World Screen Pre-MIPCOM 2016

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Pre-MIPCOM Edition

WWW.WORLDSCREEN.COM

THE MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA • SEPTEMBER 2016

Drama Co-Pros / Jeffrey Tambor / Laurence Fishburne / Marcia Gay Harden Jesse Spencer / A+E Networks’ Sean Cohan / Endemol Shine’s Cathy Payne

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CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER 2016/PRE-MIPCOM EDITION DEPARTMENTS WORLD VIEW

By Anna Carugati.

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12

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Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise Group Editorial Director Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani

UPFRONTS 14 New content on the market.

Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski

IN THE NEWS 30 Endemol Shine International’s Cathy Payne.

Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Associate Editor Sara Alessi

MARKET TRENDS Fox Networks Group’s Prentiss Fraser.

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BEHIND THE SCENES Carnival Films’ Gareth Neame.

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SPOTLIGHT ITV Inter Medya’s Can Okan.

60

FOCUS ON Eccho Rights’ Fredrik af Malmborg.

62

WORLD’S END In the stars.

66

JEFFREY TAMBOR

LAURENCE FISHBURNE

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Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Associate Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Rafael Blanco Contributing Editor Elizabeth Guider Production & Design Director Victor L. Cuevas Online Director Simon Weaver Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell

MARCIA GAY HARDEN

JESSE SPENCER

Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Manager Elizabeth Walsh Business Affairs Manager Andrea Moreno Contributing Writers Steve Clarke Andy Fry Jane Marlow Joanna Stephens Jay Stuart David Wood Copy Editor Amy Canonico

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP

42

Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development

SPECIAL REPORT WORLD SCREEN is published ten times per year: January, February, 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.

42 DRAMATIC PACTS Producers and distributors are evolving their co-production strategies as the drama business becomes more competitive.

—Mansha Daswani

ONE-ON-ONE

48 A+E NETWORKS’ SEAN COHAN The president of international and digital media at A+E Networks discusses recent and upcoming channel launches as well as the company’s programming slate for MIPCOM. —Anna Carugati 10 WORLD SCREEN 9/16

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WORLD VIEW

BY ANNA CARUGATI

The Need for Understanding With his timeless lyrical mastery, Shakespeare immortalized the phrase, “Now is the winter of our discontent,” in his play Richard III. Allow me to play on his words and say that this has been the summer of our disbelief—what with Brexit, horrific terrorist attacks, police shootings and cop killings. I can’t help but wonder what the Bard would make of the theatrics of the American presidential campaign.

While I’m at it, let me throw in another cultural reference: “Winter is Coming,” and boy will it be a time of reckoning. The Brits will have to take stock of their choice and figure out exactly how they want to disentangle themselves from the European Union. The EU will continue to struggle with the refugee crisis, the constant threat of terrorism and whether the euro and the union itself can survive. Americans (God help them) have to vote for a president and realize the election is not a reality-TV competition and that issues and facts matter and Black lives matter and Mexicans matter and Muslims matter.

Enough of the nonsense we’ve been hearing for months. Nigel Farage, in the lead-up to the Brexit vote, claiming the money Britain would save by not having to make payments to the EU would fund the National Health Service, and then almost immediately after the vote, Oops, no, that can’t happen. Donald Trump stating Barack Obama is the founder of ISIS and the next day accusing the press of being stupid because obviously he had said that with sarcasm, and the day after that, Nah, not really so sarcastic.

If you scratch the surface of the events of the past months—the shootings, the terrorist attacks, the ill-conceived promises of reinstating jobs in defunct industries, the distrust of immigrants and incendiary calls for building walls—there are common threads that run through them. Frustration at having lost jobs and despair from long-term unemployment or under-employment.

The inability to understand complex issues such as globalization and outsourcing. Insecurity about the future. We can sympathize with these emotions. But there is an insidious undercurrent to them: fear of anyone who looks different, speaks a different language, practices a different religion, lives a different way. Too often, this fear degenerates into prejudice and hatred.

I am no expert on social policies, immigration, employment or globalism, but I do get to talk to a lot of actors, writers, showrunners and production and distribution executives, and I can assure you that there are recurring themes in all the conversations: acceptance, understanding, diversity, collaboration. It’s true that art in its highest form helps us understand others and ourselves better, isn’t it? Well, these days much of the highest form of art can be found in television, in thought-provoking, even controversial, scripted series.

There has never been such a range of diverse voices and

points of view represented in TV programming.

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Here is just a sampling of what I’ve heard. I spoke to Jeffrey Tambor, the award-winning actor who plays a transgender woman in Transparent, right after the massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. We discussed a bill passed in North Carolina that forces individuals to use the public bathroom that corresponds to their physical bodies, not the gender they identify with. Tambor cut to the heart of the matter and said the bill had nothing to do with bathrooms; it was about ignorance and fear, hatred and not knowing. What society and lawmakers need more of are knowledge and education.

In an interview with Jesse Spencer, star of Chicago Fire, he mentioned the sacrifices firefighters make to save lives, and how his appreciation for them and for cops has increased after working with so many who serve as consultants on the show. Marcia Gay Harden of the medical drama Code Black told me about the toll stress takes on E.R. doctors and how we must understand the negative impact of stress on our bodies. We also feature Laurence Fishburne in this edition, talking about his time in South Africa researching Nelson Mandela, who he portrays in the upcoming limited series Madiba.

With A+E Networks’ Sean Cohan, I talked about how the 1977 miniseries Roots opened my eyes to the living conditions of the first slaves in America and of their relatives generations later. Cohan shared a very moving recollection of what the original miniseries meant to him and how the new version, which aired to high critical acclaim in the U.S. in May, has been so well received internationally. Due, in part, to such positive reactions, A+E Networks is working with Reed MIDEM on a Diversity Summit at MIPCOM. Collaboration is at the heart of co-productions, and the main feature in this issue focuses on how they continue to evolve, improve and are increasingly essential to financing high-quality fare. We also talk to Endemol Shine International’s Cathy Payne, Fox Networks Group’s Prentiss Fraser, Carnival Films’ Gareth Neame, Eccho Rights’ Fredrik af Malmborg and ITV Inter Medya’s Can Okan about the new programming from their respective companies. Whatever the genre, the quality of TV programs has increased so much. There has never been such a range of diverse voices and points of view represented in TV programming.

I sometimes think viewers are exposed to more diverse people and lifestyles through the small screen than they are in real life. And so many conversations are sparked by today’s scripted series. What would the Bard think about the nuanced, beautifully crafted dramas and comedies populated by complex, flawed, but very human characters?

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UPFRONTS

A+E Networks SIX / Knightfall / The First 48 At MIPCOM, A+E Networks is showcasing a broad mix of scripted and factual programming. The company is bringing two new scripted series to the market: SIX and Knightfall.

Inspired by the real missions of SEAL Team Six, best known for killing Osama bin Laden, the drama SIX “digs into their complex personal and professional lives,” says Joel Denton, the managing director of international content sales and partnerships at A+E Networks. “It’s a big actionadventure series as well. We’re really excited about the program.” Another drama highlight for the company is the historical series Knightfall, about the Knights Templar, one of the most powerful groups in history. “They are bigbudget, international programs with great casts,” Denton says of these two scripted titles, which are produced by the company’s in-house production arm, A+E Studios.

“They’re great shows that will hopefully strike a chord with our buyers. We have high hopes that they’ll be commercial and interesting for our partners around the world.” In the factual arena, A+E Networks is presenting the blue-chip crime show The First 48 “as part of our push of the whole crime genre,” Denton says. “Crime is in fashion at the moment. There is a lot of engagement with and excitement about crime programming,” a genre that Denton believes is “endlessly fascinating for us all.”

“MIPCOM is without a doubt our largest market, and it’s a great time of year for us to show our programs to all of our buyers.”

—Joel Denton

The First 48

AMC Global Fear the Walking Dead / Halt and Catch Fire / Humans Since AMC Global launched in 2014, the channel has worked to expand its international footprint and is now seen in more than 125 countries. Recently, three new local AMC feeds rolled out in Central Europe, with dedicated 24-hour channels serving audiences in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romania and Slovenia. “We also recently launched AMC on beIN, one of the leading payTV platforms in MENA, alongside four other channels from the AMC Networks International (AMCNI) portfolio,” says Harold Gronenthal, the executive VP of programming and operations for AMC Global. Additionally, a deal was reached with KPN in the Netherlands that made AMC available in 95 percent of all pay-TV homes nationwide. “We’re looking forward to continuing this growth trajectory over the next year,” says Gronenthal. There is a diverse lineup of exclusive original series premiering on AMC Global over the next few months. New episodes for the second half of season two of Fear the Walking Dead are premiering simultaneously with AMC in the U.S. AMC Global is also debuting the third season of Halt and Catch Fire around the world. Season two of the sciencefiction series Humans recently wrapped production in London, and AMC Global will be premiering the show early next year.

“We will continue to expand our relationships with key pay-TV operators internationally for the entire AMCNI portfolio of globally renowned, locally relevant channels.”

—Harold Gronenthal

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BBC Worldwide Planet Earth II / SS-GB / Class Ten years ago, Planet Earth launched to audiences around the world and became one of the most-watched, and bestselling, natural-history documentaries of all time. The team from the BBC’s Natural History Unit has followed that up with Planet Earth II, which features new technology that allows them to “get even closer to nature’s greatest wonders and reveal the planet from a completely new perspective,” says Paul Dempsey, the president of global markets at BBC Worldwide. “Add to that Sir David Attenborough’s worldwide popularity and we have a must-see factual series.”

Dempsey also highlights SS-GB, a thriller based on Len Deighton’s best-selling novel, penned by James Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and Class, set within the Doctor Who universe.

“The three titles I’ve mentioned only scratch the surface of the world-class shows and international talent we have in our catalog.”

—Paul Dempsey Planet Earth II

Dynamic Television Madiba / East Los High / Wynonna Earp Laurence Fishburne portrays Nelson Mandela in the sixhour event series Madiba, a cornerstone of Dynamic Television’s MIPCOM offering. “The scope of the production brings a cinematic feel to this event series that will resonate with audiences around the world,” says Dan March, managing partner at the company. Another highlight is the five-time Emmy-nominated Hulu original series East Los High, about a group of teens in their final years of high school in East L.A. “Not only is East Los High extremely addictive with its unique storytelling, it is also thought-provoking on a social level, with themes that are universal to the highly sought-after youth market,” says March. Dynamic is also showcasing the Syfy series Wynonna Earp.

“Wynonna Earp has become a socialmedia sensation and has won the hearts of genre fans everywhere.”

—Dan March Wynonna Earp

Endemol Shine International The Fall / Humans / Brock Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, Bleak House) returns as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson in season three of The Fall, which Endemol Shine International (ESI) is offering buyers at MIPCOM. ESI is also promoting the second season of the drama Humans, produced by Kudos for Channel 4 and AMC. “With regard to The Fall and Humans, the returning seasons of these global hits are eagerly awaited by international audiences,” says Cathy Payne, the CEO of ESI. “They already have proven track records and are critically acclaimed with amazing casts and creatives.” The miniseries Brock, which follows Peter Brock’s life from his early racing days in the Austin A30 to his tragic death in Perth, is also a highlight for MIPCOM.

“We cater to a variety of programming needs and are focused on placing our diverse slate with as many broadcasters as possible.”

—Cathy Payne The Fall 16 WORLD SCREEN 9/16

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Escapade Media The Art of Killing / Steve Backshall & the Vertical Mile / Tomorrow When the War Began Two book-based dramas are at the forefront of Escapade Media’s MIPCOM highlights. The six-part series The Art of Killing is based on Ed Chatterton’s A Dark Place to Die and tells the story of a retired cop who leaves his idyllic life in Australia to avenge his son’s murder. The cop discovers that his past motivated the killer, whose plan for revenge will swallow up his entire family. Based on John Marsden’s best-selling novels, Tomorrow When the War Began “is a coming-of-age drama with strong international appeal,” says Natalie Lawley, the company’s managing director. Escapade has Asian rights for the title. The company is also presenting the factual program Steve Backshall & the Vertical Mile, which includes virtual-reality components.

“Escapade is focusing on content produced in 4K and those with virtual-reality components for our factual slate, and dramas that are highly charged, exploring human determination.”

