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TVEUROPE
WWW.TVEUROPE.WS
Prime-Time Trends
APRIL 2014
MIPTV EDITION
/ ITV’s Peter Fincham / ProSiebenSat.1’s Thomas Ebeling & Rüdiger Böss / Sky’s Sophie Turner Laing
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TV EUROPE
CONTENTS FEATURE
Forward Thinking
8 In Their Prime Europe’s top free- and pay-TV broadcasters are filling their prime-time grids largely with local productions.
8
I have always had a deep affection for Italy. My parents were born there. My mother and sisters live there, and so did I for 20 years.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Associate Editor Joel Marino Assistant Editor Simon Weaver Online Director Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Cesar Suero Sales & Marketing Director Faustyna Hariasz Sales & Marketing Coordinator Terry Acunzo Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Europe © 2014 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tveurope.ws
Italian culture has shaped my values and tastes. It has given me my respect for family, and my love of art, architecture, food, countryside vistas dotted with vineyards and Medieval castles, and Armani—although my wallet has never kept pace with the price tags on his clothes! Recently, I found a book called Italianissimo:The Quintessential Guide to What Italians Do Best. I was overcome with bittersweet homesickness as I leafed through the pages. According to the small volume, Italy’s top accomplishments include l’aperitivo, pasta, gelato, calcio (soccer), moda (fashion), chiaroscuro in painting, and “Chiuso” (“Closed”), the sign so often posted on establishments when they take their sacrosanct lunch hour or weekly day of rest, or are on strike. What was clearly not included among Italy’s greatest feats is government. Since the time of the Romans, effective Italian governing has been found on a small scale, as in city states or now at the municipal level, but since Italy became a nation in the late 1800s, running the country has proven to be more than a challenge. I am no economist, but it seems to me that more than austerity measures are necessary to fix the many ills that assail Italy. How about enforcing tax laws for everyone? How about scaling back the monthly salaries of members of Parliament, which are five times higher than the average wage? How about curbing the unions and reforming labor laws? How about electing political leaders who think of more than their own self-interest? The country’s economic quagmire has trapped the middle and working classes in a grip of hopelessness—especially among the young who can’t find work. The bad economy has naturally impacted the advertising market, which in turn has negatively affected television channels. Investments in programming in Italy are a fraction of what they are in other countries in Europe. In France, where the economy isn’t great, money continues to be invested in program schedules. Even Spain is showing signs of recovery, and the TV industry is cautiously optimistic. In this issue, we look at major programming trends in prime time in a number of territories.We also celebrate the anniversaries of two major European media groups: the U.K.’s pay-TV platform BSkyB, which has never shied away from innovation, and ProSiebenSat.1, whose strategies prove that free TV remains a very solid business. We toast “Salute!” to them and to all forward-thinking broadcasters in Europe. —Anna Carugati
INTERVIEWS 18 ITV’s Peter Fincham
22 ProSiebenSat.1’s
Thomas Ebeling
28 ProSiebenSat.1’s
Rüdiger Böss
34 BSkyB’s Sophie Turner Laing
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Audiovisual from Spain • El Principe • No Identity • Australia: A Journey Through Evolution As the umbrella brand used to promote the Spanish content industry, Audiovisual from Spain supports and encourages the international business, trade and promotion of Spanish production and distribution companies. Among the outfits exhibiting with Audiovisual from Spain at MIPTV are Mediaset España, presenting El Principe; Atresmedia, with the new thriller No Identity; Explora Films, showcasing the documentary Australia: A Journey Through Evolution; and Onza Distribution, highlighting Magic Mania. Also part of the Audiovisual from Spain banner is Phileas Productions, which is offering Ex Life on Sale, as well as Imira Entertainment and BRB Internacional. Imira is highlighting Lucky Fred and Larva, while BRB is offering Talking Tom and Friends.
El Principe
Russia Television and Radio/Sovteleexport • Demons • The Iron Ivan • Ash
Sovteleexport heads to MIPTV with a catalogue of content from Russia Television and Radio that includes more than 20,000 hours. One of the company’s highlights is Demons, a screen adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel. There is also The Iron Ivan, a biopic on the invincible Russian champion; Ash, a series about a dramatic period in Soviet history; and Water: A Living Force, a documentary focused on the mysterious chemical compound. “Russian programming is often quite unique in its nature, from lavish screen adaptations of Russian classics to diverse documentaries with exclusive footage to original feature films made in the best traditions of Russian cinema,” says Julia Matiash, the director of Sovteleexport. Matiash says that a focus for the company is to increase its business in Latin America.
“Russian content already lives up to international standards far more often than people realize.” —Julia Matiash Demons
TM International • Ruby Red • Hubert & Staller • Cosmos Based on the best-selling trilogy by Kerstin Gier, Ruby Red is about a teenage girl who comes from a family of time travelers. That title is being presented by TM International at this year’s market in Cannes, along with Hubert & Staller, which airs on ARD in Germany, and Cosmos, a 16-part docuseries that has been picked up in more than 40 territories around the globe. “Cosmos stands for a new approach we are currently pursuing, while staying loyal to our commitment to excellence,” says Carlos Hertel, the company’s head of international sales. “This high-profile documentary series not only represents a unique value proposition for TV, but also for nonlinear distribution outlets that are now increasingly looking for exclusive content to engage their customers.”
“We do business with over 100 territories on a regular basis.” —Carlos Hertel Ruby Red 144 World Screen 4/14
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TV5MONDE • TV5MONDE FBS • TV5MONDE Europe This year marks the 30th anniversary of the French-language channel TV5MONDE. To celebrate, it has migrated all of its channel offerings over to high definition. “HD technology not only guarantees a high quality, it also allows viewers much easier access to subtitles,” says Yves Bigot, the general manager of TV5MONDE. Programs are subtitled in seven languages: English, Russian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Romanian and French. “In Europe, TV5MONDE offers a single feed of the international cultural French-speaking channel, available 24/7 in 118 million homes in 55 countries and territories,” says Bigot. In addition to TV5MONDE Europe, the broadcaster operates TV5MONDE FBS, specifically for France, Belgium and Switzerland.
“TV5MONDE has switched its production and broadcast of all ten channels to HD.” —Yves Bigot A la vie, à la mode on TV5MONDE
TVE • Isabel • Together • El Prado, A Passion for Painting
The first two seasons of the successful historical drama Isabel have been picked up in 25 countries around the world.That is one of the titles that TVE is looking to sell into Europe and other international markets this MIPTV, along with Together, a non-scripted format that attempts to solve family issues. In Together, “men and women talk about their problems and ask the audience to make decisions with them,” explains Rafael Bardem, the head of program sales at TVE. “The response of the audience is really moving. We are talking with several channels [that are] interested in it.” Also on the company’s slate is El Prado, A Passion for Painting, a doc spotlighting the Prado Museum. “We invite MIP visitors to our booth to watch these masterpieces in 4K,” says Bardem.
