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Monday 13 April 2015

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MEDIA MASTERMIND KEYNOTES • NINA

• WITNESSES • CANDICE RENOIR

[LES TÉMOINS]

• TEMPLETON

Today, Steve Levitan, creator of hit comedies, talks about his most recent global success, Modern Family

• THE UNEXPECTED GETAWAY Today, MIPTV hears from Jeremy Darroch, group chief executive of Sky, Europe’s biggest investor in TV content WORLD PREMIERE TV SCREENING

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• POLO

• LOOPDIDOO

Cast members of Texas Rising, including Ray Liotta, Bill Paxton and Olivier Martinez, walk the red carpet to the Opening Night Party tonight after the premiere of the epic Wild West series See p.32

• THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD

• MARIE CURIE

A WOMAN AT THE FOREFRONT

MIPDOC 2015

• SUPERNATURAL FILES •THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Reports from MIPDoc, including Keynote Talks from Nat Geo’s Tim Pastore and Discovery’s Phil Craig See p.6

• LADY

LIBERTY

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CONTENTS NEWS

FEATURES

8 What happened at MIPDoc and MIPFormats; early MIPTV deals; new shows and series

85 Europe makes dramatic entrance

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93 Viewing the millennial way 99 A love affair with France

PRODUCT NEWS

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54 A round-up of what’s for sale in Cannes

PHIL Craig laid down the gauntlet to producers at his MIPDoc

keynote, when he said that he believed Discovery Channel should be rivaling the BBC’s natural history programming. He also spoke of new relationships with the giant US firm’s indie producers.

“For me, Discovery without natural history isn’t Discovery, it’s very high on my agenda” the company’s new executive vice-president and chief creative officer said.

His vision for “filmmaking with purpose,” was being fulfilled by the forthcoming Life Of Dogs: “We’ve got a world-class film-maker and a populist subject,” he said. “Plus a really great story. That’s something that’s sometimes been lacking from natural history.”

Craig also called on trusted producers to come to him with their hunches, not just fully formed programme ideas. “Discovery’s formula used to be very tight, I’m trying to loosen us up a bit. Bring us things that might surprise us,” he said. “We’d l i ke a back-and-forth on the creative process.”

With around 110 hours to fill this year, and around 20 series to commission, he told indies not to be discouraged

by Discovery’s recent acquisition of the All3media stable of prodcos, and pledged to cast a wide net for companies to work with. “We’re committed to looking for people outside the UK and new producers, even those outside the traditional industry,” he said.

JIANGSU Broadcasting Cor-

poration welcomed MIPFormat and MIPDoc delegates, as factual and formats joined forces for the weekend’s Opening Party. Channel director Li Xiang (above) and head of international Qiu Yuan Yuan (who is also president of JSBCI, its international commercial arm) were also promoting JSBC’s high-stakes, high-budget format Super Combat Teams. Li said: “We are here to sincerely invite global format experts and leading production teams to co-develop and co-produce world class formats and productions.”

Qiu added that MIPTV is “a great platform” to meet with “the world’s most creative minds and most talented production teams”.

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OLIVIER MARTINEZ

RAY LIOTTA

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BILL PAXTON

BRENDAN FRASER

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NEWS

Global buyers reveal the science behind localised programming

France Televisions’ Ann Julienne

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COPRODUCTIONS THE FIRST MIPDoc European Broadcasters’ Co-production Breakfast saw a number of leading players gather for a frank discussion. “The meeting allowed people to pinpoint where we want to go with a future meeting — to concentrate on specific factual areas such as science, history and wildlife,” said Ann Julienne, head of international development, documentaries, at France Televisions, who hosted the event.

The event’s aim was to share experience and increase co-operation: unlike current affairs and news, these specialist areas do not yet benefit from understanding the networking benefits such a group gives. The participants also identified other commissioning editors and key producers to be invited next time, and raised the issue of programme duration — a key hurdle in pre-buying documentaries and entering into co-productions.

Julienne is about to retire from her role at France Televisions. “I hope to be at the table for next year’s breakfast,” she said.

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HE DECISION Makers Series: What Do Buyers Want? opened MIPDoc with a focus on localised content from the big global buyers. Nesta Owens of Discovery Networks CEEMEA highlighted a move from syndicating to commissioning: “CEEMEA is branching out far more into commissioning for Poland, Germany and Russia. We’re trying to see what the synergies are,” said Owens, who is looking to commission 200 hours in Poland alone.

For Corentin Glutron of French DTT channel RMC Decouverte, localising was also a priority. “On character-driven series, we get better ratings with French hosts,” he said. Recently launched French version of Top Gear peaked at a million viewers, double what the UK version

Nesta Owens (centre) with Zhi Hengyi (left) and moderator Edwina Thring.

achieved in the territory. He said he was open to acquiring oneoffs and series, particularly in science, but that for co-productions, international producers must partner a French company.

Science was a big trend across the buyers panel. Zhi Hengyi of Da Neng Culture Media, who distributes and syndicates to channels across China, reported success for 20 hours of graphics-

heavy science programming he bought from France last year. He added that China was emerging as a consumer of current affairs.

“We’re steering away from reality programming towards science,” Angela Neillis of Freemantle Media International said.

She also hailed the acquisition of the Tom Hanks-affiliated The Seventies as “a return to classic documentary making”.

Fact meets Fiction for Nat Geo NATIONAL Geographic Channels has joined Fox Network’s other marquee channels in a single distribution hub – Fox International Channels Content Sales (FIC Content Sales).

Germaine Deagan Sweet, Fox’s senior-vice president of global factual content and operations, who heads up the new entity, was speaking at the MIPDoc Networking Lunch.

So, with National Geographic, in 171 countries and counting, what is on offer? “People know where big series like Brain Games originate – that’s one of the channel-

Germaine Deagan Sweet

defining series,” Sweet said. “But an important part of a successful distributor is bringing premiere and first-window opportunities.”

She pointed not only to the longstanding relationships Nat Geo has with third-party producers,

but also to the amount of content being produced in-house globally. “We have over 3,000 hours coming out of our Latin American business each year, and we’re seeing commissions in our Asian and European businesses. ” FIC Content Sales’ tagline, ‘Fact + Fiction’, is relevant to MIPDoc, she said. “One of the priorities for MIPTV is scripted: Killing Jesus is the highest-rated programme in the channel’s history.”

She added: “Scripted is becoming a part of the Nat Geo story, as well as across our wider programming offering.”

The official MIPTV daily newspaper Monday 13 April 2015

Director of Publications Paul Zilk Director of Communication Mike Williams EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Editor in Chief Julian Newby Deputy Editor Debbie Lincoln Sub Editors Neil Churchman, Sarah Cooper, Sarah Kovandzich Reporters Ben Cooper, Andy Fry, Emelia Jones, Juliana Koranteng, Max Leonard, Rachel Murrell, Gary Smith, Hannah Stephens, Joanna Stephens, Nigel Wilmott Editorial Management Boutique Editions Technical Editor in Chief Herve Traisnel Deputy Technical Editor in Chief Frederic Beauseigneur Graphic Designers Muriel Betrancourt, Veronique Duthille, Carole Peres Head of Photographers Yann Coatsaliou / 360 Medias Photographers Christian Alminana, Olivier Houeix, Michel Johner, Yohann Mortier.

PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Publishing Director Martin Screpel Publishing Co-ordinator Emilie Lambert Production Assistant Eric Laurent Printer Riccobono Imprimeurs, Le Muy (France).

ADVERTISING CONTACT IN CANNES Sylvia Ferreira: sylvia.ferreira@reedmidem.com / +33 (0)6 43 86 87 96 Reed MIDEM, a joint stock company (SAS), with a capital of €310.000, 662 003 557 R.C.S. NANTERRE, having offices located at 27-33 Quai Alphonse Le Gallo - 92100 BOULOGNEBILLANCOURT (FRANCE), VAT number FR91 662 003 557. Contents © 2015, Reed MIDEM Market Publications. Publication registered 2nd quarter 2015. ISSN 1967-5178.

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Astronaut’s countdown to fame begins at MIPDoc screening

A High risks and high rewards at the Nordic Speed Pitch

NINE BID TO MAKE A PITCH IN TIME SPEED-pitching five commissioners at once is not for the faint-hearted — especially without notice, at MIPDoc, and in front of a hundred of your peers — but it sure saves time. Of the nine intrepid producers who pitched at Saturday’s Focus On The Nordics Docs Factor: Speed Pitch The Commissioners, each heard the words “I could be interested” from at least one channel, together with advice on which slots might be suitable, and whether the show would be considered as a pre-buy or an acquisition.

And even when the response was ‘no’, the feedback can be valuable market intelligence.

All five commissioning execs want strong storytelling, unique access and high quality — but each in their own way. Gudrun Jonasdottir (RUV Iceland) has four flexible doc slots, whereas those filled

by Nina Tuominen (YLE) are more clearly delineated as science, history, wildlife and culture. But as Jonasdottir points out, with only 100,000 households in Iceland, budgets are small, and she can acquire but not coproduce.

Also on the panel were Kim Christiansen (Danmarks Radio), Tore Tomter (NRK) and Axel Arno (SVT). The session was moderated by Maria Borelius of Living Waters.

F T ER orbiting the world in the International Space Station, German astronaut Alexander Gerst is set to be a star in his own right, in a show he helped launch at the MIPDoc World Premiere TV Screening. Ø (Zero) Gravity, A Mission In Space follows Gerst and the American Gregory Reid Wiseman through their astronaut training in the US to the space platform high above earth.

The stunning film shot by the two in their downtime shows daily life in space: the experiments they undertake, the physical training on weird machines to stop their bodies atrophying, and the combination of high-tech and

DIY that keeps the space station circling the Earth.

Director Juergen Hansen had worked with Gerst before, and had to trust him on the space filming: “ We had no direct communication while they were in space. For a director this is kind of scary, but they did a fantastic job,” he said.

The film has a strong environmental message: “When I saw Earth, it was just a rock floating in space with finite resources.

Certainly as humans we could destroy it if we don’t take care of it,” Gerst said.

All rights for the film (1 x 52 mins), except France and Germany first window, are available at MIPTV from Upside Distribution.

Alexander Gerst

“I got shivers down my spine when I saw it,” Gerst said. “I was close to laughing, close to crying when I watched it, it shows you that it’s quite close to the experience.”

Brain Power duo are pitch perfect THIS year’s prestigious Co-production Pitch Competition was won by Fabrice Papillon of Scientifilms (France) and Alec Herrmann of ARTE France for their documentary Brain Power (2 x 52 mins). Chosen from six finalists, the series examines the science behind human consciousness and intelligence.

For the first time, a second award was made for the pitch that attracted the most votes from the audience as calculated by a realtime online voting platform. This was won by Alexandra Bohm of Germany’s Autentic for Children Of Dictators, which looks at four of the biggest monsters in human history — Hermann Goring, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet and Fidel Castro — from the unique and personal perspective of their now adult children.

But Ralf Rueckauer, vice-president of factual at ZDF Enterprises, which sponsored the award for the first time this year, acknowledged that the day’s best

pitch was by Bertrand Loyer for his documentary about the perils of space debris. Loyer pitched Space Smash dressed in an orange space suit and reflective shades, and wielding his own piece of space junk — a piece of a Soyuz space rocket that fell to earth in Guadalupe.

The other finalists were Pioneers

And Heroes (Espresso TV, UK) about the technological innovations of wartime; On The Edge Of The Mind (Intuitive Productions and Somadrome, Spain), about neuroscience; and Lengguru The Lost World (Mona Lisa Production, France), about the unique ecosystem of a remote island in Papua New Guinea.

MIPDoc Co-production Pitch winners: Scientifilms Fabrice Papillon (left), Autentic’s Alexandra Bohm and ARTE France’s Alec Herrmann

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It’s all about the brand says Nat Geo’s Pastore

Michel Noll of ICTV-Solferino

A MATCH MADE IN CHINA IN THE Producers’ Toolbox session on working with China, producer Michel Noll of ICTVSolferino gave invaluable tips on picking partners.

“Don’t just pick someone who knows the ropes,” he said. “Your partner will be judged by his or her colleagues on your project, so find an angle that will work for them and they will really make your project theirs.”

He suggested that while the state broadcaster is a good partner for natural history, for more sensitive projects, a regional broadcaster away from Beijing, or an underground partner might be better.

Noll avoids importing a Western crew. “Chinese people behave very differently if there are Europeans present,” he said. “On my Great Wall documentary, I used an all-Chinese team and there was no white face on the shoot. This required detailed discussion beforehand about what the story is and how it will be told, but it worked.”

Investment still tends to be in kind, rather than in cash, and the Chinese don’t like to say ‘no’. “If they don’t say ‘yes’, they have said ‘no’,” he said.

But things are changing. The emerging independent sector is staffed by a new generation of Chinese who are no longer applying for state permission to study film-making. They’re just picking up their phones and shooting.

Nat Geo’s Tim Pastore

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N A WORLD where 50% of 18-32 year olds are browsing the internet while viewing television, creating brand addiction is a necessity,” said Tim Pastore, president, original programming and production at National Geographic Channels U.S. in his MIPDoc keynote on the power of branding.

The viewers he wants to hook, for now, are the 18- to 32-year-olds, which explains his recent push into comedy with History Of The World [working title]. “It’s a big experiment. But if it succeeds, it opens up a whole

other realm for us,” Pastore said. “We want to expand our reach, and lower the median age of our audience.”

His own addiction to the fabled ‘yellow border’ started early, growing up among towers of National Geographic magazines, with the distinctive National Geographic theme tune on the television, and Orson Welles’ narrations of the early documentaries. Looking back, he describes these as “branded memories”.

Pastore now oversees 400 hours of production a year, including Brain Games and Live Free Or Die, a re-launch of the 25-year-old multi-awarding winning Explorer series, and a fourth season of Life Below Zero. He describes Life Below Zero as “a new take on the Arctic” and the channel’s second highest rating series for two years.

Another of the new ventures is drama. Killing Jesus is the latest in the Killing franchise (Killing Kennedy, Killing Lincoln), and has generated eyeballs aplenty. “We’ll always be a factual network,” he said. “But we’ll do a couple of drama projects a year.”

And of course he’s on the lookout for more high-end blue chip docs that can cut through the noise.

Smorgasbord of Nordic docs on show NORDIC Snack And Screen previewed 12 new factual projects from Scandinavia and treated delegates to a delicious Scandinavian lunch too.

Among the documentary clips shown was Norway’s I Am Kuba (Cat & Docs) looking at the children left behind by Europe’s economic migrants.

Also in the mix was Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Discovery Networks International) which shows the great footballer reduced to tears by memories of his father. Light Fly, Fly High (Cat & Docs) follows a young Indian girl fighting for the right to be a boxer. For Kibera!

(YLE Sales) asks why the flood of aid into Kenyan slums has achieved so little.

Finnish transmedia phenomenon Docventures illustrated how it achieves a 20% share by leveraging social media to bring 20- to 45-yearold viewers to screenings in social events in pubs and clubs across the country.

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The event was hosted by Johanna Karppinen, CEO of Finnish Film & Audiovisual Export (FAVEX).

I Am Kuba at the Nordic Snack and Screen

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TANDEM PRODUCTIONS IN ASSOCIATION WITH BIG LIGHT PRODUCTIONS, SONY PICTURES TELEVISION NETWORKS AND SAT. 1 PRESENT “CROSSING LINES – THE TIME IS NOW” STARRING GORAN VISNJIC, ELIZABETH MITCHELL, TOM WLASCHIHA, LARA ROSSI STUART MARTIN, NAOMI BATTRICK AND DONALD SUTHERLAND U.K. CASTING PRISCILLA JOHN COSTUME DESIGNER SONU MISHRA PRODUCTION DESIGNERS NICK PALMER, MARTIN VACKAR PRODUCER MORITZ POLTER PRODUCED BY RICK MCCALLUM CONSULTING PRODUCER CORINNE MARRINAN CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER WENDY BATTLES CREATED BY EDWARD ALLEN BERNERO EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS TIM HALKIN, FRANK SPOTNITZ, ROLA BAUER DISTRIBUTED BY STUDIOCANAL

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AND

miptv

NEWS NORDIC REGION IS CREATIVE HOTSPOT THE NORDIC territories are well deserving of their reputation for creativity, according to Jan Salling, chief operating officer and managing director sales & acquisitions at Nordic World, who presented Saturday’s Screening The Best Formats From The Nordics session.

Salling opened the event by saying: “A group of us selected 11 formats from a total of 50 submissions. And the impressive thing is that those 50 submissions have all been launched in the last six to nine months. That’s truly amazing.

It’s a lot of formats, and the standard is really high.”

“It’s no wonder we are seen as being a creative hotspot.

And I believe that the 11 formats we chose are all destined to be global hits of the future,” Salling added.

The session began with a screening of DR’s show A Dish To Die For where contestants believe that they are in a normal cooking competition, until they are informed that the meat that they intend to cook is still very much alive, and they have to slaughter it.

Other series being showcased included My Favourite Soundtrack from YLE; Anno, produced by Strix for NRK; Mastiff’s Crime Writers; When The Orchestra Came To Town from NRK; Something Special from Nordisk Film TV; Jarowskij’s The Detectives, featuring an FBI agent trying to crack unsolved crimes; Run from Elk Entertainment; and MTV3’s Kingi and Farmer In The City.

South Korea cooks up new formats for global market

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OUTH Korea could be paving the way for the next popular trends in formats, based on observations made by Keri Lewis Brown, managing director of UK-based research firm K7 Media, during K-Format: What’s New In Korea?

Speaking to the MIPFormat audience, she declared: “You’ve had K-pop, K-drama and now you have K-format.”

Among K-format trends with global potential are reality shows based on time travel, back-to-basics and local culture.

From Korean conglomerate CJ E&M comes Let’s Go TimeTravelers. The series takes participants away from their comfort zones and thrusts them into ancient history, including surviving as slaves in 13th century Korea, and studying as scholars in the 16th century.

And since their activities are based on accurate research, contestants have to endure the harsh reality of living in those eras.

For the back-to-basics format, the audience was introduced to Three Meals A Day, an outdoor reality series from CJ E&M. It features two celebrities forced to fend for themselves in a remote rural area.

K7 Media’s Keri Lewis Brown

Dish Of The Nation is a cooking reality show where the contestants must use only ingredients sourced from their respective native regions. “As we get more globalised, we’re going to see more shows where local cultures matter,” Brown added.

From SBS, the country’s largest commercial terrestrial network, she introduced Running Man, a long-established on-the-run format that involves winning a brutal race to come out victorious and which “is also a massive hit in China,” according to Brown.

‘INSPIRATIONAL’ Swedish media pioneer and former SVT director of programmes Annie Wegelius was presented with the 2015 International Formats Gold Award on Saturday by Nordic World’s Jan Salling, co-chair of FRAPA, and Reed MIDEM’s Laurine Garaude. Wegelius joins a stellar line-up of previous Gold Award recipients that includes Reg Grundy, Merv Griffin, Peter Bazalgette, David Lyle and Dick de Rijk. Presenting the award on behalf of C21, the EMC and FRAPA, Salling said that Wegelius’ “insight and integrity” had been an inspiration to the entire Nordic media industry. In her acceptance speech, Wegelius, who is also the chief architect of the first Focus On The Nordics showcase at MIPTV, urged the next generation of format executives to “trust each other”. “Be nice to people,” she added. “And above all, value and respect the rights of format creators.”

Nordic World’s Jan Salling

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NEWS

Scherer highlights new media challenge facing broadcasters

Vast Media co-founder and managing director Matthias Puschmann, and Nathalie Wogue, associate director at Ascendo TV

FIFTEEN OF THE BEST ALL HAVE DIGITAL IN DNA VAST Media’s Matthias Puschmann and Ascendo TV’s Nathalie Wogue joined forces to announce their pick of the shows that use digital media to enhance audiences. The list, presented at a conference on Saturday, featured 15 series across four categories, including entertainment and reality shows. “In choosing these examples we were looking for originality and some sort of coherence with the DNA of the show,” Wogue said.

There was high praise for two established talent formats, Pop Idol and The Voice. “The reason we chose Pop Idol is that digital is very much part of the show’s tool box,” she said. “For example the French version includes voting in real time which is permanently displayed on the screen, the show has an extensive online offer that compliments the transmission before, during and afterwards, and it also features a playlist on Deezer, a streaming service similar to Spotify, that is updated every week.” Puschmann also hailed The Voice: “Using an app called the GIFKeyboard, viewers can create their own special moments from the show based on clips provided by the broadcaster, in this case NBC, and then share them with friends on social media,” he said.

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RIC SCHERER used his MIPFormats keynote on Saturday to flag up the growing impact of new media on broadcasters.

The director of future media at France Televisions told his Grand Auditorium audience that the upheaval that had been discussed and predicted for years was now in full swing. “Up until now there hasn’t been much concrete evidence of change, but in the last few weeks and months it is all happening at the same time,” he said. “The video business is growing rapidly but taking advantage of that is complicated because broadcasters are no longer alone due to the popularity of online platforms. News services are having to reinvent their vocabulary and are rapidly migrat-

ing to services like Instagram, and Snapchat, which, although it remains at root a messaging platform, is where you can find Vice, CNN and National Geographic these days.”