—Natalie Lawley Tomorrow When the War Began

Fox Networks Group Content Distribution MARS / Atlanta / Killing Reagan Produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and directed

by Everardo Gout, MARS tells the story of the quest to colonize the Red Planet and the first manned mission that is set for 2032. “MARS will combine a unique blend of featurequality drama with documentary sequences,” says Prentiss Fraser, the senior VP and global head of content distribution at Fox Networks Group Content Distribution. “We are hosting an exclusive premiere screening of the first episode at MIPCOM on Monday, October 17, in the Palais, which is a great opportunity to get a sneak peek at this amazing series.” Further highlights from the company include Atlanta, created by and starring Donald Glover, and Killing Reagan, based on Bill O’Reilly’s book and produced by Scott Free Productions.

“We are thrilled to be attending MIPCOM with a slate of premium factual series and specials from National Geographic and a strong lineup of Fox scripted series.”

—Prentiss Fraser Killing Reagan

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Guru Studio Justin Time A new season of the preschool hit Justin Time is now ready and Guru Studio is excited to present this season to buyers at MIPCOM. “Justin Time has performed incredibly well around the world,” says Mary Bredin, executive VP of content and strategy at Guru. The show has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy and won a Canadian Screen Award. Guru Studio also has a new series in development with a major Canadian broadcaster, the title of which will be revealed at the market. Bredin says the new show has a “fantastic story with a multicultural cast of unique characters. Think Star Trek meets PAW Patrol but underwater!” The series is meant to appeal to the 5-to-9 demographic. The company will also be presenting to buyers a new preschool property that has “inventive designs, an infectious hook and instantly lovable characters,” says Bredin.

“From preschool to prime time, we are looking for standout pitches and great partners.”

—Mary Bredin Justin Time

Hat Trick International The Eden Experiment / The Insider: Reggie Yates / Inside the Freemasons From Keo Films, the format The Eden Experiment follows 23 men and women as they are given a year to build a new society from scratch, isolated from the rest of the world.

Also new from Keo Films is The Insider: Reggie Yates, a two-part documentary for BBC Three. Hat Trick International (HTI) is presenting both titles at MIPCOM, alongside Emporium Productions’ new four-part observational documentary Inside the Freemasons, which is making its international debut at the market. Commissioned for Sky 1, Inside the Freemasons takes a comprehensive look at the organization as it approaches its 300th anniversary in 2017.

“All three titles offer a new, unique and in-depth perspective on a diverse range of subjects,” says Sarah Tong, the company’s director of sales.

“HTI continues to bring a diverse range of highquality factual shows and formats from the innovative and trendsetting producers that we represent.”

—Sarah Tong Inside the Freemasons

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ITV Inter Medya Endless Love / In Between / Join Instant Two young lovers from separate worlds take center stage in Endless Love, one of the titles that ITV Inter Medya is planning to present at MIPCOM. The drama series, which is produced by Ay Yapim, “is one of our most important projects,” says Can Okan, the company’s CEO and president. Another highlight is In Between, which tells the story of a young woman who grew up in a modest environment but has big dreams for a better life. The drama is produced by Koliba Film and is based on a novel penned by Peyami Safa. There is also Join Instant, an online interactive game-show format with second-screen technology that allows viewers at home to participate live. Formats have become a new focus for ITV Inter Medya and the company is looking to strike up discussions about its slate at the market.

“The production quality of our titles is world-class.”

—Can Okan Endless Love

ITV Studios Global Entertainment Prime Suspect: Tennison / Cold Feet / Meet the Parents The prequel to Prime Suspect, Prime Suspect: Tennison, tells the back-story of detective Jane Tennison. “There’s been a lot of anticipation for this one,” says Ruth Berry, the managing director of ITV Studios Global Entertainment.

“Great for fans, but also a gripping procedural; as a viewer, you certainly don’t have to come to this series having watched Prime Suspect—it stands as a great, gritty British crime drama in its own right.” The company will also be bringing to MIPCOM Cold Feet, which takes place 13 years after the BAFTA-winning dramedy left off; this time the characters are in their late 40s and early 50s. Meet the Parents, meanwhile, is a new format that asks a single person to judge three potential dates based on a conversation with each of their parents.

“We’ve always got an eye on ensuring we have a broad, scaled portfolio of brilliant new shows.”

—Ruth Berry Cold Feet

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Multicom Entertainment Group Blood Is Blood The latest release for Multicom Entertainment Group is Blood Is Blood. The company, led by father-and-son executives Irv and Darrin Holender, recently inked a deal for this all-new ThrillGore.TV horror/thriller title that saw the movie’s digital HD and VOD release go wide on September 1. Blood Is Blood stars Fiona Dourif (True Blood, Curse of Chucky) alongside Daniel DiTomasso (Witches of East End), Caitlin Harris (Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life), Andrew James Allen (The Lovely Bones) and YouTube beauty blogger/style maven Teni Panosian. “Multicom is thrilled to roll out this title in advance of its Blu-ray release slashing later in the year,” says Darrin Holender, the company’s president. Irv Holender founded the company and serves as chairman.

“For both Multicom and Blood Is Blood, it runs in the family!”

—Irv Holender Blood Is Blood

Newen Distribution OURO / Terror Studios / Truth or Dare The event series OURO is among the highlights for Newen Distribution at MIPCOM. The modern-day adventure thriller series follows 20-year-old Vincent, who partners with one of the biggest gold dealers in the Amazon jungle. Julien Leroux, Newen’s deputy managing director, says, “OURO is quite unique, as it takes viewers on a powerful adventure. It was fully filmed in the Amazon jungle.” The first episode will be presented at MIPCOM during the International Drama Screenings.

Another highlight from Newen is the documentary Terror Studios, which explores how ISIS uses pop-culture codes in its propaganda. OURO and Terror Studios are both Canal+ originals. Newen’s slate also features the unscripted format Truth or Dare.

“We are very proud of our new lineup and expect to continue to grow our international relationships with both TV and digital buyers.”

—Julien Leroux OURO

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Novovision Virtual-reality content / Prank My Pet / Nutri Ventures: The Quest for the 7 Kingdoms A key focus for Novovision is virtual-reality (VR) content.

“Novovision is at the forefront of offering some of the best VR content from around the world and is also producing its own content to meet this growing demand,” says CEO François-Xavier Poirier. The company is also showcasing Prank My Pet, which Poirier calls a “playful program [that] focuses on a wide range of animals. It’s an ideal show for the whole family and because it’s nondialogue programming, it will appeal to viewers around the world.” Novovision’s roster also includes the kids’ show Nutri Ventures: The Quest for the 7 Kingdoms.

“Broadcasters are always seeking good edutainment programming and this animated show promotes healthy eating in a positive environment,” says Poirier.

“Novovision is a company that broadcasters and digital companies have relied on and will continue to rely on for new and innovative content.”

—François-Xavier Poirier Prank My Pet

Red Arrow International Mata Hari / Look Me in the Eye / The Romeo Section: Assassins Created by Star Media, Mata Hari marks the first Englishlanguage drama series commissioned by Russia’s Channel One. The 12x1-hour show, sold by Red Arrow International, charts the life of the legendary dancer, courtesan and spy Mata Hari. Red Arrow International is also showcasing The Romeo Section: Assassins, which is the next chapter in the espionage-thriller franchise from showrunner Chris Haddock. There’s also a new social-experiment format on offer from the company, Look Me in the Eye. “Millions of people worldwide are estranged from their loved ones and this show uses the emotional and physical impact of eye contact to see if it can reunite divided friends and families,” says Henrik Pabst, the managing director of Red Arrow International.

“Internationally appealing drama is highly sought after by broadcasters globally and our new English-language series Mata Hari and The Romeo Section: Assassins both fit the bill.”

—Henrik Pabst Mata Hari

Silver Wolf International Animal Societies / Cape Town: The Anti-Gang Squad / Courage Silver Wolf International heads to MIPCOM with a variety of highlights, including the factual series Animal Societies, which looks at how different animal tribes live together and create communities. “There is always an element of surprise [in the show] where viewers will sit back and go, ‘Oh, I never knew that!’” says CEO Abdul Rashid Budin. “It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, this subject is something that is relatable, therefore there will always be an appeal and a place on different channels or platforms.”

The company will also be showcasing Cape Town: The Anti-Gang Squad, a documentary focused on the gangs of the titular South African city, and Courage, a sports film starring Finn Wittrock and Aaron Eckhart that is based on a true story.

“When we decide on a program to represent or coproduce, the first question we ask ourselves is whether it will work for the global market.”

—Abdul Rashid Budin Courage 26 WORLD SCREEN 9/16

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Sky Vision Fortitude / Master of Photography / Hooten & the Lady The second season of the drama series Fortitude will be on offer from Sky Vision. “Fortitude 2 has all the addictive viewing properties necessary for a returning franchise, but offers an entirely new story to enrich schedules worldwide,” says Barnaby Shingleton, the company’s director of factual and entertainment. Sky Vision’s slate also includes Master of Photography, Europe’s first TV talent show for professional and amateur photographers. “The tense competition will appeal to both commercial broadcasters looking for new angles on the entertainment whittle, as well as public-service broadcasters wanting to move into more popular formats,” says Shingleton. Hooten & the Lady, meanwhile, is a drama series that features adventures in jungles, deserts, underground cities and ancient temples.

“While factual programming remains core to the business, we now represent significant global entertainment and drama franchises.”

—Barnaby Shingleton Fortitude

STUDIOCANAL Midnight Sun / Below the Surface / Paranoid The new French-Swedish co-pro Midnight Sun will be launched by STUDIOCANAL at MIPCOM. “The drama follows French police officer Kahina Zadi, who arrives to investigate the brutal murder of a French citizen,” says Katrina Neylon, the company’s executive VP of sales and marketing. “Together with Anders Harnesk, a Swedish detective and member of the local Sami tribe, [Zadi] is soon faced with new killings.” STUDIOCANAL will also be promoting Below the Surface, an eight-part drama following the work of a terror taskforce and a negotiation team and exploring the influence of the media; and Paranoid, which sees a group of detectives piece together what happened to a doctor who was stabbed after taking her son to a playground.

“At STUDIOCANAL we specialize in drama and we know that global success is always centered on a good, gripping story.”

—Katrina Neylon Midnight Sun

TM International Neanderthals / Emerald Green / Date the Chef Leading off TM International’s (TMI) lineup for MIPCOM is Neanderthals, a four-hour thriller that has already been sold in Germany and Spain. Also from TM International, Emerald Green is the latest installment of the Ruby Red trilogy.

“Based on Kerstin Gier’s best-selling teen novels, the films have proven especially popular among girls 10 to 15 and women 40 to 49—ideal family programming,” says Giannina Antola, the head of international sales at TM International.

MIPCOM will also see the company launching sales for the format Date the Chef. The series originally aired on Austria’s ATV, “where it tripled the channel’s market share in the target group,” Antola says. It also debuted on RTL II in Germany, with host Brigitte Nielsen. The format follows as five busy restaurant owners look for true love.

“TMI continues to expand its offer for all platforms with a highly competitive and curated portfolio.”

—Giannina Antola Neanderthals 28 WORLD SCREEN 9/16

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IN THE NEWS

By Anna Carugati

When the Endemol Shine Group was established nearly two years ago, it formed a global entity that now consists of some 120 production companies across 30 markets, all of which produce scripted or unscripted programming, or both. Cathy Payne, the CEO of the distribution arm, Endemol Shine International, is tasked with finding shows created by the group that have global appeal. Many have indeed become hits in numerous territories, from Broadchurch and The Fall to MasterChef. Payne and her team also look for third-party product that can complement the titles in their growing library, which amounts to more than 40,000 hours of finished programming. She talks to World Screen about the genres that are currently in demand and which types of rights are most sought-after by buyers.

WS: Does Endemol Shine International help secure financing for some of its more ambitious scripted series?

PAYNE: Normally, from the outset, we work out a rough financing plan with the production company that can then be fine-tuned once the primary broadcaster is secured. We then look at whether the deficit is at the level we would finance immediately or whether we need to also secure a presale. I don’t think there’s any scripted show that you acquire these days from Englishspeaking markets that you don’t have to deficit finance to a certain level. Working alongside our production companies [to finance] scripted is a constant day-today activity.

WS: There is considerable demand for drama now.

How is Endemol Shine satisfying that need?

PAYNE: We are continuing to do what we’ve always done and that is to find innovative stories that we can pitch and sell. I do think that there has been an increased demand for drama, but when you talk about increased demand, we’re largely talking about the U.S. market, where there are more outlets, and the streaming services worldwide. In the U.S., there are a number of channels that didn’t previously program scripted that are now moving into this genre because it can offer them unique opportunities for programming that very much identifies their channel. However, a lot of the content that is being commissioned in the U.S. is not necessarily traveling widely internationally. You’re seeing a lot of the big output deals disappearing in key markets. There is less American product in prime time outside the U.S. than there used to be.