“Eastern Europe is definitely an emerging market for us.” —Rafael Bardem El Prado, A Passion for Painting
Twofour Rights • Nurses to Be • Cooks’ Questions • Compulsive Shoppers From the makers of Educating Yorkshire comes Nurses to Be, an observational docuseries that follows a group of nurses in training. “It reveals the pressures, emotions and challenges they face, both in the classroom and on the wards, which works so well internationally,” says Anthony Appell, the head of sales for Twofour Rights, which is bringing that title to this year’s market. Also on the company’s MIPTV slate is the culinary series Cooks’ Questions.“Clients have been asking us for more food shows for their female-skewed networks and we think Cooks’ Questions is the perfect blend of the most talented chefs around, with questions and informative food recipes for audiences to enjoy at home,” says Appell. Then there is Compulsive Shoppers, a documentary for BBC One that also targets a female audience.
“Our viewers are looking for high-quality, high-volume series on SVOD platforms and nonlinear platforms.” —Anthony Appell Nurses to Be 146 World Screen 4/14
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ZDF Enterprises’ Bron/Broen.
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in their
PRIME European broadcasters are filling their prime-time grids with a mix of local dramas and adaptations of unscripted formats. By Steve Clarke uch of Europe remains economically challenged with advertising revenues in decline in many markets. The southern part of the continent—Greece, Italy and Spain, for example—is still gripped by the impact of the 2008 crash. “Southern Europe is still challenged,” says Cathy Payne, CEO of Endemol Worldwide Distribution. “Spain has bottomed out and the situation is starting to improve a little. Countries like Spain and Greece are using up their inventory because they can’t afford to buy that many new shows.” But elsewhere in Europe, broadcasters are prepared to splash cash on shows they believe are capable of cutting through the digital clutter. Overall, there are few signs of big,
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free-to-air broadcasters turning to acquired material for peak time, be it TV series or feature films. But there are exceptions—in Germany, ProSieben’s top two broadcasts in 2013 were The Hunger Games (6.5 million viewers) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (4.4 million). Across much of the continent and beyond into the U.K., the mantra at the major networks is “think local,” even if this involves significant, up-front investment in license fees for formats and production costs. “Drama is doing well, especially series,” points out Payne. “Overall, TV movies and miniseries are less popular.” This view is echoed by Maria Kyriacou, the managing director of ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE). “There is more demand for high-end drama and more of a willingness
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FremantleMedia’s Project Runway is one of many international formats adapted by FOX International Channels Italy to fill its prime-time needs.
to co-produce and become involved in a show as a production partner at the beginning of the process,” she says. At the BBC, Danny Cohen, director of television, concurs: “The global appetite for drama seems to be growing. Budgets are rising as international co-production grows. Live entertainment retains a very important place in people’s hearts.” But Cohen would like to see everyone raise their game in one area that has proved very cost-effective for broadcasters in many markets: “I think there is a growing need for a turn of the wheel when it comes to factual-entertainment formats,” he advises. STRETCHING THE BUDGET
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, from all3media international, fared well in its France 3 slot.
Ireland is one of Europe’s smallest TV markets. The local economy is at last showing signs of growth following a prolonged dip. Even so, the purse strings remain tight at TV networks. “Money is definitely tighter and commissioners are looking for guaranteed successes,” says Dermot Horan, the director of production and acquisitions at Irish state broadcaster RTÉ. “This is difficult in a creative world.” He adds: “As a rule, shorter-running series are working better on free-to-air channels. They can be scheduled as events, appointments to view that should be watched live.” In Ireland, as is the case with many European markets, Horan identifies original drama as “the most potent ratings gatherer. Event shorter-run series of four to eight episodes are the current favorites of viewers, such as Amber (about a missing teenager) and Love/Hate (a Dublin gangland saga),” he elaborates. It is a similar story across the Irish Sea in the U.K., widely regarded as the most dynamic TV market in Europe. The two main terrestrial channels, BBC One and ITV, depend heavily on drama to attract prime-time audiences. 150 World Screen 4/14
Long-running soaps like ITV’s Coronation Street continue to generate high ratings while returning series, most famously the period piece Downton Abbey, are schedule staples. “Drama is one of the core genres of ITV,” explains Peter Fincham, ITV’s director of television, channels and online. “There is no question of our commitment to drama. We are at a very exciting time in drama when audiences are more or less saying to us, ‘Challenge us. Take us to places we didn’t expect to be taken. Give us something radical. Give us something unexpected.’ The result of that is that there is a lot of good television drama around.” Fincham is bound to say that. But critics agree that expensive home-grown drama helps invigorate tired schedules. Last year, ITV’s most talked about new drama series was Broadchurch, an eight-part thriller dedicated to one crime solved in the final episode.The influence of Scandinavian crime drama was evident in the leisurely way the narrative unfolded. What did Broadchurch teach ITV about audiences’ appetites for drama and how it is made and scheduled? “I think what it showed, and it’s not unique in this, is slightly contrary to what people normally thought,” explains Fincham. “People thought the audience’s attention span is getting smaller and we are living in an age of 30-second video clips. I don’t think that was ever right. People’s atten-
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The Musketeers, a period action drama, aired earlier this year in a primetime slot on BBC One.
tion spans for things that they enjoy are getting longer, and they want more of what they like. I often hear people talk about DVD box sets and binge viewing and how that’s the direction in which we are all going…. I think Broadchurch showed us in the U.K. that there is an enormous appetite for a series that plays at nine o’clock every Monday and where you’ve got to wait till nine o’clock the next Monday to find out what happens next. We didn’t play any nexttime teaser trailers at the end of each episode. We just kept them guessing and they loved it. It’s something that I sometimes call the pleasure of deferred pleasure.” ON THE UP
Dramas like Broadchurch and reality behemoths such as I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! ensured that against overall viewing patterns, ITV experienced an exceptional year in 2013. The 13th season of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! achieved its second highest ratings ever.The German version of the show also scored for commercial broadcaster RTL last year. Contrary to European trends, where many of the main channels are fighting to minimize declining audiences, last year ITV managed to increase its share of the TV audience (up from 16.5 percent to 17.15 percent). According to IHS Screen Digest, the only other big European broadcasters to boost their overall share in 2013 were France’s TF1 and Germany’s ProSieben. Germany is far and away Europe’s healthiest economy. “In terms of programming trends not much has changed here in the past five years,” says Susanne Mueller, ZDF’s executive director of feature films. 152 World Screen 4/14
Domestically produced drama is a consistent schedule driver on the main channel. “In prime time, fiction is the backbone of ZDF,” explains Mueller. “We play a lot of TV movies— 90-minute shows featuring the same set of characters, but the stories are not serialized.” The continuing popularity of veteran entertainment show Wetten, dass..? (Wanna Bet?) on ZDF (the show was first broadcast in 1981) is another indication of the traditional nature of the pubcaster’s programming. CRIME PAYS
Crime series, notably police procedurals, still resonate with ZDF’s audience. British imports, including Midsomer Murders, DCI Banks, Lewis and Luther, are regulars in the 10 p.m. weekday slots on ZDF and ZDFneo. The Sunday night slot on ZDF is a showcase for Scandinavian dramas like Forbrydelsen and Bron/Broen, distributed and co-produced by ZDF Enterprises. Acquired shows such as Mad Men and House of Lies are part of the prime-time mix on ZDF’s digital channels. These series are given a secondary window in a late-night Friday slot on the main network, but ratings are not high. David Weiland, BBC Worldwide’s executive VP for Western Europe, confirms that crime certainly does pay in Europe’s biggest TV market. “With Germany we’ve seen an upsurge in drama sales, especially crime drama, and it’s great to see shows like Sherlock being given a prime-time slot on ARD. Of course, this country has always been a big buyer of factual programming with many broadcasters partnering with us as co-producers—
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The British drama The Escape Artist, sold by Red Arrow International, found prime-time slots in Germany and Scandinavia, among other markets.