The fact that the US administration used sites like Vox, Vice and Medium added fuel to the fire, he said. “Obama’s appearance in interviews on both Vox and Vice and the announcement of a major environmental policy shift is very significant for traditional news services, and the fact these services are all available on mobile makes it even more so,” he added. “And we’re only at the beginning of this process. And I believe that, in this world of data exploitation, the next killer app is trust between the audience and the platforms.”

Eric Scherer, director of future media at France Televisions

Time-shifters boost world viewing

Eurodata TV Worldwide’s Sahar Baghery

The figure for the whole of 2014 was two hours 27 minutes a day, down from two hours and 40 minutes in 2013.

She said the expected growth this year was being driven by timeshifted viewing in multi-device homes, especially in Europe and the US. For example, shows accessible via digital devices in Finland had seen their viewing numbers grow by an average of

MEGA live events and reality shows are proving the most popular programming genres among world audiences, according to Sahar Baghery, Eurodata TV Worldwide’s head of international TV formats.

During her TV Viewing Trends presentation she revealed that the average amount of time spent on daily viewing so far this year was three hours and 13 minutes.

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eight percent over seven days.

“There is more flexible TV consumption due to increases in new screens in the UK and the US,” Baghery said. “This shows timeshifted viewing is a world asset because it allows viewers to manage their time.”

But the use of multiple devices to watch TV has also resulted in declines in audience sizes for some individual brands.

For example, the UK’s most popular show in 2004, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!

(ITV1) was seen by 15 million people compared to 13.5 million for the most popular in 2014, The Great British Bake Off (BBC1).

But, globally, the biggest individual audience sizes in 2015 have been for mega live events at national levels. Hollywood’s Oscar awards ceremony on the ABC network in the US commanded 37.4 million, while CCTV’s New Year’s Gala in China landed a staggering 166.2 million viewers.

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NEWS FremantleMedia highlights need to find perfect homes for brands

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R EM A N T LEM EDI A International (FMI)’s recently appointed CEO Jens Richter used his MIPFormats keynote to tell delegates that the challenge for his company is to sustain its commitment to the traditional TV business while staying alive to opportunities presented by the rapidly emerging digital market: “We are still working in the world of TV with incredibly powerful brands like Idol and Got Talent,” he said. “But we also have to be building new brands and working out the best home for them.” An example of the latter was FMI’s decision to license scripted series The Returned to SVOD platform et i for markets outside the US: “ latforms like et i , Hulu and Amazon are exciting for an independent producer/distributor like FremantleMedia/FMI,” he said. “They are a new way to license content and can also act

as a testing ground for us. Placing German drama Generation War with et i was a way for us to test the potential of non-English drama in the US.” While new platforms are attracting a lot of attention, Richter said distribu-

tors also need to keep listening to the demands of their traditional broadcast clients: “For example, all the cool writers want to do high-concept serialised dramas – movies on TV. But free-to-air commercial TV channels don’t

FMI’s Jens Richter: listening to the demands of traditional broadcast clients

D’Halluin helps Zodiak shows travel Zodiak Media CEO Marc-Antoine d’Halluin: translating local hits into international successes

really want those shows. Buyers tell me they still want repeatable, episodic dramas like Bones and CSI.” Asked why content creators are finding it so difficult to dislodge juggernauts like Idol and Got Talent from primetime, Richter said: ”It’s a big risk for channels to replace those shows because they need to fill 0 to 0 hours of programming space when they do. That’s why they are more likely to change midsized reality or game shows.”

KEYNOTE speaker Marc-

ntoine d’Halluin was brought in to run Zodiak Media 18 months ago, and since then he has been focusing on improving internal communications to find a process by which local successes have a better chance of translating into international ones.“When I arrived, there were 13 companies under the Zodiak Media umbrella, all of whom were very good at producing local hits, but less so at creating international ones,” he said. “So the challenge was to bring people together. By getting people around a table to talk about best practice we have created a culture where our best ideas travel better.” D’Halluin is also overseeing a shift towards

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more scripted series: “Our slate is roughly 0 non-scripted, but our scripted side is currently growing faster. We recently finished production on Versailles, which we produced in English for obvious reasons, even though half the cast and most of the crew are French. It was, I believe, an example of the very best of Anglo/French cooperation.”

He also talked candidly in his keynote about the tragic helicopter crash in Argentina during filming of the reality show Dropped: “Everyone at Zodiak was profoundly affected by the tragedy. Something like that makes you deeply aware of the effect on the families of the victims, and forces you to re ect on what you do for a living,” he said. “We think about the people who died every single day.”

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Format gems on display at the Treasure Box Japan showcase

A Dolinsekfilm producer David Visnjic: “overwhelmed”

AND THE WINNER IS… DOLINSEKFILM AUSTRIA’s Dolinsekfilm has won the 2015 MIPFormats International Pitch with 1001 Rooms: Beat The Matrix, walking off with a 5,000 cash prize plus a 15,000 development pot from sponsor All3media International.

In the innovative game show, contestants are abandoned in the centre of a matrix of 1,001 rooms and challenged to fight their way out.

However, their path to freedom is littered with physical and mental quests and riddles — because the Matrix wants to keep contestants inside the grid for as long as possible.

Introducing the session, Sabrina Duguet, senior vice-president of international format sales, All3media International, said the UK distributor believed “good ideas could come from anywhere”. She added that the International Pitch was a “great way to give an opportunity to up-andcoming independent talent”.

The other four finalists were the US’ Haas Productions with God’s House, Canadian indy show creator Jean-Francois Grenier with Welcome Home!, Lebanon’s Studiovision with Who Will You Trust and Ireland’s Prize Pig Productions with Project Party Villa.

Speaking after the event, producer David Visnjic, who co-pitched 1001 Rooms to the jury of format experts with Dolinsekfilm CEO Michael Dolinsek, said he was “overwhelmed” by the result. “I really didn’t expect it,” he said.

“For me, it was just fun to write the concept.”

PACKED auditorium at yesterday’s MIPFormats saw the unveiling of several new formats at the Treasure Box Japan showcase, which aims to help the country’s producers and broadcasters to pitch their concepts to international buyers.

Among the Japanese broadcasters at the event were Nippon TV, NHK, TV Asahi, ABC Japan, YTE, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo.

Panelist Kei Kitamura, sales manager for international business at TV Tokyo, said that factual and reality formats were becoming increasingly popular with Japanese broadcasters, many of which are moving away from traditional game-show formats to meet international appetite.

Kitamura, who presented TV Tokyo’s I Wanna Be Home!!! Lost At The Ends Of The Earth, said: “A lot of the most popular shows in Japan have been from the game-show genre, but I think the trends are changing. There are now a lot a reality and factual shows coming from Japan. We have good factual shows, and our reality shows are strong too. Our reality formats are less fierce and provocative than US shows. We focus on the humour and the good side of humans.”

Nippon’s Yukiko Nakano (left), NEP/NHK’s Kayo Fukuda, TV Tokyo’s Kei Kitamura, Fuji Creative Corporation’ Fumi Nishibashi, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation’s Thomas Fumiaki Hiraoka and TV Asahi’s Shuji Maeda

Treasure Box Japan was hosted by YTE vicepresident and managing director Toshikazu Sugae. YTE presented a number of formats at the event, including the latest series of its popular Cell Phone Relay, which makes stars of unsuspecting passers-by when they answer a smartphone left in a public place.

Among the other Japanese formats to be presented were NTV’s Breaking Ordinary, NEP/ NHK’s Lunch On!, Fuji TV/FCC’s Masked Blind Dating, ABC Japan’s Picky Eater Saver and TV Asahi’s The Dinner Table.

‘Big content’ gets Talpa connected AFTER the impact that big data has had on digital technology comes ‘big content’, which formats production giant Talpa came to demonstrate at the MIPFormats session Creativity & Digital: The Voice & The Big Picture.

Maarten Meijs, managing director of Talpa Global, the Dutch company’s format licensing division, and Hylke Sprangers, chief technology officer at the technology-development unit Talpa Global Connect, presented their vision of the future of formats.

Big content is produced when a TV show’s “connected format” is fully integrated into the internet, Meijs said. “This is content that entertains millennials and their parents alike via multiple screens and has global appeal.”

For that to be effective, content creators must work hand in hand with technology developers. “Only five years ago, I could not have imagined being on the same stage at MIPFormats with our chief technology officer,” Meijs added.

Sprangers then cited examples of Talpa’s big content. Augmented reality is superimposed on the live transmission of reality series The

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Voice in the Netherlands so that a studiobased contestant looks as if she is performing inside a massive cathedral. In the 24/7 socialreality series Utopia, meanwhile, standard live streaming is combined with 3D shots via 360-degree cameras, plus mobile apps to take online viewing to a new level.

Talpa’s Maarten Meijs “content that entertains millennials and their parents alike”

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NEWS PITCH DOCTOR SHARES TIPS AND TRICKS PITCH Doctor Paul Boross took to the Esterel stage last night to perform his popular MIPTV curtain-raiser, aimed at helping Cannes newcomers make the most of their first exposure to the international content industry.

Condensing 25 years of pitching and networking experience into a one-hour session, Boross said his mission was to “give MIP first-timers psychological tips and tricks to help them relax, enjoy and take maximum advantage of their first Cannes visit”. He added: “Your first brush with a MIP market can be very intimidating. You’re surrounded by hundreds of super-confident people, all of whom seem to know what they’re doing and know each other.”

A central message of Boross’ session was that enthusiasm is contagious. “Your format, service or idea is actually secondary,” he said. “A good 85% of your success is down to the quality of your relationships.”

After the session at previous markets, Boross is regularly approached by delegates who have profited from the experience. “It’s very rewarding when people tell me that,” he said. “In the end, anything that gives you confidence will give you a real edge in business.”

Follow-up series sees Burnett and Downey build on Bible’s success

Husband-and-wife team Roma Downey and Mark Burnett: compelling story

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FTER the international success of their dramatic re-telling of The Bible, executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey are in Cannes to promote follow-up series AD: Kingdom And Empire, distributed internationally by MGM International Television Distribution.

The 12-part series, which debuted strongly on NBC in the US over the Easter weekend, tells the story of the first followers of Jesus as they fight to establish Christianity against the backdrop of Roman oppression and persecution by political rivals. Explaining why they decided to take on another epic historical production, Burnett told MIPTV News: “We had such a great time on The Bible we didn’t want it to end. And this story, of the origins

of Christianity, is so compelling. Take away the period costumes and it has all the political intrigue of House Of Cards.”

Downey added: “Telling the story of The Bible in 10 hours was very ambitious, so this allows us to take a deeper dive into a fascinating piece of history. We think it has all the ingredients of a quality drama, with great performances by the likes of Joanne Whalley, Richard Coyle and Vincent Regan. It’s gritty but hopeful. It’s the story of the underdog.”

As with The Bible, locations work was done in southern Morocco where a set was constructed to replicate Jerusalem, Damascus and Galilee. New tax incentives meant postproduction could be handled out of the UK. Burnett and Downey said a further follow-up series is also planned.

Baumard gets serious about comedy

Pitch Doctor Paul Boross

STRONG characters and universal situations are the key to successful scripted comedy formats, Christian Baumard, CEO of France’s Kabo International, told a MIPFormats conference session on the topic.

“Word play and comedy dependent on dialogue are a lock-out in international markets,” he said.

The independent company, which set up the distribution arm, Kabo International, at the end of 2014, claims to have a unique approach to the comedy formats market: pick’n’mix.

Its series Our Crazy Family is scripted in 45to 90-second situation comedy scenes, which can be assembled to make 13-, 26- or 52-minute shows. The material can also be “sliced and diced”, so that where cultural references are not relevant, scenes can be omitted. It also means that re-runs can be refreshed by changing the make-up and order of the shows.

Matthieu Viala, CEO of another French indie, Makever, stressed the importance of the ac-

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tors and the chemistry between them for establishing strong characters. “You have to put the original version out of your mind and find the right cast for the local remake,” he said.

The four main characters for the French remake of The Invincibles, from the French Canadian original, had to live and work together for three months to create the right chemistry, he added.

A UK production of Makever’s Kaboul Kitchen is now in development, with the Iraq War of the last decade replacing contemporary Afghanistan for British audiences.

Sarah Watson, writer and co-executive producer of NBC’s Parenthood, which has been remade in Italy in a version very faithful to the original scripts, stressed the close relationship of drama and comedy for formats.

“In real life, dramatic moments often become funny because they are so intense, which is why they translate so well.”

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NEWS DORI SEALS MAJOR CHINA COMEDY DEAL DORI Media Group (DMG) has sold a slate of comedy formats to Croton Media, one of China’s largest TV series producers. The deal, signed at MIPTV, includes titles such as Ciega A Citas, Little Mom and So Where Were We. Nadav Palti, CEO and president of Dori Media Group, said: “We are delighted to be working with Croton Media to launch these shows into the Chinese market and promote the Chinese versions to the broader international market. This deal follows the sale of Power Couple to Chinese production company Shanghai Viva earlier this year and demonstrates how DMG’s formats can be easily adapted for China.”

The deal with Croton follows other international sales of the three formats named above. Ciega A Citas has been sold to over 40 territories while Little Mom is on air in Belgium and Poland and will air in a primetime slot on France’s TF1 later this year. So Where Were We, meanwhile, was sold to ABC in the US. Liu Zhi, vice-president of Croton Media, called the deal a win-win, adding that his company “strives to create and distribute TV shows that are loved the world over”.

StudioCanal revamp splits production and distribution

Romain Bessi

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EADING European film and TV studio StudioCanal has unveiled a new structure for its TV business that will turn production and distribution into separate divisions.

On the production side, StudioCanal subsidiaries, including Germany’s Tandem Productions, the UK’s Red Production Company and Scandinavian production outfit SAM Productions, will all report directly to StudioCanal chief operating officer Romain Bessi. Sales and distribution will be consolidated under a single StudioCanal television label, run by

sales and marketing executive vice-president Katrina Neylon.

Speaking to MIPTV News, Romain Bessi said: “The new structure means buyers will have a one-stop shop providing new high quality programming, all backed by StudioCanal’s brand. At the same time, Tandem (which currently has its own distribution division) will be able to concentrate completely on production.”

While the StudioCanal brand will control all distribution, the production companies will “keep their own identities”, Bessi said. “It will be the same approach as we take on the movie side, where StudioCanal would distribute a Working Title movie, for example.”

Bessi said StudioCanal’s TV business would maintain a balance between original series targeted at local markets and original series designed to be international: “The exact balance will depend on what the buyers want.

We will maintain a close relationship with them so we can go the direction they want.”

In addition, Bessi said the company would be mining its movie archive for ideas that might translate to the TV screen: “One big asset we have as StudioCanal is our film library. We have a lot of great movie titles that can be developed as TV properties.”

Brand awareness boosts AMC reach

Croton Media’s Liu Zhi (left) and Dori Media’s Nadav Palti

AMC NETWORKS International (AMCNI) reports strong growth around the world for AMC Global, its AMC-branded network, since the company launched the brand for the first time outside North America.

“There is clear and strong demand for our line-up of globally renowned, locally relevant channels, with many platform operators adding or repositioning our services on to their basic tiers in recent months to make them widely available to customers,” Ed Palluth, AMCNI executive vice-president of global distribution, said.

He added: “We’re particularly excited about the debut of series such as Fear The Walking Dead, Into The Badlands and the new series of Halt And Catch Fire less than 24 hours after the US premiere.”

Among the highlights, AMCNI picked out Axtel in Mexico launching the company’s entire portfolio of channels for the first time; Slovak Telecom in Slovakia launching the Sundance Channel and Sport1 HD to complement the SD service; and Singapore’s Singtel

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Fear The Walking Dead

TV launching AMC for the first time. AMCNI has also rebranded MGM’s SD channel as AMC across all its systems in the CIS and Baltics, including MTS, Rostelecom, Beeline and NTV Plus in Russia. Africa, meanwhile, saw the first-ever launch of Eva, a new telenovela channel, on the DStv platform.

In the UK, Horror Channel, recently launched on Freeview, is already the second largest free-to-air movie channel in cable and satellite homes due to carriage deals with Sky and Virgin, the company said.

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NEWS Digital switch-over opens door to Africa’s billion viewers

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REE-TO-AIR opportunities in Africa will be discussed during a conference session that will bring delegates up to date with developments in that con-

tinent’s audiovisual and content industries.

The session is organised with African media investment and consulting company Dreamville Limited. At the core of the dis-

Dreamville Limited chairman ‘Toyin Subair: “television has always been about content and content and content”

cussion will be the free-to-air opportunities in Africa that will emerge following the analogue switch-off. “We will be looking at the billion-dollar-plus advertising market on the continent and how to tap into it through highly entertaining and educational free-to-air channels,” Dreamville chairman ‘Toyin Subair said.

“The opportunity to grow the TV advertising market is real and achievable with the introduction of digital television across Africa, as the billion-plus viewers there become easily identifiable. With more forensic audience measurement — telling us where they are, who they are, what they watch, and what they want — TV advertising will be the sure way to reach them as traditional TV will still remain the primary way to consume television entertainment for the majority on the continent.”

Subair warns that the industry in Africa needs to be fully aware

of the potential that digital can bring. “We must not allow the African market to believe that the analogue switch-off is only about replacing transmitters or introducing clearer pictures and digital boxes and smart TVs,” he said. “Television has always been about content and content and content. They must not only get clearer pictures but much better channels, and more engaging and localised premium productions.

International channels must step into the fray with their free-to-air propositions, and partner with local production companies.” He added: “International brands like Viacom, Viasat, and Bloomberg have already gone in and created local versions of their channels, partnering with local companies and channels under a variety of partnership models. Pay TV is reaching 15%-20% of the homes, but the real opportunity is in the remaining 80% of the homes through free-to-air broadcasting.”

• TV Advertising And Free-ToAir Channels: Opportunities In Post-Digital Switch-Over Africa is at 10.30 tomorrow in Auditorium K

Quebec gets down to business in Cannes

AQPM president Marie Collin: growth and diversification

A RECORD 34 Quebec TV and audiovisual companies are at MIPTV this week under the umbrella of Espace Quebec, co-ordinated by cultural development organisation SODEC in partnership with AQPM, which represents the region’s independent film, TV and web producers.

Espace Quebec aims to support, encourage and “maximise the visibility” of Quebec companies active on the international market, according to SODEC president and CEO Monique Simard. She added that the initiative reported impressive results from its efforts at MIPTV and MIPCOM 2014, with surveys revealing that completed sales, pre-sales and expected sales amounting to some C$10m (€7.5m) were closed at the two events. In addition, 37 co-production deals totalling around C$54m were either agreed or initiated in Cannes during 2014.

“These figures are certainly concrete evidence of Espace Quebec’s solid presence

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abroad,” Simard said. “But above all, they highlight the outstanding performance of our companies. For MIPTV 2015, our umbrella [delegation] is again highly representative of the flourishing made-inQuebec television sector, bringing together producers, distributors and broadcasters of great prestige.”

AQPM’s president and CEO Marie Collin added: “Again this year, our partnership with SODEC is a testament to the importance that AQPM places on growth and diversification strategies for Quebec’s production companies.”

Among the events scheduled to take place this week on the Espace Quebec stand are today’s welcoming and network reception, and a pitching session with TF1 Production, during which six Quebec producers will pitch their new format and fiction projects to the leading French audiovisual company.

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NEWS BBCWW CLOSES MULTIPLE DEALS IN SCANDINAVIA SCANDINAVIAN public broadcasters TV2 Denmark and SVT Sweden have acquired a raft of BBC Worldwide (BBCWW) titles in the run-up to MIPTV. TV2 has pre-bought award-winning scriptwriter Andrew Davies’ six-part adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy epic War And Peace, produced by BBC Cymru Wales Drama in partnership with The Weinstein Company and BBCWW-backed Lookout Point. Currently being filmed in Russia, Lithuania and Latvia, the ambitious series — summed up by Davies as “the hopes and dreams of youth, set against the titanic background of the Napoleonic wars” — stars Paul Dano (12 Years A Slave), Lily James (Cinderella) and James Norton (Happy Valley).

War And Peace, which has also been pre-sold to SVT, debuts on BBC One in the UK later this year and will air in both Scandinavian territories in 2016.

Also headed for Denmark are Casualty, Last Tango In Halifax, The C Word, Dolly Parton Live At Glastonbury, Sewing Bee, Extreme Brat Camp and Horizon: Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad? SVT, meanwhile, has taken a package of factual content, including The Hunt, Shark, Antiques Roadshow, Cats, The Truth About Fat and The Truth About Calories. The Swedish broadcaster has also purchased Lady Chatterley’s Lover and re-runs of the classic sitcom Fawlty Towers.

There’s more to TV2 Denmark’s drama slate than Nordic Noir

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ORDIC Noir has taken the world by storm. But the region’s leading broadcasters support much more than crime series, according to Katrine Vogelsang, head of drama at Denmark’s TV2.

“2015 saw the second season of our best-rated show Seaside Hotel, a period drama,” she said. “And we are broadcasting the dramady Rita, the story of an unusual teacher who helps pupils to solve problems in an often politically incorrect way. We are also excited about our first mini-series, Happiness Is [working title]. It will be produced by Zentropa, who will be attending MIPTV looking for partners.”

TV2 commissions its shows from indie producers, funding them via various means.

“With some productions, we take the full risk of finance TV2 Denmark’s Rita: a hit on Netflix [and] fund the production by pre-sales to Scandinavia TV2 nearly four years ago and, at and public funds,” Vogelsang the time, there was one TV series said. “Others are co-productions, a year. This year, we are doing where the production companies four series. We have increased bring together the financing.” the output significantly — only The latter route has become more possible because of the internacommon thanks to the interna- tional interest in Nordic drama.” tional popularity of the region’s Explaining why Nordic content has output, she added: “I started at done so well, Vogelsang said: “In

the Nordic region, we have a long tradition of working together with the film industry.