WS: Are there any trends in the market at present in factual programming?

PAYNE: With factual, there is certainly a market for those innovative formats that are not too expensive to set up and that can travel well. For example, Gogglebox is a really nifty idea, and it’s not too expensive to produce.

The people you cast become the talent. Ninja Warrior has done incredibly well. It’s a very physical and visual game show, but it’s on a much smaller scale in terms of the set compared to other physical game shows we have seen in the past.

We always find that British food-based factual content does very well. For us, MasterChef is a huge driver.

We’ve always done very well with British factual entertainment, from shows like The Island to Supersize vs Superskinny. British factual is probably the besttraveling factual product in the world.

WS: Are you looking to increase the amount of programming you offer in any genres?

PAYNE: I’d like more broad-audience factual. We’ve had a couple of key franchises come to an end and they are sadly missed. As a company, we are also very committed to looking at how we refresh our longrunning franchises to keep them relevant for the audience. We would love more unscripted programming from the U.S. We’re always looking for good shows, either in food, lifestyle or property—the U.K. home-restoration series always travel very well for us.

WS: How do you decide how many new titles you want to highlight at a given market?

PAYNE: We do have a lot of product, and we will have a lot launching at MIPCOM, but what we try to do is make sure that it’s broken down into genres that suit the buyers who come looking for that product. Then we try to offer just mouthful pieces, rather than overrun people. In any pitch—and we are lucky that often we have more than one or two new titles that appeal to a broadcaster— you need to make sure that you pitch that product to the right broadcaster and look at the broadcaster’s

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Among the best-selling dramas in the Endemol Shine International catalog is Broadchurch, which is heading into its third season on ITV.

strengths and weaknesses. Our clients vary from the larger broadcasters and platforms focused on a primetime format or a larger scripted acquisition to digital channels that acquire volume.

WS: How do you work with the various Endemol Shine production units to choose titles for international distribution?

PAYNE: We have regular updates, so we know what’s in production, what’s on their development slates, what programs are close to getting a green light and what’s not. Our goal is that wherever possible we distribute all product that the group produces. What we invest in terms of distribution finance is a reflection of where we predict we can sell the product. We provide our internal and third-party producers with feedback—on what’s working in the market, what is challenging, what we would like more of, etc. It’s about collaboration. You’ll see a lot of producers that like to have a mixed slate; they have their day-to-day, bread-and-butter programming and then they might have a couple of real prestige pieces or they might be doing something in the digital space. It’s about looking at what they’re doing and making sure that you’re relevant and have the right product and skills to advise them.

WS: How do you add to your offering with third-party titles? What do you look for in acquisitions?

PAYNE: It’s fair to say that as we’ve become bigger, there are certain areas where it would be unlikely that we’d look for third-party product. We don’t really go out looking for reality shows; those are things that are supplied through our own companies. Scripted is always a big area of focus. Most of our scripted acquisitions would be bigger, bolder pieces rather than smaller pieces.

WS: In the U.S. this year, stacking rights became a make-or-break negotiating point with studios as networks were deciding what new shows to add to their fall schedules. Are stacking rights becoming an issue in other territories as well?

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PAYNE: Stacking rights are always an issue and have been for quite some time. Everyone wants to have exclusivity of their offering and to offer flexibility in how a viewer can consume a show. I would say the heaviest things that we discuss in our negotiations are what rights they’re taking and what additional rights they may want, what other opportunities there are for their viewers to watch what they are seeking, and what broadcasters or platforms are prepared to pay to acquire those rights. You have to remember, the more rights you give up front and the more times the show is available on those services will have an effect on revenue in the next window. We’re mindful of understanding broadcasters’ needs, but there is also a value to these rights we are licensing and we must make sure that we are reimbursed for that fairly.

WS: What are some of the most important issues today in international distribution?

PAYNE: Our main negotiation points are: exclusivity of product offering, what windows buyers are taking and if they just want a holdback or if they want to exploit that window as well; and flexibility of viewing, which involves all the technological advances that come with smart TVs, such as cloud storage, sideloading, etc. If I’m a broadcaster, I want people to watch a show on my channels, and that can be linear channels or nonlinear channels, and be exclusive to me as long as it can be. But there’s got to be a cost for an extended exclusivity.

WS: What are some of your long-running best sellers?

PAYNE: Broadchurch is one. We’ve got the third season of that filming now. Broadchurch was a breakthrough when it happened. Peaky Blinders was reordered for seasons four and five. We’ve got The Fall season three coming back. Grantchester season three coming back.

Humans season two.

In non-scripted we have The Island, a third season of which went out in the U.K. And then of course there is MasterChef. We’ve now produced over 50 versions of MasterChef worldwide and it continues to do very well and grow all the time.

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MARKET TRENDS

the local strategy. The channel has around 65 offices around the world, and we’re a boutique group that caters to each of their local needs and we work around their brands and affiliate relationships.

WS: Turkish dramas are relatively new to your portfolio.

Where do you see traction on that segment of the catalog?

FRASER: It is fairly new. When I came over, the only scripted in the catalog was Wayward Pines. Since then the company has purchased the FOX free-to-air television channel in Turkey, and with that comes an entire slate of new Turkish drama. We produce around 500 hours a year with the channel. We work really closely with them and make sure that the types of shows they are commissioning will be successful from a ratings perspective, but will also be successful from a distribution perspective. We make sure that anything that’s getting financed by the company is monetizable. We’ve got a lot of deals in Hispanic U.S., Latin America, Southeast Asia, Italy, SVOD, markets across CEE and the Middle East. There are a lot of markets open to it. The production values have become so good.

By Mansha Daswani

In a channels business that is increasingly about controlling your own content, Fox Networks Group (FNG) has put itself in prime position by making original programming a key strategic priority. Across its wide portfolio FNG has been investing heavily in high-end factual, scripted, lifestyle and more, building up a diverse library. As senior VP and global head of content distribution at FNG Content Distribution, Prentiss Fraser is tasked with licensing this portfolio to platforms worldwide.

WS: Tell us about your overarching strategy for managing this huge slate of content.

FRASER: It seems like a lot from the outside when you look in and hear us announce things like 825 new hours of content at the market! It is a lot when you say it, but when you’re on the inside of it, we have a way of grouping it into these small subcategories within the overall umbrella of content. We have an individual strategy for each of our 65 different offices, and then we have an individual strategy around the 20 different content creators. It’s a cross-matrix strategy that we use to approach the overwhelming amount of content so that we can exploit it all properly, in each country.

WS: At what point after your own channels’ first-run windows can you start selling shows?

FRASER: It is an interesting conundrum, and I think a lot of distribution companies that fit within a channel organization probably have the same challenges in front of them.

What we’ve been able to do is have our people sit within the channels, so we work very closely with everybody on a local level. I have sales parameters that we establish on an overarching basis, and then the local operations can make those titles available to the market earlier, depending on 34 WORLD SCREEN 9/16

WS: Shows are canceled quickly in Turkey if they underperform. How do you determine when you can start shopping something internationally?

FRASER: Most of the shows we commission as a channel are guaranteed to have 6 or 13 episodes in “season one.” That’s how they pilot. So we’re not coming out of the gate with just one episode, we’re coming out with at least a season’s worth of content. The channel will come to us and say, This is what we’re looking to commission this year. We’ll put projections up against [the shows] once we evaluate the genre and the talent. Then we make sure we’re able to put a plan together that can support the channel and what they’re looking to bring to their audience and make FOX and the producers some money on the back-end.

WS: Tell us about MARS and some of your other factual highlights for MIPCOM. FRASER: With the exception of a few projects, the industry really hasn’t challenged the factual genre like this before. MARS is [executive produced by] Ron Howard and Brian Grazer; it’s six hours, all in 4K, and it’s a scripted drama with feature-film visual effects and then it’s got all of these documentary interviews with some of the greatest minds in science: Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Buzz Aldrin, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think the industry is ready for National Geographic to take factual programming to the next level and this show will do just that.

There are two [other factual shows] I would highlight. The first is an inspiring climate change feature documentary starring and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio called Before the Flood. It features interviews with world leaders and revered scientists and presents solutions to the astounding damage that’s being done to our planet. It’s produced by Fisher Stevens, Brett Ratner, James Packer and executive produced by Martin Scorsese. The second is Killing Reagan, based on Bill O’Reilly’s book and produced by Scott Free Productions. It’s the fourth one in our Emmy-nominated scripted Killing franchise, and stars Tim Matheson and Cynthia Nixon as Ron and Nancy.

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Like all great fiction, today’s nuanced TV series, featuring multi-dimensional characters, have the capacity to help us better understand others and ourselves. Some shows are also able to raise awareness of complex issues or unfamiliar lifestyles—none, perhaps, as much as Transparent, created by Jill Soloway and starring Jeffrey Tambor as Mort Pfefferman, who at age 75 announces to his family that he is Maura, a transgender woman. The ensuing emotional upheaval experienced by Maura and the Pfefferman family is the focus of the series, which has won critical acclaim, including a Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe for Tambor. But more than the awards, Tambor is proud of the quality of the show and the light it sheds on human relaBy Anna Carugati tionships and the continuous struggles of the transgender community.

WS: How is working on a Jill Soloway set different from any other filming experience you’ve had before? Is there more improvisation than on other shows you have worked on?

TAMBOR: Improvisation would be too glib a thing. I will tell you this; the most important thing is to get the truth in the scene. A lot happens when you’re on the set. I’m thinking of one scene especially, the first year, where Len [Novak, played by Rob Huebel] sort of crashed the Sabbath scene and we did a great number of takes and then Jill came up to me and gave me a totally different spin on it. Literally, we were doing A, A, A, and she whispered in my ear Z, Z, Z, Z, and it just turned the performance and the scene on its head. She has the clarity and the alacrity to move on a dime to find the scene. That’s true creation and that’s writing as well.

And I love that. It’s a very special time. It’s a very safe set [because] you’re always after the truth of the scene. It’s not about the correctness of the scene, it’s not about getting all the lines right—it’s about what is really happening. And sometimes, as in life, the scene can change as you’re doing it. And Jill is on top of that.

WS: You told me that the theme of the first season was, If I change, will you still love me? What are the themes in season two? Am I correct in saying Maura’s transition has catapulted the rest of her family into examining themselves?

TAMBOR: You’d be very right in that. As you can see, one cog has moved in the family. The oldest one, Maura, has led and the other ones are now at sea and they’re trying to find how they navigate this. It’s through Maura’s prism that they now see their own waters that they have to navigate. I would say in season two [the themes are], Where is home and where do I belong? Because the irony is, Maura made this huge transition, [but since she’s made it, she’s left asking] Now how do I do it? What do I eat, what do I wear, what do I know? She doesn’t even have a home. She doesn’t know where to live. She doesn’t really know who her new friends are. She goes to the LGBT center but who does she know at the LGBT center? She’s not a young person. All of that is very intriguing to me.

WS: And what does that pull out in you?

TAMBOR: It’s so interesting—I’m a person who likes to know where everything is, where my book is, where my jacket is, and Maura is so much about not knowing. The “not knowing” is very scary to me personally, too, but it’s also very exciting as an actor to not know exactly what’s going to happen in the scene because I’ve never done it before. There are scenes that I’ve done this season that I’ve never had to experience in my life or in my art. So you don’t even know how to do it right, which is in a way scary but very freeing, because you go, Well, I don’t know what mark to hit because there’s no mark for it.

WS: The show has shed light on transgender issues and has started to create awareness. But the path ahead is still long, isn’t it? Look what happened with bathrooms in schools and other public places, the tragedy in Orlando…

TAMBOR: [Which bathrooms students can use in] schools is not only a transgender issue but a homophobic issue. The fact is [we need] more knowledge, more love, more education.

That bill in North Carolina was not about bathrooms. That was about ignorance and fear. And that it got reduced to bathrooms is so wrong; it’s about hatred and not knowing. And so any part that we are playing in [creating awareness] is important, but there are many, many parts to that. Maybe it’s me just being hopeful, but I do believe that people are climbing on board and saying, Wait a minute, I have to take stock here. There was a very important member of the government who just had his eyes opened by the tragedy in Orlando and he said, Wait a minute, this has to stop. And so any part that we play in that is so meaningful.

WS: As you get more into Maura and the family members get more into discovering who they are, is the show becoming less about gender and more about just being human?