for example, RTL on Hidden Kingdoms.” Weiland continues, “Buyers cottoned on to the fact that British drama can provide an alternative to U.S. fare. We saw a turning point thanks to three definitive shows that made this shift happen: Luther, Sherlock and Misfits. As a result we’ve seen a substantial increase in drama sales across the region. Interestingly, in Iberia and Italy there has all of Crime dramas like ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s Lewis—recently commissioned for a new a sudden been a big demand season—are a prime-time staple across Europe. for cookery and travel, where before there was very little. This is of course related to the everywhere are experiencing falling shares and are searchDTT fragmentation in Italy and Spain.” ing for popular programming—principally formats—that they can control. A major problem is that the expense of LONDON CALLING most prime-time production naturally generates riskITVS GE’s Kyriacou agrees that British drama averseness.” is having a moment across the continent. “We From Ranelagh’s perspective, the upshot is that the vogue for are well known for our drama and have a local production for prime-time slots is leading to an increase in lot of returning series that are tried and tested. low-budget shows in daytime and late-night segments. U.K. drama is highly respected across all the There is one vital caveat, according to the TV 2 executive: European markets and can bring a halo effect “If a show is identified as having strong potential, money will to broadcasters’ schedules.” still be spent. In our business, you don’t make money unless Further north in Norway, John Ranelagh, the you are willing to spend it.” director of acquisitions at commercial station Local versions of FremantleMedia classics including Farmer TV 2, confirms that American Wants a Wife and the king of shiny-floor shows, Idol, rate well shows are catching a cold on in Norway. Crime drama inevitably packs a big punch in mainstream networks. Scandinavia. “Acquired drama and “In the Nordics, it’s no surprise that crime drama drives films are slipping on the big package deals,” says BBC Worldwide’s Weiland. TV, and have been for “Series such as Sherlock, DCI Banks, Silent Witness and Death some years,” he says. in Paradise are welcomed by audiences.They are all scheduled “The content is being in prime time on the major channels.” viewed—and viewed more than ever before— ITALIAN SEASONING but not on screens con- In Italy, locally made drama remains popular on the channels trolled by broadcasters. run by the big broadcasters. The shows that rate the highest This is especially the tend to be traditional crime stories. These include the long case with U.S. fare, running Il commissario Montalbano and Don Matteo, both where a U.S. transmis- shown by national broadcaster RAI. Alberto Rossini, the VP of entertainment and factual at sion effectively makes the content immediately FOX International Channels Italy, thinks the conservative available globally through nature of the mainstream Italian free-to-air channels provides OTT services, not neces- him with an opportunity, in spite of the weak economy. “I can’t deny that the Italian economy is in bad shape, but sarily through piracy. We need to control our shows there are not many of the world’s best TV shows that aren’t to the greatest extent possible available somewhere on Italian TV,” he says. “When the crisis hit, FOX and Sky did not stop investing so that they do not appear on screens that compete in local production. The levels of investment might not be as high as they were before 2008, but it has continued. On FOX with ours.” He adds: “Broadcasters Life we have local versions of international factual-entertainment recognize that they need formats like Four Weddings, Kitchen Nightmares and Project to be event-driven and Runway. They perform well for us,” adds Rossini. “Relatively, Grey’s Anatomy does better on FOX than on local in order to compete for viewing time. free-to-air in Italy, which has the second window.” He concludes: “Compared with five years ago, on free The trend today is that there is no real trend. Broadcasters to air the biggest change has been the decline in the 154 World Screen 4/14
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year on year, or might have flatlined or grown a little. They always want to take that curve and then follow it to some logical conclusion. But I would caution anyone against doing that.” Endemol’s Payne observes that “shiny-floor talent shows are very expensive for broadcasters. But when they’re good like The Voice or Rising Star, they pay dividends. Rising Star has been acquired by many networks for huge prices, including ITV in the U.K. and M6 in France.” FINDING THE MONEY
TM International’s Hubert & Staller is a prime-time hit on the German pubcaster ARD.
number of movies broadcast while on pay it’s been a huge increase in quality.” Given fragmenting audiences, heightened by digital distractions provided by Netflix and others, identifying standout shows is more important to broadcasters than ever. STAND-OUT HITS
Endemol’s The Money Drop (known as The Million Pound Drop in the U.K.) overtook Come Dine with Me as Europe’s most valuable format in 2012, according to analysts Essential Television Statistics, Madigan Cluff and Digital TV Research. The format has sold to more than 35 territories, including France’s TF1 and numerous Central European countries such as Lithuania, Slovenia and Serbia. Nowadays, France is fertile ground for glitzy entertainment shows. “The biggest change we noticed is their appetite for entertainment shows,” says BBC Worldwide’s Weiland. “Our production base in Paris has had terrific success with Danse avec les Stars on TF1, which is one of their biggest Saturday night prime-time shows.” But Dancing with the Stars is hardly a new format, and there are signs that even some of the longest-running formats are nearing the end of the road. In a bellwether market like the U.K., it is perhaps significant that the veteran quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? ended its 15-year run on ITV in February. “People the world over are looking for the next big thing in entertainment,” emphasizes ITV’s Fincham. “I think they are and always will be, and this is certainly not something peculiar to ITV or the U.K. You’ll find it in America, you’ll find it in Germany and France and any big territory where television audiences like entertainment. We are all, always, looking for the next big thing.” That is one constant across all networks, regardless of changing audience tastes or technological innovation.