It makes the quality of our productions high. We believe a strong narrative is more important than guessing what the audience wants. This results in drama that workS well locally and abroad.”

While TV2 backs many types of show, it also does well with Nordic Noir. “Those Who Kill has had a great impact internationally. We also have great expectation for our next police drama, Norskov, which is a co-production between TV2, SF Film Production, Tre Vanner and ARTE France. Pre-sales have already been closed with Scandinavia and the Benelux.”

TV2’s dramedy Rita, meanwhile, has been a hit with VOD platform Netf lix, which helped secure the third season. “Netflix got in contact with SF, the production company behind Rita. Netflix already had season one and they were looking for more. At TV2 we loved the first two seasons, but we were not able to finance a third season by ourselves. With support from Netflix, Copenhagen Film Fund and the public service pool, Rita season three became a reality.”

d-rights showcases ‘greater strengths’ JAPANESE animation company d-rights arrives at MIPTV strengthened by a link with Asatsu DK (ADK), Japan’s third largest advertising company, which acquired a stake in d-rights from Mitsubishi Corporation at the end of 2014. d-rights’ best known global brands are Beyblade, BDaman and Scan2go. The company manages content creation from production to distribution, financing, mar eting and product licensing.

ADK has been in animation since 1963 and is especially strong in production and licensing in Asian markets. It has also made Yu-GiOh a global brand working with western partners.

Shuji Wada, new president of d-rights, said: “We are thrilled to introduce a new d-rights that will have even greater strengths in animation production, and both Western and Asian licensing businesses. We will also create synergetic effects with

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ADK’s content busines and Mitsubishi’s various global businesses.”

Shuji Wada

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MIPCancun talks pave way for Fuji’s LatAm expansion

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TV Asahi’s Naoko Murao

TV ASAHI’S SPORT FORMAT RUNS ACROSS THE WORLD TV ASAHI’s international debut at MIPTV is new format Beat The Champions, developed from a successful sports entertainment show in Japan, featuring celebrities and amateurs challenging worldclass professional athletes at their own sport.

“This is the first time we have brought an international collaborative project on this scale to MIPTV,” Naoko Murao, general manager, business division TV Asahi, said. “We are working with Sweden’s Sparks/Eccho Rights in association with Zebra Producciones and we have already announced sales in Germany, France, Sweden and China. We are confident this format has international appeal and we are now looking for further sales in territories worldwide.”

Murao said the amusing twist in Beat The Champions is the ridiculous handicap system; in order to make an equal playing field, Olympic medalists must contend with a surprising disadvantage: “In the past we have seen ping pong pros playing with a raquet the size of a ping pong ball or a tennis match with the net in a completely new position. These disadvantages don’t arrest the athletes’ competitive edge — but rather bring out their determination.”

Murao said TV Asahi is focusing less on finished programming but rather is investing in format development and international co-productions.

“We have also opened a new office in Bangkok and I am looking forward to developing deeper connections with producers in Asia,” she said.

APAN’s Fuji Television Network (Fuji TV) is targeting Spanish-speaking Latin America and the US following positive discussions with potential format-development partners at MIPCancun, MIPTV’s sister event, last year. “We’ll be announcing a deal soon,” said So Fujinuma, Fuji TV’s general producer, worldwide production and sales, international department.

The company is also embarking on an international strategy to boost the number of its shows in mainland China, thanks to increasing internet penetration.

Following last year’s success of Mysterious Summer, a horror drama co-produced with iQiyi, the online-video network belonging to Chinese search engine Baidu, Fuji TV has found a way to increase its reach in China, which remains strict about foreign imports for broadcast TV. “Scripted by Fuji in Japan, translated into Mandarin and with episodes by Fuji directors in Beijing, the 15-part online series has had more than 60 million views since its August launch,” said Fumi Nishibashi, the international department manager at Fuji Creative Corporation, Fuji TV’s production/distribu-

Fuji TV’s So Fujinuma (left) and Fumi Nishibashi

tion arm. “We’re now looking for more Chinese partners to develop online content.”

The push into more international markets was inspired by successful co-development agreements with FremantleMedia in the US and Newen in France.

Sensational, a format jointly developed with Newen, premieres in June on Vietnam’s major regional channel Vinh Long TV and is ready for global sales at MIPTV.

Hulu reaches a million in Japan

Hulu Japan’s Kazufumi Nagasawa

HULU has topped the one million-subscriber mark in Japan and is poised for even greater growth, according to Kazufumi Nagasawa, chief content officer of HJ Holdings, which operates the Hulu service in Japan.

Nagasawa said the achievement had been made possible by Nippon TV’s acquisition of Hulu’s Japanese business in April last year,

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marking the Japanese terrestrial broadcaster’s first move into the SVOD market. Hulu, which allows consumers to watch unlimited content on multiple internet-connected devices, launched in Japan in September 2011 and was the US service’s first expansion outside of its home market.

“Part of Hulu’s success in Japan is having active subscribers who are able to watch content at high frequency,” Nagasawa said.

“Subscribers have enjoyed over 360 million hours of total viewing time since the launch.

In addition, Hulu is on multiple devices at a fixed monthly price. This was extremely rare when Hulu launched in Japan and is gaining in popularity.”

Hulu Japan is celebrating its one-millionth subscriber with a new campaign — Hulu, On — designed to create more “exciting experiences and fun ways for viewers to connect and be entertained”. The service is also becoming “even more aggressive in acquiring content”, Nagasawa added, citing such high-profile foreign dramas as Breaking Bad, Under The Dome and 12 Monkeys.

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NEWS

Texas Rising stars lead charge on Cannes for series world premiere Lip Sync Battle (VIMN)

SPIKE SHOWS SET FOR NORWAY VIACOM International Media Networks (VIMN) has confirmed a multi-year package deal with TV2, Norway’s largest commercial network, for a number of popular Spike series. As part of its policy of acquiring gender neutral, general entertainment content, the broadcaster has signed Catch A Contractor (series 1-3) alongside the first seasons of Framework, Frankenfood, Gym Rescue and Hungry Investors.

Recently launched show Lip Sync Battle was already wildly popular as a segment of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and the hotly anticipated series — hosted by LL Cool J — premiered to more than 3.2 million live viewers in the US two weeks ago.

“The producers have done an amazing job of turning a show segment into half-hour episodes,” Michael Armstrong, executive vice-president and general manager, international brand development at VIMN, said.

“Each guest does two performances, and for the second one they can have dancers or pretty much anything they want on stage, then in between there’s backstage footage of the performer preparing.

Plus we have some amazing guests including Justin Bieber doing Ozzy Osbourne and Common versus John Legend.”

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HE STARS of major new History series Texas Rising are in Cannes for its world premiere screening. The 2015 MIPTV World Premiere TV Screening takes place in the Grand Auditorium at 18.30 today.

Cast members in Cannes include Ray Liotta, Bill Paxton and Olivier Martinez. Two-time Oscar

nominee and Killing Fields director Roland Joffe and executive producer Leslie Greif are also attending the event.

The eight-hour series tells the story of the Texas Revolution and the rise of the Texas Rangers amid the fierce Wild West power struggle that ensued following the battle of the Alamo.

Other stars of the show are

Ray Liotta as Lorca, a survivor of the Alamo

Brendan Fraser, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kris Kristofferson.

Director Joffe said: “What I like about this story, and all cowboy stories, is really two things: one is that they are about human beings in nature and what it means to be a man and, to some extent, a woman; and they are also about the building of countries that didn’t exist and extraordinary landscapes where everything asks you to decide who you are.”

Shot in 6K and Cinemascope, Texas Rising is produced by ITV Studios America and A+E Studios in association with Thinkfactory Media for History.

History and H2 executive vicepresident and general manager Dirk Hoogstra said: “We’re ecstatic with what we’ve seen so far from production. I can’t think of a better way to kick off summer than with a big television event that’s sure to resonate with our fans.”

Docu-drama charts history of the Mob EONE is in Cannes this week with The Making Of The Mob: New York, an AMC docu-drama that explores the roots of the five families that led to the formation of the modern American mafia.

Produced by Emmy award-winning Stephen David Entertainment, the show uses a mix of dramatic reconstruction, archive footage, original interviews and cutting-edge VFX, to tell a story that spans a 50-year period from 1905 to 1955.

Speaking to MIPTV News, Stephen David said: “We’ve all seen a lot of movies about the Mob. But when we started looking into the history, we knew the names but didn’t know how it came together. It was interesting how the chaos at the beginning of the 20th century gave rise to organised crime through people like Lucky Luciano, who were

geniuses at it.” Explaining the docu-drama technique, David added: “In many ways, the true story is better than the fictionalised one you see in movies. There was a lot of research because we are telling the truth. But the idea was to make it more accessible by having characters you care about, that aren’t washed over by information.”

David said the growth of the Mob has echoes of the way legitimate businesses work: “I don’t think the comparisons are illegal businesses, they are legal businesses… businesses big enough to have their hand in everything.

The Mob became involved in everything from Hollywood to sanitation. It was like a Fortune 500 company.”

EOne’s John Morayniss (left) and Stephen David: characters you care about

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NEWS

Supernanny to share wisdom with parents the world over

Emily Fox

EMILY GOES BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH HINDSIGHT SHOWRUNNER Emily Fox is in Cannes with eOne to promote her scripted series Hindsight, which premiered on VH1 US earlier this year.

Hindsight tells the story of thirtysomething Becca, who is about to get married for the second time when she finds herself mysteriously sent back to 1995. Once there, she breaks off her engagement to her first husband, and sets about correcting her personal and professional mistakes. “It’s an idea that a lot of people think about,” Fox told MIPTV News, “the notion that you can apply what you know about the future to fix mistakes. What Becca realises, of course, is that there’s no such thing as perfect knowledge.”

Fox wrote a pilot of Hindsight for another network in 2009, but VH1 eventually took the show: “VH1 was looking to get into scripted content and this show hit their sweet spot, combining a nostalgia for 1990s music and fashion with the wish fulfilment storyline. The good news is that it has proved popular with men, even though the central storyline is based around Becca and her best friend Lolly.”

The first series of Hindsight ran to 10 episodes. Fox, who is on her first trip to Cannes, confirmed that a second series has been greenlit. “We’ll be getting into the writing room when I’m back,” she said.

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UPERNANNY Jo Frost has taken her show on the road to bring her parental advice to non Englishspeaking countries.

She is in Cannes to meet broadcasters and distributors interested in rolling out the format in their own markets following a successful launch in the Netherlands.

A decade after Frost first found fame in the UK, the latest series, Jo Frost: Nanny On Tour, sees her travel around the Netherlands in a bus to meet ordinary people struggling to cope with the pressures of parenthood. The show airs on RTL4 and was produced

by Strix, which is in Cannes with Frost to take the show to market.

Speaking to MIPTV News, Frost said: “When I first started out 10 years ago I said I wanted to reach one family at a time, one town at a time. It’s all about the family; some things are universal — a hug is a hug, a smile is a smile — but other things are different depending on what culture you’re in. Helping families in non English-speaking countries brings a lot of challenges, but they’re re-

Supernanny Jo Frost

ally positive good ones; it became seamless.”

Strix chief executive Roy Aalderink said that there had been

“big interest” in the format and that the producer was already in advanced talks to roll the show out to more markets.

Production spree boosts Blue Ant AFTER launching an initiative that will see 200 hours of bluechip, 4K nature and wildlife programming being produced every

year for the next five years by top producers such as Blink, Off The Fence and James Reed, Canadian independent Blue Ant Media is

The Big Feed (Blue Ant Media)

starting to see sales success.

“Nomads of the Serengeti and The Big Feed are among the first shows to emerge from our production drive and we are already lining up sales in Asia and Europe,” Solange Attwood, SVP, international, Blue Ant Media, revealed.

“We’re also expecting Jago: A Life Underwater to make quite an impression at this market. Plus we have several HD factual shows such as Cabin Truckers and Dyno Hunt, and we are also looking to acquire shows.”

4K is a huge topic currently and today at 10.00 Sony presents Getting Ready for 4K/UHD in the Sony 4K Ultra HD Theatre.

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NEWS

Trapp Family takes the spotlight for Sound Of Music anniversary

Bosch (Red Arrow International)

BOSCH BURSTS INTO AUSTRALIA VIA SBS SBS AUSTRALIA has bought seasons one and two of crime series Bosch, with season one airing on SBS One this July.

Amazon has also ordered the second season of the series distributed by Red Arrow International. This came one month after its release of season one, which broke records with the biggest debut weekend ever for an Amazon Original Series, and was the most watched show on Amazon Prime Instant Video across all movies and TV series in its first four weeks.

“The series brings the grit and intrigue fans of the best-selling franchise expect,” Marshall Heald, director of television and online content, SBS, said.

“Bosch is the perfect addition to SBS’s slate and enhances our commitment to delivering the world’s best drama to Australian audiences.”

SENSATIONAL SALE THE FIRST season of the jointly developed Newen and Fuji TV format Sensational has been commissioned by Vietnam’s THVL to air weekly for 13 weeks in a Saturday primetime slot on Vietnam’s main private channel THVL1. The game show — the first show co-developed by Newen and Fuji TV — sees two teams of five contestants compete in amusing and visual challenges around the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. In Vietnam, the show is produced by Dien Quan Media & Entertainment and is set for transmission this June.

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NE OF the best-loved movies of all time is the inspiration for Tele Munchen Group (TMG)’s MIPTV headliner — The Trapp Family: A Life Of Music.

The theatrical film, which starts production in Salzburg tomorrow, tells the true story behind the multiple Oscar-winning, $1bn-grossing musical that turned an aristocratic Austrian family into a global cultural phenomenon. With a screenplay based on Agathe von Trapp’s autobiography, The Trapp Family’s A-list cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, Matthew Macfadyen, Eliza Hope Bennett and Yvonne Catterfeld.

Dr Herbert Kloiber, TMG chairman, reports strong international interest in the TMG-funded project, timed to celebrate The Sound Of Music’s 50th anniversary this year, with “a good number of presales” including to ORF and Sky. “Although the original film is 50 years old, The Sound Of Music is still remarkably fresh and has lasting appeal, particularly in the English-speaking markets of the

TMG’s Dr Herbert Kloiber: “taking historical events and turning them into luxury TV”

TMG’s The Trapp Family tells the true story behind the world’s best-loved musical

US, the UK and Canada,” he said.

The only market in the world that did not fall instantly — and enduringly — in love with The Sound Of Music was its home territory of Austria. Austrianborn Kloiber ascribed this to the long shadow of the Second World War: “The film was released uncomfortably close to the 10-yearlong [Allied] occupation. But it did spectacularly show those elements of Austrian society, such as Baron von Trapp, who bravely stood up to the Nazis and were forced to leave their country as a

result of their principles.”

For Austrians, too, snow-capped mountains, dirndls and edelweiss do not have much romantic appeal. “It was a case of taking owls to Athens,” Kloiber said.

For the rest of the world, The Sound Of Music remains an iconic movie. It is also the perfect vehicle for TMG’s latest project, Kloiber said: “With The Trapp Family, we are staying faithful to what we have been doing for 40 years — taking historical events and figures and turning them into luxury TV.”

Netflix is new home for Lucas comedy A NEW visual sitcom from acclaimed British creative talent Matt Lucas, Pompidou, is set for broadcast on Netflix starting this Wednesday, via a deal with All3media International.

The 6 x 30 mins episodes, produced by Matt Lucas’ production company John Stanley Productions, will be made available to Netflix streaming subscribers to watch instantly in all Netflix territories, excluding Australia and New Zealand.

In the show, Lucas stars as Pompidou, an elderly oddball aristocrat who has fallen on hard times.

Each episode sees Pompidou and his long-suffering butler Hove (Alex MacQueen), who live in

an old caravan, face a new challenge, for instance stealing back a priceless bowl they once owned.

In the UK, in a deal also brokered by All3media International, the show was first commissioned by the BBC, where it has already launched.

Broadcast rights for the territory were then shared with Netflix and the first season will have its Netflix premiere later this year.

Matt Lucas, noted for his work in Little Britain, Come Fly With Me and Tim Burton’s Alice In Won-

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Matt Lucas stars in Pompidou

derland, said: “The one thing that everyone in the world has in common is laughter and the aim of Pompidou is to reach out across the globe.”

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miptv

NEWS

Original content gives value to brands, says Rainbow’s Straffi

R The Imaginarium Studios’ Andy Serkis

RED ARROW AND THE IMAGINARIUM IN DRAMA ALLIANCE RED ARROW and The Imaginarium Studios — the UK performancecapture and production company founded by actor/director Andy Serkis (The Lord Of The Rings) and seasoned producer Jonathan Cavendish (Bridget Jones’s Diary) — have launched a new initiative to co-develop high-end scripted TV drama for the international market.

Senior executives are currently being recruited to manage the new venture’s development pipeline, the results of which will be distributed

by Red Arrow International.

Cavendish and Serkis said that working with Red Arrow was a “terrific opportunity” for The Imaginarium to create new content for the international marketplace and fast-track it into production.

Henrik Pabst, managing director of Red Arrow International, added: “Our aim is to work directly with major talent to develop international TV projects. The Imaginarium has been top of the list of people we would like to work with, so it’s great to be forging this new relationship.”

Established in 2011, The Imaginarium’s theatrical credentials include performance-capture work on forthcoming films Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Marvel’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Its skill at harnessing performance capture to enhance and enrich film, TV and video-game storytelling has earned it a reputation as “one of the most ambitious new production companies in the English-speaking market”, said Red Arrow Entertainment Group CEO Jan Frouman.

AINBOW Group, the Italy-based international entertainment conglomerate, is seeking partners and buyers for its TV shows and films during one of the most productive years in its 20-year history.

The company is introducing a new Winx Club series, a new season of Mia And Me, and Royal Academy, the working title of a new Cinderella-themed animation comedy.

Despite selling Rainbow’s content in 150 countries, founder and CEO Iginio Straffi said it is imperative the company, which operates an extensive licensing division, keeps developing and creating original content.

“Licensing is very important, but if you don’t have content to sell, you have no exposure for your brands,” he said. “When TV networks buy content, it gives value to the brands.”

Following a partnership with media conglomerate Viacom in the US, for example, Winx Club is on Nickelodeon, while Mia And Me is on Nick Jr. Another animation show, Huntik: Secrets & Seekers, airs on Nicktoons. Winx Club is also on Netflix, the on-demand streaming platform. Meanwhile, the company has released The Mystery Of The Abyss, its third Winx Club theatrical feature film, in Greece.

The company, which Straffi said is profitable with no debts, has licensed its content brands for toys, video games, school stationery, food, beverages and fashion aimed at families and young children.

In Cannes, Rainbow’s head of sales and co-

Rainbow’s Iginio Straffi: “TV channels are still the main drivers for our business”

production, Andrea Graciotti, said the gala dinner the company hosted at last year’s MIPCOM had been a valuable strategic move.

At MIPTV, it plans to build on that momentum by finding TV-network partners in the Far East and South America. “TV channels are still the main drivers for our business and there is no better place for us to do the business than at Cannes,” he said.

Zodiak Kids unveils production hub ZODIAK Kids has unveiled Zodiak Kids diversity of all three companies, improving Studios, a new division that will encompass our development and production capability. all of its production across France and the Our combined experience and talent relationUK. Companies within the new unit inships on both sides of the Atlantic clude Marathon Media and Tele Images will allow us to develop and proProductions of France, and The Founduce creator-led properties with dation in the UK. a unique voice.”

The CEO of Zodiak Kids Studios Zodiak Kids’ productions will be Michael Carrington, who include upcoming Sprout is currently head of The FoundaUS series Floogals (52 x 11 tion. Working alongside him as mins), Mister Maker (137 chief creative officer will be Eryk x 20 mins), The Ranch (52 Casemiro. The new production unit x 26 mins), Lolirock (56 x 22 will sit alongside Zodiak Kids Dismins), Millie Inbetween (13 x 30 tribution and Consumer Prodmins) and Get Blake! (52 x ucts. Carrington said the 11 mins), a slapstick annew structure would imated cartoon series “help us leverage and Zodiak Kids Studios’ Michael Carrington: that launched on Nickalign the strengths and “creator-led properties with a unique voice” elodeon this spring.

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miptv

NEWS

Starz’ drama Flesh And Bone takes centre stage in Cannes

Mediaset’s Alessandro Salem

LUCKY SERIES JOINS PARTNERS IN CRIME FEDERATION Entertainment and Mediaset Group are to co-produce Lucky Luciano, a 12-part one-hour series which will explore the life of notorious mobster Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano. The writer on the series is Alessandro Camon (The Messenger).

“This is an extraordinary project based on the life of one of the most compelling figures in crime. The subject of countless books and films, Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano continues to remain a mystery in many key facets of his life, especially in his relationship with the FBI. We intend to explore these mysteries and offer the most definitive work on Luciano that’s ever been produced,” Breton said.

Alessandro Salem, Mediaset managing director of content added: “We’ve been looking for a long time for the right co-producer who shares our fascination with the complexity of such a criminal icon as Lucky Luciano.”

