sex Trafficking in America FRONTLINE investigates the unimaginable stories of young women coerced into prostitution, and follows one police unit that is committed to rooting it out.

When Whales Walked: A Deep Time Journey With awe-inspiring animals from Vancouver to Madagascar, this film travels millions of years into the past to unravel their ancient stories.

Charley Pride: I’m Just Me See how country star Charley Pride used music to triumph over prejudice and injustice.

PURE FLIX/QUALITY FLIX

O (1-818) 564-6942 m ron.assist@pureflix.com

The Most Endangered Species with WWF

w www.QualityFlix.com

Stand: R7.M2 Contact: Ron Gell, VP, intl. sales & dist.; Maria Ribeiro, intl. mktg. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Royal Beverlys (Family comedy, 8x25 min.) A scripted family comedy about three very talented young orphan singers.

Malibu Dan (Family comedy, S1: 13x25 min., S2: 11x25 min.) Follows Dan Marshall as he juggles his home life with wife and daughter and the demands as co-host of the pre-dawn talk show Good Morning, Malibu.

The Encounter (Thriller/mystery, S1: 8x30 min., S2: 8x44 min.) A group of strangers find themselves brought together for an unknown reason in this mystery thriller.

Sweet Inspirations (Romance/comedy, 1x102 min.) Four middle-aged ladies discover purpose when they launch a unique fundraising effort to save a local women’s shelter from imminent foreclosure, testing the limits of their friendship and themselves.

Christmas Manger (Holiday/drama, 1x90 min.) An elderly man struggles with the death of his wife until his estranged foster child and her young daughter re-enter his life and give him a new purpose to live.

Stripped Club (Ent., 8x60 min.) A famous musician sits down with a host for an in-depth interview. Between the discussion, the musician performs their latest acoustic hits in an intimate 360-degree venue surrounded by the audience.

Over the Atlantic (Reality, 8x60 min.) Six celebrities are given a once in a lifetime challenge to sail across the Atlantic Ocean.

City vs Country (Game show, 12x60 min) Two hosts take the teams through three rounds of the game to see which side dominates: city or country?

Couples’ Party (Game show, 12x60 min.)

Three couples who are friends compete with each other in a fun-filled and saucy studio show, revealing all of their secrets.

Don’t You Know Who I Am? (Game show, 12x60 min.) A celebrity-based quiz show where eight contestants compete for prize money by guessing the guest celebrity’s life numbers such as their IQ level.

The Awards Show (Ent., 10x90 min.) Live prime-time shiny floor comedy series where celebrity comedians prove that winning has never been so funny.

Globetrotters (Ent., 8x60 min.) Three unsuspecting celebrities each get dropped off at a random point and have to solve clues to pick up eight objects from eight different locations in the world. The first one back in the homeland wins the race.

Queen of the Day (Ent., 8x60 min.) Eight former beauty pageant winners from different decades are brought together for an unforgettable eight-day journey.

What’s The Word? (Game show, 10x60 min.) Word-guessing celebrity game show in which each player tries to explain a word in a way that as few as possible of the other contestants would get it right, but avoiding an outcome that no one or every contestant guesses the word.

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 451

w www.rbw.it

Stand: R7.H2 Contact: Iginio Straffi, fndr. & CEO; Joanne Lee, COO; Cristiana Buzzelli, SVP, lic. & acq.; Andrea Graciotti, head, sales & coprod.; Silvia Quintili, digital rights mgr.; Simone Borgarelli, sales exec. & home video category mgr.; Lorena Vaccari, VP, global mktg.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 44 Cats (CGI comedy, 52x13 min.) Follows the adventures of a group of cat musicians. The stories explore the themes of friendship, altruism and helping others.

Winx Club Season 8 (Adventure/action 2D, 26x30 min.) The Winx fairies embark on a cosmic adventure that will lead them to the farthest reaches of the Magic Universe to save the stars themselves.

Club 57 (Live-action comedy, 60x45 min.)

In this co-pro with Nickelodeon, Eva time travels to 1957 and falls in love with JJ. Will she decide to remain in the past, triggering a butterfly effect that could change their lives forever?

Shark4 (Comedy 2D, 52x11 min.) The unusual adventures of Norman, a 10-year-old boy, who helps out Wallie and his team of lifeguards—who just happen to be super-powered sharks.

2 Happy Farmers (Comedy 2D, 78x7 min.)

A brother and sister bear run their farm with a little help—and a lot of distractions—from cheerful farm animals and friendly talking vehicles.

Dancing Horses (Comedy CGI, 52x11 min.)

Three friends and their magical horses join forces to save Dance World from a villain who wants to bring music and dance to an end.

Pinocchio (Adventure comedy CGI, 26x30 min.) Magic turned Pinocchio into a real boy, but he must now defeat a great danger to save the other world—and his new life!

Regal Academy (Comedy 2D toonshade, S12: 52x30 min.) Fairytales come to life at Regal Academy, where Rose Cinderella and her classmates must combine study with dealing with their families.

Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends (Liveaction comedy, S1-3: 78x30 min.) Maggie and Bianca meet at the Milan Fashion Academy, where they follow their dreams and discover secrets that change their lives forever.

Club 57

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TV LISTINGS

World of Winx (Action/mystery 2D, S1-2: 26x30 min.) The Winx travel the world searching for talent for WOW! and preventing the talent thief from kidnapping them.

RECORD TV

O (55-11) 3300-4022 m emendes@recordtv.com.br

Flight 716, starring Emmy Award winner Archie Panjabi and Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer.

Renovate Don’t Relocate (Reality format) Mixes smart technology, design and engaging stories to create a home-makeover show that transforms homes and the way they are used.

w www.recordtvnetwork.com

Stand: P-1.K59 Contact: Delmar Andrade, intl. sales dir.; Edson Mendes, intl. sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Jesus (Soap opera) For the first time the trajectory of the man who changed mankind will be told in its entirety.

Leah (Series) At age eight, after the death of her mother during Rachel’s birth, Leah is forced to take responsibility for the care of the newborn sister.

criminal cases of the past two decades, where technology has changed the course of the investigations and brought the guilty to justice.

Overexposed (TV movie) Erin, the teen daughter of the county sheriff, didn’t mean to hurt Taylor, school baseball star and class president, just stop him. She tries to cover up the murder, but instead it sets other murders in motion.

Project Dad (Reality, 8x60 min.) Follows Donnell Rawlings (comedian, Chapelle’s Show), Daniel Cosgrove (actor, Days of Our Lives) and DJ Skribble (disc jockey, MTV’s TRL) as they step out of the spotlight and into the role of Mr. Mom. Egg Factor (Docureality, 10x60 min.) Follows the journeys of intended parents who need the help of egg donors in order to have a baby.

Vienna Blood

Leah Apocalypse (Soap opera) A story of love, spirituality and redemption in portraying one of the most controversial topics in the Holy Bible: the end of times.

The Rich and Lazarus (Soap opera, 187x45 min.) A love triangle develops between childhood friends Asher, Joanne and Zach, who will also have to deal with the invasion of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar.

The Promised Land (Soap opera, 179x50 min.) After Moses’ death, Joshua, the new leader of the Hebrews, must fulfill a difficult mission ordered by God: to command the 12 tribes of Israel in their conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land.

The Slave Mother (Soap opera, 151x60 min.

4K) The tale of the light-skinned slave girl who was obsessively pursued by Mr. Leôncio won over the world; none of this story would have happened without the characters of this series.

Moses and the Ten Commandments (Soap opera, 242x60 min.) The story of Moses, from his birth to the arrival of his people in the Promised Land, through the Red Sea crossing and the encounter with God on Mount Sinai.

RED ARROW STUDIOS INTERNATIONAL

O (49-89) 9507-7303 m sales@redarrowstudios.com

w redarrowstudios.com/international Stand: P4.C14 Contact: Bo Stehmeier, pres.; Tim Gerhartz, SVP, global sales; Alex Fraser, SVP, acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Vienna Blood (Drama, 3x90 min./6x45 min.)