“It is really hard to find stand-out hits, so for the right program, most broadcasters want to invest—within reason of course,” notes the BBC’s Cohen. “At the same time, we all have to balance our books, so programs that can be made in longer, formatted runs are also very important.” This can be good news for distributors, but it is local versions of entertainment formats that are helping to attract European audiences. Talpa’s reality talent show The Voice is a hit across Europe. “Live entertainment retains a very important place in people’s hearts,” suggests Cohen, who commissioned the show for BBC One. ITV’s Fincham agrees: “We have The X Factor, we have Britain’s Got Talent. I think people watch the entertainment space and they see that one particular More than 40 years since its premiere, the Global Screen-distributed Tatort (Scene of series might be down a little bit the Crime) is one of Europe’s biggest crime procedurals. 156 World Screen 4/14
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IT V’s and platforms and viewing patterns—the constants that don’t change very much will remain the same this year, next year and in ten years’ time. If you make great programs and tell great stories, people will come to your channel. TV EUROPE: Downton Abbey and Broadchurch have been very
successful but they are also very expensive. Is there the intent to continue to invest in drama? FINCHAM: There is every intention to continue to invest. Drama is one of the core genres of ITV. There is no question of our commitment to drama. It will continue and probably be as strong as ever. We are at a very exciting time in drama when audiences are more or less saying to us, “Challenge us. Take us to places we didn’t expect to be taken. Give us something radical. Give us something unexpected.” The result of that is that there is a lot of good television drama around. TV EUROPE: Are period pieces and crime dramas here to stay, or are you also looking for more contemporary dramas? FINCHAM: Everything is here to stay and we are looking for more contemporary. If you have a big hit with a period drama, there are two mistakes to make.The first is to say, Let’s have nothing but period drama.The other one is to say, Let’s not have any more at all. Everything is case by case. In a sense, there is a certain purity about drama in that you should always commission a great script. Commission a great script if it’s set on the moon! Commission a great script if it’s set under water! But don’t commission a not very good script even if it seems to tick all the boxes you normally want to tick. So I would say, period is here to stay, crime is certainly here to stay and so is contemporary. Audiences will come to what they believe tells them a great story, whatever its sub-genre.
By Anna Carugati
Last year, ITV, the leading commercial broadcaster in the U.K., increased its audience share for the first time since 1990. In fact, of the country’s five terrestrial broadcasters, ITV was the only one to improve its share—and this after several years of low ratings, particularly in 2012. The growth in audience has been due to several hits such as Downton Abbey, Broadchurch and the evergreen entertainment show I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! As director of television, channels and online, Peter Fincham oversees not only flagship ITV but also a digital bouquet that includes ITV2 and ITV3, the most successful digital channels in the U.K., and the distribution of ITV content on digital platforms, the most important of which is the ITV Player, the popular catch-up TV service. Fincham talks to TV Europe about changing viewing habits and the power of great scripts and storytelling.
TV EUROPE: What is fueling the success of ITV’s schedule? FINCHAM: It’s a mixture of things, but they all come back to
fundamentals: trying to work with the right talent and commission the right programs, and trying to challenge our audience, while at the same time giving them what they understand and recognize. Although the world changes around us with bewildering speed—[with new] technologies 158 World Screen 4/14
TV EUROPE: I loved Broadchurch and watched it on BBC America. Unlike your audience, I was able to watch one episode after another because they were stacked on demand. What did Broadchurch teach you about audiences’ appetites for drama and how it is made and scheduled? FINCHAM: I think what it showed, and it’s not unique in this, is slightly contrary to what people normally thought. People thought the audience’s attention span is getting smaller and we are living in an age of 30-second video clips. I don’t think that was ever right. People’s attention spans for things that they enjoy are getting longer and they want more of what they like. I often hear people talk about DVD box sets and binge viewing and how that’s the direction in which we are all going.What I think is wrong about that is it slightly implies that we are a herd of sheep and we all go in the same direction together. I don’t think that is the reality at all. I think Broadchurch showed here in the U.K. that there is an enormous appetite for a series that plays at nine o’clock every Monday and where you’ve got to wait till nine o’clock the next Monday to find out what happens next. We didn’t play any next-time teaser trailers at the end of each episode.We just kept people guessing and they loved it. It’s something that I sometimes call the pleasure of deferred pleasure.
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Peter Fincham But believe me, I binge view with the best of them! Binge viewing along with linear viewing—that is not a battle between two different things, only one of which can win. Both can win. It’s an extension of viewer choice. I’m an unashamed advocate and lover of binge viewing, but I absolutely love linear schedules and I do think that there is a voice in your head as a viewer that says, I’ve had a busy day at work, I’m home now, What’s on the television? Oh good, I’m going to watch that.That voice isn’t going to go away; [it’s just] somebody else making some choices on your behalf and saying, Hey, it’s Sunday night, what about Downton Abbey? The fact that we can all schedule our own evenings through video on demand and shows that we have recorded on our PVRs [personal video recorders] doesn’t actually remove the magic of the linear schedule. The linear schedule talks in particular to the shared experience of television: “Hey, did you watch Broadchurch last night? So did I. What did you think? Where do you think it’s going?” I don’t believe we are going to lose our taste for that because I think we all like it. TV EUROPE: With the mainstream channels in the U.K. all
committed to drama, is it difficult to find ideas, actors or writers who are available, or is the pool sufficient to fill the demand? FINCHAM: The supply and demand of great drama has definitely changed in recent years, i.e., there is very strong demand. There are a lot of channels in America commission-
ing original scripted material and a lot of it using British talent, both on and off screen, and there is no shortage of it going on over here. Anyone who is involved in the commissioning of drama would tell you that the challenge is to find great scripts.The focus is on writers—Chris Chibnall of Broadchurch or Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey.The craft values of television drama today are as high as they have ever been—the production values, the way the shows are designed and lit and shot, the directing are all very good. There has been a massive narrowing of production values between television and feature films. Television continues to raise its game with really strong production values. But as they used to say in comedy, nobody laughs at the lighting—unless it’s particularly bad...and production values alone will not bring an audience and then hold an audience to a drama. Storytelling will do that, and that will come from scripts. I think this is an era when it’s never been better to be a really brilliant drama writer for television.You are going to be in demand a lot.
TV EUROPE: In the U.S., networks are known to cancel a show after one or two episodes. Is the tradition in the U.K. to give more time to a show—say, a comedy—so it can find its voice and its audience? FINCHAM: They are two different traditions and if I had a comedy that was under-performing, I would weigh up the commercial advantage I might get from cancelling it after two
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Downton Abbey, which has been renewed for a fifth season to premiere later this year, kicked off ITV’s drama resurgence.