GO-AHEAD FOR BOY AND THE DINOSAUR FOOTHILL Entertainment and UK affiliate Foothill Europe have closed a co-production deal for animation series, Boy And The Dinosaur with the UK’s Shooting Star Animation and Canada’s Echo Media. Foothill will handle worldwide distribution outside of the co-production territories.

Flesh And Bone (Starz Worldwide Distribution)

T

HE CURTAIN went up on MIPTV this morning with an International Drama Screening of Starz Worldwide Distribution’s Flesh And Bone, from the Emmy Award-winning writer and executive producer Moira

Walley-Beckett (Breaking Bad).

The 8 x 60 mins series, which premieres in November in the US, is the unflinching story of a young ballet dancer’s journey to the top of the glamorous but brutal New York ballet world.

Sarah Hay (Black Swan) plays

Claire, an emotionally vulnerable but physically transcendental ballerina whose ambition is matched only by her talent for self-destruction.

Among the other world-renowned dancers attached to the series are former American Ballet Theatre stars Irina Dvorovenko and Sascha Radetsky. Former artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet Ethan Stiefel, who served as the series’ choreographer, created an original 13-minute ballet for the series.

“Finding exceptional dancers to inhabit these roles was incredibly creative and exciting,” WalleyBeckett said. “The verisimilitude of the project was of paramount importance to me. I wanted to be able to capture dance on film with complete integrity, authenticity and freedom.”

Flesh And Bone, which was shot entirely in New York City, is executive produced by John Melfi (House Of Cards; Sex And The City), Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds; Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Brown (Roswell).

Nurses on call in Germany and UK ECCHO Rights has closed two deals for the Scandinavian drama show Nurses, produced by Finland’s Yellow Film. ProSiebenSat1 has licensed the show for Germany, marking the first time a German commercial channel has bought an original Scandinavian drama.

DLT Productions will make a UK version of Nurses with head of drama Margaret Enefer leading the team. DLT are behind popular series like As Time Goes By and My Family. Enefer is former head of drama at STV and producer on hit shows including Taggart and The Poison Tree.

“Nurses is a fantastic scripted format and we’re very excited

Nurses: heading for the UK and Germany

to be developing this amazing project here,” Enefer said. “The NHS is such an important part of British life and we believe this series will really connect with the audience, particularly

42

through the strengths of the four female characters at the centre of the drama. Their personal stories and the impact that has on their professional lives is what drew us to the material so strongly.”

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miptv

NEWS NEW DECADE FOR FMI FREMANTLEMEDIA International (FMI) has secured global distribution rights (excluding the US) to CNN Original documentary series, The Seventies. The 8 x 60 mins series follows the international success of The Sixties, sold into 43 territories worldwide.

The Seventies is produced for CNN/US by multi-Emmy Awardwinning producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman (HBO’s John Adams, The Pacific and Game Change); and Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Herzog (History’s Gettysburg).

FMI is launching The Seventies to buyers at MIPTV this week.

HOODLUM GIVES ITV US OPTIONS ITV STUDIOS America has finalised a first-look production deal with production company Hoodlum for scripted television series in the US. The Emmy- and BAFTA Award-winning production company is based in Australia and will now also be operating out of ITV Studios America’s headquarters in Los Angeles. Hoodlum is focused on creating multiplatform entertainment experiences for the global market, and producing compelling experiences regardless of how audiences choose to watch, play and share. Scripted projects include Secrets & Lies (currently on ABC), The Strange Calls (a pilot for NBC), Slide and Fat Cow Motel.

Electus offers the formula that ensures eyes stay on the screen

J

OHN Pollak, president of Electus International, is at MIPTV with a diverse slate of shows.

Headline titles include National Geographic Channel’s The Raft, in which two people are stranded in the ocean in a life raft, and ITV’s Bear Grylls: Mission Survive, in which survivalist Bear Grylls mentors eight celebrities as they fend for themselves in the wild. Other key properties include the format rights for CW drama Jane The Virgin and Bellator, a mixed-martial arts franchise that offers channels live and as-live fights on a monthly basis.

Also in the line-up is King Of The Nerds, a US series that has just been picked up for a remake

by Sky in the UK. Commenting on Electus’ survival shows, Pollak told MIPTV News: “This genre is very hot, but I think what makes some-

thing like The Raft stand out is that it is very relatable. The producer Brian Catalina (Deadliest Catch, Ultimate Survival Alaska) is an expert at bringing audiences as close as possible to what participants are experiencing.”

As a general observation, Pollak said the Electus slate is focused on two things. “We want to own and represent content that can work across traditional and digital platforms and we want content that is DVR proof. Live shows like Bellator stop audiences time-shifting, but so do provocative formats. If you can get audiences talking about your shows, they watch them live to be part of the social conversation.

An example would be Dating Naked, a VH1 series where daters meet at a primitive island resort, completely in the nude. We have the format and completed version of that.”

Electus International’s John Pollak: getting audiences talking about shows

Tricon introduces the Real Rob! TRICON Films & Television is at MIPTV to launch Real Rob!, a 8 x 30 mins scripted comedy series starring actor/comedian Rob Schneider. The series is “an exaggerated yet brutally honest depiction of Schneider’s real life” that juxtaposes the ups and downs of his celebrity life with the closerto-home issues he faces daily with his wife and two-year-old daughter.

Schneider’s wife, Mexican television producer Patricia Azarcoya, also stars in the show and there are guest appearances including George Lopez, David Spade, and Norm Macdonald.

Jon Rutherford, Tricon executive vice-president distribution & business development, told MIPTV News: “Two years ago, Rob starred in a sitcom called Rob! that averaged 11 million viewers over its run of eight episodes on CBS.

Tricon’s Jon Rutherford and Lia Dolente: strong slate of comedy

“CBS chose not to renew that show, so Rob decided to self-finance and independently produce a new series. The result was Real Rob!, which is being launched to the international market this week. We have high hopes for it, because Rob has established such a strong fan base. It is like a cross between Episodes, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Modern Family.”

Tricon has also brought two com-

44

edy specials to MIPTV – Erik Rivera’s I’m No Expert and Gina Brillon’s Pacifically Speaking – and a series of scripted comedies from US cable channel IFC. “We’ve built up a strong slate of comedy in recent years,” said Rutherford. “Comedy doesn’t sell everywhere, but there are strong slots for the right shows. The key is to have a diverse slate to offer buyers.”

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miptv

NEWS Huace at market with new focus on partnerships and platforms

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HEJIANG Huace Film & TV Group, China’s largest producer of drama, has set out its aims at the beginning of the market. The company’s vice-president, Du Fang, said: “At this point, Huace is China’s largest exporter of TV programmes. We want to continue that trend, and also develop new areas with international partners in the genres of film, TV drama, reality shows and documentary.”

Last year, Huace joined forces with Chinese online giant Baidu to create a new company to produce content for its iQIYI online video platform. Explaining why, Fang said: “We are transitioning from our traditional space of only producing for broadcasters, to working with China’s online

Du Fang: “transitioning from our traditional space”

companies as well. We have the deal with iQIYI as well as Xiaomi which streams into an increasing number of homes in China.

So for us, the iQIYI deal is part of our strategy to push content to viewers through these platforms.”

In terms of priorities for the international market, Fang said: “We want to be the partner of choice for those looking to work in China. One area we are really focused on is working with international partners to develop new formats together from the beginning, and then exploit them together in both China and overseas.”

At the same time, Huace is focusing on developing its own formats, added Fang: “We’ve brought three original formats to MIP this year including I Wanna Sing With You, My Father The Hero and Granddaughter Is My Classmate. We worked with overseas talent to produce promos for these formats, and are hoping to find distribution partners for these shows.”

Gogglebox all set for Chinese homes GOGGLEBOX is going to China via a deal between All3media

International, the UK distributor of the Studio Lambert format, and Chinese producer Zhejiang Huace Film & TV. In a deal closed on the first day of MIPFormats, Huace has licensed the hit Channel 4 show and will co-develop a 12-episode run for transmission in the second half of this year on a first-tiered satellite channel. Meanwhile, All3media International will assess Huace’s roster of local Chinese formats with a view to adapting them for the international market.

Du Fang, vice-president of Huace, said he was looking forward to reversioning the “special and unique” show for his home market.

He added that the Gogglebox format, in which sofa-bound members of the public pass judgement on the week’s news and entertainment programmes, would be a “big leap” for Chinese viewers. “There’s nothing close to it on television in China,” he said. “We will make some adjustments to the format — perhaps including more famous people, for example — but we will localise and cast it in close consultation with All3media.”

Sabrina Duguet, senior vice-president of international format sales, said that, with a personality-driven show such as Gogglebox, “casting is all”. She added: “Since it launched in the UK, Gogglebox has been on an upward trajectory, becoming one of the most watched and discussed television shows in recent years. I’m confident the team at Huace will produce a brilliant version for the Chinese market.”

Duguet was also optimistic that the deal would “usher in a future of mutually advantageous collaboration” between All3media and Huace, which was recently named one of China’s top 30 cultural en-

terprises. “The Chinese market is very creative,” she added. “This agreement will build on All3media’s well-established success in the region with titles such as Are You Normal?”

China Media Management’s Wang Zheng (left), All3media International’s Sabrina Duguet and Zhejiang Huace Film & TV’s Du Fang

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miptv

FEATURE CHINA FORMATS

China is new formats hotspot China has become a key player in the formats business, in both traditional television and in the online video space

T

HE FORMATS industry in China has grown

rapidly over the last few years. A market that initially did not receive much attention has turned into one of the global hotspots for the industry.

For example, as part of its global development strategy, provincial broadcasting powerhouse Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation (JSBC) sponsored the Formats And Factual Opening Party — a joint event to welcome delegates to MIPDoc and MIPFormats. At the same time, Sohu head of production and IP acquisition, Wang Yi gave a MIPFormats keynote.

Those in the Chinese formats industry have stepped up their game on the international stage.

The last three years have seen at least 70 significant format acquisition deals with Chinese platforms announced. These range from large-scale production global format shows such as The Amazing Race and the Idol series, all the way to smaller-budget outdoor reality shows such as Cash Cab. China’s broadcasters were initially reluctant to commission non-studio-based reality shows, often citing the difficulties of outdoor shooting in China along with finding qualified production teams.

This changed with the introduction of the hit Korean format import Dad, Where Are We Going? from Hunan TV. The show follows celebrity fathers participating in various travel-related activities with their children. It was so successful in China and was such a ratings winner for Hunan TV, it even spawned its own feature film.

Tencent was able to take a fairly small-scale format originally produced for the Oprah Winfrey Network and turn it into a massive hit in China, with nearly one billion views. To adapt the format All3media International and Tencent worked together to add new elements to the show, including celebrity contestants and interactive surveys utilising Tencent’s messaging platform WeChat.

All3media International’s senior vice-president for international format sales, Sabrina Duguet, said: “It was a great thrill to work with Tencent to put together a revitalised version of Are You Normal? for the Chinese market. The creativity and knowledge they brought to the deal helped make it the huge success it now is.”

Other Chinese online video giants, including Youku/Tudou and Sohu, have been adding new formats as well. Youku/Tudou is currently producing a local version of Big Brother, and Sohu — following its keynote at MIPTV last year — is negotiating a number of format deals with major players from across the globe.

“Sohu is continuing to work with companies from all around the world to create the best kinds of content for our audience,” Sohu’s Wang Yi said.

Qiu Yuanyuan JSBC’s head of international and president of its international commercial arm JSBCI, said that JSBCI has established Golden Media, a UK branch focused on developing content with the world’s top creative production companies. Qiu said: “With the UK co-creation base, JSBC and its international partners will work together to develop great formats not only for Chinese, but also world markets.”

And it’s not only platforms in China that are striking deals. China’s largest TV drama production entity Huace has moved into the formats game. Du Fang, vice-president of Huace, said: “Working with the international content industry to make all kinds of content that works both in China and abroad is of great interest to us.”

In 2012 75% of format deals in China were for studio-based formats. In 2014 that percentage decreased to 50%

In 2012, some 75% of format deals in China were for studio-based formats. In 2014 that percentage decreased to around 50%.

At the same time, the last few years have seen Chinese online video companies commissioning and acquiring formats, adapting them to suit their environment.

A recent example is Tencent Video’s acquisition of All3media International’s format Are You Normal?.

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JSBC’s Qiu Yuanyuan: “developing great formats for Chinese and world markets”

Soho’s Wang Yi: “creating the best kinds of content for your audience”

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miptv

NEWS Animation and drama drive surge in Russia’s international TV sales

R

USSIAN TV productions are currently scoring multiple sales around the world with animated series such as Masha And The Bear from Animaccord Studio having been sold to more than 100 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Australia, Latin America, Spain and Italy.

In February 2015, the series won the Kidscreen Award in the US as Best Animation 2015.

Currently the series is enjoying major Italian success. “Ratings on Rai’s channel YoYo are particularly impressive,” Massimo Liofredi, channel manager Rai YoYo, said. “Masha has broken all records with an audience of 800,000 viewers for the show.”

For the second year running, Reed MIDEM partnered with

Yoko (Wizard TVSeries)

the Suzdal Animation Festival in Russia to support the most promising Russian animated TV series.

The company introduced an award for the Animated Series With Highest International Potential, and this year’s winner, Yoko by i art TV eries, is also the first Russian/Spanish co-production.

Yoko has been developed as a truly international property focused on outdoor play patterns, with a social curriculum that mixes friendship, nature and imagination.

The series of 52 episodes was written by an international team including Andy Yerkes (Pocoyo, Jungle Junction), Kevin Strader (Jelly Jam), Evgenia Golubeva (Luntik), Leo Murzenko (Kikoriki), and Edorta Barruetabena (Unibertsolariak).

Last year’s winner was Alisa Knows What To Do! by Bazelevs, a science fiction adventure series inspired by the popular Russian novels of Kir Bulychov.

The series has already sold to Israel, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and North America, with the theatrical release of an animated Alisa feature film in 3D planned for late 2016.

On the drama and reality side, Russia’s production sector is also targeting the international market.

“We do our best to produce TV projects on the same level as European, British and American shows,” Alexander Tsekalo, producer at production company Sreda, said. “And, in my opinion, it gives us a good chance on the international market. One

Alisa Knows What to Do! (Bazelevs)

such production is the detective drama Major. The original series name in Russian is also Major but pronounced in the French way, which means a “golden kid” or the son of rich parents. We are also very proud of Fartsa, an adventure/crime drama that was broadcast in Russia on Channel One in March this year.”

There are currently two TV series about Catherine II, also known as the Catherine the Great, who was an enlightened sovereign, a patron of the arts, literature and education, as well as a successful political leader who expanded the country’s borders and introduced Western-style reforms. It is under her reign that Russia was recognised as one of the great powers of Europe in what became known as its Golden Age. High-budget historical drama series Catherine The Great, has been produced by Mars Media Entertainment for Russia on Channel One, and Ekaterina has been produced for Russia-1.

Fartsa (Sreda)

Dance India Dance deal is a reality THE FIRST international deal for an Indian reality format has been

closed between Mumbai-based Zee TV and Thailand’s largest media company JKN Global Media.

Under the landmark deal, Zee TV’s ratings-topping Dance India Dance — India’s most popular dance-based competition — will be reversioned for the Thai market, where it will air in 22 million homes via JKN Channel.

Sunita Uchil, Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ global head of syndication, said that the demand for Indian content had been steadily building in recent years. “We have endeavoured to meet this demand by offering a wide array of entertainment content and customised services under the Zee Bollyworld umbrella,” Uchil said.

“This deal reinforces Zee Bollyworld’s leadership as the one-stop shop for Indian entertainment content.”

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Punit Goenka, managing director and CEO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises, said that the Indian media giant was committed to developing in-house formats: “It was our belief in the concept of Dance India Dance that led to its growth from the regional to the international platform. Going forward, we hope to license not just Dance India Dance, but our other home-grown formats to the international market.”

Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ Punit Goenka

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Series “The Smurfs” 272 x 24’

Feature film “The Magic Flute” 1 x 70’

AVAILABLE IN HD 16/9

Documentary about the Smurfs’ creator Peyo 1 x 52’

Nele De Wilde Business Affairs Manager Audio & Audiovisual nele.dewilde@smurf.com www.smurf.com

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ORDINARY WORLD HS MEDIA Co., Ltd.

THE KING OF SOLDIER Beijing Huiying Media Corporation Ltd

MAZU Beijing Wanglian Bafang Culture Media Co., Ltd.

THE RHYME OF SONG-SONG CI POETRY Beijing SDT Media Co., Ltd.

SUPER PARTNER PWPIC

LOVE-HATE COUPLE Beijing East Ascending Production Co., Ltd.

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BEIJING MUNICIPAL BUREAU OF PRESS, PUBLICATION, RADIO, FILM AND TELEVISION

CAPITAL RADIO & TV PROGRAM PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION

THE LOVE IS INCONCEIVABLE Beijing Guoli Changsheng Movie & TV Productions Co., Ltd.

WOMEN IN A FAMILY OF DAOKE HS MEDIA Co., Ltd.

THE ROOT Beijing Guoli Changsheng Movie & TV Productions Co., Ltd.

THE PENANCE GATE Beijing Guoli Changsheng Movie & TV Productions Co., Ltd.

PRODUCT NEWS FIRST HAND FILMS

NEW DOCUMENTARY Leaving Africa (1 x 54/84 mins), from Guerrilla Films, is brought to MIPTV by Switzerland’s First Hand Films. The film explores the quest for gender equality and the challenge of population explosion in Africa. Riitta has been an aid worker in Uganda for over 25 years. Before she returns to Finland she and local Catherine run a course in which they challenge priests and imams to a straightforward, taboo-breaking discussion on women’s right to their bodies, sexuality and life.

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MONA LISA PRODUCTION

GAY OR Straight, Is It A Choice? (1 x 73 mins/52 mins) is an HD documentary about sexual orientation, the fourth film in the Mona Lisa collection about sexuality for France Televisions. The series started with The Inner Adventure: From Kiss To Baby; followed by The Outer Adventure: From Baby To Kiss; and then couples were the focus in Faithful Polygamists; and finally sexual orientation with this new film. The Lyon, France-based producer and distributor also brings Planet Sand (5 x 52 mins/HD), which explores the major deserts in the world.

Gay Or Straight, Is It A Choice? (Mona Lisa Production)

BANIJAY INTERNATIONAL

Treasured Tunes (Banijay International)

UK-BASED distributor Banijay International has acquired new entertainment format, Treasured Tunes, in time for a MIPTV launch. The studiobased format is a search for a country’s favourite song, as voted for by the viewers, with all songs reinterpreted by contemporary artists. The company also launches The Pioneers (6 x 60 mins), a series that follows four couples for three months as they experience the reality of early life on the American prairie — making shelters, bartering, dealing with wild animals and livestock and calling on members of the local Lakota tribe for advice. Banijay has worldwide rights to the show excluding the US. Another priority is Something Special, a format from Nordisk Film TV, which follows a group of young athletes in preparation for the Special Olympics in Los Angeles.

LIONSGATE TELEVISION INTERNATIONAL

Leaving Africa (First Hand Films)

HULU original comedy series Deadbeat is brought to second season is already in production. market in Cannes by Lionsgate Television International. Starring Tyler Labine, Lucy DeVito and Cat Deeley alongside guest stars including James Franco, Danny DeVito, Jim Norton and Zach Levi, the series features Kevin, who has the ability to see dead people. Faced with a constant stream of stubborn spirits, he attempts to help New York City’s most frivolous ghosts finish their unfinished business.

Deadbeat (Lionsgate Television International)

FRANCETV DISTRIBUTION

AMPERSAND

FRANCETV Distribution holds rights to seasons one and two of The Owl & Co. (78 x 7 mins). The show is already destined for Turner Group’s children’s channels (Cartoon Network/Boing/ Boomerang) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Also on the kids’ slate from FranceTV is Peanuts (104 x 7 mins/500 x 1.30 min), from Normaal Animation; and Rabbids Invasion (156 x 7 mins).

GROWING Up In The Savannah is a 52-minute wildlife documentary about the young animals in the African savannah, brought to MIPTV by producer and distributor Ampersand. Other titles prioritised by the French company include 4K documentary From Abyssinia To Ethiopia (1 x 52 mins); Crossroads (8 x 24 mins), a series about unusual public transportation systems in Asia; and current affairs special Islamophobia, A British Reality (1 x 45 mins).

The Owl & Co. (FranceTV Distribution)

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PRODUCT NEWS PERNEL MEDIA

PARIS-based Pernel Media is highlighting two series at MIPTV. Paris Palace features the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, one of the world’s most luxurious hotels, and with unprecedented access profiles the staff and guests from around the world.

Innocent (6 x 60 mins) is a new series looking at the stories behind wrongful imprisonment around the world, the circumstances surrounding the crime, the evidence presented in the trial, the conviction, process of appeal and ultimately freedom.

BEYOND DISTRIBUTION

GRUPPO ALCUNI

LEADING Beyond Distribution’s MIPTV slate is Hockey Wives: Married To The Game (8 x 60 mins), which follows the wives and partners of professional ice hockey players across North America. The company also brings a selection of documentaries, including: Beyond Siberia – Riding The Road Of Bones, following motorbike riders on a 30,000-kilometre journey; Transforming Gender, exploring gender re-assignment; The Truth About Female Desire; and Wild & Dangerous, about turning exotic animals into domesticated pets.