TAMBOR: Yes. It’s about being authentic, it’s about freedom, it’s about being yourself. It seems that Generation Z knows this; they’re way ahead of us on this in that we’re almost fossilized in 9/16 WORLD SCREEN 37

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TAMBOR: I think she’s learning how much more Maura can be. How do I want to present myself in the world? How do I want to live as Maura? Who are my friends? What do I look like? Who am I, literally? Right to the existential—who the heck am I? Now that I’ve made this [transition], who am I? WS: Maura’s relationship with ex-wife Shelly is so fraught with conflict, but they really love each other, don’t they?

TAMBOR: Yes, but I think they have to go away to come back. By the way, I don’t know, because I don’t know where Jill’s going.

WS: So you don’t know ahead of time?

TAMBOR: No. Sometimes she’ll say, Do you want to know? And I go, Don’t tell me.

WS: So you learn it as you read each script?

TAMBOR: Yeah, because I find that actors sometimes get like those dogs that point if you tell them where they’re going, they’ll go.

But what I love about not knowing is that you never point. You never know you’re in a tragedy until someone tells you you’re in one.

Jeffrey Tambor has received a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as transgender parent Maura Pfefferman in Amazon’s Transparent.

our non-acceptance of [being yourself]. On the other hand, I will tell you something that is not known enough. It’s hard to talk about, but I remember going to a trans-pride celebration. We were there posing for pictures and signing autographs and meeting people. I met so many young people who were in various stages of their transition, and they weren’t Maura, they weren’t from the Palisades, they weren’t rich, and some of them couldn’t even afford their hormone treatments. It was very moving, because I thought, this [issue] is about people, this is not a red carpet item. Sometimes [transgender awareness] gets identified as a red carpet item and it’s not, it’s about people. I met a person that day who told me about just having come out and how difficult that was for his parents and things like that, and these are real human stories, this is real. It’s not about rich people in the Palisades. Maura is not the example and that to me is very meaningful. That changed my life. I’ve often said lives depend on [transgender awareness], but now I really understand that.

WS: And the problems transgender people have in getting healthcare. So many doctors won’t even treat them.

TAMBOR: Absolutely. And [there are] the suicides, attacks, murders and hatred. And just the stuff that happens in the business world of being passed over or not being hired or being asked to do things. It’s amazing.

WS: To that point, Jill has hired many transgender people to work on the show.

TAMBOR: Yes. She’s a true leader; she’s amazing. It’s absolutely one of the most exciting sets behind the cameras and there’s a vast array of trans talent in front of the cameras and in the production offices. It is one of the most exciting workplaces that I have ever been a part of.

WS: What can you tell us about Maura and her journey in season three?

WS: In the first season, Maura and Shelly’s kids drove me crazy because I thought they were so self-involved.

TAMBOR: I think the kids have got a bad rap. Can you imagine being raised by Maura and Shelly? I mean really? Talk about absent. But they have gotten a bad rap. People think they’re self-involved but they were neglected. First of all, when Mort was Mort, he had a furious temper and was not even at home in his body. And Shelly, you know where Shelly is; Shelly’s just Shelly.

WS: There is a scene in season two when, at the Yom Kippur dinner, the Pfeffermans discovered that Raquel had lost her baby, and Shelly starts moaning at the table—that was hilarious.

TAMBOR: I will tell you about that moment. Judith [Light, who plays Shelly] was doing it and doing it beautifully, but I remember watching that scene and I remember Jill coming [on set] and whispering in Judith’s ear—it’s one of my favorite stories. In the next take—Jill hadn’t told us—there was this moan that came out of Judith. I don’t know what Jill said into her ear that produced it, but that’s what I’m talking about, that’s the magic. First of all, there was the inspiration from Jill, and then there was the actress who could bring that about and transfer that. That, in a sense, is the collaborative magic of that show.

WS: Because Transparent only shoots ten episodes, it allows you to do other things. How else will we enjoy your performances?

TAMBOR: Well I did two movies during the break [from shooting Transparent]. I did 55 Steps with Bille August and The Death of Stalin with Armando Iannucci. And then back to Maura in January. I know, I’m the luckiest. If I dare even complain, there are a thousand actors who are going to slap me at once across the face!

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Photo: Art Streiber

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Nelson Mandela’s inspiring journey from student leader to political prisoner, South Africa’s first democratically elected president and a global icon has been recounted many times in books, documentaries and feature films. In Madiba, Mandela’s story gets the television series treatment for the first time, courtesy of Blue Ice Pictures and Out of Africa Entertainment—the venture founded by the late leader’s grandson Kweku Mandela—in association with Left Bank Pictures and Cinema Gypsy Productions. The six-hour miniseries is set to air on BET in the U.S. in 2017, with Dynamic Television handling international rights. Prolific film and television star Laurence Fishburne portrays Mandela in Madiba. He tells World Screen about preparing for the role and the new opportunities he’s finding in the television landscape today. By Mansha Daswani WS: What was your initial reaction to being offered the opportunity to play Nelson Mandela in Madiba?

FISHBURNE: I was extremely honored, and I was excited by the idea that we had six hours to tell this very, very big story. That gave me a lot of confidence about doing it. No one has had the opportunity to cover the span of his life with this kind of time. I did have a moment when I said, What do you think you’re doing? [Laughs] I had a moment like that, but I got over it pretty quickly.

WS: How did you prepare for the role?

FISHBURNE: I got a chance to come to Johannesburg in 2015 for about two weeks. I met with Ahmed Kathrada, who Mandela spent a lot of time with in jail. I met with Zelda [la Grange], who was his personal secretary the last 20 years of his life. These are people who had very, very close relationships with him at different moments in his life. His grandson Kweku, who is one of our executive producers, took us out to the town where he grew up, and we got to see the house and got to meet with the present chief. Also, while we’ve been here [filming], we’ve met quite a few people who had all kinds of different encounters with him. People are very willing and happy to tell you their stories.

Photo: Art Streiber

WS: What’s the most surprising thing you learned about Mandela in preparing for the role?

FISHBURNE: The thing that gives me the most joy is that he had this incredible sense of humor, which he was able to use in all kinds of situations, whether it was in negotiations or just on a personal level meeting people. His sense of humor and ability to use it to put people at ease and diffuse situations that would otherwise be intense was one of the great things I learned about him.

WS: How has the physical preparation been, from the makeup to the accent?

FISHBURNE: Well that’s what I do, I’m an actor: I go to work, I get makeup! [Laughs] It’s been very gratifying for me to work with an accent. I’m somebody who can do many accents but I don’t often get the opportunity to use that

skill. So it’s been wonderful to use that here. And the makeup has been challenging in that it’s the longest I’ve spent in makeup pretty much in my entire career. You know, as you get older, things change! [Laughs] I used to grow hair fast—now they have to paint it on, painstakingly slowly!

WS: You mentioned being comforted by having six hours to tell this story. What was it about the team behind the production that gave you confidence that Mandela’s story would be told as it should be?

FISHBURNE: Kevin Hooks [the director of Madiba] and I worked together about 20 years ago on a movie called Fled, but we’ve known each other for 40 years. We both were child actors and we auditioned for a lot of the same parts. I was a member of his dad’s theater company back in the 1970s. We have such a long history and we both have been journeymen in our business for so long. We have a shorthand and an innate sense of trust in each other. I know that Kevin is the guy to be directing this. You might have a miniseries that’s directed by four different people, like Roots was. With this, Kevin Hooks is directing all six episodes and his vision is going to be consistent, so the storytelling is going to be consistent. That gives me a lot of confidence.

WS: You executive produce and star in black-ish and starred in Roots this year. Do you think television is offering more interesting roles for you today than film is?

FISHBURNE: It would appear that way! [Laughs] The world has changed because of the ways we can communicate with each other through these devices, the ways in which we can exchange ideas and the ways in which we can access the things we love in media. I don’t think that the film industry has figured out how to catch up to that yet. I hope that it will. Certainly television has been pushed forward and the landscape has expanded. I don’t think the movie business has been integrated into that change. I don’t know if the movie business will integrate itself into it, certainly not in the way that television has.

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Zodiak Rights’ Versailles.

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Producers and distributors are evolving their co-production strategies as the drama business becomes more competitive. By Mansha Daswani o-production may be the de-facto model for making high-end scripted programming today, but in a complex market where innovative financing approaches are essential, the very meaning of the term is in a state of flux.

“This word ‘co-pro’ has become so used and abused,” says Rola Bauer, the CEO of TANDEM Productions and head of U.S. TV production and co-production at STUDIOCANAL, who has been a pioneer in structuring deals for premium English-language drama.

“I’m calling them international productions. Every country has their local productions, and the Americans are renowned and successful with their American productions. Then there’s all of us out there in the world who do not have the deep pockets of America and are trying to create international productions that also land very successfully in America.”

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to co-production today, observes Carrie Stein, the executive VP of global production at Entertainment One (eOne). “We treat each project individually and on a case-by-case basis. When we

C

find a piece of material that we all respond to, then we determine the best way to put it together commercially, financially and creatively.”

WHAT’S IN A NAME? By the simplest definition, a co-production is “two partners collaborating fully, creatively and editorially on a project, and then additional financing is made up from tax and location incentives, a distribution advance and maybe a presale,” explains Caroline Torrance, the head of scripted at Zodiak Rights. On that front, the slate at the company currently includes three high-profile titles: Versailles, a coproduction between Zodiak Fiction, CAPA and Incendo; Rebellion, produced by Touchpaper for RTÉ with SundanceTV as a co-pro partner; and Occupied, a TV2 and ARTE co-pro from Yellow Bird.

“The other model that often gets called co-production but really isn’t co-production is where you’ve got one commissioning broadcaster, and you make up the rest of the funding with more presales rather than co-productions,” Torrance adds. “Sometimes all you need is a presale to de-risk the project, to help you get it over the line, rather than full-blown co-production partners.”

Both models are in play at Federation Entertainment, and each “has its own specificities and difficulties,” says Lionel Uzan, the company’s co-founder and managing director.

For example, the company is on board as a partner on the U.K./French co-pro The Collection, which has two primary broadcasters (Amazon Prime U.K. and France Télévisions) and a distributor (BBC Worldwide) involved, with Lookout Point taking the creative lead as the production house.

Federation brought in a portion of the budget through France Télévisions and public subsidies, Uzan says. Federation also serves as the “middleman” of sorts between France Télévisions and Lookout Point and contributed local expertise for the show, which is set in post-World War II Paris. “We helped a lot by bringing remarks and notes on the scripts, helping the U.K. part of the production to choose French actors, and we brought in some French talent, especially on the costume design.”

The other model, Uzan says, is when there is a single commissioning broadcaster and Federation helps the project “financially, creatively and in terms of distribution.”

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Such is the case with the Finnish drama Bordertown.

“The idea here is really not to [participate in the] creative too much,” Uzan says. “The producer is building the project around the requirements of the local broadcaster. We are not interested in changing the nature of the project. What’s interesting for us is the fact that it has local authenticity.

We do a light-touch intervention on the creative side, trying to help the producer to understand how the international market works and what kinds of elements could be problematic for the international market.”

At STUDIOCANAL, Bauer is looking at the slates of the company’s various creative outposts to determine if projects can be turned from local commissions into international productions. At Urban Myth in the U.K., for example, STUDIOCANAL brought in Netflix as a partner on the E4 commission Crazy Face. At RED Production Company, BBC America was brought in on Quatermass. “Instead of RED doing what they traditionally do— get their anchor network out of the U.K. market—we said, Let’s see if we can land your anchor network in the U.S.,” Bauer says.

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The period drama The Collection has a number of partners on board, with BBC Worldwide as the lead investor and Lookout Point producing for Amazon U.K. and France Télévisions.

British production houses landing first-run commissions from American networks is certainly a new development in the fast-changing international drama business. And there are many more shifts under way.

WINDS OF CHANGE “The landscape has changed a lot over the last year—even in the last six months!” says Ruth Berry, the managing director of ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE). “It’s a really competitive space. One of the big changes for us is around talent and channels wanting to understand who is involved [in a project] and their level of credentials.”

As an example, Berry cites the ITV Encore and Hulu co-production Harlots from Monumental Pictures.

The track record of executive producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward was crucial, Berry says, as was the casting of Samantha Morton, Lesley Manville and Jessica Brown Findlay. “The ingredients are becoming key,” she explains.

“There are so many great stories out there,” but networks and platforms want to be comforted that the

execution will be spot-on. “Having more known about the quality of the people involved in the production is really helpful.”

Also on the ITVS GE co-pro slate is Victoria, which stars Jenna Coleman and is being made with PBS’s Masterpiece by Poldark producer Mammoth Screen.

For Liam Keelan, the director of scripted at BBC Worldwide, the biggest change in the co-pro business now is that “you have to be incredibly ambitious. The market is a lot more crowded; there’s a lot of really good product out there and the demand for A-list writers is greater than ever. You can’t do me-too drama in this market.