New crime drama set in 1900s Vienna, where cultures and ideas collide in the city’s cafes and opera houses, from acclaimed screenwriter Steve Thompson.

The Weekly (Factual, 30x27 min.) The firstever narrative news TV series from The New York Times, bringing the newspaper’s unparalleled journalism and insight to the TV screen for the first time.

Departure (Thriller, 6x45 min.) A conspiracy thriller about the shocking disappearance of

Bad Mothers (Drama, 8x45 min.) New drama series about Sarah, whose seemingly perfect life as loving wife and doting mother comes crashing down as she discovers her husband’s affair with her best friend.

Every Family Has a Secret (Fact-ent. format) Follows ordinary people on life-changing journeys as they explore long-held family secrets, revealing hidden pasts, deceit and lies, and buried scandals.

The Girl from St. Agnes (Drama, 8x52 min.) At a prestigious all-girls boarding school in South Africa, the mysterious death of a schoolgirl sets in motion a thrilling series of events.

Next Exit: Love (Ent. format) Two singles are matched by a relationship expert and have a quirky blind date in a car.

The Curse of the Vologne (True crime, 4x45 min.) The extraordinary true story of the tragic murder of 4-year-old Grégory Villemin that continues to haunt France.

Beat the Rooms (Game-show format) The only action game show where players are challenged not to do something, all with wacky, hilarious results!

O (7-495) 955-8920 m ref.ste@vgtrk.com

w sales.vgtrk.com

Stand: R7.E1 Contact: Julia Matiash, dir., Sovtelexport; Maria Dorokhina, head, intl. sales, worldwide, except CIS & Baltics; Ekaterina Grigorieva, head, sales, CIS & Baltics; Elizaveta Shcherbakova, mgr., intl. sales; Anastasia Krasnova, mgr., intl. sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Godunov (Historical drama, 17x52 min.) Sixteenth century. The mysterious death of the heir to the throne ends the rule of an ancient dynasty.

For the first time, the Russian people elect a Tsar. It is Boris Godunov.

Blackout (Crime drama, 11x44 min.) In turbulent 1990s Russia, a veteran of the SovietAfghan war comes home to find a completely different country. Unable to find his place he arms himself again and commits an audacious robbery.

Written in Blood Written in Blood (Crime, 16x60 min.) Brings fact and fiction together as bestselling thriller writers meet other top crime writers to discuss how their works of fiction have been inspired by real-life crimes.

RTVE

O (34-91) 581-7827 m comercial.canales@rtve.es

w www.rtve.es/commercial

Stand: R7.L15 Contact: María Jesús Pérez, intl. sales dir.; Tony Pérez Bonilla, intl. sales exec.; María José Loranca, intl. sales exec.; David Priego San Juan, intl. sales exec.; Gregorio Lanseros, mktg. mgr.

RIVE GAUCHE TELEVISION

O (1-818) 784-9912 m marine@rgitv.com

w www.rgitv.com

Stand: P-1.H75 Contact: Jon Kramer, CEO; Marine Ksadzhikyan, SVP, dist. & dvpmt.; Tomas Silva, VP, intl. sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS I Saw The Unknown (Paranormal, 10x60 min.)

Features stories of people recounting how they lived through terrifying experiences of unexplained phenomena, transporting the audience into what it would have been like to experience these frightening happenings firsthand.

My Misdiagnosis (Medical doc., 26x60 min.)

Each episode features two cases told by the people who were misdiagnosed, their friends, family and doctors.

Something’s Killing Me (Medical doc., 18x60 min.) Examines puzzling behaviors and diseases that result in near-death struggles. Each episode chronicles a race against time to discover what, or who, is killing the patient.

Homicide’s Elite (Crime, 24x60 min.) Features the most baffling, shocking and heartbreaking cases Detectives David Quinn and Vince Velazquez have worked in their combined 50 years on the street.

Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files (Crime, 26x60 min.) Renowned undercover reporter and crime journalist Donal MacIntyre examines the most horrific and fascinating crimes.

Trace of Evil (Crime, 52x60 min.) Explores and reconstructs some of the most intriguing

RUSSIA TELEVISION AND RADIO/SOVTELEXPORT

La Caza. Monteperdido PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS La Caza. Monteperdido (Drama, 8x70 min.)

Five years ago, two 11-year-old girls disappeared in a village in the Pyrenees. After an extensive search and the unsuccessful attempts by the authorities to find any clues, the case was never solved. Now, one of the girls has returned.

Promesas de Arena (Drama, 6x70 min.)

Follows the story of Lucía, played by Andrea Duro, who lands in Libya as an aid worker and ends up experiencing a unique love and mystery story.

Hospital Valle Norte (Drama, 10x70 min.) At a university hospital, the main characters will have to face complex medical cases while trying to keep their personal lives aside.

Derecho a Soñar (Daily series, 130x50 min.) A daily series set in a major law firm in which reallife cases are presented.

452 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Two Tickets Home Two Tickets Home (Drama, 1x94 min.) Lyuba, who lives in an orphanage and dreams of becoming a stewardess, learns that her father is alive and in prison for her mother’s murder. Now revenge is her life goal.

Volition (Action, 4x44 min.) On holiday in Thailand, Alexander’s daughter Sonia is kidnapped by a local mafia boss—she is a perfect donor for his terminally-ill child. Both fathers will stop at nothing to save their daughters.

Desperate Wives (Drama, 16x50-53 min.)

Four Russian women—a teacher, a ballet dancer, a nurse and a housewife—find themselves on the brink of extreme poverty in the turbulent 1990s. No challenge will stop them from earning a living and supporting their families.

Anna Karenina (Drama, 8x42-47 min.) New vision of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel. Late 19th century, Russian high society, St. Petersburg aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a reckless love affair with the dashing count Alexey Vronsky.

T-34 (Engineering/WWII, 1x44 min.) T-34 is a legendary Soviet tank of World War II, a symbol of unprecedented labor and the feats of the Soviet people in the most dreadful war of the 20th century.

Leningrad: Day 901 (WWII, 1x44 min.) A film about the first day after the Siege of Leningrad ended, when people started to realize that all the horrors were left behind them.

Solgenitsin: Confession (Bio./culture, 1x64 min.) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn talks about the future of Russia and the world in the 21st century. He discusses the moral code, modern literature and, of course, tells about himself and his very personal secrets.

Up to the Sky (Lifestyle, 1x44 min.) Sixteen brave girls, selected from all over Russia, learn to drive powerful fighter aircrafts.

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TV LISTINGS 27

SERIOUS LUNCH

O (44-20) 8771-7310 m gdexter@seriouslunch.co.uk,

Whiskey & His Friends (2D, 26x7 min.)

Whiskey and his friends live on the great oak nearby the small lake where, every day, they meet and discover the nature that surrounds them.

for preschoolers. Season three available summer 2019.

Wissper (CGI preschool adventure/comedy, S1-2: 104x7 min.) Wissper is a little girl who can talk to animals. She can sense their feelings and thus she can help animals around the world.

Arthur and the Minimoys—The Series (CGI adventure/fantasy, 26x24 min.) Arthur found the world of the Minimoys and visits his friends Selenia and Betameche. This time the King of the Minimoys is organizing the resistance against tyrant Malthazar.

louledcheikh@seriouslunch.co.uk

w www.seriouslunch.co.uk

Stand: P-1.B60/C61 Contact: Genevieve Dexter, fndr. & CEO; Leila Ouledcheikh, dir., global sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Art Ninja (Kids, 40x26 min., 15x20 min.)

This BAFTA nominated Dot to Dot Productions series for CBBC is a modernized art show using techniques like stencils or Pointillism, as well as video art/animation. Fifth season in production.

SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL

O (1-202) 261-1700 m ideas@smithsonianchannel.com

w www.smithsonianchannel.com

Contact: David Royle, EVP & chief pgmng. officer; Chris Hoelzl, SVP, research & dvpmt.; Sirjaut Dhariwal, coord., pgm. dvpmt.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Green Book: The Guide to Freedom (History, 1x60 min.) The true story of the “underground” motorist’s travel guide featured in the awardwinning Hollywood movie about racial segregation in 1960s America.