AT MIPTV Gruppo Alcuni is presenting the 26 new 3D episodes of its series Leonardo, featuring the inventions and adventures of the young genius and his friends. The Italian company is also in production on a feature film starring Leonardo, and has completed 13 five-minute additional episodes made especially for Expo 2015, covering nutrition, the use of seasonal and local produce, food wastage and renewable energy sources. Other projects include new pre-school series Mini Pet Pals (52 x 6 mins).

Hockey Wives: Married To The Game (Beyond Distribution)

Leonardo (Gruppo Alcuni)

9 STORY ENTERTAINMENT

Paris Palace (Pernel Media)

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TELEVISA

NEW EPISODES are in production of 9 Story Entertainment’s comedy series Wild Kratts, starring animated versions of presenters and naturalists, the Kratt brothers. The series (92 x 22 mins) follows them across the world as they activate their Creature Power Suits to rescue animal friends. The Canadian distributor is also prioritising new episodes of pre-school series Pet + Cat (80 x 12 mins) in which Peg and her cat use basic arithmetic to solve problems in adventures that take them around the world and into historical faraway lands.

AMONG the highlights on the Televisa MIPTV roster are: The Single Chef (8 x 90 mins), in which 24 candidates face culinary challenges to win a date with three chefs looking for love, who in turn compete with their own cooking skills to choose their favourites; game show The Assembly Game, which sees two teams answering questions while completing challenges on an assembly line where each correct answer earns cash for the team and penalises their opponents by speeding up their assembly line; Generation Gap, a game show featuring four families answering trivia cultural questions to win money; and talent show Stand Up, featuring parent-children duos.

Wild Kratts (9 Story Entertainment)

The Single Chef (Televisa)

ZIG ZAG PRODUCTIONS

THE UK’s Zig Zag Productions brings its series The Secret Me to MIPTV. Each episode begins following someone through their everyday life, their colleagues, family and friends, before revealing their secret lives. Secrets include being a lingerie model and dating older women. The programme follows the protagonist as they decide to tell their friends and family about their secret life.

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PRODUCT NEWS DW TRANSTEL

JETPACK DISTRIBUTION

JANSON MEDIA

THE RAPID pace of global development is the focus of a new documentary series from Germany’s DW Transtel. Whose World Is It? (7 x 30 mins), available in English, Spanish and Arabic, covers issues including international banks consolidating financial resources, shadow banking where multinational institutions reap huge profits while hiding from regulation, dwindling stocks of farmland, climate change and population growth.

JETPACK Distribution, headquartered in London, brings The Moe Show (52 x 11 mins), a pre-school series combining puppetry, animation and live action, to MIPTV. The series from Pop-Up Workshop features a furry monster, who in order to solve a problem activates his letter machine to give him a letter of the alphabet, which is his first clue to help him find the answer. The company also brings a reality series aimed at tweens, Heart & Soul (26 x 30 mins), following a band of 30 schoolgirls who tour European music festivals. When the band loses their mentor and musical director, they must overcome a growing division that could destroy their dream to tour America.

NEW YORK-based Janson Media is highlighting Serene Universe (1 x 55 mins), a documentary that combines images and music in a tour of Earth from above, the solar system and out into deep space.

The company also brings: Iceland Aurora (1 x 27 mins), available in 4K, a non-narrative time-lapse film that captures the Aurora Borealis and the scenery of Iceland; and The Bitcoin Story (1 x 35 mins), profiling bitcoin entrepreneurs.

Whose World Is It? (DW Transtel) 268_ARAB_N1_TV-P1

The Moe Show (Jetpack Distribution)

Serene Universe (Janson Media)

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ZDF ENTERPRISES (ZDFE)

DISTRIBUTION, production and co-production arm of German broadcaster ZDF, ZDFE, brings a range of HD programming to Cannes. Drama titles include: Blochin – The Living And The Dead (1 x 90 mins/4 x 60 mins), featuring a team of Berlin homicide detectives, one of whom used to be a criminal; and Blue Eyes (10 x 60 mins), in which a woman searches for her mother’s murderer, leading her to an extreme right-wing movement. Factual highlights include: The Invasion (2 x 50 mins), about Hitler’s invasion of Poland; Apocalypse Neanderthal (1 x 90 mins/2 x 50 mins); Secrets Of The Bible (13 x 50 mins); and Wild Australia (5 x 50 mins).

The kids slate includes: Captain Flinn And The Pirate Dinosaurs (52 x 11 mins); Sam Fox: Extreme Adventures (26 x 26 mins); and Four And A Half Friends (26 x 26 mins). The company also brings entertainment formats Dalli Dalli (150 mins); and Quiz Champion (150 mins).

SCRIPPS NETWORKS

TWO SHOWS in their first season are brought to MIPTV

by Scripps Networks. Booze Traveler (15 x 60 mins) features cocktail connoisseur, Jack Maxwell, who discovers the most exotic, interesting and unusual alcoholic beverages. In Tiny House, Big Living, (14 x 30) prospective homeowners learn to embrace tiny-home lifestyle. At an average size of only 17 square metres, they are bargains to build, and they can also become the perfect home.

Booze Traveler (Scripps Networks)

AB INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

SEVEN And Me! (26 x 26 mins), produced by Method Animation, is brought to Cannes by France’s AB International. The 3D/CGI series, mixing animation and live action and co-produced

by Rai Fiction, ZDF, Newus Factory, France TV, DQ and AB, features a direct descendant of Snow White who is visited by seven dwarfs who make sure that she is true to the tradition.

Blochin – The Living And The Dead (ZDFE)

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PRODUCT NEWS BETA FILM

BREAKTHROUGH ENTERTAINMENT

MUNICH-based Beta Film presents its first slate of programming from NRK at MIPTV, including: The More We Are Together (18 x 30 mins) about two families living together; Sofia Flux (7 x 20 mins), in which a young child can hear thoughts; Young Girls, a daily online format; and All Round Champion, a reality show featuring young athletes. Beta Film drama on offer includes; Line Of Separation (6 x 60 mins), set between the American and Russian occupation zone after World War II; Starfighter (1 x 120 mins), in which a widow fights government and big business on the issue of faulty planes; Under Suspicion (8 x 60 mins), a drama about a child disappearance; and Italian corruption thriller 1992 (10 x 60 mins).

© 2015 Greenpatch Productions Pty Ltd.

197_STUDIO100_N1_TV The More We Are Together (Beta Film)

SCIENCE Max: Experiments At Large (13 x 30 mins), brought to MIPTV by Canada’s Breakthrough Entertainment, takes a small-scale experiment and presents a super-size version on location. The company also brings documentary series The Great War Tour - With Norm Christie, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the World War One, and new documentary acquisitions Sticks And Stones (1 x 60 mins), which tells the story of curling, from a pastime to an Olympic sport; and Nordic Lodge (6 x 30 mins), which follows a couple who take over a fly-in fishing resort in Saskatchewan.

Science Max: Experiments At Large (Breakthrough Entertainment)

MARVISTA ENTERTAINMENT

IT’S A MIPTV debut for teen comedy Pants On Fire, one of 13 new film titles that MarVista Entertainment is bringing to MIPTV. The story features 15-year-old Jack who is shocked when all his lies become real — a possessive girlfriend, a duo of alien body-snatchers and an imaginary friend. Jack and his buddy search for who is behind this, while chasing down a plush purple hippo who may solve the mystery. MarVista holds global distribution rights, excluding Canada.

Pants On Fire (MarVista Entertainment)

For Awesomeness PREVIEW AT

MIPTV 2015 R7.C1

Studio 100 Media GmbH Sapporobogen 6-8 80637 Munich – Germany T: +49 (0)89 96 08 55-0 info@studio100media.com www.studio100media.com

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TELEMUNDO

MGM

SPANISH-language network Telemundo brings a range of programming to MIPTV, including telenovela Tierra De Reyes (130 x 60 mins), in which three brothers are the victims of a horrible crime. In their search to find justice, they meet three landowning sisters. Telemundo, owned by NBCUniversal Television Group, also brings: Duenos Del Paraiso (60 x 60 mins), a drug-based drama; Amor Sin Reserva (120 x 60 mins), a ghostly story; Los Miserables (120 x 60 mins), inspired by the Victor Hugo novel, about a woman accused of a crime she did not commit; and talent-show format Yo Soy El Artista (13 x 120 mins).

A MIPTV highlight for the US’ MGM is series A.D.: Kingdom And Empire (12 x 60 mins), which explores the dramatic and inspiring events that followed the crucifixion of Jesus, his first followers and their struggle for survival in a dangerous world. The Apostles, Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, the Zealots and the Herod family struggle to control The Holy Land in a world of bloody Roman oppression, deadly persecution and bitter political rivalries.

TRICON FILMS & TELEVISION

CANADA’s Tricon brings new comedy shows to MIPTV. In Erik Rivera - I’m No Expert (1 x 60 mins) comedian Erik Rivera tackles relationships, fatherhood and his eccentric family. Gina Brillon – Pacifically Speaking (1 x 60 mins) is a stand-up special from a young comic with sharp jokes and a Bronx attitude. Tainted Dreams (14 x 30 mins) follows the lives of the cast and crew of a fictional daily TV soap opera. The cast combines Broadway and reality-TV stars with actors from top soap operas.

Tierra de Reyes (Telemundo) 281_MOUNTAIN_N1_TV

BRAND NEW FILMS

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THIS FILM WAS SUPPORTED BY THE NETHERLANDS FILM FUND, THE BELGIAN TAX SHELTER, ABRAHAM TUSCHINSKI FUND AND ALGARVE TOURISM BUREAU

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PRODUCT NEWS CANAMEDIA

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GALAXY POP

NEW PROGRAMMING brought to MIPTV by Canamedia includes: The Hard Way (26 x 30 mins/ HD), which sets out to help struggling businesses through advice and tough challenges; Queen Mimi, about an 89-year-old who lives in a Californian laundromat, making friends with locals and Hollywood A-listers; Jesus Meets The Gay Man, a documentary about reconciliation and forgiveness; The Bikers (13 x 30/HD), looking at the culture of motorbiking; and Wildside TV (13 x 30 mins/HD), which includes swimming with sharks and zip-lining over alligators. Canamedia is also looking for pre-buy partners for its series The Hot Rod Diaries (13 x 30 mins/HD) and The Cool Guy Files 2 (13 x 30 mins/HD).

AUSTRALIAN producer Galaxy Pop is at MIPTV with Get Ace, an animation series that follows the adventures of geek Ace McDougal who, after being accidentally fitted with a pair of hi-tech super-spy braces, finds himself thrown into a world of espionage. The 52-episode second season has just been taken up by Network Ten. Production is due to start later this year.

The Hard Way (Canamedia)

Get Ace (Galaxy Pop)

WOODCUT MEDIA

UK-BASED Woodcut Media brings new documentary series Defenders Of The Sky – The Story Of The Airfield (10 x 60 mins) to MIPTV, its latest order from A+E Networks UK. Hosted by presenter and military historian Jules Hudson, the series uncovers stories of airfields throughout Britain, wartime stories, aviation inventions and daring comradeship. The series is distributed internationally by Flame Distribution.

GLOBO

Defenders Of The Sky – The Story Of The Airfield (Woodcut Media)

CARGO FILM & RELEASING

SONNY Rollins: Beyond The Notes (1 x 77 mins) is a documentary about the jazz musician’s 80th birthday concert and his thoughts on music and life, brought to MIPTV by Cargo Film & Releasing. The New York distributor also brings music series Blondie: Song By Song (4 x 30 mins); Grand Benders (20 x 30 mins), about the owners of a hotel, nightclub and bar in Grand Bend, Canada; culinary documentary The Search For General Tso (1 x 56/75 mins); political documentary 1971 (1 x 58/79 mins); and Bronx Obama (1 x 60/90 mins), about an Obama impersonator.

Sonny Rollins: Beyond The Notes (Cargo Films & Releasing)

KABO INTERNATIONAL

KABO is unveiling a new comedy format at MIPTV. Peplum (3 x 90 mins) takes place during the decline of the Roman Empire, yet draws parallels with current day challenges — from office politics, marital problems and teenage angst to emotional breakdowns and idealism. The action follows tyrannical Emperor Maximus and his freed slave Bravus, who he names prime minister. The Emperor’s wife flaunts expected codes of conduct, while his cheeky daughter lives a little too well, and his son has just converted to Christianity. Peplum is a co-production between Noon and Ardimages.

Peplum (Kabo International)

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TELENOVELAS from Globo include: Fight Or Love?

(120 x 60 mins), about two cousins who hate each other but are forced to live together because of a huge inheritance; Empire (150 x 60 mins), about how the arrival of a possible daughter overturns a rich man’s life; period family drama Precious Pearl (110 x 60 mins); passionate love triangle Helena’s Shadow (75 x 60 mins), and high-tech drama Now Generation (105 x 60 mins). The Brazilian network is also highlighting a catalogue of drama series and feature films, and comedy series Sweet Mother (14 x 30 mins).

Fight Or Love? (Globo)

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What’s the story up North?

Tuesday 14th MIP DIGITAL SQUARE Agora, Palais des Festivals 09.00-10.00 Show & Tell: The Nordic Innovators FOCUS ON THE NORDICS Auditorium A, Palais des Festivals 14.00-14.45 Reinventing Broadcasting 14.50-15.20 Reinventing Content 15.30-16.15 The Hottest Drama From The Cold THE NORDIC PARTY 22.00–02.00 Hotel Martinez – By invitation only

Come and talk to us, listen to us and do business with us. Or just come and see us in The Nordic Pavilion, C16.A4.

www.focusonthenordics.com

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CONTENT MANAGEMENT

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Parrot Analytics has developed the industry’s first global content demand rating platform (Parrot Demand Rating) for TV and film content. Parrot’s technology helps TV content buyers and sellers make more effective content decisions to increase yield. It does this by capturing and analyzing TV content demand in real time from hundreds of millions of viewers across the world; providing unprecedented insights into global content demand and predicting future country-specific content performance with a high degree of accuracy.

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ANTIK Technology is EU based company dedicated to development, production & distribution of IPTV hardware devices and software for Telco operators, OTT content providers and hospitality. The company is a manufacturer of professional receivers, encoders/transcoders, monitoring, HLS media streaming servers, IPTV middleware, hospitality systems, Digital Signage solution, IPTV and hybrid DVB+IP set-top boxes.

ANTIK is focused on delivering end-to-end solutions. More info at www. antiktech.com.

MUSO

BOOXMEDIA

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The First Real Time Studio & Resolution Independent Depth Sensing Solution • Camera tracking • Camera movement • ON SET Previsualisation • Space based effects • Interactive environment

WILDMOKA

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Wildmoka develops an Agile Media Cloud introducing new ways of distributing, consuming and valuating video content. Wildmoka is offering towards mass media, content owners, and service providers, solutions to promote content on social media, to monetize archives, and to value key moments.

With live deployments for major customers like Canal+ in France and AT&T in the US combined with worldwide partnerships with Microsoft and Advans Group, Wildmoka has become in a few months a leading player in its domain.

SECOND SCREEN / SOCIAL TV

WEB TV / CONNECTED TV

10/04/2015 16:48

HNL

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HNL is a FIPSICO Company service. HNL is a product of 20 years of medical research, led by Professor LOGIER and Professor NANDRINO. The HNL system has already been used in hospitals of 135 countries to quantify pain. The only thing to validate was the fact that HNL could also be used to measure positive emotions. It’s now done, we’ve got a unique tool, able to quantify with accuracy the level of reflex positive emotion of a living being, which is subjected to an audiovisual stimulus, … and that by just taking its pulse.

RUSSIAN INNOVATION PAVILION RASIA.COM

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Russian Innovation Pavilion rasia.com™ - place where you can find advanced developments and achievements of Russian innovative digital and IT-industry for three rapidly growing spheres - Media, Entertainment and Sport.

BUZZFEED

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BuzzFeed Motion Pictures aspires to a massive global audience by taking the best from the old studio model and combining it with the best of the web. We combine talent and resources together to create a full scale studio in the heart of Hollywood. With over 1 billion monthly views across over 20 different global platforms, we take the best from the culture of the web, building a collaborative, flexible work environment that allows relentless experimentation with format, content, and style.

DAILYMOTION

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We believe that video is the best way to capture and share life’s incredible variety. We aim to offer the best video-experience to all our users - a place where video-makers can share their world and connect with a passionate audience anytime, anywhere and a place to discover content you love from around the world, live or on demand.

INTERLAKE

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Your Video Showroom: • Organize • Secure • Distribute • Monetize • Collaborate

WEB TV ASIA

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Machinima is the most notorious purveyor and cultivator of fandom and gamer culture. The first Many2Many programing service, we create, curate and celebrate the best fandom and gamer content across multiple video platforms. As one of the largest online video platforms in the world, Machinima programmes to a community passionate about video games, animation, movies, TV, and the other endless forms of pop culture.

FAV!

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FAV!, experts in video creation, distribution and monetization.

ROOSTER TEETH PRODUCTIONS, LLC

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Rooster Teeth is a pioneering creative production studio that develops award-winning content and premium formats, including the longestrunning online series “Red vs. Blue” and acclaimed animated series “RWBY”. With massive global reach, Rooster Teeth has 15M subscribers across its YouTube network and 1.8M members on RoosterTeeth.com.

Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Fullscreen, Inc. a global youth media company that develops online creators and produces multiplatform entertainment experiences.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

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INNOVATION

MCN / VIDEO PLATFORMS

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Imagine an online worldwide platfroom combining: A TELEVISION + A SOCIAL NETWORK + A SOUND RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY. Voilà! It’s Slashtag! “get more information, locate what you see, buy in one click IN REAL TIME on your mobile while watching video”. A way to turn directly the product placement costs into revenue streams. An Interactive platform with a new storytelling inspired by Millennials.

SLASHTAG IS A BRAND NEW WORLD.

NEVER.NO

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Never.no’s Social TV platform STORY is designed for news, entertainment and sports producers and advertising agencies tasked with creating social elements for on-air events. STORY’s easy-to-use visual interface allows content producers and agencies to intuitively gather, manage and insert social content into programming and advertising by aggregating user-generated and geo-located content from major social media sites.

STORY can drive companion apps that enable viewers to interact with their televisions and adverts using an iPad, tablet, PC or smartphone.

VIGIGLOBE

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VIGIGLOBE turns the noise of Social Media into real-time Smart Content.

VigiLABS is our Social Integration Platform designed for producers and broadcasters who want to: • Curate and Analyse Social Media content in real-time • Broadcast live Social Media analytics on any display • Understand and profile and engage a new type of relationship with their audience • Develop innovative TV shows • Attract new audiences Vigiglobe is a an official Twitter media technology and Facebook PCS partner.

AUDIOLINK

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With AudioLink, any device with a loudspeaker may interact with your smartphone/tablet/PC sending additional information, triggering apps or simply redirecting your webbrowser. It’s a synchronized Second-Screen technology for TV, radio or cinemas. It also works with live events like concerts, conferences or even football matches and more!

ZOOMIN.TV

WebTVAsia is Asia’s No 1 Multi Channel Network with over 160 channels from China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore. Formed in 2014, its viewership breaks 130 million monthly. It is part of Prodigee Media Entertainment Group, a leading film, music, talent management & creative marketing company in Asia. With offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, WebTVAsia offers gateway into Asia for global partners, creators, distributors and platforms.

MACHINIMA

SLASHTAG

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No. 1 producer of unique short form video content • Specialist in online video productions • We support publishers with our unique content • Producing 400+ videos per day • 2000+ video journalists worldwide • Ready-to-publish video content in 17 languages • Distribution across 2000+ channels • Broadcasters buy from us • Biggest European MCN on YouTube: 2 billion views per month

OVERLOOK.TV

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Overlook.TV creates TV channels that deliver niche content via the Internet. With a “smart” TV or another Internet-connected television device, a viewer can enjoy our video programming at any time of day.

Our partners distribute their catalogs of films, documentaries and other productions to this rapidly-growing audience. Our channels are live on virtually every major Internet TV platform. We support subscriptions, ad-supported VOD and pay per view.

MEDIAPOWER

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MediaPower enables media workflows with solutions for media content production and delivery. Having started in 1993 as an integrator of certified networking and storage solutions for the media industry such as SeaChange, DDN, NetApp, and Dalet, MediaPower has built a longstanding expertise in designing and implementing IT-based workflows in the broadcast and media industry. It now also has its own line of innovative products such as NewsTouch touch-based presentation appliance; AirGo fully integrated video server; and Arkki, the first MAM-in-a-box.

OPERA

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Get your online video channels onto Smart TVs in a snap with Opera TV Snap. Opera TV Snap makes it possible for brands and content providers to transform their online video channels into Smart TV apps quickly, easily and at zero cost. Distribution is made easy via the Opera TV Store, which is already available on millions of devices worldwide, including Sony, Samsung, TiVo, Amazon and many more!

SECOND SCREEN / SOCIAL TV

WEB TV / CONNECTED TV

10/04/2015 16:48

PRODUCT NEWS

miptv

OHM:TV

NEW FACTUAL format Secret Chef is launched at MIPTV by ohm:tv. The half-hour show sees a foreign chef invited to try traditional regional dishes and guess the recipe’s secrets. After tasting, and with the help of the local people, the chef has 48 hours to investigate and buy the correct ingredients and to create the dish. A jury decides whether or not the Secret Chef has risen to the challenge. The series is produced by J.O.K. Productions, with ohm:tv responsible for international sales.