You’ve got to raise the bar, you’ve got to make sure it feels as if it has the scale of other dramas out there. I’m not saying everything has to be like War & Peace. If it’s not like that, then you have to be telling a very individual story that feels like it hasn’t been told before.

Something like Happy Valley doesn’t have the scale of a War & Peace, but it’s telling a story that taps into universal themes around crime, relationships, all those subject areas that sell well. It has to

feel as if it’s got a very individual voice. Those are the kinds of things we’re looking for.”

One project that Keelan mentions as being reflective of how the market has shifted is the aforementioned The Collection. “It’s something that we’re doing that feels completely new and fresh and that we wouldn’t have been doing a year or two ago. BBC Worldwide is the majority funder, it’s airing first on Amazon in the U.K. It’s kicked off an interesting and fruitful partnership with Amazon in terms of originated output from the U.K.”

SOMETHING NEW OTT platforms have become significant investors in original drama, but they’re not the only new players. There are networks across the globe that previously didn’t commission scripted now willing to pony up cash, sometimes as coproducers with creative input, often just as prebuyers, to land compelling shows.

“It’s fantastic that there are so many more places to go and so many more people to see,” Zodiak’s Torrance says. “I was recently in L.A. and New York, pitching various

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projects that we’d like to find partners for, and there are almost no channels that aren’t looking for a big scripted drama title.”

That development has changed the game for Keshet International (KI), which has made co-production a significant part of its overall scripted strategy. “When we first started in the international market with scripted in 2007, the IsraeliAmerican connection was a very natural and easy one, obviously more on the remake side,” says Keren Shahar, KI’s COO and president of distribution, referencing the adaptation of Prisoners of War into Homeland. “Now we also see that on the co-pro side. And now that we have a U.K. production company, it’s very easy to talk to British partners and European partners in general. We’re currently talking to Belgian companies, German companies and French companies; be it producers, channels or SVOD platforms. We are also speaking to Latin American partners for coproduction ideas.”

KI’s biggest co-pro this year has been the British version of The A Word, commissioned by BBC One and co-produced with SundanceTV.

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It also has a pact with Telemundo with the view to co-producing a drama for the U.S. Hispanic broadcaster. “The world is now our playground,” Shahar says.

Amelie von Kienlin, the senior VP of scripted acquisitions and coproductions at Red Arrow International, agrees, noting, “There are new countries opening up and everyone wants to have exclusive originals. The budgets for broadcasters are being reduced, and everyone is looking for alternatives to make the budgets bigger.”

SHARED VISION Von Kienlin adds, however, that co-pros are not just about rounding out the budget. When determining who to partner with, there are plenty of other factors to take into consideration.

“In the end, it has to be someone who really shares the vision, someone who helps to move the project forward. We value notes, because they offer a different perspective.” The caveat there, though, is ensuring that the creator’s original concept isn’t corrupted during the co-pro process.

“We start from the idea,” von Kienlin says. “We like to give the writer the freedom to work on a vision and define it before one goes out to partners. Otherwise, if you have too many partners from the beginning, it might get diluted.

This is [a process] we chaperone.”

Zodiak’s Torrance stresses that “you have to be driven by the creative of the project, not driven by the deal. It can be easy to get completely carried away with the deal, but then the partners involved are not on the same page creatively, and they don’t want the same thing. The creative has got to have a meeting of minds. If you don’t have that, then you’re doomed to failure at the start. And if you don’t have a really clear and honest conversation at the beginning about what you both want out of the partnership, then I don’t think it can work either.”

For eOne’s Stein, the biggest thing that can go wrong in a co-pro is a “broken telephone (or email). Communication is key! [It’s important to] stay connected to broadcast and

production partners and truly understand what it is about the show that they love; what will make it work for them commercially; and understand their development, financing and production processes and how best to work together to ensure mutual success. When you’re dealing with different countries, time zones and languages, it’s not always easy to connect on all the financial, creative and legal details that go into a series. My advice is to get ahead of it as much as possible by sitting down with all partners early on to make sure everyone wants the same show— and then go from there.”

KI has been thrilled with the experience it’s had so far with the BBC and SundanceTV on The A Word, which has been renewed by both broadcasters.

“I have to say, all parties were extremely open to listening to everyone’s needs,” Shahar says.

“The moment you have that, it becomes an easy and manageable discussion.”

One key point of negotiation was windowing, Shahar notes. “As the distributor, we need to make sure that we can sell the series

outside of the SundanceTV window as soon as possible. Although SundanceTV couldn’t launch when they initially wanted to, there weren’t any holdbacks. They realized that there were international considerations. It was a very civilized and calm discussion.”

While partner broadcasters and distribution companies must all back the same vision for a co-pro to be successful, the producers themselves also have a central role to play in making sure the process runs smoothly.

“It’s the producer’s responsibility to maintain the vision of what they’ve sold to the networks,” says STUDIOCANAL’s Bauer. “If they change it then the onus is on them to make sure everybody is on the same page.”

CAN WE CO-PRO? While the variety of projects on the market today would indicate that almost anything is fit for collaboration, there are some types of dramas that work better for coproduction than others.

“We would definitely look at every show individually,” ITVS GE’s Berry says. “They all have different

appeal and different international reach and different editorial voices. There are ones where we say, Let’s keep this U.K. And there are other projects where we think, OK, on this project we all agree between us—the producer and the broadcaster—that a coproducing partner would be beneficial, financially and editorially.

We’ll go find that partner who believes in the project the same way we do.”

Zodiak’s Torrance suggests that it helps to have “something that is relevant in both countries, so that means you’re often looking for well-known brands or subject matter that is known in many countries—like Versailles, for example.”

Torrance adds that period drama, in general, is ripe for co-pro opportunities. What’s challenging, she notes, is co-producing “longrunning returnable series. What can happen is, one country will air it, it’ll be a success, they want to do it again, but the other country hasn’t broadcast it yet, or they’re not in a position to be able to greenlight it yet. Having said that, we are doing Versailles, and that’s returning. So there are no rules.”

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STUDIOCANAL is distributing Paranoid, a new thriller from RED Production Company for ITV that is filming in the U.K. and Germany.

Red Arrow’s von Kienlin, meanwhile, adds that sometimes a show that would be an unlikely co-pro contender ends up being an international success story.

“If you look at Cleverman, this wouldn’t be the most obvious international co-production because it’s rooted very much in the indigenous mythology of Australia,” von Kienlin says of the Red Arrow-distributed show, commissioned by ABC in Australia and co-produced with SundanceTV. “But at the same time, the subject is unique, and it’s a world you’ve never seen on TV.” KI’s Shahar has found that “people today are much more sensitive to [local resonance] when they hear pitches for co-production. It’s not just that we have a character named Marie in a French-Israeli co-pro. It needs to make sense and be organic.”

Stein at eOne agrees, noting, “The best time to embark on a coproduction is when it is truly organic to the material, and the story lends itself to the sensibilities of various markets and partners.”

For her, eOne’s new show Ransom is an example of that. TF1 in France and Corus in Canada are co-producing, with CBS in the U.S. and RTL in Germany also on board to air the show.

“The series is inspired by the renowned crisis negotiator Laurent Combalbert, who lives in Paris,” Stein explains. “His rights were

acquired by Wildcats Productions, our French producing partners, who were looking to develop a project with TF1. As we began to develop the characters and story, our lead character’s ex-wife lived in Montreal with their daughter, so we made the decision to set our home office in Montreal. And suddenly it made sense to bring on a Canadian partner. The stories are set all over the world, so we knew the series would not only have global appeal, but we could shoot and post the series in Canada and France. The story naturally lent itself [to co-production].”

ness. Most recently it announced a pact with Little Engine. “They are fantastic producers who can work anywhere in the world, actually, and have got quite a lot of projects that could be grounded in Europe.”

BBC Worldwide’s Keelan says that he is always looking for new partnerships, “whether it’s with writers we’ve not worked with before or packaging deals across SVOD and traditional linear broad-

casters. Ultimately, it’s about getting ahold of the best IP. You’ve got to be very flexible. A couple of years ago it was, Let’s wait and see what’s coming down the track. Now we’ve got to be involved at the very outset.

Producers will ask, When do you like to hear about things, is it when it’s about to be shot? No, absolutely not! It’s when you’ve got the germ of an idea. Something like McMafia, which we’re involved in with the BBC and Cuba Pictures, came from a germ of an idea. As soon as we started talking about it—not pitching it in a formal way, just talking very generally about it—there was such a buzz in the market. It felt new and completely fresh. The earlier you can be involved in these things, the better.”

What everyone will be keeping their eye on in the months and years to come is how the U.K. exits the EU and what ramifications that will have on the co-pro sector. No one knows yet what it will mean for the movement of talent between countries. How British shows will be classified under European content quotas is unclear. Access to financing may change. For now, the mantra appears to be business as usual— until it’s not.

WIDE OPEN SPACES Even though some subjects and sub-genres tend to lend themselves better to co-pro than others, Zodiak’s Torrance has found that “there isn’t one type of drama that seems to be what people are looking for. There is so much flexibility and an openness to ideas.”

ITVS GE’s Berry says that the company is exploring new opportunities in a number of markets, including Scandinavia. “There is still great talent out there,” Berry says, “and they’re also really keen to work internationally. We’re starting to work more with French production companies, who have access to a different talent pool.”

ITVS GE is also continuing to expand its American scripted busi-

eOne’s new procedural Ransom is being co-produced with TF1 in France and Corus in Canada.

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+E Networks operates a portfolio of brands in the U.S. that serves different tastes and demographics, from history buffs, TV-movie lovers and fans of reality programming to viewers who love bingeing on scripted series or are addicted to factual programming to Millennials looking for programs that reflect their worldview. A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, FYI, LMN, VICELAND, Crime + Investigation, Military HISTORY, Lifetime Real Women and HISTORY en Español cater to passionate fans wherever they may be, on linear channels, online or on portable devices.

Years ago, A+E Networks made a commitment to owning the majority of the programming it airs—a strategy that has allowed it to launch channels in the U.S. and around the world and fuel a healthy distribution business.

As president of international and digital media, Sean Cohan oversees 85 branded channel feeds around the world and the sale of some 12,000 hours of programming. In January, he was also given responsibility for the company’s global digital media, which include websites, TV Everywhere apps, direct-to-consumer offerings and SVOD partnerships. He is looking for opportunities to roll out these products in territories outside the U.S. Just as Cohan did years ago with programming, urging the company to be global and include international in as many contexts as possible, he says he is now taking great joy in applying the same approach to digital, encouraging the telling of stories across all platforms.

Cohan talks to World Screen about recent and upcoming channel launches and about A+E Networks’ slate of programming for MIPCOM, from the powerful factual series 60 Days In to the innovative scripted series UnREAL to the reimagining of the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots into a TV event that garnered high critical acclaim and viewership in the U.S. this past May and is selling around the world.

WS: The original Roots was a major television event and the new production was even better in numerous ways.

COHAN: We referred to Roots as a reimagining. It was topical—if not more topical today than it was then. We made a ton of tweaks to the original that made it even more authentic historically, whether it’s the nature of the town where the beginning of the series is set, which turned out to be a city of 10,000, or whether it’s the nature of the slave trade. We started this project a couple of years ago. Maybe we didn’t have a full appreciation for just how right the timing would be.

It couldn’t have been better timing in the U.S., but I think it’s a global thing. When you think about migrants in Europe, it’s ugly right now, and identity, struggle and family are just as relevant, just as important, if not more important. I’m thrilled that Bob [DeBitetto, the president of brand strategy, business development and A+E Studios], and Barry [Jossen, the executive VP of A+E Studios], and the networks HISTORY, Lifetime and A&E took this one on.

original] and felt that same relevance, poignancy and formative kind of feeling; there are big parts of my and other people’s identity that you could find in Roots. The interesting thing is that there is a generation that didn’t see it. When you listen to [executive producer] Mark Wolper talk about the original Roots, he tried to make his kids watch it and he couldn’t make them do it because it just looks very dated, even though it had a tremendous cast and was an amazing project.

SEAN COHAN A+E NETWORKS

By Anna Carugati

WS: How has Roots been received internationally?