Apollo’s Moon Shot (Science & space, 6x60 min.) From America’s first manned orbit to the last man on the moon. Told by astronauts and scientists, with Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s unrivalled collection.

America in Color (History, 11x60 min.) This landmark series uses colorization to tell the story of America in color for the first time and brings history back to life.

Gigglebug Gigglebug (Preschool, 52x5 min.) Based on the award-winning mobile app of the same title, this picture-book series boasts an extensive and ongoing publishing program of board, story and audio books plus apps.

Horrible Science (Kids, 10x26 min.) A show within a show starring the producer Lucy, the hopeless host Mark, a vain robot, Bob, and a frustrated animatronic brain, Professor McTaggert.

Operation Ouch! (Kids, 84x26 min.) Now in its seventh season for CBBC, this double BAFTA Award-winning, Emmy-nominated series stars Dr Chris and Dr Xand, twin doctors who help kids understand their amazing bodies and how they fix themselves.

Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter (Kids, 26x26 min.) The International Emmy Award-winning animated series from Studio Ghibli, based on the book by Astrid Lindgren.

SHOWLAB

O (39-011) 347-0338 m bastiancich.a@showlab.it azoury.m@showlab.it

w www.showlab.it

Stand: R7.K3 Contact: Corrado Camilla, CEO; Guido Bertè, GM, consumer products & kids’ content, Prodea Group; Alfio Bastiancich, GM, animation & youth programs; Micheline Azoury, dir., sales & acq.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Miracle Tunes (Live action & CGI, 51x26 min.)

A group of idol warriors fight negativity using the power of music and dance, accumulating harmonic energy in order to defeat Demon, the Lord of Darkness.

YoYo (3D CGI, S1-2: 104x7 min.) The protagonists are two twins, Yo and Yo, who use their imagination to travel in fantasy worlds helping those in need and always finding out that two heads are better than one.

Apollo’s Moon Shot Mystic Britain (History, 10x60 min.) Evidence of Britain’s mystic past is everywhere, from mysterious stone circles to Ice Age shamanism, from witch marks to pagan statues.

Epic Yellowstone (Natural history, 4x60 min.) A breathtaking portrait of Yellowstone, the home of the most spectacular landscapes and wildlife in America. Filmed over three years in 4K/UHD. The Lost Tapes (History, 10x60 min.) Uses contemporary film and audio to retell events in real time as they occurred. Includes Pearl Harbor, the L.A. riots, Patty Hearst’s kidnapping and Malcolm X. Carriers at War (Science & aviation, 4x60 min.) Unique access to America’s fleet of aircraft carriers, including the construction of the $14 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, the ultimate evolution of naval technology.

Aerial Britain (Travel & adventure, 4x60 min.)

The latest in the Aerial franchise, filmed in 4K/UHD. An exploration of Britain’s natural wonders and history from above.

Atomic Age Declassified (History & science, 3x60 min.) Untold stories of a time that brought us to the edge of human possibility—and the verge of total annihilation—more times than we ever knew.

America’s Hidden Stories (History, 8x60 min.) New investigations into stories including the Salem witches, a Pearl Harbor spy network, the origins of the Spanish Flu and a Cold War cyberattack.

STAR INDIA

O (91-22) 6173-1648 m contentinfo@startv.com

w www.contentsales.startv.com

YoYo

Stand: P-1.D51 Contact: Leena Salins, VP, content lic.; Shruti Raghavendran, mgr., content lic.; Deep Hegiste, mgr., content lic.

Kasauti Zindagi Kay PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Kasauti Zindagi Kay (Love Conquers All?) (Romance, 260x30 min.) A soul-stirring story of love, betrayal and revenge, India’s biggest show of 2019.

Kullfi Kumar Bajewala (The Singing Star) (Drama, 260x30 min.) The story of a 7-year-old girl whose voice could move stone hearts. Will that help her in her quest to find her real father?

Ishqbaaaz (The Love Gamblers) (Drama, S1-3: 800x30 min.) These three cousin brothers are extremely close and always have each other’s backs. But will their love stand the test of wealth and family politics?

Krishna Chali London (Krishna’s London Dreams) (Drama, 260x30 min.) The new hit of 2019 asks the all-important question, if you love someone, can you really set them free? Is true love really about letting go?

Naamkaran (The Naming) (Drama, S1-2: 463x30 min.) The story of a girl’s struggle to shed her illegitimate status as she carves a path to make a name for herself and find true love.

Karn Sangini (Karna’s Wife) (Costume drama, 260x30 min.) Why did a beautiful princess born into a blue-blooded royal family choose to become the outcaste’s queen? Based on the events of the mythological epic Mahabharat.

Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon Season 1 (Strange Love Season 1) (Drama, 398x30 min.) The love story of two star-crossed lovers has been a huge hit in Turkey and 50 other countries.

Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon Season 2 (Strange Love Season 2) (Drama, 542x30 min.) The second installment of the globally successful franchise. A huge hit in more than 25 countries across the globe.

Nazar (The Evil Eye) (Drama, 200x30 min.) A supernatural thriller about a family trying to avert an upcoming misfortune prophesized on their eldest son because of a spell cast by a witch.

RadhaKrishn (Radha & Krishna) (Drama, 260x30 min.) The story of Radha and lord Krishna in Indian mythology is the epitome of unconditional love. In the contest for supremacy between devotion and love, will love emerge victorious?

STUDIO 100 MEDIA & M4E

O (49-89) 960-855-0 m distribution@studio100media.com

w www.studio100.m4e.de

Stand: R7.C15 Contact: Hans Bourlon, CEO, Studio 100; Ulli Stoef, CEO, Studio 100 Media & m4e; Jo Daris, CCO; Dorian Bühr, head, global dist.; Tanja Aichberger Schätzle, snr. sales exec.; Anke Manthey, sales project mgr.; Petra Keil, dir., channel & pgm. mngmt.; Lisette Looman, group content & prod. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Heidi (CGI adventure, S1-2: 65x22 min.) Old and new adventures of the happy and communicative orphan girl who handles all challenges of everyday life with a smile.

Tip the Mouse (CGI preschool comedy, S1-3: 104x7 min.) From a best-selling children’s book series, little Tip is pure fun and curiosity

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 453

Heidi Random & Whacky (Live-action comedy, 15x24 min.) Comedy series about a top-secret agency that solves the problems faced by reallife kids.

Drop Dead Weird (Live-action comedy, 26x24 min.) Three Aussie kids trying to fit into their new hometown are harboring an enormous secret: their parents are zombies.

Maya the Bee (CGI preschool adventure, S1-2: 130x13 min.) Two seasons featuring exciting adventures with Maya, the little bee who is so unlike any of the other bees, and her very best friends.

Mia and me (Fantasy/adventure, S1-3: 78x23 min.) The adventures of Mia and her friends in the magical land of Centopia, where they have to protect unicorns from all kinds of villains.

Nils Holgersson (CGI adventure, 52x13 min.)

One day an elf changes Nils into a miniature human. With his faithful friend Martin the gander, Nils embarks on an extraordinary journey among the wild geese.

Ghost Rockers (Live-action mystery, 209x12 min. & 1x92 min.) In teenage soap-style, five friends with big dreams and a raw musical talent discover haunted spirits of an old rock band that help them turn the tide.