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would have faded a bit by now. But it somehow kept fresh and the audience absolutely loves it. In the world of talent shows, we have some of the most important ones in the U.K. We have The X Factor, we have Britain’s Got Talent. I think people watch the entertainment space and they see one particular series might be down a little bit year on year, or might have flatlined or grown a little, and they always want to take that curve and then follow it to some logical conclusion. But I would caution anyone against doing that. I think that people have a remarkable appetite for the big, dominant formats of entertainment television today. We’ve got some of the biggest and, broadly speaking, they are in pretty good health. People are, the world over, looking for the next big thing in entertainment. I think they are and they always will be and this is certainly not something peculiar to ITV or the U.K. You’ll find it in America, you’ll find it in Germany and France and any big territory where television audiences like entertainment. We are all always looking for the next big thing. TV EUROPE: What role does acquired programming play,
not only on ITV, but on the bouquet of channels? FINCHAM: Across the bouquet it plays quite an important
role. On the main channel, it’s a much more occasional thing. Last year, for the first time in some years, we bought a U.S. series, The Americans, that stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. We absolutely love that series. Compared with homegrown drama, it attracts a relatively specialist audience, but it’s great to have something of that quality on the main channel. The celebrity reality series I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, one of ITV Studios’ top format brands, remains among ITV’s hottest prime-time shows, more than a decade since its launch.
episodes against the relationship with the talent that I have and the importance of a channel’s reputation for backing talent and sticking with it, in tough times as well as good ones. I might end up thinking I’d rather keep that relationship than go for the short-term commercial advantage. Comedy is a terribly important genre in the mainstream [channel] world and shows like The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family have shown America that they can command huge audiences. At ITV we’ve been out of comedy for quite a while, although not entirely—there have been exceptions. So, yes, we’ve had a strong push back into comedy and we’ve got running at the moment Birds of a Feather, which has been getting big audiences, and we are delighted. We have some really good comedy on ITV2, including a sitcom called Plebs that has won awards already.There is another comedy called The Job Lot that we started on ITV and is now on ITV2, I love that.We have Vicious, written by Gary Janetti, one of the main writers on Family Guy, and that is back with Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi.We want to get back to where we think we ought to be in comedy. Comedy is a high-risk genre, probably the highest-risk genre of them all. They used to say about drama that if nobody watched, you can always say it was interesting. But you can’t say that about a comedy; people want to laugh at a comedy, and it’s looking for big audiences. TV EUROPE: Looking at entertainment, what are you focus-
ing on—talent competitions, reality competitions, game shows? FINCHAM: As with anything else, it’s a blend. I think it’s
always [dangerous] to say, Here is a prevailing trend and everything has to fit into that prevailing trend. So if you take reality, our big reality show is I’m a Celebrity.... Last autumn, its 13th series was the biggest series of all.You might not have thought that was very likely; you would have thought that it 160 World Screen 4/14
TV EUROPE: How are the digital channels doing, and are
they set up to complement ITV? FINCHAM: They absolutely are, but they are also channels in their own right, and ITV2 and ITV3 are, by quite a long gap, the two most successful digital channels in the U.K. and remain so. We have plans in this area. We have recently announced we are starting a new pay channel for drama for Sky. Our channel family was certainly the most successful last year in terms of performance growth, but that doesn’t mean that we are resting on our laurels.We’ve got more plans. TV EUROPE: How is ITV satisfying viewers’ demand to watch when and where they want? FINCHAM: We will satisfy them wherever and whenever they want to do it. We are what you call platform-agnostic, and I’m sure that’s the right thing to be. There is no point in trying to trap audiences within a walled garden. They will break out of that. ITV Player is growing very fast. But it’s worth saying this as well: most catch-up viewing is not VOD, it’s on PVR, and most of the rise in time-shifted viewing has certainly come because people have acquired personal video recorders for the first time and have started using them. It’s a perfect example of something [that is] rightly perceived as a strong trend, but to think of [it as] a particularly modern one—it’s not quite as modern as you think. I was first time-shifting viewing back in the very beginning of the 1980s when I acquired my first VHS recorder. And even though it’s a very ponderous thing to do, we would record a program and watch it at the time that suited us. Some people think this has all arrived in the last 18 months. It hasn’t all arrived in the last 18 months. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a growing trend. Nor does it mean that live viewing, scheduled television, won’t continue to be resilient.
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ProSieben @ 25 + Sat.1 @ 30 Since then, the group has added a number of free-TV stations: kabel eins for viewers 25 to 45, sixx for women 20 to 39, SAT.1 Gold for women 49 to 64 and ProSieben MAXX for men 30 to 59. Rounding out the linear offer are the pay-TV channels SAT.1 Comedy, kabel eins CLASSICS and ProSieben FUN. While each targets a specific slice of the viewing audience, taken together they offer advertisers broad reach, which has been key to the financial success of the group. Complementing the linear channels, ProSiebenSat.1 Digital operates a number of digital assets meant not only to attract consumers that like to watch wherever and whenever, but also help diversify the group’s revenues. The digital offerings range from the subscription video-on-demand portal maxdome, which is Europe’s largest online video library, to the advertising-supported platform MyVideo and the websites SAT1.de and ProSieben.de, which provide programming, games and more. Another key unit of ProSiebenSat.1 is Red Arrow Entertainment Group,
THOMAS EBELING
By Anna Carugati
ProSiebenSat.1 Media is one of the leading media groups in Europe and reaches some 41 million households in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Today it comprises a bouquet of freeTV and pay-TV channels, digital assets and a production-andinternational-distribution unit. But the roots of the company lie in the two stations that give it its name. SAT.1 launched in 1984 offering programming for the entire family and was the first commercial station in Germany. ProSieben followed in 1989 and from the start went after younger viewers with a menu rich in American blockbusters and TV series.
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which is dedicated to developing programming for the international market. With production companies in numerous countries around the world, including the U.S. and the U.K., Red Arrow’s goal is to tap into revenues available from the entire value-added chain: from the development of shows, international sales and production of formats. On the occasion of SAT.1’s 30th anniversary and ProSieben’s 25th, ProSiebenSat.1’s CEO, Thomas Ebeling, looks back at how these stations changed the German TV landscape and ahead to further growth for the entire group.