Cabin Truckers (Blue Ant International)

BLUE ANT INTERNATIONAL

NEW SERIES Dino Hunt (4 x 60 mins/HD), from Toronto’s Blue Ant International, follows some of the world’s best paleontologists as they travel to reveal prehistoric discoveries. Using CGI technology, the animals are brought back to life. Blue Ant also highlights Cabin Truckers (13 x 30 mins/HD), about those whose job it is to haul colossal cabins to remote locations, navigating their way through rocky, mountainous terrain.

20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION

AMONG the leading titles in 20th Century Fox Television’s MIPTV catalogue are three comedy series: The Comedians (13 x 30 mins), in which Billy Crystal plays a comedy legend who is paired with an up-and-coming star in a fictional late-night sketch show; Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll (10 x 30 mins), featuring Johnny Rock (Denis Leary), a middle-aged rocker trying to get his band back together; The Last Man On Earth (13 x 30 mins), a new single-camera comedy that chronicles an average guy who has become humanity’s last hope. The company also brings drama series Empire (12 x 60 mins), about the intrigues of a music company dynasty.

Secret Chef (ohm:tv)

TECHNICOLOR

CHILDREN’s animated comedy series Atomic Puppet, is currently in production from the US’ Technicolor, co-developed with Canada’s Mercury Filmworks and France’s Gaumont Animation. The 52 x 11 mins series is due to air on France Televisions’ France 4 channel in 2016. In Atomic Puppet, when Model City’s superhero is made powerless by his disgruntled sidekick, the hero’s powers are accidentally transferred to his biggest fan, 12-yearold Joey. Together they form an awkward and comedic partnership.

The Comedians (Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution)

Atomic Puppet (Technicolor)

A+E NETWORKS

TWO ENTERTAINMENT series launches are set for A+E at MIPTV. Tiny House Nation (26 x 60 mins) features renovation experts, John Weisbarth and Zack Giffin, who travel across America showcasing ingenious small spaces and the people who inhabit them, from a micro-apartment in New York City to a caboose car-turned-home in Montana. The company also brings Tiny House Hunting (13 x 60 mins) which follows realtors as they help small home lovers find the perfect existing minispace. Both series are available as formats.

WORLD MEDIA RIGHTS

LONDON-based World Media Rights brings two documentary series to MIPTV. Circle Of Evil (10 x 50 mins) explores the complex and bitter politics at the top of the Nazi party, from its formation in Munich to its demise in Berlin in 1945. The Seattle Murder Club (10 x 50 mins) profiles lawyer Anne Bremner, and a couple of her friends, who have experience of big insanity-plea murder trials in the US. Insanity pleas can be big business and Anne Bremner’s friends call themselves The Seattle Murder Club. In the series they reconstruct some of the strangest murder cases ever sent to trial.

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Circle Of Evil (World Media Rights)

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You loved “Notting Hill”, “Love Actually”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “When Harry met Sally”.

You’ll simply adore

Love Match

Drama

39 x 26’

They believed the promise their mobile phones would help them find love.

A unique and modern entry point Unlikely encounters Fate, high-tech style Each episode is a stand-alone romantic comedy

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PRODUCT NEWS WDR MEDIAGROUP

HOHO ENTERTAINMENT

NEW CATALOGUE additions for Germany’s WDR mediagroup this market include From Scratch To Pro, a format for children aged five to 12 in which, over a short period of time, kids are trained in a variety of sports; and You Are Not A Werewolf, aimed at nine- to 15-year-olds, which tackles issues surrounding puberty and growing up.

KIDS specialist Hoho Entertainment has joined forces with new digital platform TotallyTween to produce Mimi & Bibi, an original 26 x 2 mins animated show aimed at eight- to 10-year-olds.

Mimi & Bibi are twin sisters who couldn’t be more different and the show celebrates this as they debate issues in a fun and humorous way.

From Scratch To Pro (WDR mediagroup)

miptv

DCD RIGHTS

SECRETS Of Great British Castles (6 x 60 mins/HD) has been brought to MIPTV by the UK’s DCD Rights.

The series, which is hosted by historian Dan Jones, explores the turbulent history of some of Britain’s best-known fortifications — the Tower of London, Dover Castle, Warwick Castle, Stirling Castle, Caernarfon Castle and Carrickfergus Castle.

DVD and format rights are also available.

Mimi & Bibi (Hoho Entertainment)

ICON FILMS

REALITY series The Vets is making its international debut at this MIPTV. Brought to Cannes by the UK’s Icon Films, the series features the personalities working in a busy veterinary practice in the city of Bristol, as they deal with the everyday issues involving regular pets and exotic animals, and occasionally perform challenging surgery.

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TM

TM

KOREA

USA

GERMANY Launched November 2014 TM

Launched June 2014 TM

TM

TM

JAPAN

Launched February 2014

Launched August 2013

Secrets Of Great British Castles (DCD Rights)

UK

Launched January 2014

PORTUGAL, AUSTRALIA

TM

IRELAND Launched January 2014

TM

and

FRANCE Launched April 2015

CHINA Coming Soon

YOUR MARKET?

Come meet us at our booth P3.B4 to learn more about distribution opportunities.

www.dogtv.com

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11/04/15 17:35

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Captivate your audience with Sony in 4K Ultra HD Leading content producers are using 4K today to create compelling viewing experiences.

Here’s your chance to hear about the world of 4K through the eyes of major production professionals at Sony’s sponsored conference programme at MIPTV. Photograph from the set of the TV Show “The Blacklist” shot with Sony´s 4K CineAlta Camera, courtesy of Sony Pictures Television.

Why 4K? With image quality sitting at the heart of film and television entertainment, the growth of 4K Ultra High Definition production has been a major trend in recent years. Single shooters and production companies alike are realising how 4K images can work for them and are embracing the flexibility that 4K brings.

Content shot in 4K looks sharper and richer and is ideal for engaging your audience and helping your content stand out from the crowd.

Content shot in 4K also looks great when distributed in HD and allows you to future-proof your content for revenue tomorrow.

Why Sony?

For almost a decade Sony has been at the cutting edge of 4K technology, helping deliver incredible visual experiences from scene to screen. Sony supports film-making and TV production communities with a wide range of tools to help media professionals realise their creative vision.

That´s why leading international TV shows such as The Blacklist, Masters of Sex and Big Bang Theory were all shot with Sony 4K CineAlta cameras.

Outside the world of television drama, 4K has also come to the fore for live production. Within the last year, several high-profile deployments used 4K for live global television, theatre production and historical events.

U LT R A H D

At the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ Sony was responsible for delivering over 2,500 hours of HD footage, with matches delivered in HD as well as in 4K. This marked a watershed moment for sports broadcasting.

Beyond the world of sport, the Grammy Award winning band Muse used Sony’s CineAlta cameras to produce the world’s largest scale 4K multi-camera live concert recording.

4K production has come of age. Don’t miss your chance to hear about the world of 4K through the eyes of leading production professionals in Sony’s sponsored conference programme at MIPTV. • Japan’s broadcasters line up for 4K with NHK, JCTA & SkyPerfectTV, Tokyo 13TH APRIL 10.15-11.15 • 4K High-end Production for TV with BBC Television, UK 13TH APRIL 14.00-14.30 • 4K: Solving the problems for Producers 13TH APRIL 14.30-15.30 • The Music Producers, investing for 4K’s future demand 14TH APRIL 10.00-11.00 • The Factual Producers, ready for 4K broadcasting 14TH APRIL 15.00-16.00

4K Ultra HD Screenings and Sessions Sony 4K UHD Theatre - Palais 4

PRODUCT NEWS TELEVISIO DE CATALUNYA

BARCELONA-based Televisio de Catalunya brings a range of programming from its schedules to MIPTV, including: documentary Messi’s Striking Touch, about 14 boys who trained together and shared the early career of the football superstar; Tito’s Striking Touch, a portrait of the Barcelona football coach and club; The Loud Silence, an exploration of the events surrounding a destructive forest fire in Catalonia in 2009; Persecuted And Saved, about the escape route in the Pyrenees for Jews fleeing the German occupation of France; The Crackpot, a comedy series based in the entertainment world; and Kukurota, targeted at a kids and family audience, with fun facts about the animal world.

FEDERATION ENTERTAINMENT

THE BUREAU stars Mathieu Kassovitz as a member of a clandestine intelligence agency within the French Secret Service that dispatches its agents around the world, and is brought to MIPTV by Paris-based Federation Entertainment. Also on the slate is medical drama Replacements (12 x 60 mins), set in the near future; and the second season of Hostages: The Original Series, in a partnership with Armoza Formats, Canal+, Channel 10 and Yetsira Ivrit.

miptv

PEACE POINT RIGHTS

IN THE second season of Bake With Anna Olson (20 x 30 mins), pastry chef Anna Olson presents easy to follow instructions that can help improve home baking. The shows include personal anecdotes, tips and tricks. The Toronto-based company also highlights: Escape Or Die! (12 x 30 mins), with daring escape artist Dean Gunnarson; and Ice Road Racers (12 x 60 mins), a sports reality series where contestants battle each other on ice-covered obstacle courses under brutal arctic conditions.

Messi’s Striking Touch (Televisio De Catalunya) Bake With Anna Olson (Peace Point Rights)

PILOT PRODUCTIONS

PRODUCER of travel and adventure programming, Pilot Productions, is unveiling additional episodes from its latest series, Tough Trains, at MIPTV. Cuba’s Sugar Trains is about railroads before, during and after the revolution and their ongoing role in the 21st century; and America’s Transcontinental Railroad, is about the four transcontinental railroads built across America and Canada in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The London-based company also brings more episodes of Planet Food, including Delhi, in which Bobby Chinn visits Asia’s biggest spice market and samples the city’s famous street foods; and Cuba, where a history weaving 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, the slave trade, a brutal dictatorship and the 1959 revolution, is mirrored in its cuisine.

STUDIO 100 MEDIA

The Bureau (Federation Entertainment)

HASBRO STUDIOS

AT MIPTV Hasbro Studios debuts Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, the third feature instalment of its Equestria Girls franchise, a spin-off from the My Little Pony series. In the new instalment, Canterlot High meets its rival school, Crystal Prep Academy, in a competition that’s a long-standing tradition — The Friendship Games.

GERMAN distributor Studio 100 Media brings liveaction mystery series Ghost Rockers (53 x 12 mins) to MIPTV. The series, aimed at eight- to 14-yearolds, follows five teenagers with big dreams and musical talent at the DAM Academy. They are confronted with better performing students who treat them badly, then they find a room which is haunted by the spirit of legendary rockers.

Tough Trains (Pilot Productions)

Equestria Girls: Friendship Games (Hasbro Studios)

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Ghost Rockers (Studio 100 Media)

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VISIT US AT BOOTH R7.D5 INTERNATIONAL

SALES

PRODUCT NEWS Sharkman (Octapixx Worldwide)

miptv

CAKE

HAND-illustrated pre-school animated series Woozle & Pip (52 x 5 mins), brought to MIPTV by London-based Cake, follows the imaginative adventures of two dogs as they learn to respect each other and their environment. The series is based on a book series that sold 1.5 million in the Netherlands alone.

OCTAPIXX WORLDWIDE

PROGRAMMES topping the Octapixx MIPTV catalogue include Sharkman (10 x 30 mins/HD), following Riley Elliott in his determination to disprove the myths that surround these predators, working with shark researchers, divers and fishermen to study the sharks of the South Pacific. Up From Slavery (7 x 60 mins/HD) is a series that uses historical re-enactments, expert commentary and first-hand accounts to tell the lives of slaves who became part of the world’s most powerful nation.

SMALL WORLD IFT

NEW FORMAT A Little Taste Of Home, created by Small World IFT and Flying Lemming, features celebrities as they uncover secrets and surprises from their family’s past. Taking a family recipe as a starting point the celebrity traces their family tree to discover why they started cooking that recipe, where it came into their family and back to its roots. Finally they cook the original recipe for their family.

Woozle & Pip (Cake)

ONZA DISTRIBUTION

PICTURE BOX DISTRIBUTION

THE DEPARTMENT Of Time, brought to MIPTV by Spain’s Onza Distribution, is a time-travel series that mixes adventure and comedy in the story of an organisation founded over 500 years ago — that only monarchs, presidents and an exclusive group of people know about — that is in charge of watching the ‘time doors’, with the aim of preventing any intruder from the past breaking through into the present.

CAN YOU Imagine That? (52 x 5 mins) is a preschool series mixing live action and animation that explores children’s future aspirations through animated renditions of their own artwork. Canada’s Picture Box also brings: Selling Big (26 x 30 mins), profiling Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, specialists in buying and selling enormous machines; All For Nothing (39 x 60 mins), in which experts help cashstrapped homeowners improve their homes; and Annedroids (52 x 30 mins), aimed at six- to 10-yearolds, featuring Anne, her friends and her android creations Pal, Eyes and Hand as they perform experiments in Anne’s junkyard laboratory.

The Department Of Time (Onza Distribution)

Can You Imagine That? (Picture Box Distribution)

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STARZ WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION

AT MIPTV Starz Worldwide Distribution is presenting Ash Vs. Evil Dead, a follow-up to the classic horror film franchise The Evil Dead, which is filming in New Zealand now and will premiere on Starz later this year. In the series Ruby (Lucy Lawless) is on a quest to hunt down the source of the recent Evil outbreaks, and she believes that Ash (Bruce Campbell) is the cause of the mayhem. Starz is also prioritising drama series Flesh And Bone, an original Starz production. The eight-episode series follows Claire, a dancer with a troubled past, who joins a prestigious ballet company in New York. The Starz TV movie slate includes: Golden Shoes, about a boy who dreams of playing soccer for the US team; The Dog Who Saved Summer; Christmas Under Wraps; A Perfect Christmas List; Impact Earth; and A Belle For Christmas.

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PRODUCT NEWS

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GLOBAL SCREEN ALBATROSS WORLD SALES

NEW FACTUAL programming from Albatross World Sales includes: Islands Of The Future (5 x 52 mins), which looks into five islands’ experiences of searching for alternative solutions to the energy crisis; The Borderless Sky (5 x 52 mins), showing images of the night sky; Our Fight Against Ebola (1 x 23 mins), focusing on personal stories; Polar Bear Summer (1 x 52 mins); and The Last Of Their Kind – Saving The Cat Ba Langur (1 x 52 mins), about the world’s most endangered species.

NAKED Among Wolves (102 mins), from Germany’s Global Screen, is an update of a classic East German novel set in Buchenwald concentration camp, where a three-year-old Jewish boy smuggled into the camp becomes a metaphor for the struggle to preserve the humanity of inmates. The company also brings two 2 x 90 mins mini-series: After The Fall, about a mother who waits for the return of her Jewish husband in the ruins of Cologne; and Serengeti Will Survive, about rebuilding Frankfurt Zoo after the war.

TOEI ANIMATION

SAINT Seiya Soul Of Gold, the newest chapter of Toei’s Saint Seiya franchise, debuts at MIPTV. The story sees the resurrection of the Gold Saints who go on an adventure to save a legendary city from an ancient vengeful god. The series is broadcast on Bandai Channel in Japan and Daisuki in Europe (excluding France and French-speaking Europe).

Saint Seiya began as a manga and TV series back in 1986.

Islands Of The Future (Albatross World Sales)

RED ARROW INTERNATIONAL ELECTUS INTERNATIONAL

ELECTUS returns to MIPTV with a catalogue including: Outlaw Country (7 x 60 mins), a look at crime in a small town; Bear Grylls: Mission Survive (6 x 60 mins), in which eight celebrities learn to survive in difficult terrain; reality shows Style By Jury (6 x 30 mins) and Dating Naked (two seasons, 11 x 60, 10 x 60 mins); two series of cooking game show Food Fighters (8 x 60 mins/10 x 60 mins); The Raft (6 x 60 mins), following two pairs of strangers afloat for seven days in the ocean with no food or water; total fighting challenge Bellator (12 x 120 mins/4 x 180 mins); and two seasons of comedy drama Jane The Virgin (22 x 60 mins/22 x 60 mins).

HIGHLIGHTS from the Red Arrow International catalogue include the dramas: 100 Code (12 x 45 mins), starring Michael Nyqvist and Dominic Monaghan, in which a New York cop helps a detective in Sweden investigate a series of killings, despite their differences; Remedy (season 2, 10 x 45 mins), set around the lives and loves of a family working in the same hospital; season 3 of comedy drama Lilyhammer (8 x 45 mins); and Bosch (10 x 45 mins), based on the crime novels of Michael Connelly. Formats from Red Arrow include: Real Men, in which five men attempt a health transformation; prank show The Big Surprise; entertainment show Meet My Idol; reality formats Married At First Sight and 3AM; and Santas In The Barn in which 10 wannabe Santas perform seasonal challenges to win a sack full of cash.

El Principe (Plano A Plano)

PLANO A PLANO

PLANO A PLANO, a Madrid-based production company brings El Principe to Cannes, a thriller series set against the background of jihad recruitment and narcotics trafficking in a Spanish border town.

Also on the slate is Alli Abajo, a culture-shock comedy about a single man who discovers a new life after his controlling mother falls into a coma and he finds himself alone in Seville.

100 Code (Red Arrow International)

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PRODUCT NEWS ATRESMEDIA

SPAIN’s Atresmedia presents the new comedy Down Below (Alli Abajo) at MIPTV. Inaki, a man from the north of the country is forced to join his mother on a trip for retired people to the south. After an unexpected accident, Inaki’s mother has to stay in hospital, and he gets to know Carmen, the head nurse of the hospital, and the two opposite characters are definitely attracted.

Down Below (Atresmedia)

miptv

PBS INTERNATIONAL

PBS INTERNATIONAL’s new HD slate for MIPTV includes: Are You Smarter Than Your Pet? (2 x 60 mins), featuring entertaining revelations and experiments that shed light on animal intelligence and encourage the audience to see their brains in a new way; Ken Burns’ Cancer: The Emperor Of All Maladies (6 x 54 mins/3 x 114 mins), a comprehensive study of the story of cancer, from its first description in an ancient Egyptian scroll to the laboratories of modern research institutions; Invisible Universe Revealed (1 x 53 mins), an exploration of the Hubble Space Telescope and its astonishing discoveries; and Movies In Wartime: Projections Of America (1 x 53 mins), the story of a team of idealistic filmmakers who created 26 short documentaries about American life as part of the propaganda effort.

Are You Smarter Than Your Pet? (PBS International)

ZED NEWZULU

NEWZULU is a news platform with a community of over 100,000 professional and citizen journalists across the world. Newzulu editors validate submissions before offering the articles and videos to the global marketplace of 7,000 newspapers, websites, magazines and broadcasters. The company has offices in New York, London, Paris, Sydney and Toronto.

FRENCH producer and distributor ZED is in Cannes with a new feature documentary, The Messenger, directed by Su Rynard and produced by SongbirdSOS Productions and Films a Cinq. The film explores humanity’s connection to birds and warns that the uncertain fate of songbirds might mirror our own. ZED has also boosted its history offer with Hitler’s War On Oil, produced by Clarke Costelle & Co, which recounts Hitler’s campaign to seize Azerbaijan’s oil. Other HD programmes include: Das Reich - Hitler’s Death Squad; and Hitler’s Last Year, the commemorative special recently bought by National Geographic Channel.

CYBER GROUP STUDIOS

Balloopo (Cyber Group Studios)

The Messenger (ZED)

URBAN FILMS

CYBER Group Studios presents the first episodes of Balloopo (52 x 11 mins/HD/CGI) at MIPTV, a pre-school series, co-produced by the Netherlands’ Kids Plant and Korea’s POV Digital Studio, about orange-haired balloon boy Paru and his loyal elephant friend Balloopo in an inflatable land. The French distributor also brings: The Long Long Holiday (10 x 26 mins/5 x 50 mins), targeting six- to 12-year-olds, which follows a brother and sister who go to live with their grandparents on the Normandy coast at the beginning of World War II; G-Fighters (26 x 22 mins), a 3D superhero action comedy series targeting kids aged six to 10; and the second season of preschool series Zou (104 x 11 mins), with Winter and Summer Specials, which features the young zebra learning valuable growing-up lessons.

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MALICIA (13 x 26 mins) is a new crime series from Madrid-based Urban Films. Daniel Parodi is a criminologist who dedicates his life to finding the murderer of his daughter. With the help of a district prosecutor and former detective they begin to uncover a criminal underworld of human trafficking, violence and torture.

Malicia (Urban Films)

© MIPTV® is a registered trademark of Reed MIDEM - All rights reserved.

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PRODUCT NEWS

miptv

AUTENTIC DISTRIBUTION

NEW MOTOR-skewed titles at MIPTV from Autentic include: Macao Gladiators (1 x 52 mins), about the biggest motor sport spectacle in Asia; magazine show GRIP – Beat The Speed (310 x 45 mins); and The Streamliner Case – Recreating The Mercedes Benz 540K (1 x 45 mins). The German distributor also presents natural history shows Wild River Rhine (1 x 52 mins) and Poppy’s Promise (1 x 45 mins), and a catalogue of productions from the journalistic video platform dbate.de.

CONTENT TELEVISION

CONTENT Television debuts new documentary Mandela, My Dad And Me (1 x 60 mins) at MIPTV. After his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the film Long Walk To Freedom, actor, DJ and producer, Idris Elba, planned to record an album of South African music.

When he is due to begin the album, he receives the devastating news that his father has died, a man who had inspired him in his preparation to play Mandela. What started out as a professional project became an increasingly personal mission.