STUDIOCANAL

O (44-20) 7534-2700 m sales@studiocanaltv.com

w www.studiocanaltvseries.com Stand: P1.A1 Contact: Francoise Guyonnet, exec. mng. dir., STUDIOCANAL TV; Anna Marsh, EVP, intl. dist., film & TV series; Beatriz Campos, head, intl. sales; Chloé Vidal, sales coord.; Sarah Mottershead, sales exec.; Elise Woolfe, sales dir.; Sandra Munivrana, sales asst., STUDIOCANAL TV; Rola Bauer, mng. dir., STUDIOCANAL TV; Stéphanie Bro, SVP, mktg. & publicity, TV series; Sebastian Miska, snr. sales mgr., TV/digital series acq., Germany; Milena Thomsen, sales mgr., TV dist., Germany; Katheryn Needham, head, TV & digital sales, U.K. & Ireland; Julia Breatas, snr. mgr., TV sales, U.K. & Ireland; Imrun Islam, snr. mgr., digital sales, U.K. & Ireland; Juliette Hochart, head, intl. library sales; Maxime Vauthier, intl. library sales mgr.; Victoire Lefevre, intl. library sales mgr.; Pauline Saint-Hilaire, VP, intl. library sales; Laure de Boissard, SVP, TV/SVOD, France; Camille Soudan, sales coord., France; Zelda Camilleri, sales mgr., pay TV/SVOD, France; François Ragueneau, sales mgr., pay TV/SVOD, France; Lionel Balzan, head., acq., video, TV & new media mgr., France; Yann Le Prado, EVP, library; Jonas Bauer, VP, sales.

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TV LISTINGS

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Years and Years (Drama, 6x60 min.) Follows the Lyons, a busy Manchester family, over the course of the next 15 years. Society gets faster, madder, with the turmoil of politics, technology and distant wars affecting the Lyons in their dayto-day lives.

forgotten wonders and original series. The series has been designed to open children up to other cultures.

Helen’s Little School (Preschool comedy 3D, 52x11 min.) Follows 5-year-old Helen and her unruly toy students in this not-soordinary class, where they will discover that helping and listening to each other is the best way to learn.

Kika & Bob (Kids comedy/educational 2D, 52x13 min.) Kika, a gutsy 9-year-old girl, and Bob, a not so clever but kindhearted fireman, travel the world with a goal: to go back home and save Tiger, Kika’s kitten and best friend.

the outside world about ideas of what it means to be different.

Murder Wall (Crime & investigation, 10x60 min.) Turning viewers into detectives as, right before their eyes, they see clues come together to some of the most baffling and challenging homicides ever faced by the cops.

Savage Australia (Animals/pets, 12x60 min.)

It’s a destination famous for its unique natural wonders, but scratch the surface and a dark side of Australia reveals itself as unforgiving, harsh and deadly.

Secrets of the Railway (History, 6x60 min.)

Whether it’s war, continental expansion, trade, recreation or something more sinister, we take the viewer into a lost world to explain what the railway delivered.

Uglydolls (Feature film) Dolls come from a magical village where everything is perfect. There are also the Uglydolls, the imperfect and maladjusted stuffed dolls that live in UglyVille. What would happen if these two worlds come together?

After (Feature film) Based on Anna Todd’s bestselling YA novel, follows Tessa, a dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend, who meets a magnetic, brooding rebel, making her question all she thought she knew about herself and what she wants out of life.

TERRA MATER FACTUAL STUDIOS

O (43-1) 87003-0 m office@terramater.at,

sven.westphal@terramater.at

w www.terramater.at Years and Years Sanctuary (Psychological thriller, 8x60 min.) Hel receives an invitation to visit her estranged twin, Siri, at an exclusive residential sanatorium. Much to her horror, she wakes up the next day to find Siri gone, and realizes the clinic is anything but a place of recovery.

Instinto (Erotic thriller, 8x60 min.) Marco Mur is an attractive, successful businessman.

Haunted by ghosts from his past, he finds comfort in a private erotic club. But everything changes when Marco meets Carol, her brother’s educational psychologist.

Trust Me (Psychological thriller, S2: 4x60 min.) From the confinement of his hospital bed, a former war hero must adapt to his new life as a paraplegic, all whilst trying to get to the bottom of whether someone in the ward is killing off the patients.

Below the Surface (Action thriller, S2: 8x60 min.) Former Terror Task Force agent Philip investigates the disappearance of a student who fought against ISIS. When his search turns into a hostage situation on a ferry, he finds himself in the middle of an international political crisis.

Illegals (Spy thriller, 10x60 min.) Konrad, head of an elite unit of the Polish intelligence, learns about a planned terrorist attack in Sweden. A murderous race against the clock starts.

Vernon Subutex (Drama, 9x30 min.) Takes us to today’s vibrant Parisian streets and reveals unusual characters, whose lives are all set to be united by one man—Vernon, former owner of legendary record shop Revolver.

Spiral (Crime drama, S7: 12x60 min.) After six thrilling seasons, Berthaud and Gilou are being brought back together by a double homicide in a Chinese restaurant located in the district of Belleville.

Invisibles—A Childhood in Africa (Drama, 10x60 min.) Chaka and his older sister, Hadjara, decide to leave their debt-ridden parents. To survive, Hadjara finds a job, but Chaka, too young to work, is introduced to a gang leader.

On Death Row (True-crime drama, 4x60 min.)

Narrates how Pablo Ibar, accused of a triple murder in Miami he insists he didn’t commit, has fought to have a fair trial since 1994.

SUPERIGHTS

O (33) 516-500-016 m sales@superights.net

w www.superights.net

Stand: R7.K28 Contact: Nathalie Pinguet, deputy mng. dir., intl. sales & acq.; Pedro Citaristi, sales mgr.; Jérômine Ader, sales mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Pat the Dog (Kids cartoon comedy 3D, 141x7 min., 4x26 min. & 10x1.5 min.) Tells the daily adventures of an ordinary little dog, Pat, and his owner, Lola. Pat would do anything to save Lola’s day.

Story Time! (Preschool/family 2D, 26x13 min. & 1x26 min.) A collection of beautiful tales, both

Stand: R7.C30 Contact: Sabine Holzer, head, specialist factual; Sven Westphal, snr. intl. coprod. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Cantabria—Spain’s Magical Mountains (Nature, 1x50 min./2x50 min./1x90 min.) The Cantabrian region is a kingdom of forests, rough canyons, high mountains and amazing wildlife, filled with primeval landscapes where fantasy and reality blurs.

Helen ’s Little School Bo Bear (Preschool/family live action, 52x5 min. & 1x60 min.) In each episode, a kid faces a new situation that could sound difficult or challenging, but with the help of Bo Bear, it becomes a life-learning lesson.

The Horn Quartet (Kids/family 2D, 2x26 min.)

In the course of an amusing trip to the beach, four cows will discover freedom in an unknown world that extends far from their meadow.

Puffin Rock (Preschool comedy 2D, 78x7 min.)

Set on a beautiful island off the Irish coast.

Nature and wildlife are central to the stories of Oona and Baba, a cute sister and brother puffling pair.

Clay Time (Preschool edutainment 2D, 30x3 min. & 30 live tutorials) The show invites 3- to 5year-olds to develop their imagination with a universal activity: modeling clay.

Will (Kids comedy 2D, 52x2 min.) Will is a highly energetic and clever boy who lives his life to the fullest in a wheelchair.

Boyster (Kids comedy 2D, 52x13 min.)

Half oyster, half human, Boyster is different from the other boys in this comedy series dealing with universal topics such as finding one’s identity, social exclusion and the desire to fit in.

TCB MEDIA RIGHTS

O (44-203) 970-5577 m office@tcbmediarights.com

w www.tcbmediarights.com

Stand: R8.D3 Contact: Paul Heaney, CEO; Dina Subhani, dir.; Jimmy Humphrey, head, acq. & coprod.; Hannah Demidowicz, commissioning editor; Nicola Davey, acq. & coprod. exec.; Simona Argenti, snr. sales mgr.; Holly Newey, snr. sales mgr.; Holly Cowdery, sales mgr.; Lenneke De Jong, sales mgr.; Claire Lowe, commercial & business affairs dir.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Anna Gare’s Taxi Fare (Food, 10x30 min.) Follows celebrity cook Anna Gare as she gathers stories and recipes from 13 taxi drivers to recreate their favorite dishes as simple family meals at home.

The Car Years (Reality/ent., 6x30 min.) Tells the story behind the world’s best-loved cars and how their designs reflected the era in which they first rolled off the production line.