COHAN: Very well. It has sold just about everywhere, in some 200 territories, and in the handful of places where it hasn’t we’re in pretty deep discussions. It was one of those things that resonated with both trade buyers and audiences, and in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect. For example, it rated well in Malaysia and South Korea. The Philippines didn’t surprise me quite as much because there is a penchant for certain kinds of content there. I wasn’t surprised when Roots aired in South Africa and did [big] numbers. It goes back to what I’ve said many times: it’s a great story with incredible talent. For some viewers and some territories it was about this ugly truth and identity and very grand themes that resonated. For other people in other cultures, it was just about a ridiculously good-looking, big-budget TV event that had A-list talent.

WS: Roots had great resonance for you personally.

COHAN: It’s very rare to find moments where what makes sense professionally, what you’re passionate about and has been formative for you personally, and what will make an impact on society all conspire and line up. When I think about what Roots was in the late ’70s—I grew up in a not very diverse place, and I had a different ethnic background than most of the folks that I was with. Identity formation for adolescents is hard enough, but I struggled even more because it’s difficult to be an AfricanAmerican Jew in a homogenous community. And maybe I personalize it a little too much, but seeing Roots as an African American was a formative experience. I’m the same age as folks who saw [the

WS: What other scripted shows are in the pipeline?

COHAN: Roots was our singular message at MIPTV. At MIPCOM it’s leadership by committee, and we have an embarrassment of riches. We’ve got the eight-part military drama SIX, which is from our studio and The Weinstein Company, but our team is selling it.

We’ve got Jeremy Renner’s Knightfall, about the Knights Templar, and season three of UnREAL, which is the buzziest show that Lifetime has ever had. We also are growing formats in a big way and have an incredible new slate, as well as our ever-popular movies. We think of ourselves as the market leader not only in the volume of quality movies but also in the big events, be it ripped-from-the-headlines movies, crime pieces or biopics.

WS: 60 Days In is a breakout hit for A&E, isn’t it?

COHAN: Over time, it gets harder to break hits, so we’re thrilled that 60 Days In is a hit. More than that, it’s thrilling to bring something [to the market] that is different and elevates the stakes of the game. It’s a genre-defining take on the prison system.

We’ve always worked at and invested in pretty close relationships with law enforcement. All that said, it’s simply great TV. As an interesting update, formats are a big area for us heading into MIPCOM. One of those titles we are very bullish on, in fact, is 60 Days In. We’ve partnered with Pulse in the U.K. and are working with other markets to roll this format out globally.

WS: What other factual shows will you be bringing to MIPCOM? COHAN: Born This Way is in its second season. I have a bit of a personal connection to it because I have a younger sister who has Down Syndrome. It’s a risky show, a little different and a little bold, but it does justice to the topic and treats it with such dignity— it’s so endearing. We also have Alone, a recurring show, which is a fresh take on survival and competition reality, and we have our docudramas and specials, shows like Barbarians Rising.

Crime programming is an area that we are going to be talking about a fair amount. We have some really interesting new entrants to this genre beyond 60 Days In. We’ve had a great run

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A+E Studios teamed up with The Weinstein Company on the military drama SIX, which spotlights the brotherhood of Navy SEAL Team Six and is inspired by real missions. with The First 48, but we also want to look back and pay some respect to the folks that came before us at A&E who were the originators of the genre. With that in mind, we are bringing back and reinventing shows like Cold Case Files. We’re committed to truecrime and true-justice programming that is not salacious but forensic and analytical in thought, like Dick Wolf’s show Nightwatch. There are audiences for true crime and justice if you can find different ways into the storytelling. We have big plans for rebranding the Crime + Investigation channel along the same lines.

WS: Speaking of channels, what are some of your recent and upcoming launches?

COHAN: The recent ones are FYI in India and our first free-to-air channel in Turkey with Lifetime. Amanda Hill is our international chief creative officer and one of the things she and the team have been working toward is transforming Lifetime and HISTORY outside the U.S. An important part of the DNA of Lifetime going forward is this concept of empowering women and the strength of women through an entertainment lens. What’s been interesting, and is borne out in the Turkey example, is that whether you use the word feminism or

whether you’re using strength in a female context, they’ve got very different meanings from one market to another. So it’s been nuanced but also intellectually and professionally interesting to think about and position brands by market, trying very

hard to build and maintain a global brand that stands for the same things everywhere.

We’re launching a free-to-air network in September in the U.K. It’s a new global brand for A+E Networks, called Blaze. It is accompanied by a

couple of digital extensions as well.

It’s daunting enough to launch a freeto-air brand in the U.K., one of the most crowded and mature markets in the world, so we felt the need to expand it onto other platforms. Blaze will include content from a range of

Roots, a reimagining of the iconic 1977 miniseries, garnered high ratings in the U.S. and A+E Networks has sold the event series around the world.

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our networks. The linear channel will have more than 20 million subscribers and simultaneously we will be launching a TV Everywhere product across iOS and Android.

WS: You are also responsible for digital media. How are you going direct-to-consumer with some of your brands?

COHAN: The two forays into quasi direct-to-consumer so far in the U.S. have been Lifetime Movie Club and HISTORY Vault. I say quasi directto-consumer because we partner with a series of platforms to bring them to consumers, be it Apple, Roku, Amazon, Comcast or the like.

The idea for both is that they are complementary to our linear channels. Some services out there, especially the premium-cable networks, are trying to bring consumers a replacement or a substitute for their channels. For us, it’s about bringing the brand and a mass of content that maybe viewers aren’t seeing on the channel and that speaks more to the enthusiastic fan base.

The Lifetime Movie Club includes ripped-from-the-headlines movies, biopics, crime, women in peril and other [genres]—a lot of classic Lifetime movies and a lot more recent ones. It offers a new-to-theservice movie a day. It’s about super-serving that rabid fan of Lifetime movies and doing it across platforms and allowing people to watch wherever, whenever and however they want. That service has gotten good traction, and we are learning about that business and doing things more directly with consumers. We are understanding Lifetime’s value to consumers and churn—things that maybe our distributors and pay operators are more familiar with— and that has been really interesting. We launched Lifetime Movie Club about a year ago in the U.S. and HISTORY Vault about four months ago in the U.S. We also launched HISTORY Vault in Canada on the same day that it launched on certain platforms in the U.S. We’ll be launching these products elsewhere in the world.

WS: You have a new studio, 45th & Dean.

A+E Studios is producing Knightfall, about the Knights Templar, for HISTORY in association with Jeremy Renner’s The Combine and Midnight Radio.

COHAN: Yes and to explain the etymology, our offices are on 45th Street in Manhattan. Our physical studio is on Dean Street, hence the name 45th & Dean—it’s a bit of traditional media meets new media. The genesis of this is that while we were thinking about disruption, we recognized that we were disrupting ourselves in lots of different places inside of our company. We were making lots of interesting short- and mid-form content, but we weren’t doing it in as coordinated and ambitious a way as we could. So 45th & Dean represents a centralization and a build-up of what we think we should be doing in short- and midform storytelling—that’s anything from a 6-second vertical piece to a 15-minute piece that has gone or will go on our linear channels. The conceit behind 45th & Dean is that we’re producing for very different audiences and we need to be producing for different platforms in a bespoke and creative way at the outset, rather than retrofitting or repurposing. It’s incumbent upon us that when we come up with a great idea, whether it’s from 45th & Dean or one of our networks, we flesh it out for different audiences and different platforms before we do anything. And it’s thinking about that also with regard to interesting creative advertising ideas from the outset. That’s

the content component of 45th & Dean. We are aiming to make great short- and mid-form stories. Some will reside on Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram and some will be on linear or set-top box VOD. The other piece is the social and analytical component of 45th & Dean. Refining the company for the future, we looked at how we interact with social media, both on behalf of our brands and shows and without a connection to our shows. We centralized the social-media function in 45th & Dean and added a couple of analytics folks with an eye toward being both a creative engine and a client-service engine for internal and external clients in the form of agencies. It’s creating a circle where we create short- and mid-form stories, push them out on social media or our own platforms and we measure how they do. 45th & Dean is run

by Paul Greenberg, who reports to me. He’s a digital native who last ran Nylon magazine as CEO and also runs FYI domestically.

WS: At MIPCOM you are planning a Diversity Summit. Tell us about that.

COHAN: It’s an overall look at and a celebration of diversity in the global media industry. It’s a natural complement to and done in the same spirit as what we are doing with the Women in Global Entertainment

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Power Lunch. The Diversity Summit grew out of a grassroots effort by a small cadre of folks—not including myself; it came to my attention about a year ago—who would get together at each market. It started with a small group of people of color. Diversity carries with it different meanings across different markets. I thought, in the wake of Roots, in the wake of the grassroots effort that had been out there and particularly in the wake of hearing some really strong words at the last diversity gathering during MIPTV from LeVar Burton [an executive producer on the new Roots and star of the original miniseries] and Anika Noni Rose [actress in Roots], it was high time for us to do something speaking to and celebrating the importance of diversity, not only on screen but behind the camera and in the executive suites. This is one of the great moments where what I believe is important personally and what makes sense from a business perspective come together because having diverse people in the industry doesn’t hurt your ability to reach increasingly diverse audiences.

We are working with Reed MIDEM and others on the Diversity Summit, taking advantage of the fact that there is a critical mass of thought-leaders, decision-makers and executives in one place.

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BEHIND THE SCENES

NEAME: I think the quality of drama has been improving from where it was, say, 20 years ago. I’ve been to the festival three times before, mainly as a nominee. I’ve never been on a jury before, so I’ve never considered all the other programming. What I’ve enjoyed about watching the shows is seeing that the golden age of drama, as they call it, does not exclusively have to be English-language American and British shows. What’s happened in Europe [is similar] to what happened in Britain in the ’70s. As the British film industry declined, a lot of film people came over to television. They turned British TV drama into a very successful, well-regarded genre. What’s happened much more recently in some countries in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, is that those countries have such a respected film tradition, much more than television, but they’ve actually migrated a lot of their cinematographers, writers and directors into television. So they also have some very good high-end television. I’ve looked at series [whose] production quality and ambition of the storytelling show that the golden age isn’t only about English-language.

By Anna Carugati

Years ago, Gareth Neame, the managing director of Carnival Films, proposed an idea for a show to writer Julian Fellowes. The result was Downton Abbey, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The period drama won numerous awards, including three Golden Globes and, at press time, 12 Primetime Emmys, but more importantly, drew international attention to Carnival Films, the British independent production company that NBCUniversal acquired in 2008. Neame has had a successful career executive producing a string of critically acclaimed shows, among them The Hollow Crown, based on Shakespeare’s history plays; the political thriller Page Eight; Dracula for NBC and Sky; and The 7.39 for the BBC. Prior to joining Carnival, Neame was head of drama at the BBC and oversaw such shows as Spooks (MI-5), Bodies, Outlaws and Hustle. As Carnival Films has been increasingly producing for both the U.K. and the U.S., Neame has a unique perspective on the state of drama today.

WS: First off, so many fans are mourning the end of Downton Abbey. Will there be a movie?

NEAME: We’ve said we’d like to make a movie. There are a lot of things to sort out, not least getting all the actors back at a time when they’re all available.

Although the process of making a film isn’t really very different from making a TV show, the storytelling is a bit different; it’s a single story. So we have to get it right. But I hope it will happen. If it happens I hope it will be in a year and not five years, sooner rather than later. But it’s not guaranteed.

WS: You were a member of the fiction jury at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival this year. What are your impressions of the quality of drama these days?

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WS: Tell us about Carnival Films and how you look to satisfy the market.

NEAME: We’re a relatively unique business. We’re one of the oldest independent production companies in the U.K. We were founded in the very late 1970s, not by me, but by my predecessor. We’d been a successful independent company for many years. We then sold the company to NBCUniversal in 2008 and became part of a global media organization. That, combined with one of the biggest hit dramas in the world, Downton, which has been distributed very successfully by a very strong distribution business, has led to us being the biggest drama producer in the U.K. by revenue and profit.

Our sweet spot, as an English-language producer, is if we can make stuff commissioned for the U.S. and U.K. markets, that’s ideal. Alternatively, we produce for the U.K. market, we deficit finance and then we sell into the U.S. and look to sell everywhere around the world as well. Or we will produce directly for the U.S. market.

We’re a global drama producer in the English language based in London. We work worldwide.

WS: Are you seeing the British model of producing series with fewer episodes moving toward the American model of more episodes in one season?

NEAME: I think the two systems are gravitating toward each other. There’s not quite as much noticeable change on U.S. broadcast network television. The networks seem to have got into a slightly split ecology, where they’re still making the 22-episode, highly episodic procedural shows, but for the right talent and the right idea, they’re trying things out that can be ten episodes or that can be

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more serialized. There’s a bit of that happening, but by and large, the U.S. network television model is changing the least. The U.S. cable model, on the other hand, is moving massively toward the British system, because if you want to get a movie star to work on your show but they’re only going to give you five months and they’re not coming back next year, you think, Well, I’m going to weigh getting a big star against having one secured for three years. Therefore you see the big cable networks doing ten episodes or less, six, seven, eight episodes. And in the U.K., everyone has accepted that [doing] six episodes in this day and age is really ridiculous. You need to be looking at eight to ten episodes, and ideally more than that.