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TV EUROPE: ProSieben and SAT.1 are celebrating important anniversaries this year. What did SAT.1 and ProSieben bring to the German audience at a time when the TV market was dominated by the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF? EBELING: On January 1, 1984, at 9:58 a.m., SAT.1 went on air as the first German [commercial] TV channel from a cellar studio, breaking the public-TV monopoly. At that time, SAT.1’s rights catalogue was still very small and its technical reach was just a few thousand TV households. But this all changed very rapidly, and SAT.1 brought a previously unknown diversity to television in this country. For example, the station established breakfast television—the most successful morning shows to this day. ARD and ZDF did not follow with their own morning format until 1992. As in many other areas, the private stations were pioneers here. TV EUROPE: How has ProSieben connected so well with
young viewers? EBELING: ProSieben is the clear market leader among young
target groups. Particularly among 14- to 29-year-olds, ProSieben reaches three times as many viewers as the public stations ARD and ZDF combined. This is due to the station’s very clear positioning. ProSieben started in 1989 as the first German station concentrating on U.S. fiction and was the first station with 24-hour programming. The biggest blockbusters are shown on Sundays on ProSieben to this day. U.S. series like The X-Files and ER quickly captivated the young audience. At the same time, the channel positioned itself very clearly with its own productions: young magazine shows like taff, which is still on air today, or the first and still successful daily science magazine Galileo. ProSieben remains the first port of call for young entertainment television: shows like Got to Dance, The Voice of Germany and Germany’s Next Topmodel excite young viewers. Over 15 years, entertainer Stefan Raab has become Germany’s most respected entertainment personality. ProSieben also has Germany’s greatest entertainment hopes, the popular hosts Joko and Klaas, under exclusive contract. TV EUROPE: What is the strategy for growing the broadcasting
businesses in Germany? Are there plans to launch more stations? EBELING: In recent years, we have consistently launched new
growth projects in our TV business. First, of course, with the new stations such as sixx, SAT.1 Gold and ProSieben MAXX. In 2013, they won more than 60 new TV advertising customers, which we mainly brought in from the print segment. I am convinced that the German-speaking TV market offers us potential for more stations. In addition, there is a second very important mainstay in our broadcasting segment: HD station distribution. In contrast to the U.S., German stations pay for cable network operators and other distributors to transmit their programs. With our HD stations, we have reversed this model for the first time. HD is a true growth market; in 2013, the number of ProSiebenSat.1 HD subscribers climbed 51 percent to 4.2 million TV households.This business offers us enormous advantages: we have established a recurring source of revenues for the long term, which is independent of the economically sensitive advertising market.
Local productions have been central to ProSieben’s success, with highlights that include, from the top, Got to Dance, Galileo, red! and taff. 164 World Screen 4/14
TV EUROPE: How are you serving viewers programming online and on demand? How have maxdome and MyVideo been received by viewers?
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EBELING: Maxdome is the largest video-on-demand portal in Germany, with a market share of 35 percent and a million active users. Our major USP [unique selling proposition] is that maxdome comes preinstalled on 70 percent of all smart TVs. In addition, we have launched our own app for Apple iOS. Maxdome is also available on Android.Video is the major driver on the Internet—56 percent and counting of all users in Germany regularly watch online videos. ProSiebenSat.1 is in an excellent position here.We have a good library of program rights with professional content, large parts of which we can utilize online. Our second strong digital entertainment brand is MyVideo.The advertising-supported platform reaches 8 million active users and 40,000 premium video views per month. In the last two years, we have rapidly increased our amount of web-only content. At the same time, we successfully established Studio71 last year, our own multichannel network, which already had 100 million video views in January 2014.
principle, we will build up additional commerce clusters—for example, in fashion or home and living. TV EUROPE: What have been some of the successes of Red
Arrow Entertainment? EBELING: In 2013, we sold programs to more than 180 coun-
tries. Our U.S. show The Taste went to more than 80 countries. We developed new formats like Married at First Sight with the potential to become international hits. Furthermore, we significantly expanded our fiction portfolio and will film with international stars like Judi Dench or Dustin Hoffman in 2014. In Germany, we are producing 100 Code, Sky Deutschland’s first original production. We have also developed our access to the growing digital platform market.We produced Bosch, a pilot for Amazon that recently went online. For Netflix, we are currently filming the third season of our hit series Lilyhammer. TV EUROPE: What is the strategy for growing the program
TV EUROPE: How else are you diversifying your revenues? EBELING: We use the reach and advertising power of our sta-
EBELING: Our most important goal is the expansion of our
tions to penetrate new markets with strong growth prospects in a targeted fashion. For example, this includes the digital commerce business. In recent years, we have built up a ventures portfolio with more than 70 investments and partnerships. In 2013, we acquired several strategic majority interests in the travel market and thus built a complete house of travel. With our commerce platforms, we now offer the entire travel cycle, from booking flights, hotels and rental cars to local climate data. We invest in holdings that target a mass market and that we can quickly provide with reach via our TV stations. By the same
presence in the Anglo-Saxon markets and the growth of our English-speaking production portfolio.To this end, we will establish additional partnerships with top creatives like Mark Burnett and, where it makes sense, acquire additional investments. In a short space of time, Red Arrow has successfully built up 14 international holdings in nine countries. After a strong phase of expansion, it is now about realizing synergies and economies of scale between the individual production companies. At heart, however, it is of course always about one thing: producing successful television for the world.
production and sales businesses?
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ProSiebenSat.1’s
Rüdiger Böss Second, besides big movies, from the start, ProSieben was set up to air U.S. series, and there have been more over the years because of the appetite from the audience.We were the first ones to have U.S. series in prime time.We had The X-Files. A big success since the very beginning was The Simpsons, and many other series, such as ER, then Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy. We are now launching Sleepy Hollow. U.S. series and movies play a big role on ProSieben and they will in the future, as long as our audience wants them. TV EUROPE: Do you have volume deals with several studios? BÖSS: Yes, because if you take a certain volume you have first
choice of the studio’s product.That is what we have with many studios; I think right now we are collaborating with every studio. So it’s not only that we have deals with two studios and do not speak to the others, because the offer is getting broader and broader. Of course, everybody is on the hunt for movies, but for series it’s a little bit different because sometimes there is a series that is more for pay TV, not for free TV. Then we have to decide if it is something we can use on our pay channels, which are second-tier channels, or we can say, OK, we’ll sell it. There are many ways to wheel and deal. It’s different now. In the early years, when we were kind of innocent, we slept only with one partner. Now we are in bed with everyone! TV EUROPE: And nowadays you buy many more rights. BÖSS: That’s right, which was difficult in the early years, when
By Anna Carugati
From their earliest days on the air, ProSieben and SAT.1 have relied on imported programming—mainly American movies and TV series. Rüdiger Böss, the senior VP of group programming acquisitions at ProSiebenSat.1, has been instrumental in finding product that German audiences love. Today he acquires for all channels in the company’s portfolio and for its popular digital platforms as well.