Dirty Tricks (Reality/ent., 6x60 min.) Ryan Tricks is a mind reader and a magician, but he’s not about pulling rabbits out of hats. This brandnew show takes magic to a darker place.

The House of Extraordinary People (Reality/ent., 3x60 min.) Follows nine people, all with striking physical differences, living together in a house for ten days, challenging

The Car Years The Shocking Truth About Food (Food, 1x60 min.) This shockumentary exposes the horrific ingredients that are in the food we eat every day.

Train Truckers (History, 6x60 min.) Follows an elite crew of train truckers, mechanics and railway enthusiasts as they race to haul the heaviest, longest and most precious trucks around the world.

Ultimate Mysteries (Science & tech., 10x60 min.) A thrilling and eye-opening journey into the heart of some of the world’s biggest mysteries.

TELEFILMS

O (54-11) 5252-2100 m telefilms@telefilms.com.ar

w www.telefilms.com.ar

Contact: Tomás Darcyl, pres.; Ricardo Costianovsky, CEO; Gonzalo Claiman-Versini, dir., Diamond Films España; Bruce Boren, CEO, THR3 Media Group.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Green Book (Feature film) A warmhearted and often hilarious road movie about two very different, strong-willed men who break through barriers of race, class and education to form a deep and enduring bond.

Green Book Greta (Feature film) A contemporary psychological thriller from Academy Award winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), about a young woman who strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic widow.

Second Act (Feature film) When a big box store employee reinvents her life and her lifestyle, she gets the chance to prove to Madison Avenue that street smarts are as valuable as a college degree, and that it is never too late for a second act.

454 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Dragons & Damsels Dogs in the Land of Lions (Nature, 1x50 min.) A deeply intimate portrayal of selflessness and motherhood in the rare African Wild Dog plays out in the mist-shrouded Zimbabwean hilltops.

Whale Wisdom (Nature, 1x50 min.) With renowned filmmaker Rick Rosenthal we embark on a journey to make first contact with the culture of the whales.

The Sun—Inferno in the Sky (Science, 1x50 min.) Our sun is a dynamic star. The most recent scientific findings and innovations are combined in this film to better be able to cope with this inferno playing out in the sky.

Amazing Pigs (Nature, 1x50 min.) Unafraid of frostbite or heatstroke, they reside anywhere from Siberia to the Bahamas. Exploring their lives we ask, what is the key to their success?

Mystery of the Celtic Tomb (Science, 1x50 min.) Amid the European Alps, remarkable evidence of Celtic culture has been found. It may be the first real evidence of mystical rites from the dawn of the Celts.

Earth—The Nature of Our Planet (Nature, 3x50 min.) Geological marvels, spectacular weather, mysteries of the plant and animal kingdoms are all inextricably linked and shaped by air, land and water.

Dragons & Damsels (Nature, 1x50 min.)

More beautiful than butterflies, better fliers than hummingbirds and with behavior as intriguing and complex as either mammals or birds, dragonflies and damselflies are the ultimate insects.

Grasslands—North America’s Hidden Wilderness (Nature, 1x50 min.) Pairing blue-chip wildlife behavior with rangers, scientists and First Nations, this film is a journey through one of the planet’s least known, most beautiful and most endangered ecosystems: the Northern Great Plains.

*LIST_419_ALT2.qxp_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 3/21/19 11:16 AM Page 29

TV LISTINGS 29 Tall & Tiny—Nature’s Extremes (Nature, 1x50 min.) Tremendously tall or ridiculously small: nature never ceases to surprise. Meet the obvious and the obscure, where nothing is as it seems and even insignificant individuals become formidable.

and actresses. Will they fall in love for real while rehearsing and filming romantic TV dramas?

Ossan’s Love (Drama, 7x60 min.) Haruta, a 33-year-old bachelor, is desperately looking for a girlfriend. Suddenly he finds himself the object of desire of two male co-workers.

THE STORY LAB

m hello@storylab.com

w www.storylab.com

Contact: Michael Iskas, pres., The Story Lab Global; Fotini Paraskakis, EVP, ent.; Luci Sanan, SVP, acq. & business dvpmt.; Mike Jackson, sales dir., The Story Lab Global.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS No Sleep No Fomo (Reality format, 8x60 min.)

Drops two celebrities into an amazing city with a time limit of just 60 hours to complete the ultimate bucket list.

TWOFOUR

O (44-1752) 727-400 m sales@twofour-rights.co.uk

w www.twofour-rights.co.uk Tokyo Bachelors

Game of Clones Street Stars (Competition format, 35x5 min. & 1x90 min. live finale) Buskers and grass-roots talent perform for the public and online communities in an opportunity of a lifetime.

Kick the Habit (Reality format, 6x45 min.) Two beloved and well-known celebrities have accepted the challenge to break a dirty habit and quit smoking—for good.

Game of Clones (Reality format, 20x30 min.)

One singleton uses the latest technology to create an avatar of their ideal partner before we find them eight dates who look exactly the same.

With the suitors looking identical, it all comes down to personality.

TV ASAHI CORPORATION

O (81-3) 6406-1952 m ml-international@tv-asahi.co.jp

Legal V (Drama, 9x60 min.) Shoko, a former lawyer, takes any risks needed to win in court although she has been disqualified. dele (Drama, 8x60 min.) If you die unexpectedly, what will happen to the digital data you don’t want others to see but is left on your computer or smartphone? The company “dele” will take care of it for you.

Emergency Interrogation Room (Drama, 10x60 min.) Yukiko is an officer on the Grill Room Investigation. She is surrounded by veteran investigators with unique personalities.

For truth and justice the team will hunt down the suspects.

Stand: ITV Studios House Contact: Anthony Hughes, COO; Holly Hodges, head, sales operations & VP, sales; Eniela Bella, VP, sales; Robert Bassett, snr. sales exec.; Kaia Roemer, sales exec.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Beat the Chef (Ent. & format, 25x30 min.) Home cooks battle professional chefs to win over members of a jury who will blind taste their dishes. If they cook well, they’ll climb up the money ladder, but lose and they walk away with nothing.

The Hotel Inspector (Factual, S15: 6x60 min.) It’s one of Channel 5’s longest and most successful titles on air, now into a 15th successful season. Alex Polizzi continues her missions to bring underperforming hotels back to profitable ventures.

VIACOM INTERNATIONAL STUDIOS

O (44-203) 580-2504 m programsales@vimn.com

w b2b.viacom.com

Stand: R7.K5/N7 Contact: James Currell, COO, VIMN UKNEE; Jules Borkent, EVP, content, Nickelodeon Intl.; Amalia Martinez de Velasco, SVP, ent., VIMN SWEMEA; Nina Hahn, SVP, dvpmt., Nickelodeon Intl.; Layla Lewis, SVP, Nickelodeon acq., global; German Gorba, SVP, youth and music brands, SWEMEA; Laura Burrell, head, formats; Guillermo Borensztein, VP, sales; Lauren Marriott, VP, sales; Susan Nave, VP, mktg.; Jemma Yates, VP, acq., comedy & ent., VIMN; Chris Hughes, VP, acq., Channel 5; Gabor Harsanyi, VP, CDM & CEE country mgr.; VIMN; June Yeoh, snr. dir.; Emmanuelle Bon, snr. dir.; Isabel Mimosa, snr. dir., Nickelodeon SWEMEA; Amanda Cordner, snr. dir.; Gonzalo Moura, snr. dir., comedy & ent., SWEMEA; Karolina Stallwood, snr. dir., Paramount pgmng., UKNEE. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Light as a Feather (Thriller, 10x22 min.) A game of “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” goes wrong when five teen girls start dying off the way the game predicted.