But the main movement has actually been toward the British shows, which is very good for us because it’s almost impossible to make a show that runs for years and years with 22 episodes. It’s a lot more manageable to make 10 hours a year, 12 hours a year, for several years and keep the quality up, which is going to give you long-term residual value for that product after you’ve finished producing it. The other thing regards serial storytelling. We never really use writers’ rooms in the U.K. and writers

WS: To what do you attribute the ongoing popularity of period dramas? They never seem to go out of style, do they?

NEAME: It’s a genre that’s really beloved. Britain is still forward-thinking and very happy in its own skin now, but the British sit very comfortably with their history. I lived until recently in a house that was built in the 1600s and there’s nothing unusual about that. History is all around us, and we’re very comfortable with that and literature and Shakespeare, and all these things sort of come together. We do look backward for storytelling as much as we look forward. Arguably, we look back too often. I think it’s popular around the world because it’s very hard to find cultural connectivity on contemporary issues as French audiences are different from British audiences and so on. But history is an alien experience to all of us. You have great big epic battles and politics and love stories and all sorts of things happened in very interesting worlds that we can be taken into. And it tends to be a genre that’s more co-producible than contemporary dramas.

I guess one of the main reasons that we’ve done a lot of historical drama, partly on the back of Downton,

would never really be producers. We [the producers] came up with the ideas, found the writers, let them write and left them alone and we did everything else. Not that we didn’t involve them in the show, but their skill was the writing part of it; it was better to let them do the writing part and we do everything else. And that’s why we would do a six-part series that was very authored and had a serial story line. Now cable has come to that kind of programming as well, that actually plays to the strength of British production and talent generally. So yes, there’s been a convergence of ideas. When I was first going to L.A., businesspeople would say, You make short series—what’s that all about? They couldn’t understand anything that wasn’t in their way of doing things. But that’s obviously loosened up a lot.

is that people expect that of us and they come to us with ideas. But also because I found it’s quite saleable. I hope that Jamestown will be on television in the U.S. because the show’s coming together brilliantly well and it’s actually more a piece of American history than it is British history.

WS: They’ve opened up to the fact that a good story can come from outside Hollywood, right?

NEAME: They’re even flexible with the formats….

Syndication is still important for episodic shows, but once upon a time that was the only way to make money after your show had aired; now there are so many other ways to do it. So the rules that drove syndication have diminished.

WS: Any upcoming Carnival shows you’d like to highlight?

NEAME: We have three shows in production. We’re doing a second season of The Last Kingdom, which is for the BBC and Netflix in the U.S. We’re doing a second season of Stan Lee’s Lucky Man for Sky. We have a new show called Jamestown, also for Sky, and that’s about the story of the first English settlers who went to Virginia in the 1600s.

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Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, produced by Carnival Films, will return to Sky 1 for a second season in 2017.

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The feature documentary Code Black, which offers an eyewitness account of doctors making split-second life-and-death decisions in America’s busiest emergency room in L.A. County Hospital, served as inspiration for the eponymous drama series that airs on CBS. The show depicts the struggles and ambitions of doctors working under the “code black” alert in an E.R. where resources are stretched to the limit by the high volume of patients.

Academy Award-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden plays Residency Director Dr. Leanne Rorish, who is tasked with keeping the chaos under control in an overburdened system

By Anna Carugati while training first-year residents and saving lives.

WS: How did you hear about the show and what appealed to you about the concept?

HARDEN: They brought me the documentary and I was initially slated to play a different character. When I looked at the documentary, I thought it was amazing and so realistic. And truly, what stood out was the compassion of the doctors. In such a short period of time—it’s an emergency room situation—[they show] incredible compassion for the patients that they just briefly got to know. The doctors’ stamina, their camaraderie with each other, their sense of self-importance—but in the right way, they’re saving lives—and yet there’s an incredible humility at the same time, I love that. And when it didn’t work out with the other actor who was [supposed to play] Dr. Leanne Rorish, they offered the part to me. She was a much better fit for me than the character I was doing. I loved Rorish’s command, her vulnerability and her impatience. Mostly, I loved her recklessness. I thought, How interesting to take a woman who has suffered loss and who is in this very important job with lifeand-death situations. She’s gotten a little bit reckless in the name of saving lives, and she’s often right. Sometimes you have to take those risks, you have to think that fast. And sometimes, those risks fall short. And what does that do? What does that mean? What is the toll?

WS: Do you feel the intensity and the stress of the doctor that you’re portraying to the point that it affects you also as an actor?

HARDEN: Absolutely. And I love that question because I only recently began to do research about stress levels in the body. My mother has Alzheimer’s, and [I’ve looked into] stress and Alzheimer’s, stress and heart disease, stress and weight, and how they’re all related. And I got to thinking, you really go through it if you’re acting. My school of training is to really go through it, whether you’re on stage or in a movie or on television. So what am I doing to the stress levels in my body or my brain? And how does that affect me? My kids say, Mom, you were so much grumpier when you came home at night while you were shooting Code Black. I was so much more stressed because I had been in that situation all day. And I thought, I’m going to have to really work on demarcating the two [work and my personal life] and leave [the stress] at the office. But it’s hard because it’s in your body.

WS: What different acting muscles does a long-running series stretch compared to working on a feature film?

HARDEN: The difference between doing a film or a play and doing a long-running series is that [in a TV series] you don’t own your story. When I read a film, I own my story beginning, middle and end. I know what it is. The same [is true] in the theater, I own it beginning, middle and end; it’s defined. In television, you don’t own it at all. So there’s a whole part of your brain that might have to do with structure and control that you have to disallow because you don’t own your story. And who you are one day [can change] the next day because someone can throw you a different circumstance. I experienced it for the first time during Damages [playing the character Claire Maddox]. I thought, Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa! How does that correlate? I would never have thought that my character wanted to be the CEO of a major company. I’ve built a whole idea that my character didn’t want to do that and [then] something [happened to change] that idea. Or in Law & Order: SVU I built a whole character based on honor, honor, honor, honor; my father’s in the Navy, honor, honor, honor. In the last episode I did, they said, Oh, by the way, [your character] killed someone many years ago and has lied about it for years. I’m like, No she didn’t! I can’t correlate that. And they said, Do you want to play it or not? And I said, OK. So I could be thrown something in Code Black that I would never have expected from my character because they’re creating it as they go along. For me, that’s the biggest difference.

WS: Anything you can tease about season two?

HARDEN: A wonderful new doctor, played by Boris Kodjoe, will be on. A wonderful, new, young doctor, played by Jillian Murray, will be on. [Since this interview, it has been announced that Rob Lowe will also be joining the cast.] Raza [Jaffrey] and Bonnie [Somerville] have made other career moves. My character was in [hospital] administration for a while but I think she’s back in the E.R. now, which [I’m happy about] because one of the things that I love about Leanne is she’s a great teacher. And you track the story—will the interns make it or will they not make it— through Leanne and senior nurse Jesse Sallander, played by Luis Guzmán. So I think it’s good to keep them at the center of these ancillary doctors. But I don’t really know where it’s going yet.

This is it. I don’t own the story; I have no idea!

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After starring on the soap Neighbours in his native Australia, actor Jesse Spencer was cast as Dr. Robert Chase, an empathetic, morally scrupulous doctor on the critically acclaimed series House. Following House, Spencer found a new TV home as firefighter Matthew Casey on the Dick Wolf drama Chicago Fire, the first in a new franchise for Wolf—creator of the Law & Order shows—that has grown to include Chicago P.D., Chicago Med and, in 2017, Chicago Justice. Casey is a strong lieutenant dedicated to his job and the firefighters he leads. Spencer talks to World Screen about learning firefighting skills, the risks of the job, the loyalty of the

By Anna Carugati firehouse community and mastering an American accent.

WS: How did you prepare for the role of Matthew Casey?

I understand that in a Wolf Films production there is a lot of training.

SPENCER: Yes, and it’s essential. When I first started I was still finishing up House, and they very kindly let me shoot the pilot for Chicago Fire. I was flying to Chicago on weekends to shoot it and flying back to Los Angeles to shoot House, back and forth for a month. [When I arrived in Chicago to shoot the pilot] I met Steve Chikerotis, who’s the chief fire consultant on the show. He picked me up from the airport and took me straight to the fire academy. I just pressed record on my phone like you reporters do and listened to him talk. He gave a class on fire safety. Lieutenants from different houses showed me how to break down the door, how to kick down the door, their SCBA [self-contained breathing apparatus] gear, which is the mask and oxygen, and I just got familiar with the equipment.

WS: You use real gear on the show, right?

SPENCER: It’s real stuff. It’s 65 pounds. When the real firemen go on a call, very rarely do they wear the gear for 12 hours. Normally it’s go in, get out, and they wear the gear for about half an hour or so. But we end up wearing it for 12 hours, so we’re constantly trying to take it off and put it on because it gets heavy.

It’s a very physical job, and it can be pretty dangerous, so I try, as most of the cast does, to keep up a certain level of physical fitness just to help offset the physicality [required]. But we’re getting fit for free. They are paying me to stay fit, so there! [Laughs] WS: As an actor, what was the mental and physical shift you had to make going from Dr. Chase to Matthew Casey?

SPENCER: They loosely based Casey on a real guy who’s called Casey, one of Chikerotis’s friends, but also on Chik himself, because he’s such a natural-born leader. He’s a really nice, humble guy. He has a huge heart and he’s very knowledgeable. He’s really good at what he does and his men have total respect for him. He respects his men and he loves the fire department. It’s all these great qualities that Casey embodies as the lieutenant leading the guys. That’s sort of who we based Casey on;

Chikerotis is my go-to guy. What would Chik do? And then we go from there. He’s a loving guy, but he’s not afraid to throw down either! I wouldn’t want to mess with that guy! [Laughs] WS: You’ve been on this series for four years. What have you learned about the toll the job takes on these really dedicated firemen?

SPENCER: A lot. The biggest cause of death is actually heart attacks. I don’t know why that is, but obviously they breathe a lot of bad stuff. We breathe a lot of bad stuff. We don’t use CGI fire; we’re burning stuff, so every day you can be picking a lot of black shit out of your nose. [Laughs] But we’re in it and we love it.

WS: What have you learned about the firefighters’ community?

SPENCER: Well, it’s just such a tight-knit community and that’s how they need to operate—otherwise it wouldn’t work. So we really had to adopt that sense of togetherness. It’s a dysfunctional family, like any good family is, but they always help each other, and there’s that real sense of community and pride in their vocation. Hopefully, we are translating that onto the screen so that the audience feels like they, too, are a part of the firehouse community.

They’re also adrenaline junkies. You’ve got to have something in you that wants to run into a burning building—other people don’t have that. And they’ve got a sense of danger. They want to fight fires. These guys want to experience these situations, but the reality is, while techniques and equipment and technology have improved and vastly decreased firefighter fatalities, it still happens. And that’s when they come together again.

We went to a firehouse down the street when it lost a guy and firefighters came from all over. They came from New York and Toronto and St. Louis. That really drives home [the reality and risks of being a fireman] so much. You can’t ignore it. The reality is palpable, and that informs us and informs the show. So whenever we think we’re just making a TV show, something will happen and we’ll go, Wow, it’s art imitating life and it feels real. Because we know those guys experience that and they’re our friends.

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WS: You worked with David Shore and now with Dick Wolf, two successful showrunners. The level of television nowadays is pretty amazing, isn’t it?

SPENCER: There’s so much good stuff around. Take your pick— what style do you want? These are great days for television and stories. I mean there’ll always be a market for [film], but…

WS: So much film talent has moved over to television.

SPENCER: It has moved over to television. There’s so much more choice. TV is where the stories are and I think it’s going to continue to go that way. Chicago Fire and the Dick Wolf shows are an old-school way of making TV, that’s for sure— spawning all these shows and these crossovers. But Chicago Fire is a show that has a positive message and that makes it unique.

On TV there aren’t a lot of shows that really do have a positive spin and I think that’s why it’s been so successful.

WS: As a viewer of Fire and Med, what I take away is an incredible level of humanity, even though the characters aren’t perfect.