GRIP - Beat The Speed (Autentic Distribution)

AVALON DISTRIBUTION

FLOCK Stars (8 x 30 mins) is a new celebrity format produced by Liberty Bell, for the UK’s ITV1. Eight celebrities are challenged to become shepherds over a six-week period with the help of working sheepdogs. After training they compete. The British distributor also brings entertainment format Taskmaster (6 x 60 mins), produced by Avalon Television for UKTV. IGMAR

ST PETERSBURG-based producer Igmar has completed a feature-length animated film New Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, which it brings to MIPTV, and which will be ready for theatrical release domestically later this year. The story follows the adventures of the epic liar and boaster as he tells his tall tales.

New Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (Igmar)

Mandela, My Dad And Me (Content Television)

CINEPHIL

PRIMEWORKS STUDIOS

THE YES Men Are Revolting (1 x 91 mins) is a new film from activists The Yes Men (Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum) who have staged outrageous hoaxes to hijack public dialogue across the world.

In their third film (after The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix The World), they take on climate change.

The film reveals their creative process while they juggle the demands of getting older, holding down jobs and maintaining personal lives. The Israeli distributor also brings: The Dog (1 x 101 mins), the true story of John Wojtowicz and his attempted bank robbery, portrayed by Al Pacino in 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon; Inside Fur (1 x 57 mins), about the Nordic fur trade; and Mussa (1 x 60 mins), about a young African refugee living in Tel Aviv.

MALAYSIA’s Primeworks Studios brings a line-up of HD programming across genres to MIPTV, including: the Japanese adaptation of Primeworks Studios’ original format, Welcome To The Railworld Japan (10 x 30 mins), a travelogue with a train twist produced in English; Asian food show Best In The World (13 x 30 mins); Hidden World (5 x 30 mins), a series exploring Asia’s most bizarre customs; Unsung Places (6 x 30 mins), an off-the-beatentrack travel show; and Jejak Rasul (12 x 30 mins), a series about the Islamic way of life in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The Mandarin-language slate includes: cooking odyssey Ho Chak! (13 x 30 mins); Muslims In China (1 x 60 mins); and entertainment show Aunty Must Go Crazy (22 x 60 mins). Film highlights include award-winning suicide drama KIL.

The Yes Men Are Revolting (Cinephil)

Welcome To The Railworld Japan (Primeworks Studios)

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OFFICIAL CONFERENCES & SCREENINGS

THE NEW PRODUCERS DIGITAL-FRIENDLY PRODUCTION 101 9.00-10.00 | Esterel

PRODUCERS TOOLBOX: HOW TO BRAND CONTENT EFFECTIVELY 10.00-10.30 | Agora Speaker

Speakers

■■ Steve

Bradbury, Chief Operating Officer, Zazoom Media Group, USA @stevbrad @zazoommedia

■■ Victor

Adebodun, Founder and CEO, PurpleGeko, UK @PurpleGeko

■■ Baby

Isako, Writer & Creator of new Sky Living Drama ‘Venus vs Mars’, UK @babyisako

SHOW & TELL: TECH TO PRODUCE 11.00-12.00 | Agora

■■ Hayley

Dickson, Vice President, Acquisitions & Development, Global Content, FremantleMedia International, USA

Hayley Dickson

■■ Kathleen

Grace, Chief Creative Officer, New Form Digital, USA

Speakers ■■ Sivan

Barnea, VP Partnerships, Magisto, Israel

■■ Antoine

Deswarte, CEO, HNL, France

■■ Nicolas

Moderator ■■ Miles

Bullough, Managing Director, Wildseed Studios, UK @milesbullough

Mercouroff, CEO, TiVine Technologies, France @NMercouroff

■■ András

Somkuti, Member of the Board of Directors, Zinemath, Hungary

Host

INTERNET WINDOWING: THE ART OF ONLINE PROGRAMMING

■■ Benjamin

Costantini, Conference & Content, Reed MIDEM,

France

10.15-10.45 | Esterel Speakers ■■ Farid

Ben Amor, Director, Business Development, Pluto TV, USA

■■ Alejandro

Farid Ben Amor

Burato, CEO, Fav Network, Argentina

■■ Sam

Toles, Vice President of Content Acquisitions and Business Development, Vimeo, USA

Moderator

GETTING READY FOR 4K/UHD

MIPTV’S 4K FOCUS: WELCOME ADDRESS 10.00-10.15 | Sony 4K Ultra HD Theatre

■■ Miles

Bullough, Managing Director, Wildseed Studios, UK @milesbullough

■■ Michel

Chabrol, Director Marketing Innovation and Digital Cinema, Eutelsat, France Michel Chabrol

WHEN STORYTELLING BECOMES EXPERIENCE 11.00-11.30 | Esterel

10.15-11.15 | Sony 4K Ultra HD Theatre

Speakers ■■ Alex

Kruglov, Founder & CEO, Smiletime, USA @akruglov

Speakers Alex Kruglov

■■ James

Milward, President/Executive Producer, Secret Location, Canada @secretlocation

Moderator ■■ Miles

Bullough, Managing Director, Wildseed Studios, UK @milesbullough

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JAPAN’S BROADCASTERS LINE UP FOR 4K

■■ Takehiro

Karube, 4K Channel Producer, Sky Perfect JSAT Corporation, Japan

■■ Shinichi

Nagano, Deputy Head of Programming Center, Programming Department, NHK, Japan

■■ Akihiro

Nakata, Producer/Group Leader, Contents Lab, Japan Cable and Telecommunications Association (JCTA), Japan

Chair ■■ Chris

Forrester, Journalist & Industry Consultant, UK

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INTERNATIONAL DRAMA SCREENING: “FLESH AND BONE” 9.00-10.30 | Auditorium K

THE MILLENNIAL SHIFT

MEDIA MASTERMIND KEYNOTE 11.30-12.00 | Grand Auditorium

STEVEN LEVITAN, “MODERN FAMILY” CO-CREATOR AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

By

Interviewed by: ■■ Anna

Carugati, Group Editorial Director, World Screen, USA

Steven Levitan

COMEDY MASTERCLASS: A SERIOUS SAVOIR-FAIRE 12.10-12.50 | Grand Auditorium Speakers ■■ Ash

Atalla, Emmy and Golden Globe-winner, Executive Producer of “THE OFFICE”, Managing Director, Roughcut Television, UK

Ash Atalla

■■ Caroline

Beaton, SVP International Programme Sales, Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), UK @CarolineBeaton

■■ Joe

Lewis, Head of Original Comedy Programming, Amazon Studios, USA

■■ Jill

Offman, MD Comedy Central UK, SVP, Comedy for VIMN, USA

SCRIPTED FORMATS, DRAMA GLOCALISATION

Moderator

9.15-10.45 | Auditorium A

■■ Peter

White, International Editor, Broadcast, UK @peterzwhite

Speakers ■■ Revital

Basel, VP Sales, Dori Media Group,

Israel ■■ HWANG

Jin Woo, Sr. Manager / Head of formats, CJ E&M, Korea

■■ KIM

Jieun, Director of Program Planning Team, SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System), Korea

HWANG Jin Woo

■■ Nilufer

Kuyel, Head of Acquisitions and Format Development, Endemol Shine, Turkey

■■ Melissa

Pillow, VP of Sales for Europe, Telemundo Internacional, USA

■■ Keren

Shahar, General Manager Distribution, Keshet International, Israel

Moderator ■■ Andrew

Dickens, Senior Reporter, C21 Media, UK @andydickens1987

SCRIPTED FORMATS MATCHMAKING 10.45-11.15 | Matchmaking Lounge, Foyer Balcon Grand Auditorium

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FRESH TV FORMATS 13.10-14.10 | Grand Auditorium & Balcony In partnership with

Speaker ■■ Virginia

Mouseler, CEO, The Wit, Switzerland @thewitfreshtv

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OFFICIAL CONFERENCES & SCREENINGS

INTERNATIONAL DRAMA SCREENING: “FOLLOW THE MONEY” 14.00-15.30 | Auditorium K By invitation only

CANADA AT THE FOREFRONT OF NEW DIGITAL FORMATS 14.00-14.30 | Agora By

By

Speakers ■■ Daryl

Hemingway, President, SmartTones.TV, Canada

■■ Simon

Tremblay, President and Cofounder, Zandel Media, Canada

Presented by ■■ Stéphane

Cardin, Vice-President, Industry and Public Affairs, Canada Media Fund, Canada

MIPLAB 2015 THE ONLY GLOBAL B2B STARTUP COMPETITION IN TV AND ONLINE VIDEO

© Christian Geisnæs/Natalie Madueño/Danish Broadcasting Corp.

15.00-16.00 | Agora

THE CHANNELS TALK: BUDGETS, PROJECTS & TARGETS 14.15-15.30 | Auditorium A

Sponsored by

In partnership with

Speakers Bernth, Head of Drama, DR Fiktion, DR, Denmark

Presenter

■■ Piv

■■ Nacho

Manubens, SVP of Drama, Atresmedia Television, Spain

■■ Craig

Piv Bernth

Morris, Launch Director, Spike UK, UK

■■ Susanne

Mueller, Executive Director Feature Films, ZDF,

Germany ■■ Åsa

Toledano, Lead Project Manager, FABERNOVEL,

France @raphtoled Jury Members ■■ Caroline

Casey, Director, Product & Audience, Yahoo7,

Australia

Sjöberg, Director of Content, TV4, Sweden

Moderator ■■ Dominic

■■ Raphaëlle

Schreiber, Co-production consultant/exec producer,

UK

■■ Múirne

Laffan, Managing Director, RTE Digital, Ireland @muirnelaffan

■■ Oscar

Hoglünd, CEO, Epidemic Sound, Sweden

■■ Farid

Mokart, Founder, CEO, Chief Creative Officer, FRED & FARID GROUP, France

■■ Jacques-Edouard

Sabatier, Director of Digital Content,

CANAL +, France

2015 FINALISTS THE CHANNELS MATCHMAKING 15.30-16.00 | Matchmaking Lounge, Foyer Balcon Grand Auditorium Right after their presentation, meet face to face with leading broadcasters, present your new projects and take advice for future business opportunities.

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■■ Dramatify

(Sweden)

■■ Relevancy

Data (UK)

■■ Rights

Trade (USA)

■■ Wildmoka ■■ Wildseed

(FR)

Studios (UK)

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THE MILLENNIAL SHIFT MEDIA MASTERMIND KEYNOTE 17.00-17.40 | Grand Auditorium

SHOW & TELL: MEET THE 2015 INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL EMMY® AWARD NOMINEES

JEREMY DARROCH, GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE, SKY

16.30-17.30 | Agora

Interviewed by ■■ Lorraine

Heggessey, Chair, Grierson Trust, UK

Sponsored by

Presenter ■■ Catherine

Warren, President, FanTrust Entertainment Strategies & Board Member, Bell Fund, Canada @FanTrust

Catherine Warren

Jeremy Darroch

MIPTV WORLD PREMIERE TV SCREENING

18.15-19.30 | Grand Auditorium Doors open: 17.50 Presented by

GETTING READY FOR 4K/UHD

KEYNOTES: 4K HIGH-END PRODUCTION FOR TV 14.00-14.30 | Sony 4K Ultra HD Theatre Speakers ■■ Andrew

Cohen, Head of Science, BBC, UK

■■ Mark

Hedgecoe, Deputy Head of Science, BBC, UK

Andrew Cohen

Chair ■■ Chris Forrester, Journalist & Industry Consultant, UK

4K: SOLVING THE PROBLEMS FOR PRODUCERS 14.30-15.40 | Sony 4K Ultra HD Theatre Speakers ■■ Prashant

Chothani, CEO, Travelxp, India

■■ Greg

Diefenbach, Managing Director, Alliant Content / XiveTV, USA

■■ David

Klafkowski, Managing Director, The Farm Group, UK

Chair ■■ Chris

Forrester, Journalist & Industry Consultant, UK

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miptv

FEATURE EUROPEAN DRAMA

Peaky Blinders, the BBC’s epic gangster series

Europe makes dramatic entrance Europe is stepping out on to the world stage as a force in high-end, ratings-grabbing TV drama. Juliana Koranteng looks at the European producers that are challenging Hollywood’s dominance of the super-drama market

E

UROPE’s drama producers are ready for the big time. Quality scripted fiction, such as Lu-

ther, Sherlock and The Musketeers, have traditionally enabled productions by the BBC to resonate globally, thanks largely to the English language’s universal reach. And pan-European blockbusters such as 2011’s Borgia won over an international audience because they were in English.

Now, a new generation of must-see serials, mini-series and TV movies, including Generation War from Germany, Gomorrah from Italy and France’s Les Revenants, are proving that gripping, well told, locallanguage drama can work as primetime entertainment overseas.

“Broadcasting is still a local business but, at the same time, the global business is becoming a reality we have to face,” says Jan Mojto, CEO and founder of the prolific European TV and film production/distribution company Beta Film. “To be perceived as a real international player, producers and broadcasters have started showing a greater interest in the destiny of their productions outside of their own markets.”

For decades, TV entertainment creators in multi-lingual and multi-cultural Europe have attempted to emulate the big-budget super-dramas offered by their Englishspeaking counterparts across the Atlantic. Globally

speaking, who does not know about the big budgets and massive success of HBO’s The Sopranos, Game Of Thrones and True Detective; AMC’s Breaking Bad; and Netflix’s House Of Cards?

Initial efforts via European co-productions financed by different countries led to the unfortunate ‘Europuddings’. These bland dramas with no specific flavour were the result of several national participants insisting on contributing to the creative flow despite having conflicting agendas.

Today, Mojto says, the right combinations of partners are delivering hits that are whetting audiences’ appetites worldwide. Euro-pudding “was the European solution for a while”, he adds. “But it was never related to the creative element. It can work from time to time, but the creative implications are not good. It took me 20 to 25 years to understand that.”

In fact, the multi-award-winning veteran believes that Europe has never had it so good when it comes to megadrama productions because its creators and investors are moving with the times. No one in the European market can afford the $6m per episode price tag that US-based HBO is able to spend on Game Of Thrones, a show so popular that even people who have not seen it know what it is.

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FEATURE

These are huge shows involving hundreds of people across many countries. If you follow the lead of the creatives behind the project, you end up with great drama Anne Mensah Stanley Tucci and Sophie Gabrol in Fortitude

However, the involvement of different broadcasters, producers and creators from different countries can work if they share the same vision before production starts. Beta Film contributed to and handled the distribution of Borgia. Sky Italia, France’s Canal+, Austria’s ORF, Germany’s ZDF and Netflix were the lead broadcasters of the German-French-Italian-Czech coproduction, which sold to 85-plus countries.

Part of Borgia’s international success was due to the creative process, which centred on the various partners agreeing to pursue the vision of Tom Fontana, the series’ US creator, lead writer and producer. The same unified thinking underpinned the International Emmy Award-winning German mini-series Generation War (2013) and the Italian Mafia-themed crime series Gomorrah (2014).

Generation War, the Second World War drama produced in German by teamWorx Television & Film for public broadcaster ZDF and distributed by Beta Film, has been sold to more than 90 territories, including the UK’s BBC Two. Gomorrah is a 12 x 60 mins series commissioned by Sky Italia and co-produced with Fandango Films, Cattleya and its distributor Beta Film. Its international success — it sold to 100-plus markets — astonished the industry even more because it was not only in Italian but in a dialect specific to Naples.

“It’s about [jointly] producing something that is better than what a national network has achieved on its own

Everyone is bringing different ingredients to the meal, but it’s the chef who decides what is used in the cooking — and there can only be one chef Jan Mojto 86

before,” Mojto adds. “Everyone is bringing different ingredients to the meal, but it’s the chef who decides what is used in the cooking — and there can only be one chef.”

Beta Film comes to Cannes with another Second World War series, Line Of Separation, a primetime hit for ZDF co-produced with Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion (2006 Oscar winner for The Lives Of Others). Also in the Beta Film pipeline is the event period drama Babylon Berlin, which starts shooting this summer. Helmed

by German director Tom Tykwer, it is co-financed by Beta Film and other major German players: production house X Filme Creative Pool, public broadcaster ARD and Sky Deutschland.

Because of the consensus of opinion about Tykwer’s concept for Babylon Berlin, Sky Deutschland (part of UK-based Sky, the satellite platform formerly known as BSkyB) says this is the first time it has invested in a major German-language production.

Anne Mensah, head of drama at Sky, is credited with transforming the sports and movie-focused platform into one of Europe’s best-financed homes for international drama. The genre has benefited from the 2011 pledge made by Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch to increase the company’s spend on original home-grown content to £600m a year by 2014.

Mensah is adamant that creating a multi-territory hit centres on the story first and foremost. “It’s about falling in love with a great idea, and finding the right project to co-produce, rather than finding the finance before the idea,” she says. “These are huge shows involving hundreds of people across many countries. If you follow the lead of the creatives behind the project, you end up with great drama.”

Sky has also positioned itself as a multi-territory drama production hub after the company merged its five networks in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy into one entertainment conglomerate last year.

Two original dramas were simulcast to the five Sky networks’ 20 million subscribers early this year. The first, Fortitude, said to cost £25m and starring big names including Stanley Tucci and Sophie Gabrol, is set in

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miptv

FEATURE

Penny Dreadful, starring Eva Green, co-produced with Showtime and Sky

the bleak Arctic Circle. The second, 1992, is an Italian political crime drama commissioned by Sky Italia from Rome-based production house Wildside and distributed

by Beta Film.

Sky is working with other international partners. The horror series Penny Dreadful, starring French actress Eva Green, is co-produced with Showtime and executive produced by British Hollywood director Sam Mendes.

Apocalypse Slough, a 10-part comedy drama being made with NBC and Working Title, is set in the UK and stars Hollywood’s Rob Lowe. Meanwhile, The Tunnel, an adaptation of the Swedish-Danish-German co-production of Nordic noir series The Bridge, is now in its second season.

Mensah says the industry can expect more of the same from her company. “I want Sky to be the first port of

The Tunnel, an adaptation of the Swedish-Danish-German co-production The Bridge

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call for creative talent who want the freedom to do their best work in co-productions,” she adds.

FremantleMedia has hiked its investment in European epic dramas aimed at international audiences.

Deutschland ‘83, a Cold War-themed mini-series by its German subsidiary UFA Fiction, is said to be the first German-language drama to air on a major US network, SundanceTV. In addition, FremantleMedia acquired a majority stake in Nordic production house Miso Film last year. The first fruits of that deal are Acquitted, a 10-part highend drama by Miso Film Norway, and the eight-episode crime thriller Modus, which is scheduled for an autumn premiere on Sweden’s TV4.

In the UK, FremantleMedia has resurrected Euston Films, producer of some of the country’s most iconic dramas from the 1970s to the 1990s. First off the revived Euston Films’ slate are adaptations of murder mysteries by Irish novelist Tana French.

The BBC, one of Europe’s most fertile drama producers, is currently in production with a major new adaptation of Tolstoy’s epic War And Peace. “Looking at Europe specifically, there has been a constant thread of high-quality but not necessarily high-budget drama series from continental Europe — Engrenages/Spiral and Les Revenants from France, Crematorio from Spain, The Killing and The Bridge from Scandinavia,” says Ben Donald, executive producer for international drama at BBC Worldwide and founder of independent producer Cosmopolitan Pictures. “I would expect the trend of great European drama to increase as the seriesstorytelling craft is re-ignited in markets that have for decades given more prestige to cinema and directors.”

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miptv

FEATURE

Deutschland ‘83, the first German-language drama to air on a major US network

The eight-episode crime thriller Modus from Norway’s Miso Film

The BBC is also renowned for taking calculated risks, as it did with Peaky Blinders, the epic turn-of-the-20thcentury gangster series. Its unique selling point includes being set in the UK city of Birmingham, the nuances of old Hollywood Western movies combined with industrial steampunk and the contemporary metal-rock soundtracks by PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. It was commissioned from independent Caryn Mandabach Productions and Tiger Aspect Productions, and is helmed by movie director Steven Knight in his first foray into TV. Despite this rosy picture, Jose Manuel Lorenzo, co-head of Banijay Spain and founder and managing director of DLO Producciones, warns there are challenges ahead.

I expect the trend of great European drama to increase as the series-storytelling craft is reignited in markets that have for decades given more prestige to cinema Ben Donald “The differences between the European networks are remarkable,” he says. “Co-ordinating and agreeing content and casting, among other issues, with a group of executives from different channels is not for the fainthearted. But I strongly believe there isn’t any single European channel able to raise a high-end budget and therefore fund a production by itself. Co-production remains the only solution.”

But that is good news, Lorenzo insists: “I am optimistic

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things are changing and, in the near future, we will be ready to create a real European production industry, building on recent successes.”

DLO is bringing new titles to MIPTV, including The Adventures Of Captain Alatriste, made with Mediaset in Italy and Spain, and Franco-German network ARTE. “It’s the first real international production to be shot in the Spanish language with almost 40% of the budget provided from outside Spain,” Lorenzo says. Also from DLO is El Tiempo Entre Costuras, a mini-series by Spain’s Boomerang TV Group and Atresmedia Corporacion de Medios de Comunicacion.

Lorenzo points out that both series cost $1m per episode — nowhere near the $2m to $6m an episode that the epic US dramas cost.

UK-based Greg Phillips, president of international distributor Content Television, notes that Europe’s more demanding audiences are also forcing producers to raise their standards. “People don’t want cheap any more and the quality that didn’t exist 20 years ago is now available in greater volume in every territory,” he says.