TV AZTECA INTERNATIONAL

m jrico@tvazteca.com.mx

w www.tvaztecainternacional.com Stand: R8.B10 Contact: Patricia Jasín, VP; Andrés R. Payá, mktg.; Jorge Berthely, intl. sales; Berta Orozco, sales rep., Spain, Africa, MENA, Asia & Frenchspeaking territories; Melissa Pillow, sales rep., Europe, Turkey, Israel, U.S., NZ & Australia.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Culture Code (Factual, 13x45 min.) Delves into the deepest mysteries of each culture and its role in the world through the vision of Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, an enigmatic anthropologist.

w tv-asahicontents.com

Stand: R7.H6 Contact: Hiroyuki Uchiyama, deputy GM, business division; Motoko Nakai, dir., intl. business; Mayumi Nakamura, head, format sales & dvpmt.; Takahiro Kishimoto, head, animation; Kana Miyajima, business strategy dept.; Setsuko Yoda, format sales & dvpmt.; Hanayu Hiroto, Asian market strategy; Yoshiyuki Sugimoto, head, animation sales; Yukie Uwakubo, animation sales; Ippei Tanaka, pgm. sales.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Super Shiro (Animation, 48x5.5 min.) Fastpaced chase comedy series inspired by the popular Shin-chan franchise.

Ninja Hattori (Animation, 355x22 min.) A 10year-old boy becomes friends with a real ninja boy, Hattori. New episodes in production.

Barangay 143 (Animation, 26x22 min.) The first-ever Filipino anime series inspired by the country’s love for basketball, currently on GMA-7. A suspense drama filled with action and romance.

Tokyo Bachelors (Drama, 8x60 min.)

Romantic comedy about three bachelors’ struggle to get married after almost 40 years of joyful single life.

Falling in Love like a Romantic TV Drama (Reality romance format, 30/60 min. eps.) Reality show about love with promising young actors

that connect 195 stations and hundreds of stories to tell.

La Academia (Format) This format has attracted audiences from countries such as Mexico (12 seasons), Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (13 seasons) and Central America (2 seasons).

Fut Azteca (Sports) TV Azteca has the worldwide broadcast rights of six of the 18 Liga MX teams, which includes 102 regular games during the 2018-2019 season as well as half-hour weekly highlights.

Wild By Nature (Factual, 30x30 min.) Actor and naturalist Arturo Islas travels jungles, deserts and seas in search of the wonderful species of fauna in Mexico.

Maria Magdalena Maria Magdalena (Historical drama, 60x60 min.) An epic melodrama recreating the life of a passionate woman during oppressive times, who will challenge the laws of a corrupt society entirely run by men.

Dementia (Series, 10x60 min.) A reporter decides to admit herself into a psychiatric hospital to solve her grandmother’s murder. Once she discovers the truth, leaving will not be easy.

Mundo Metro (Docureality, 30x30 min.)

Welcome to the largest and most advanced underground transport in all of Latin America, the Mexico City subway—12 lines, 390 trains

Beat the Chef What Would Your Kid Do? (Ent. & format, S2: 7x60 min.) Merging factual takeout with an entertaining game-show mechanic, parents compete to try to guess how their children will behave in a variety of challenging situations in order to win some incredible prizes.

Undercover Girlfriends (Fact-ent. & format, S2: 5x60 min.) Five girls determined to discover whether their man is really the one have decided to go undercover, using technology and a range of disguises, to put their boyfriends to the test.

It’s Your Fault I’m Fat (Fact-ent. & format, 6x60 min.) Teenagers work together with their overweight families to shed the pounds they are desperate to lose. The kids say their parents are to blame for their weight problems.

Secret Teacher (Factual & format, 4x60 min.)

A cast of four successful business owners—all of whom struggled at school—want to give others the helping hand they never had so they’re going undercover as school support staff.

Extreme Cake Makers (Factual ent., S4: 30x30 min.) Follow the crazy, creative and elite group who go all out to produce the world’s most delicious and breathtaking creations.

Impossible Engineering (Factual, S5: 10x60 min.) The stories behind the inventions and scientific advances in this series are revealed in a new season that celebrates the trailblazers of modern engineering and pioneering structures of the world today.

Hairy Bikers (Factual, 6x60 min.) The Hairy Bikers (Si King and Dave Myers) are about to embark on their most iconic road trip to date— America’s Route 66. They motor across eight different states, all with their own distinct landscapes, history, flavors and people.

4/19 WORLD SCREEN 455

Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club You’ve Been T@gged (Drama, S1: 8x22 min., S2: 12x22 min., S3: 12x22 min.) A series of violent videos from an unknown user named “Monkeyman” target Hailey, Rowan and Elisia, a group of students whose pasts are inexplicably connected.

Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club (Ent./reality, 12x60 min.) Lindsay Lohan hires eight American ambassadors to launch Lohan Beach House in Mykonos, Greece, and expand her business empire.

Abby Hatcher (Preschool, 26x30 min.) Abby and her quirky friends the Fuzzlies live in her family’s hotel and go on wild adventures to fix mishaps.

Digging Up Britain’s Past (Factual, 6x60 min.) This archaeology show explores a fascinating period in British history and is based around an ongoing archaeological dig.

The Other Two (Comedy, 10x30 min.) Two siblings must confront the dueling emotions of envy and pride brought on by the overnight internet fame of their younger brother.

The Viral Factory (Fact-ent. format, 30 min. eps.) Two aspiring, young YouTubers are matched with a famous Vlogger to guide them in creating their own viral videos.

Club 57 (Live-action kids, 60x60 min.) Eva and Ruben accidentally travel back in time to 1957 and try to go unnoticed until they find a way to return.

Cousins for Life (Live-action kids, 20x30 min.)

Cousins Stuart and Ivy are best friends who

*LIST_419_ALT2.qxp_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 3/21/19 3:28 PM Page 30

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TV LISTINGS

come from very different backgrounds and learn to navigate life under one roof with their families.

Boomerang (Scripted ent., 10x30 min.)

Bryson, Marcus and Simone try to step out of their parents’ shadows and make a legacy of their own.

VIACOM18/INDIACAST MEDIA DISTRIBUTION

O (91-22) 6697-7777

w www.indiacast.com

Stand: P-1.E73 Contact: Debkumar Dasgupta, SVP, intl. business & synd.; Bhavishya Rao, snr. mgr., synd., MENAP & Americas; Keerthana Anand, mgr., synd., AsiaPac; Lasya Chand, asst. mgr., content synd. & lic., Europe.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Jhansi Ki Rani (Costume drama, 260x30 min.)

The period drama revives the unknown saga of a commoner Manikarnika, who evolved into Jhansi’s bravest, fiercest warrior queen.

WWE

O (1-203) 352-8600 m wweintl@wwecorp.com

w www.wwe.com

Stand: R7.C31 Contact: James Frewin, snr. dir., content media dist., EMEA; George Quick, mgr., content media dist., EMEA; Thomas Sitrin, snr. dir., content media dist.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Raw (Sports/ent., 52x60 min./52x120 min./52x180 min.) Live, weekly, in-ring programs featuring edge-of-your-seat action and unpredictable drama.

SmackDown (Sports/ent., 52x60 min./ 52x120 min.) Live, weekly, in-ring flagship program featuring edge-of-your seat action and unpredictable drama.

SmackDown

Jhansi Ki Rani Gathbandhan (Romance/family drama, 260x30 min.) He is the quintessential local gangster, she aspires to be a tough cop. Raghu and Dhanak are worlds apart, but what happens when he falls in love with her at first sight?

Kesarri Nandan (Family drama, 260x30 min.)

Hanumant Singh is a patriarch whose only dream is to train his son to win a gold medal at the Olympics. But what happens when instead of his son, his daughter takes it on her to fulfill her father’s dream?

Naagin 3 (Fantasy drama, 103x60 min.) A mythical tale of vengeance in its purest form, where an Icchadhari (shape-shifter) Naagin (female serpent) avenges the death of her partner.

Silsila (Romance, 260x30 min.) Two best friends, one broken marriage, and a dangerously addictive affair. Follow the dramatic twists and turns in the lives of Mauli, her husband Kunal and her best friend Nandini.

Ishq Mein Marjawan (Romance/thriller, 520x30 min.) She had the perfect life and the perfect man; little did she know that she was walking into the perfect trap. What happens when the man you love turns out to be a genius manipulator?