TV EUROPE: Did licensed content help establish the ProSieben brand? BÖSS: From the very beginning, ProSieben always was and still is branded as a movie channel. One of our competitors once said it’s pay TV without paying. We strongly relied and still rely on feature films, on blockbusters.We worked with many studios and still work with many studios, and thank God for the German audience, because movies still play a big role on German TV. We’re not like other countries, we still have wonderful successes with new movies and even with old movies, because if you air Beverly Hills Cop for the 13th time, it’s still in prime time, maybe now on a smaller channel, but it’s still big business. 168 World Screen 4/14
we did free-TV deals.We had to learn how to acquire additional rights. Now there are many, many more rights, and these discussions take more time, and the paperwork is much more intensive and complicated because every week another right pops up.We have to survive in a much broader world for rights, and of course we want to stay in that world as long as possible, which means we are acquiring more for our different channels: our six free-TV channels and three pay-TV channels. The parents ProSieben and SAT.1 had many children on the free and pay side, and we are also buying for our platforms, ProSieben.de and SAT1.de, and MyVideo, which is the German equivalent to YouTube, and maxdome, which is our video-on-demand service, which is becoming more and more successful. TV EUROPE: Kabel eins targets 25- to 45-year-olds and is a general-entertainment channel? BÖSS: It targets a little bit older viewers.We have new shows there like Castle, and we have many well-known series. I would not call it a library channel, but it is big on classics. TV EUROPE: And sixx targets females? BÖSS: Yes, that is our very successful channel for the more
female audience. I love it! Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries; it’s a little bit like The CW. We have The Good Wife. We have
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we replaced them with Hawaii Five-0, and Elementary is coming back. On Thursday nights we are starting with a new season of Criminal Minds and we have the second season of Hannibal. Crime series work very well on SAT.1 and we also still have a late-night time slot for shows that are not for the broadest audience but they are wonderful shows. We have Homeland on Sunday at 11 p.m. and in later time slots we show Sons of Anarchy. TV EUROPE: Do you buy more than anyone else in Germany—more than RTL Group? BÖSS: Yes, I think so. We have more channels. RTL is buying more U.S. and foreign rights now than they have in the last years because they see how successful imported programming can be. So they are getting more aggressive, but we are the only ones who can provide a studio with the full Monty! We can do a lot also because we buy both current shows and library product. TV EUROPE: What trends are you seeing in prime time? BÖSS: For our free-TV channels there is a trend that we have
ProSiebenSat.1 acquires numerous American shows to fill its portfolio, among them CBS Studios International’s The Good Wife.
many new shows and first runs on sixx, and it works quite well. And it still airs Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. TV EUROPE: ProSieben also airs U.S. comedies? BÖSS: On ProSieben there are movies twice a week in prime
time and then we have two prime-time nights completely filled with American sitcoms, which are right now the biggest successes in Germany. We established this eight or ten years ago and now it works very well. It’s really a big thing for us, and the audience loves it.We have sitcoms in strips during daytime, but two days a week in prime time, Monday and Tuesday, are now filled up completely with sitcoms and they are doing great. TV EUROPE: And how about SAT.1? BÖSS: Unfortunately, in the last few months, it has been inter-
esting to see that the audience is not really keen on our German series and sometimes even on our German TV movies. It’s not easy to find a subject that attracts a younger audience in a big way. So we have U.S. series and movies on SAT.1. We have two movie nights, one on Saturday and one on Tuesday or Wednesday, which we program with U.S. feature films.Then we have three nights with U.S. series. The most successful show in Germany is NCIS, which is unbelievably successful on Sunday, the most competitive night. We also have The Mentalist. On Monday night, because German series were not working so well, 170 World Screen 4/14
to work around—it’s not easy to launch and have on the air very serialized shows, which are coming more often from the U.S. This is a concern for us because our audience’s viewing habits are changing. They want to watch when and where they want. So we have to be very creative that way because we are getting great series like Homeland that you have to see every episode otherwise you can’t enjoy it. We have to make sure everybody can see the series, not only on the linear free-TV channel, but also on catch-up services. Another trend is that U.S. sitcoms are unbelievably successful, and I hope this trend will continue. And finally, we have seen the trend for event series like Under the Dome.We were very successful with it last year because we aired it over a couple of nights, always two or three episodes in a row. My hope is that with more and more serialized series, maybe the trend will shift and come back to family dramas, easier-towatch dramas—like a procedural that can air once a week. I think both serialized shows and procedurals will live on, but I hope procedurals will come back because this is our bread and butter.They are easier to repeat. It’s great to have an event series, but an event is a one-run wonder. And with one run we are not making money. We have to air series again, in other time slots, on other channels, in order to make money out of them. This will be the challenge in the future—we have to have a mix of different types of series, otherwise it will become very difficult. TV EUROPE: Do you ever put episodes of a new series
online before they air on the linear channel, or is linear the main destination for premiering a show? BÖSS: You need both. Sometimes, when you have a big series coming and the press is keen on it, you have to launch it on the main channel because the advertisers work with our programming guys and we need the series on linear first. And sometimes you need a different audience for a show, the Internet audience—the early adopters.We did this twice very well, with Spartacus and with Sons of Anarchy. We built an audience on MyVideo and then on maxdome, which is a subscription VOD portal. So you build an audience there and then the show goes to free TV. Online viewing is not hurting the linear viewing— not yet. I can’t predict what will happen in ten years, but for now it’s not. We have to be very, very careful with rights in the future. We will be very protective of the rights we acquire, and they have to be exclusive rights.
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A HISTORY OF PROSIEBEN & SAT.1 1984
1992
At 9:58 a.m. on January 1, 1984, German private television is born as PKS (Programmgesellschaft für Kabel- und Satellitenfunk) goes on the air.
Der Kabelkanal, of which ProSieben owns a 45-percent stake, goes live in February. SAT.1 acquires the broadcast rights to football matches played by the Bundesliga.
1985 PKS is rebranded as SAT.1, with the name intended to emphasize that this is the first station to be transmitted by satellite.
1986 Eureka Television GmbH is founded. It operates Eureka TV, the precursor to ProSieben.
1987 SAT.1 launches its breakfast show Deutschland heute morgen, which quickly becomes the most successful morning show on German TV.
1993 In fiscal 1993 ProSieben gets into the black for the first time. SAT.1 sets ratings records for commercial TV as 12.4 million viewers tune in to watch Home Alone.
1994 SAT.1 premieres Rex. ProSieben’s revenues pass the billion—deutsche mark milestone for the first time.
SAT.1 debuts the first German late-night talk show, Die Harald Schmidt Show. ProSieben Television GmbH is formed, with Dr. Georg Kofler as its first CEO.
1996 REWE-Handelsgruppe acquires 40 percent of ProSieben Television ahead of the station receiving a license to broadcast nationwide. The company is renamed ProSieben Media.
1989
ProSieben moves to Unterföhring, expands its staff and its schedule, transmitting 17 hours a day.
1991 ProSieben becomes the first German station to broadcast around the clock. SAT.1 achieves a technical reach in the double-digit millions for the first time.
2001 In September, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG and KirchMedia agree to merge.
2002 ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG and KirchMedia cancel the merger plans.
2003 Saban Capital Group becomes majority shareholder.
2004 The company creates SevenOne International to market its productions worldwide.
2005 Axel Springer announces its intent to become majority owner of ProSiebenSat.1 Media.
2006 Regulatory hurdles prevent the Axel Springer deal from going through. ProSiebenSat.1 launches its first pay-TV channels and the VOD portal maxdome. It also picks up a stake in MyVideo.de. KKR and Permira become the company’s majority shareholders.