SPENCER: Yes, exactly, and that’s the thing that sets these shows apart from other genres. Those other genres are great, too, but Dick has built an empire here! [Laughs] They thought he wouldn’t be able to do it, so it just goes to show that the procedural has a home, and [so do] stories with a positive message. It doesn’t have to be dark and murderous. We can delve into those areas, but it’s not what the show is about.

WS: Was switching to an American accent a problem for you? I remember interviewing Hugh Laurie. On House, he’d stay in character most of the day, right?

SPENCER: He did.

WS: Have you followed that lead?

SPENCER: No. I did for the pilot, purely because I thought it was a better option just to stay in character for the times I was in Chicago—only on the set, not when I went home.

But my go-to is Eamonn Walker, who plays Chief Wallace Boden [on Chicago Fire]. Eamonn worked on Oz and he’d done numerous American accents. We ended up having the same dialect coach, and we constantly bounced back and forth about placement, sounds, tone and muscles.

WS: I’m from Chicago; you have the Midwestern twang down perfectly! [Laughs] SPENCER: Oh good, great! I wanted to get it right because I know they didn’t want a false Chicago accent. It wouldn’t have suited Casey. I wanted him to be a good Midwest boy!

And Eamonn normally does New York stuff, so he was working to get rid of his Brooklyn accent! [Laughs] So we’ve had some funny times on set.

We did a scene once where we had an Australian actress, Daisy Betts, for quite a few episodes. We were in this office, and we were like, We’re three foreigners here all playing Americans. So we did the scene in our native accents, and it was the most bizarre thing because you work so hard against [your native] sounds. And to have a new set of sounds, it was actually hard to be Australian in the wardrobe, on set. Looking at the chief, for me to talk to him as I talk was extremely difficult, but we got the scene out. I never saw it, but it just sounded so jarring to the ears.

It was so wrong! [Laughs] It was like, What’s going on here? It was like an out-of-body experience. It was very, very strange!

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SPOTLIGHT

Black Money Love, which recently had its finale in Turkey, has been sold for broadcast in more than 100 countries.

Also, Endless Love, which was just launched this season, has already been sold in nearly 50 countries. We are aiming to have Endless Love broadcast in at least as many countries as Black Money Love. The reason why both Black Money Love and Endless Love have received great attention is their high production values, stories and acclaimed casts.

WS: In which territories do you see new opportunities emerging for Turkish dramas?

OKAN: Recently we have entered into new territories in central Asia and the Far East. We have also started receiving a lot of interest from sub-Saharan Africa, which we believe will become an important market for us.

We are already working closely with Hispanic channels in the U.S. Our dramas are receiving great results in Latin America as well. We have started receiving offers from international SVOD companies, including the U.S. We hope that soon Turkish dramas will also be broadcast in the U.S. in the English language.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

For nearly 25 years ITV Inter Medya has been striving to gain the widest possible exposure for Turkish content. The company’s efforts started with feature films and continued with the global distribution of drama series bearing the “Made in Turkey” stamp. The next frontier for ITV Inter Medya is the format market, and the company has come out of the gate with a slate of game shows it believes will help to set a successful course in this new area.

Can Okan, the president and CEO of ITV Inter Medya, tells World Screen about the opportunities he sees in the format business and what new sales prospects are emerging for the company’s Turkish dramas and feature films.

WS: What’s driving ITV Inter Medya’s business at present?

OKAN: Our core business has been the sale of Turkish drama series and feature films. Besides these, we have recently begun format development and production. So far we have created ten formats. We have produced one of them for ATV, one of Turkey’s biggest channels. Our first production, Win & Share, is on air now and the broadcaster ordered a second season, which we started production on at the end of July.

WS: What impact has Turkey’s new ratings system had on the country’s TV landscape and the local production sector?

OKAN: Due to the change in the ratings system in Turkey, producers are creating dramas that interest local audiences; hence there are now fewer dramas that meet the requirements of the international market. Despite this change, Turkish dramas still receive high interest abroad.

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WS: What led to ITV Inter Medya’s foray into the format business?

OKAN: As a very successful company in the international market, we did not want to limit our catalog to just dramas and feature films; hence we entered the format business. The reason we started with only game-show formats is that as a beginner, the production is easier and less costly. However, we are currently in the process of developing two higher-budget reality shows, which we believe will have a huge outcome within the sector.

WS: Do feature films remain a viable part of ITV Inter Medya’s business, and where are you finding the greatest opportunities for those productions?

OKAN: Our company was set up to distribute feature films, so feature films hold great importance for us. Feature films that have the same actors from successful Turkish dramas receive great attention. The companies we work with are the ones that produce the biggest blockbusters in Turkey. We have recently closed package deals for feature films in the MENA region, China, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. We are expecting the number of territories to rise in the coming months.

WS: As you look to the year ahead, where are you focusing your energies in the business?

OKAN: Our aim is to continue distributing Turkish dramas, feature films and formats around the world. We not only want to sell the formats we produce, but to also acquire formats from international distributors and produce them for the Turkish market. We are happy to say that we will be adding four new drama series and around 20 feature films to our catalog in the new season, in addition to the ITV Inter Medya-created formats.

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FOCUS ON

On the Turkish-drama side, which is core to our business—we love Turkish scripts—we are adapting The End in Holland. That will debut in the fall, and it will be the first Western European adaptation of a Turkish script. The End is also in production for a local version in Russia to premiere this fall, and it is in development for local versions in Spain and Germany. Altogether, we will probably have four different versions of the same script produced in Europe this year.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

The central focus of Eccho Rights’ business is to empower creativity worldwide. By forming alliances with independent producers from all corners of the globe, the company has built up a distribution catalog that features finished series and formats hailing from countries as diverse as Korea, Turkey, Finland, Iceland, India and Portugal. Fredrik af Malmborg, the managing director of Eccho Rights, tells World Screen about the trends he sees in the global marketplace and what countries he’s keeping an eye on for innovative new ideas.

WS: What’s your sense of the current climate in the formats market?

AF MALMBORG: The overall trend is that everybody is going for drama at the moment. We’ve had consolidation in the entertainment business with all the independents being bought up and buying each other, leaving very little space for creating new formats. Now that all the broadcasters seem to have invested massively in dramas, audiences will maybe get a bit tired of them and want to see entertainment again. Also, the broadcasters are looking for less costly shows. So in our development meetings we are seeing some good things for entertainment for the first time in a little while. The entertainment field is still struggling a bit, though.

WS: Has the demand for drama given a boost to the appetite for scripted formats?

AF MALMBORG: We have seen 12 adaptations of our dramas in the last two years, and we have another 10 in the works.

We sold the Finnish series Nurses for a Swedish version on TV4. We’ve already presold it to Denmark and Norway and have a number of other clients that are interested.

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WS: Are you seeing finished Turkish dramas entering new markets across Europe?

AF MALMBORG: We have sold Endemol Shine Turkey’s Broken Pieces to SVT in Sweden for the fall as a readymade subtitled into Swedish. We sold Cherry Season to Mediaset in Italy. It is the first time that a Turkish drama is on air on a major channel in Italy. We have also sold the Ay Yapim series Kurt Seyit & Sura into Italy.

In most markets in the world where Turkish drama has taken off, which most recently is in Latin America and Asia, in the beginning you have some successful ones, then the buyers are less careful about what they buy and there are some failures. That’s what’s happening in Eastern Europe. We had a huge boom five years ago, then there was a little bit of saturation, and now it’s coming back.

We see Turkish drama being bought again in Croatia, where it has been off the air for a little while.

The general trend in drama is all about globalization.

American drama is no longer the only kind that works. We have Turkish drama; we have Indian series performing very well in Eastern Europe in Georgia and Kazakhstan. A good show can come from anywhere in the world!

WS: What new opportunities have you found in Latin America for Turkish dramas?

AF MALMBORG: We’ve had a boom in Latin America. We dubbed 1,000 hours of Turkish drama into Spanish in the last year. Mega in Chile was the first one [to begin buying Turkish dramas in Latin America] and has had an amazing journey with them. We premiered Ezel there, and it scores between 25 and 30 percent ratings every day. Since then, we’re pretty much selling to the top broadcasters in every country in Latin America. Our latest addition to the Latin American market is Elif, which is a lower-budget series, but it’s also performing extremely well in Asia and Eastern Europe. The ratings results for Elif are simply outstanding in all ten of the markets around the world where we have launched it so far.

WS: What territories are you keeping an eye on for the development of new creative ideas?

AF MALMBORG: On the drama side, India is interesting.

We are working a lot in Korea and are going to make some major efforts in that market. Ice Adonis from Korea was adapted in Ukraine and it’s doing really well. Iceland is a very small country, but we have a format from there, The Entrepreneurs from Sagafilm, that’s been very well received. That’s amazing from a country of 330,000 people. It goes to show that you don’t have to be in a huge market to make a really good series.

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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 fooled by Ryan Lochte?

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 pre-

Ryan Lochte

Maisie Williams

Tara Reid

Ashton Kutcher

RYAN LOCHTE

MAISIE WILLIAMS

Global distinction: Olympic golden boy.

Sign: Leo (b. August 3, 1984) Significant date: August 14, 2016 Noteworthy activity: The 12-time Olympic medal win-

Global distinction: Game of Thrones’ Arya.

Sign: Aries (b. April 15, 1997) Significant date: August 15, 2016 Noteworthy activity: The teenage actress, who plays

ner tells his mom that he and three fellow U.S. swimmers had been robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro. Following a string of conflicting reports, the truth comes out that Lochte invented the story to cover up a drunken fight he may have had with a security guard after damaging a gas station restroom.

Horoscope: “More than anything you must tell the truth, even in situations where it might be easier for everyone if you lied. Honesty is always the best policy.” (nypost.com/horoscope)

the youngest Stark daughter on the HBO megahit Game of Thrones, confesses that she’s never read the novels on which the show is based. Williams says that her mother thought the George R.R. Martin books were “inappropriate” for her to read when she landed the part at the age of 12.

Horoscope: “Take the time to do your research before making any major changes or investments. Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into beforehand.” (sasstrology.com)

THOMAS GIBSON

TARA REID

Global distinction: On-screen criminal profiler.

Sign: Cancer (b. July 3, 1962) Significant date: August 12, 2016 Noteworthy activity: The 54-year-old actor, who has

Global distinction: Aging party girl.

Sign: Scorpio (b. November 8, 1975) Significant date: August 12, 2016 Noteworthy activity: The Sharknado star is caught hav-

starred in Criminal Minds since the hit procedural first premiered in 2005, gets suspended and ultimately canned after he kicked a writer during an on-set argument over the series’ creative direction. “Thomas Gibson has been dismissed from Criminal Minds,” reads a statement from ABC Studios and CBS Television Studios.

“Creative details for how the character’s exit will be addressed in the show will be announced at a later date.”

Horoscope: “You need to control your temper but at the same time be firm and diplomatic if there is something you really don’t want to do.” (thehoroscope.co)

ing lied about being romantically involved with Dean May to get on WE tv’s Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars.

After being confronted by suspicious counselors, who had been listening to Reid’s private conversations with May to better understand the true nature of their relationship, the 40-year-old actress and her fake lover eventually admit to the sham and are kicked off the show.

Horoscope: “Your need to play games in love could see you ending up with egg on your face. Tell it like it is. You won’t believe what can happen if you stick to the truth.” (dailyhoroscope2017.net)

ROB KARDASHIAN

ASHTON KUTCHER

Global distinction: Kardashian bro.

Sign: Pisces (b. March 17, 1987) Significant date: August 17, 2016 Noteworthy activity: During a Facebook Live chat to pro-

Global distinction: Hollywood hunk.

Sign: Aquarius (b. February 7, 1978) Significant date: August 1, 2016 Noteworthy activity: The Two and a Half Men alum

mote his new reality show Rob & Chyna, the youngest of the Kardashians reveals that he spent $13,000 in one month on food delivery to satisfy his fiancée’s pregnancy cravings. His wife to be, Blac Chyna, says that Philly cheesesteaks and P.F. Chang’s are her current favorites.

Horoscope: “Pisces’ flexibility shouldn’t deprive them of having a spine. Even if you are crazy about your partner, don’t indulge their every whim indiscriminately.” (gotohoroscope.com)

shares on Instagram that his toddler daughter with actress Mila Kunis blurted out her first curse word. “When your 22-month-old drops an F-bomb and it is (not funny) except it’s really funny and you can’t laugh,” Kutcher writes in a caption with “#baddads #badmoms” accompanying a selfie of him looking both surprised and amused.

Horoscope: “Anything can and will happen today, so brace yourself for the unexpected; some events will be challenging and some amazing!” (susynblairhunt.com)

dict 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.

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