Bepannah (Romance, 186x30 min.) An impossible love story of two strangers brought together by destiny. Aditya and Zoya find love despite losing their spouses in an accident.

Internet Wala Love (Romance, 155x30 min.)

This is the story of Jai, a young man obsessed with the internet, and Aadhya, who finds the internet very invasive.

Shakti (Social/romance, S1-2: 597x30 min., S3 ongoing) Surbhi is loved by everyone, her sister Soumya is detested. What makes parents discriminate between their own daughters?

Roop (Romance, 260x30 min.) A story that breaks the traditional norms and questions the stereotypes of a male-dominated society.

Moka’s Fabulous Adventures!

A New Kind of Magic (Kids 6-11 comedy, 52x13 min.) Willow the fairy and her beloved husband, Gregore the ogre, have no choice but to emigrate and settle in the real world with their children.

Oggy and the Cockroaches—Seasons 5-7 (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, 350x7 min.)

Oggy’s life in his pretty little house would be a dream if it weren’t for three nasty cockroaches bent on turning it into a living hell.

Paprika (Kids 4-6 comedy, 75x7 min. & 11x2 min.) Thanks to their cheerful dispositions, enthusiasm and zany ideas, the Paprika twins, Stan and Olivia, along with all their friends, turn everyday events into grand adventure.

If I Were an Animal (Kids 4-8 & family wildlife doc., 52x5 min.) Emma and her big brother Tim are lucky eyewitnesses to all the major stages of how animals grow up. From birth to adulthood, the two kids are able to draw a parallel to their own lives.

ZDF ENTERPRISES

Total Divas (Sports/ent., 12x60 min.) Reality series featuring the real women of WWE—go inside their personal lives like never before.

WWE Experience (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.)

Weekly highlight program with fresh commentary and in-depth analysis of the action-packed matches and storylines from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live.

WWE BottomLine (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.)

Weekly highlight program that chronicles the action from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live with post-match analysis and exclusive updates.

WWE AfterBurn (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.)

Weekly highlight program that chronicles the action from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live with post-match analysis and exclusive updates.

XILAM ANIMATION

O (33-1) 4018-7200 m info@xilam.com

w www.xilam.com

Stand: R7.J9 Contact: Marc du Pontavice, chmn. & CEO; Morgann Favennec, EVP, global sales dvpmt.; Céline Carenco, SVP, media sales dist., AsiaPac, Northern & Eastern Europe; Safaa Benazzouz, SVP, media sales dist., LatAm, MEA & Southern Europe; Cathy Leclère, mktg. ops. mgr.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Moka’s Fabulous Adventures! (Kids 6-10 comedy, 78x7 min.) Moka, a naive and reckless little Prince crocodile, heads off to explore his kingdom. Cherry, his rhino bodyguard, is sent along to ensure his protection. But Moka constantly gets them into trouble.

Coach Me If You Can (Kids 6-10 comedy, 52x13 min.) To lift the spell that turned him into a soccer ball, the superstar Erico Platana will have to deflate his ego and help Daniel, a clumsy but headstrong young boy, become a soccer champion.

Zig & Sharko (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, S13: 234x7 min.) On the high seas, the beach or an ocean liner, Zig, a hungry hyena, has one thing in mind: dining on Marina, the carefree mermaid.

Sharko the shark will do anything to protect her.

Mr. Magoo (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, 78x7 min.) Everybody loves Magoo. This cheerful guy’s always happy to lend a helping hand.

But because he doesn’t realize he desperately needs glasses, he keeps on causing disasters.

O (49) 6131-9910 m info@zdf-enterprises.de

w www.zdf-enterprises.de

Stand: P-1.L2/M1 Contact: Fred Burcksen, pres. & CEO; Robert Franke, VP, ZDFE.drama; Ralf Rückauer, VP, ZDFE.unscripted; Peter Lang, VP, ZDFE.junior; Christine Denilauler, VP, mktg. & corp. comms.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Worst Witch (Kids live action, S3: 13x28 min.; total 39x28 min.) A children’s TV series that follows the exciting adventures of trainee witch Mildred Hubble in the magical world of Cackle’s Academy.

Bobo (Preschool animation, 26x7 min.) The cute little dormouse Bobo is fascinated and thrilled by his immediate surroundings as he explores the world around him. He doesn’t hesitate but tackles life head on.

Buck (Kids live action, 33x15 min.) Teenage life is a minefield for Elias. He takes his mind off it by playing his favorite video game, in which digital hero Commander Buck always saves the day.

The Greatest Race (History/bio., 2x50 min. 4K) They were the superstars of their time. Every child knew their names and even emperors prided themselves on them: the charioteers of ancient Rome.

Just Animals (Wildlife/nature, 10x50 min.) In this engaging series of documentaries, favorite creatures have been singled out and showered with attention.

Just Animals

456 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

Planet of Volcanoes (Science/knowledge, 1x50 min. 4K) By meeting the people and wildlife that live alongside the planet’s volcanoes, we reveal the ways in which they affect life on Earth.

Meet Your Ancestors (Docutainment, 45 min. eps.) Were your ancestors great artists or prestigious people? And do you really know the true story behind your family name?

Victor Lessard (Crime drama, 30x60 min.)

Adapted from the bestselling novels by Martin Michaud, this fast-paced psychological thriller tells the story of a driven detective and his pursuit of the evil behind unspeakable crimes.

Beyond Appearances (Family drama, 6x52 min.

4K) A tale of deception and betrayal as it follows the disappearance of the twin of a famous actress and long-buried family secrets are revealed.

Wild District (Crime/suspense, 10x60 min.)

From the creators of Narcos, blends pure drama and action to tell the story of a man who escapes the Colombian armed conflict only to find himself facing a private war on two fronts.

ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES

O (91-22) 7106-1465 m response@atl.esselgroup.com

w www.globalcontenthub.net

Stand: P-1.K51 Contact: Sunita Uchil, chief business officer, global synd. & prod. & intl. ad sales; Sharmeen Dsouza, lead India, synd.; Manjyot Sandhu, lead Europe, synd.; Nitin Michael, territory head, MENAP, synd.; Sandeep Hardasmalani, territory head, AsiaPac, synd.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Life of Earth from Space (Doc., 2x60 min.) Delivers a cinematic, blue-chip view of the entire life history of our planet. Our planet’s greatest moments and our most dramatic catastrophes are all visualized in this special feature, as seen from satellites, airplanes and drones.

Tujhse Hai Raabta (Cosmic Connection) (Family drama, 100x30 min.) Revolves around the bitter-sweet relationship between a daughter and her stepmother, who are forced to live together after a tragedy strikes in the family.

Guddan—Tumse Na Ho Payega Guddan—Tumse Na Ho Payega (The Relationship Conundrum) (Family drama, 100x30 min.) A lighthearted story of a 20year-old girl, Guddan, who, having fumbled through most of her life, finds herself becoming mother-in-law at a very young age to three older daughters-in-law.

Deceptive Measures (Family drama, 52x60 min.) An adaptation of the popular Indian series Pavitra Rishta, about a middle-class girl who is not highly educated and yet handles her house impeccably.

Carmen (Family drama, 60x60 min.) Adapted from Kareena Kareena, revolves around Carmen, a beautiful young lady who came from Alexandria to Cairo looking for an opportunity to achieve her dreams of being famous and rich.

Al Forsa Al Akheera (The Last Chance) (Family drama, 66x60 min.) A remake of Punar Vivah, this is a story of two individuals and their second chance at life and marriage.

Altar’d (Reality/lifestyle, 6x60 min.) Twelve weeks before their wedding day, a bride and groom are paired with trainers and begin their weight-loss transformation.