Content Television is frequently approached by independents with great ideas which need help to finance quality projects. A case in point is the detective series Jack Taylor commissioned by Irish network TV3. Content was able to help Magma Productions access funding via Ireland’s tax-incentive schemes and German network ZDF and its commercial arm, ZDF Enterprises. Content also contributed to the finance in return for distribution rights.

Among the vital discussions needed before any coproduction begins is one on rights, advises Beta Film’s Mojto. Without clarity, disputes over rights can disrupt the production of great TV. “There must be someone who controls the rights or manages them,” he adds. “In a fragmented distribution market where you have to consider different release windows, exclusivity and geoblocking [online], someone has to keep this in mind.”

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miptv

FEATURE DIGITAL FRONTS

Oscar’s Hotel, the fantasy short by PJ Liguori

Viewing the millennial way As the curtain rises on the second year of MIP Digital Fronts — the market dedicated to original online video content — it is clear that the next generation of audiovisual entertainers is right here, right now. Juliana Koranteng reports

P

ARTICIPANTS in the inaugural 2014 Digital Fronts included YouTube and YouTube multi-

channel networks (MCN) Maker Studios and Vice Media. They are back in Cannes along with competitors and potential partners in the premium online video space. These include Vox Media, the US digital-content and blog publisher that recently raised $47m from investors. Vox Media president Marty Moe recently told an industry audience in London that the company has ambitions to be “the Time Inc of the 21st century, but one that is also going to be a great video producer too. We will be competing against The New York Times as well as HBO going forward.”

Moe’s comment goes a long way towards explaining why legacy media giant The Walt Disney Company emptied its coffers by $500m-plus to buy California-headquartered Maker Studios last year. Shortly after, US conglomerate A+E Networks, another owner of traditional TV channels, invested $250m for a 10% stake in Vice.

The new video-media companies use YouTube to reach the still mostly millennial audience — young consumers who do not subscribe to terrestrial, cable and satellite TV but are eager to watch great content. This has turned YouTube, Google’s free ad-funded video-shar-

It isn’t only young people who watch online video — the Le Monde and Le Parisien channels on Dailymotion have a huge audience among 35- to 45-year-olds Marc Eychenne ing website with its 1 billion active registered users, into a distribution force to reckon with.

Also in Cannes are AwesomenessTV, Dailymotion, Machinima, Collective Digital Studio (CDS), New Form Digital and Australia Screen, the country’s government film and TV funding body. The rising clout of the online video platforms was confirmed further in March when it emerged that PCCW, the Hong Kongbased telecoms conglomerate, is negotiating to buy a stake in Dailymotion.

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FEATURE Fans are willing to pay for their favourite digitalnative talent. The revenue is there and growing Kathleen Grace

Screen Australia’s Fiona Cameron

Red Arrow International’s Henrik Pabst

As one of YouTube’s fiercest rivals, France-originated Dailymotion’s future plans have been the subject of much debate, especially after French telecoms group Orange outsmarted Yahoo! in their respective takeover bids in 2013. Dailymotion is among the top 50 most-visited sites worldwide, recording three billion-plus views and 134 million registered unique users a month. And about 85% of its users are outside France. The company has now started investing in content. Portal, its first original scripted show, is a five-part fantasy/sci-fi series set in a virtual-reality world. It was scheduled for release in March.

Marc Eychenne, Dailymotion’s vice-president of international content, says: “At Digital Fronts, we hope to meet different partners worldwide to create more original content for their channels. We know online video is an efficient way to drive community to your channels. Although the TV-advertising market is still bigger than digital, advertisers know exactly how digital media works. They know what content young consumers want, the personalities they follow and the channels they like. But it isn’t only young people who watch online video — the [French newspapers] Le Monde and Le Parisien channels on Dailymotion have a huge audience among 35- to 45-year-olds.”

Now 75% owned by DreamWorks Animation with the remaining 25% belonging to Hearst Corporation, USbased AwesomenessTV boasts seven billion-plus views and 112 million subscribers. It recently signed a deal to sell 200 hours of original video content to the mobile streaming-TV service operated by US telecoms group

Verizon. AwesomenessTV content is already on Nickelodeon, Viacom’s international children’s TV network.

The company is also expanding its expertise to feature films and branded-content productions.

President Brett Bouttier says AwesomenessTV benefits from the focus that Digital Fronts brings to digital as a content distribution platform. “We recently produced a movie, Expelled, featuring YouTube and Vine superstars that debuted at number one on iTunes,” he says.

“With [cruise brand] Royal Caribbean as our partner, we created two scripted series, Shipping Julia and Royal Crush. And we partnered with [US department store] Kohl’s on a fashion line called S.o. R.a.d. that is available in their stores and supported by a video series and a comprehensive social-media campaign.”

Launched in 2011, Beverly Hills-based CDS is 20% owned by Red Arrow Entertainment Group, which is part of German commercial broadcaster ProSieben.

Among its claims to fame is its partnership with Freddie Wong, one of YouTube’s first international celebrities, who made the cinema-standard web series Video Game High School. CDS is boosting its roster and recently snapped up US comedian Yousef Saleh Erakat and his FouseyTUBE channel, which has five million subscribers and more than 569 million views. Beauty stylist Meredith Foster, on YouTube as Stilababe09, recently brought her 3.2 million subscribers to CDS. Paul Kontonis, CDS’ senior vice-president of strategy, says the company creates entertainment programming on “whichever platform it makes the most sense to be on. It could be Vine and then a TV film, or a YouTube series that goes to Instagram. We’ve never followed the straightforward cookie-cutter approach. We have premium series that could potentially find a home on TV. That’s what we did with Epic Meal Time. The TV version does not follow the same format style of shooting as the YouTube series, yet we consider them both [to be] premium series.”

Red Arrow International, meanwhile, has the international distribution rights to Bosch, the crime series made by its US-based sister company Fabrik Entertainment. The show made media headlines as one of the first scripted content dramas commissioned

NFD’s sci-fi drama Parallax

Vox Media’s Jim Bankoff

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miptv

FEATURE NFD’s Kathleen Grace

CDS’ Paul Kontonis

Maker Studios’ Rene Rechtman

Machinima’s Daniel Tibbets

by Amazon Studios, a subsidiary of e-commerce conglomerate Amazon.com, for its Instant Video streaming platform.

Henrik Pabst, Red Arrow International’s managing director, says: “From a distributor’s point of view, formats originated from multichannel networks like CDS represent a great opportunity. The online video business is undergoing huge change and, as producers and distributors, we need to continually find ways of capitalising on that. We do have to consider quite hard which shows and formats will make a successful move from online to TV. CDS shows such as Annoying Orange and Video Game High School are both in our catalogue, and have proved really successful internationally with both buyers and viewers.”

Machinima started life in 2000 trying to create video games-influenced videos that male millennials would want to watch on YouTube. It hit the financial skids a few years later. But Hollywood studio Warner Bros.

Entertainment contributed to an $18m funding round in 2014, and earlier this year led a new $24m round.

In February, Machinima clinched a $500,000-plus deal to offer content made by its 30,000 creators to the subscription VOD platform operated by video-sharing platform Vimeo.

Daniel Tibbets, Machinima’s chief content officer, says: “The end of last year was the tipping point [in monetisation], when brands said they want to take TV dollars to put in digital media where the audience engagement is very high. Millennials understand when content is being paid for by a brand, as long as that brand does not talk down to them.”

Since its acquisition by Disney, Maker Studios’ status as an entertainment brand has continued to ascend by offering short-form content, ‘snackable’ entertainment, targeted at digital natives. Not only did Disney agree to pay $500m for the company, but it also offered to increase the amount to almost $1bn depending on Maker Studios’ financial performance in a given period. Its rising stars include new-generation celebrities like PewDiePie, whose YouTube channel boasts more than 25 million subscribers and five million views a month.

Rene Rechtman, Maker Studios’ president of international, recently described the company’s Epic Rap Battle series as “bigger than the most successful TV series ever”. Maker Studios works with some 55,000 creators of videos that record 11 billion-plus monthly views from 650 million subscribers. More than 70% of its subscribers are outside the US, and more than 50% its viewers watch via mobile devices.

Rechtman says: “Audiences are the new creators, publishers and distributors. The most influential people on millennials are themselves and their peers. The ‘snackable’ content we offer at Maker Studios is a new medium, not just long-form made short. If you recognise that, it will offer a huge opportunity for us all.”

Millennials understand when content is being paid for by a brand, as long as that brand does not talk down to them Daniel Tibbets

New Form Digital’s (NFD) unique selling point is that it began from scratch, not as a startup but as a venture by big

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Hollywood power hitters. Oscar-winning movie and TV producer/directors Ron Howard and Brian Glazer formed NFD as a joint venture with Discovery Communications in 2014. It is already marketing new shows, including a sci-fi drama called Parallax. Also on offer is Oscar’s Hotel, the fantasy short by PJ Liguori, who goes by the name KickThePJ on YouTube. More recently, it sealed a deal with Is Or Isn’t Entertainment, a production venture co-owned by actress Lisa Kudrow.

Kathleen Grace, NFD’s chief creative officer, says: “Fans are willing to pay for their favourite digital-native talent. The revenue is there and growing. Also, advertisers are getting more savvy. With brands like Red Bull and Marriott [hotel] producing content or brands like Friskies partnering with Buzzfeed, we’re beginning to see how they are applying that knowledge to drive their business. We are no longer in a world where scarcity drives value for the audience; they want ubiquity. They want content everywhere they are.”

The presence of Screen Australia, the state-owned feature film- and TV-funding agency, at Digital Fronts is a major endorsement of online video. The organisation, which focuses on financing and promoting the works of Australian filmmakers and TV producers internationally, is now seeking to do the same for high-end video content. Among online videos that Screen Australia has supported are those by comedian MyChonny, comic duo Bondi Hipsters and Australian vlogger/actress Natalie Tran.

Fiona Cameron, Screen Australia’s chief operating officer, says: “One of the most significant ways we have evolved is by dropping the requirement for [funding applicant] filmmakers to have marketplace distributors attached to series proposals. We believe a robust selfdistribution and marketing strategy can reach as big an audience, if not bigger, as applying with a traditional broadcaster or third party. We are backing the filmmakers to do it themselves, provided they can demonstrate they know where their audience can find content, and they have a plan to reach them. It is possible to monetise clips, generally through tools and services provided by the platforms themselves. We also see the value in building a community, even though the ways to monetise might take more lateral thinking, such as adapting to other forms of media.”

Vox Media originated from the online blogs culture, creating web channels for quality articles by journalists passionate about news (Vox.com), sports (SBNation. com), and technology and lifestyle (The Verge), among others. Earlier this year, Vox nabbed new investment cash and announced the launch of Los Angeles-based Vox Entertainment, a division devoted to video content for online and TV distribution.

Vox Media chairman and CEO Jim Bankoff says: “This year, video is our biggest editorial investment across our entire organisation. This investment reaches across the volume of video we’re producing, the formats and lengths we’re producing in, the channels through which we’re distributing to reach mass scale, the products we’re developing to make sure our videos are seen by the most relevant audiences, how we’re monetising our videos, and how we’re measuring the qualitative and quantitative business impact of video for our clients.”

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A love affair with France The image of the French production industry as self-contained and insular is a dead one. As Marlene Edmunds reports, today the world is looking increasingly to France particularly as a source of series drama that works in the global marketplace

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HE French have made no secret about it. They are playing a global stakes game and they are clearly in the winning corner. French media groups are moving out onto the international landscape with an amped-up and unparalleled energy and focus.

“For Gaumont, like any other European or American companies in the entertainment industry, there are no real borders.” That’s the word from Gaumont vice-CEO Christophe Riandee. Founded in 1895, Gaumont, the world’s oldest film company, is no stranger to global strategy but in the last five years, it has become an international force to be reckoned with both creatively and financially.

Launched in 2011, Gaumont International Television (GIT) today has already moved into production with the third seasons of both Hannibal and Hemlock Grove, as well as Narcos and F Is For Family. In Europe, Gau-

mont TV recently appointed Paris-based Elizabeth Dreyer to oversee its English-language European projects. Spy City, a UK-French spy story set in Berlin after WWII, with showrunner William Boyd on board, is the first series to be announced.

“These projects will involve European stories, teams and financing,” Riandee says. He adds that the company’s strategy overall is “to use everyone’s skills in their own territory and area of expertise. The European team won’t do US stories and the US team will mainly focus on American shows.” But there will be exceptions: “There are already common projects like F Is For Family, one of our shows for Netflix, produced by our studio in LA and our animation team in Paris,” he says.

Similarly most, but not all projects from Gaumont TV, will be in English. “It can make sense with a renowned scriptwriter to do stories that are specific to the lan-

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It can make sense with a renowned scriptwriter to do stories that are specific to the language of the country of origin Christophe Riandee

The Replacements, a co-production with FE and Fisher King

guage of the country of origin,” Riandee says.

GIT’s US success can, in part, be put down to a business model that mirrors the film industry, and includes international pre-sales, a US broadcaster, tax credits and gap financing when it makes sense, says Riandee. He adds: “In the US, we want a broadcaster or a partner right at the start to lead the creative process with us. In Europe, the co-production can be set with two or three broadcasters or one of the leading European global players.”

Some of the drive towards international can be put down to the French market being simply not big enough to survive and grow, says StudioCanal Group chief operating officer Romain Bessi. He adds that most players have to play at the European level and do at least some English-language films and TV series to be competitive. “Keeping a French DNA which includes respect for talent, creation and creative freedom, can also be an asset in this industry,” Bessi says.

A division of the Vivendi controlled Canal+ Group, StudioCanal owns two of the most prolific generators of English-language fare in Europe — Tandem Productions [formerly Tandem Communications] and the UK’s Red Production Company. Among Tandem projects on the front burner is Spotless (10 x 50 mins), set to be delivered in Q3, as well as season three of Crossing Lines, with XFiles creative and Big Light chief executive Frank Spotnitz signed on as executive producer.

Red Production Company’s line-up of top hits includes Happy Valley, Last Tango In Halifax and Queer As Folk.

StudioCanal last year moved into Scandinavia with the launch of SAM Productions, headed up by Soren Sveistrup (The Killing) Adam Price (Borgen) and Meta Louise Foldager (A Royal Affair), all three widely considered to be among the most talented creators in the Nordic media industry. The group also inked a historic alliance with Svensk Filmindustri that has the two groups working together on several co-productions,

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including The Lawyer, in addition to an output deal.

StudioCanal is clearly part of what so far has been a very successful game plan. “The primary ambition for StudioCanal is to reinforce its operations in Europe either through M&A or organic growth. All options,” he adds, “are open. There is no dogmatic approach. We are looking for several partnerships with European talents, and they can materialise through acquisitions of shares or first-look deals,” Bessi says.

Pascal Breton’s trailblazing credentials as the founder of Marathon (now Zodiak Media’s Marathon Images) before he stepped down as CEO in 2013, virtually guaranteed any new company involving him would immediately capture international attention. During his time at Marathon, Breton was responsible for a raft of highprofile productions, including the more recent international co-production Versailles.

Breton launched Federation Entertainment (FE) in September of 2016 and true-to-form, just six months out, already has a raft of projects, including The Bureau and Hostages for Canal+ and Marseille for Netflix, as well as an additional five shows on in development. Among them is Victor, a medical show being developed with Carol Barbee (Judging Amy) and produced with Tim Kring (Heroes). Breton says: “The script is fantastic and we already have broadcasters on board in France and Germany. It is currently in the process of being sold to the US before being greenlit.”

Breton says his company’s name says a lot about what is needed to create a successful mini studio. “It is an idea that is at the heart of our business model,” he says. It is also one that underscores creative collaboration. “We are not interested in just having producers for hire, but rather, we want to share creativity, development and profits with them.”

The main thrust of the company is to co-finance development. “We try to finance shows by pre-selling them

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in Europe and the US, and if necessary, we finance the deficit. We can do this because we’ve created a fund that is dedicated to investing in international series and is guaranteed through our distribution operation.

We are not interested in just having producers for hire, we want to share creativity, development and profits with them Pascal Breton “This business model has worked for many indie companies that don’t have a lot of money to develop or finance production. These are often very good companies in local markets but they can’t always find the funding to take it international, and that’s what we help them do.”

Federation, he adds, sees itself as being at a halfway point between Europe and the US. “As such, our aim is to go for the best talent we can find on both sides of the pond and to share creative development, talent, and profits.”

The FE business model “allows us to team with some of the best Israeli, Scandi and UK producers and, of course, US showrunners and independent producers, since we have an office in LA and half of our business will be with the US”. Federation recently completed The Replacements, a co-production with Finnish outfit

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Fisher King. “We like these guys because they are very modern and we want to help them raise financing that will take them more international,” Breton says.

Lagardere Entertainment is a leader in sport, news and information shows in France but in recent years, through Atlantique Productions, it has expanded with pretty much unstoppable energy into English-language content.

Born in Cannes and with some 15 years experience working in Scandinavia, Atlantique creative director Patrick Nebout believes the French have really just started to learn about international productions and the co-production environment. He adds: “Of course, there have been European co-productions with France before but they had a tendency to be Euro-puddings, a mish-mash of editorial and creative wills that usually ended up with very poor results.”

He points to Scandinavia’s long tradition of working with other Nordic territories, Germany and more recently, the UK and the US. “What the French are learning is you need to trust your creators and you need to trust your producers. That’s one of the main reasons for the success of Scandinavian drama. Once a Nordic broadcaster is convinced by your pitch, the strength of your creative proposition and team, it will back you to 100% during the development process. In other words, it works with you, not against you.

“And once you’ve got a greenlight, you don’t see the broadcaster before it’s time to deliver,” Nebout says.

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“They let the producer and the creator run the show and that means one single creative voice.

That is how the best and most original shows are produced in Scandinavia, in the US, in the UK, and certainly in Israel where we are developing a show called Crater Lake with Keshet.”

Atlantique Production currently has on its front burner Midnight Sun, an eight-part thriller coproduced with Scandinavia’s Nice Drama for Canal + and Swedish public broadcaster SVT. The project is helmed by writing-directing team Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, two of the creators of The Bridge. “This is really our first venture into a multi-language project, with English, French and Swedish being spoken by the characters in a very organic way,” Nebout says.

The company is also developing productions with Italy’s Gomorrah series producer Cattleya, with at least one expected to be a non-

Gaumont’s Hemlock Grove, into a third season

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miptv

FEATURE Red Production Company’s Happy Valley

What the French are learning is you need to trust your creators and you need to trust your producers Patrick Nebout

English show, and is in early development with a French/ German thriller, with both languages in play in the main spoken dialogue.

Survival in the fiercely competitive international drama landscape is clearly a very high stakes game and Nebout knows it. “There are so many projects and stories being shopped out there to outlets and financiers that you have to make sure your specific show is different from anything else on the market in order to attract interest. You need concept, names, but also you need to take greater risks, financially and creatively.”

So what raises the stakes at Atlantique? It’s sci- fi series Metal Hurlant: Origins, penned by hot UK scriptwriter Jamie Mathieson, based on an iconic French graphic novel from the Seventies that inspired directors including Ridley Scott, James Cameron and George Lucas.

“We are currently in talks with a strong US director to helm the pilot episode,” Nebout says. Sergio Corbucci’s legendary spaghetti-western Django, on which Quentin Tarentino based his film Django Unchained, is also a high-stakes play. “We acquired the adaptation rights and are now co-developing with Cattleya. Django is an original Italian brand, but with a huge international potential and appeal.”

France’s vertically integrated AB Groupe has quietly scored some major firsts when it comes to the making of international English language drama.

In what will be his TV debut, novelist Douglas Kennedy recently signed to work with Sydney Gallonde’s VAB Production and AB Groupe on The Pursuit of Happiness and A Special Relationship, two of Kennedy’s best selling novels.

Kennedy’s 11 novels have been translated into 22 languages and his books have sold nine million copies in France. AB Groupe, which runs France’s largest payTV outfit, will be financing, co-producing and handling international sales for the two titles.

The deal with Kennedy came on the heels of VAB Pro-

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ductions signing up US novelist Harlan Coben to script his first TV show, an adaptation of his book No Second Chance, for network TF1.

French indie film giant EuropaCorp is also following in the footsteps of other French groups with some major plays on the international TV scene.

It recently appointed Matthew Gross as president of EuropaCorp Television, US. Gross, who had worked with ABC Studios exclusively for more than a decade on such series as Body Of Proof, Dirty Sexy Money and Day Break, will be working alongside French EuropaCorp Television (ECTV) toppers Edouard de Vesinne and Thomas Anargyros.

ECTV was founded in 2010 and already has credits that include mini-series Flight Of The Storks and No Limit.

NBC also picked up the rights last year to its English language series Taxi Brooklyn.

EuropaCorp’s continued international expansion also includes RED, its distribution partnership with Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media.

Ile de France Film Commission has helped the growth of France from a regional Euro player to an international one, courtesy of the successful Tax Rebate for International Productions (TRIP) and regional incentives that have brought in dozens of A-list films and TV series to France’s biggest high-end production matrix.

“Ile-de-France has always considered Paris a hub for international production,” says CEO Olivier-Rene Veillon. He adds: “It took some time for French producers to realise they would suffocate in a single market, especially France’s highly regulated one. The international market is now a top priority for the most creative of French production companies because they realise that the best way to improve the quality of their programmes is to enter the fiercely competitive international landscape.”

Among shows that have benefitted from a regional incentive as well as TRIP are Versailles and The Returned.

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