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ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

4K Media 235 9 Story Media Group 251 A+E Networks 129, 331, 336 ABS-CBN Corporation 35 Albatross World Sales 365 Alfred Haber Distribution 49 all3media international 161, 394 Allspark (formerly Hasbro Studios) 249 Armoza Formats 286, 287, 299, 304, 305 Artist View Entertainment 23 Asia TV Forum & Market 428 Astro 381 Atresmedia Televisión 181 ATV 206 Australian Children’s Television Foundation 258 Autentic Distribution 357 Banijay Rights 177, 179, 295, 297 BBC Studios 292, 293 Bejuba! Entertainment 214, 215 Beyond Distribution 359 Brightcove 112, 113 Busan Contents Market 103 CAKE 237 Calinos Entertainment 2,3 Canada Media Fund 19 Caracol Televisión 141 CBS Studios International 131, 139 CDC United Network 423 CJ ENM 303 CJ ENM Animation Division 218, 219 ConvergenciaShow.MX 425 Crown Media International Distribution 6, 7 CuriosityStream 337 Cyber Group Studios 212, 213, 267, 278 DHX Media 229 DISCOP 457 Discovery, Inc. 133 Distribution360 345, 349 DRG 301 Electric Entertainment 165 Endemol Shine International 53-78 Escapade Media 109, 203 Fox Networks Group Latin America 405, 407 FoxTelecolombia/Estudios TeleMéxico 409 Fremantle 283, 294, 326 Gaumont 142, 464 Global Agency 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 284, 285, 288, 289 Globalive Media 339 Globosat 332, 333 GMA Worldwide 27, 383 GoldBee 257 GRB Studios 87, 89, 325, 367 Guru Studio 255 Gusto Worldwide Media 372, 373 HBO Latin America 31, 411 Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART) 389 Hunan TV 290, 291 Incendo 197 Intellecta 33

Inter Medya 1, 158, 159, 306, 307, 427 International Academy of TV Arts & Sciences 272, 437 Jetpack Distribution 220, 221 Kanal D International 187 Keshet International 8, 9, 137 Kew Media Distribution 163, 341 Lionsgate Entertainment 148, 149 Madd Entertainment 205 MarVista Entertainment 4, 5 Mediatoon Distribution 248, 250 Mediterráneo Audiovisual 182 Miramax 13 MISTCO 156, 157, 259, 398, 399 Mondo TV Group 211, 240, 241, 277 Multicom Entertainment Group 463 NATPE 433 NBCUniversal International Distribution 125 Nippon TV 371 NTV Broadcasting Company 189 Orange Smarty 343 ORF-Enterprise 25 Passion Distribution 311 PBS International 370 Pure Flix/Quality Flix 43 Rabbit Films 39 Rainbow 216, 217 Record TV 395, 396, 397 Red Arrow Studios International 183 Rewind Networks 391 Rive Gauche Television 135 RTVE 115 Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport 195, 458 Serious Lunch 223, 225, 227 Shanghai Media Group 45 Showlab 263 Smithsonian Channel 15 SPI International 81, 123, 201, 369, 393, 426, 431 Star India 191 Studio 100 Media/m4e 245 STUDIOCANAL 10, 11 Sunny Side of the Doc 435 SUNRIGHTS 247 Superights 231, 233 TCB Media Rights 334, 335 Telefilms 417 Terra Mater Factual Studios 363 The Mediapro Studio 111 The Story Lab 315 TV Asahi Corporation 313 TV Azteca International 21, 401 TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific 385 Universal Cinergía Dubbing 421 Viacom International Studios 403 Viacom18/IndiaCast Media Distribution 199 WarnerMedia 17, 126, 127, 375 WWE 29 ZDF Enterprises 37, 147, 167, 169, 171, 173, 239, 351, 353 Zee Entertainment Enterprises 41

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Truly Global

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WORLD’S END

IN THE STARS Almost every national constitution forbids the establishment of an official state religion. But this secular bent doesn’t stop people from looking to the heavens for answers to life’s most troublesome questions: Will I succeed? Will I find love? Will I get caught in a college bribery scam?

Every day, papers, magazines and websites worldwide print horoscopes— projections for people born in a specific month, based on the positions of the stars and planets. While many people rely on these daily, weekly or monthly messages for guidance in their lives, some readers skip over them entirely.

The editors of WS recognize that these little pearls of random foresight occasionally prove pro phetic.

But rather than poring over charts of the zodiac to predict world events, our staff prefers to use past horoscopes in an attempt to legitimize the science.

As you can see here, had some of these media figures remembered to consult their horoscopes on significant dates, they could have avoided a few surprises.

Lori Loughlin

Rami Malek

Julianne Moore

Reese Witherspoon

LORI LOUGHLIN

JULIANNE MOORE

Global distinction: Fuller House’s “Aunt Becky.”

Sign: Leo (b. July 28, 1964) Significant date: March 12, 2019 Noteworthy activity: The actress is arrested—along

Global distinction: Award-winning film star.

Sign: Sagittarius (b. December 3, 1960) Significant date: March 7, 2019 Noteworthy activity: Moore, a five-time Oscar nominee

with dozens of other parents, including Desperate Housewives alum Felicity Huffman—for her alleged involvement in a college bribery scandal. The Hallmark Channel star is accused of paying up to $500,000 to a college admissions consultant, who fraudulently presented her two daughters as recruits for the crew team at the University of Southern California, despite the fact that they did not participate in the sport.

Horoscope: “You might get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, so it would be ideal to practice the art of honesty.” (lovehoroscope.guru)

and one-time winner, maybe misses out on yet another trophy at the 91st Academy Awards for Can You Ever Forgive Me? The actress, who originally is cast in the lead role—for which Melissa McCarthy ultimately earns a nod—reveals in an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that contrary to reports, she didn’t choose to ditch the project, rather, she was fired.

Horoscope: “This is not your time to shine in the spotlight, but your efforts can help put somebody else up on a pedestal.” (mercurynews.com)

KATE BECKINSALE RAMI MALEK Global distinction: Mr. Robot lead.

Sign: Taurus (b. May 12, 1981) Significant date: February 24, 2019 Noteworthy activity: Malek is announced as the

Global distinction: English actress.

Sign: Leo (b. July 26, 1973) Significant date: March 3, 2019 Noteworthy activity: Beckinsale, who stars in the new

Academy Award winner in the best actor category for his role in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody as the band’s flamboyant front man. While he shows plenty of grace and agility re-creating Freddie Mercury’s signature moves on-screen, Malek himself falls off the stage at the Oscars and must be treated by paramedics.

Horoscope: “Remaining aware of your ambitions allows you to step back and find your center before you really lose your balance.” (huffingtonpost.com)

Amazon series The Widow, is getting as much if not more attention for her public appearances with the new man in her life, Pete Davidson, the Saturday Night Live comedian and 25-year-old former fiancé of Ariana Grande.

Linked since earlier this year, the duo puts their budding romance on public display in a major way by making out front row at a hockey game, surrounded by unimpressed onlookers.

Horoscope: “A lack of inhibition makes others uncomfortable.” (russellgrant.com)

REESE WITHERSPOON

HASAN MINHAJ

Global distinction: Bubbly blonde actress.

Sign: Aries (b. March 22, 1976) Significant date: March 16, 2019 Noteworthy activity: An OK! Magazine cover catches

Global distinction: Comedic political commentator.

Sign: Libra (b. September 23, 1985) Significant date: March 14, 2019 Noteworthy activity: The former The Daily Show corre-

the attention of the Big Little Lies star with a headline that reads “Jen & Reese Baby Bombshells!,” featuring a picture of the Hollywood star along with fellow actress Jennifer Garner, followed by, “Shock & Joy For Hollywood BFFs.” Amused by the (fake) news, Witherspoon shares the pic on Instagram, writing “Hey Jen! Can we raise our imaginary babies together?”

Horoscope: “Be careful that you aren’t sending the wrong message. Set the record straight.” (tuscaloosanews.com)

spondent and current host of Netflix’s Patriot Act takes part in an interview for Today.com, in which he reveals his most embarrassing moment. “I got pantsed, but the person who pantsed me also pulled down my underwear,” he shares in the video series Six-Minute Marathon with Savannah.

Horoscope: “Because today’s full moon cuts across such an important angle of your chart, you must be on your guard at all times both at home and at work.” (theglobeandmail.com)

462 WORLD SCREEN 4/19

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