The company acquires SBS Broadcasting Group.
2009 Thomas Ebeling is appointed CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media.
Eureka TV is renamed ProSieben. At SAT.1, Justitias kleine Fische becomes the first series produced inhouse by a private German TV broadcaster.
1990
On June 28, ProSieben Media and SAT.1 announce their intent to merge. The deal is completed in October.
2007
1995
1988
ProSieben Television begins broadcasting with nine hours of programming. The station initially has a potential reach of 2.44 million households using cable TV.
2000
1997 ProSieben is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
1998 ProSieben rolls out region-specific advertising in Austria. SAT.1 Schweiz goes on the air.
1999 ProSieben Schweiz is launched, targeting the Germanspeaking population of Switzerland. In August, SAT.1 inaugurates its new complex in Berlin, serving as headquarters for a production staff of about 800. 172 World Screen 4/14
2010 ProSiebenSat.1 founds the Red Arrow Entertainment Group.
2011 ProSiebenSat.1 takes full control of maxdome and sells off its operations in the Netherlands.
2012 ProSiebenSat.1 Group sells its TV and radio activities in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
2013 Thomas Ebeling extends his contract to serve as CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media until 2017.
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@
SOPHIE TURNER LAING By Anna Carugati & Mansha Daswani
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25 The conviction that the television experience could be better and that viewers deserved more choice was very strong in the U.K. back in the late 1980s. Even with the presence of such established broadcasters as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, in 1989, two rival companies, Sky and BSB, believed viewers wanted more choice and they launched competing direct-to-home, pay-TV services. The market was hardly big enough to sustain both and the two merged in 1990, forming BSkyB. The rest, as they say, is pay-television history. BSkyB set out to offer its customers a wide array of quality programs, movies, news and sports, matched up with the latest technology in order to provide the best possible user experience. Through the years, BSkyB subscribers have been given a constant flow of innovative devices and offerings to increase their viewing enjoyment. Today, they can choose from a range that includes the Sky+ personal video recorder; Internet connection via Sky Broadband; the Sky Talk telephone service; Sky Go, which allows customers to watch TV on laptops, tablets and smartphones; and the Internet-delivered videoon-demand service Catch Up TV. The nearly 11 million BSkyB subscribers have so many ways to view not only dozens of international channels, but also Sky’s own bouquet, which consists of Sky Movies, Sky News, Sky Sports, two Sky Arts channels and the entertainment channels Sky 1, Sky Atlantic and Sky Living. As managing director of content, Sophie Turner Laing oversees Sky’s branded entertainment and news services, as well as relationships with partner channels. For the past few years, she and her teams have been investing in original productions, commissioning dramas and comedies and embarking on international coproductions, all of which complement schedules that are already rich in the best of imported programming.
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Intent on delivering the most value to its 10-million-plus TV customers, Sky has made TV Everywhere a central part of its strategy, allowing subscribers to access a broad array of content on demand. TV EUROPE: Sky celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. If I
TV EUROPE: Perhaps it’s even more exciting, given how many can ask you to be an ambassador for the entire company for a platforms and devices you can play with today. moment, what would you say are Sky’s major accomplishments? TURNER LAING: I think Sky is one of those incredible comTURNER LAING: Sky feels so grown up! At our heart, we still panies—it is genuinely the most perfect marriage between techthink of ourselves as the truculent young teenager. It’s always bril- nology and content. One doesn’t drive the other. They work liant in these kinds of occasions to turn the clock back slightly. If genuinely in tandem. What I love about being at Sky, and I’ve you think about when we started been here for 11 years, is the in 1989, there were just four TV sheer energy and curiosity that “After our recent association with Sky and channels, a handful of news buleverybody has. There’s a very letins at fixed times and occaspecial DNA at Sky that is quite having worked in the premium space for sional live sports. Now, after 25 unlike that at any other company years, the explosion of channels many years, I can say with certainty that Sky I’ve ever worked for. If you go and choice and delivery methods is a world-class premium service and Sophie back to the band of pioneering and brave mad Aussies that and different screens is just phenomenal. The other thing that’s started it all up, I’d like to think Turner Laing is a world-class executive.” important to remember about there’s an element of that incredCHRIS ALBRECHT, CEO, STARZ Sky is that we’ve grown beyond ible can-do culture that the just being a TV business.We maxAustralians are very well known imize our content through technology innovation and we’ve for.We hope we’ve never lost that.We’re always looking forward indeed grown into the wider communications business with Sky rather than backward, never resting on our laurels and just being Broadband and Sky Talk. So it’s a very different world 25 years brave, on the basis of, what’s the worst that could happen? For later, and just as exciting as it was then. Sky’s 25th anniversary we’ve been communicating across our 176 World Screen 4/14
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As part of its significant original programming push, Sky has developed strong ties with many of the U.K.’s leading independent producers, among them Shine Group’s Kudos, which is behind the French co-production The Tunnel (left) for Sky Atlantic and The Smoke (right) for Sky 1.
own staff, everything from, the 25 must-see Sky shows to the must-have Sky products. Even our product list has grown so enormously in 25 years. We have 25,000 staff members at 25 sites, which is very, very different from [the number we had] when we started. And one of our big initiatives that Jeremy Darroch, our CEO, kicked off is that under the auspices of our Sky Academy that we launched very recently, we’re supporting 1 million under-25s in everything from apprenticeships to work experience to whatever it may be, which is amazing. TV EUROPE: You’ve been investing heavily in original British content. Tell us about your relationships with the U.K.’s creative community, and how you’ve been attracting the best talent to Sky.
TURNER LAING: There are several elements to that. Firstly, it
is very driven by people and relationships.With Stuart Murphy [director of entertainment channels] and the channel heads and the commissioning team—I’m talking about the entertainment channels, not sports and movies here—I absolutely know that we have the premier league of content teams.Whether that is in drama, comedy, factual or entertainment, we have the brightest, most agile minds. Five years ago it was quite a different story. Under Stuart’s leadership in this area we have really put the battery levels on full go. At the end of the day, very talented creatives—and there’s not 100 million of them out there—want to feel they are in partnership with a team or an entity who trusts them, who doesn’t want to micromanage them, and who encourages great creativity, but still with a focus. Ultimately,
“Warner Bros. and BSkyB have had a long and successful relationship dating back to the day that the service was launched. BSkyB changed the face of commercial television in the U.K. by introducing premium pay and multichannel television, and they are always at the cutting edge of new technology and innovation. They have provided U.K. audiences with greater choice and quality and have been responsible for introducing viewers to many great U.S. programs that might never have been seen in the U.K. if not for them. They are fortunate to have some of the smartest programmers and toughest negotiators in the business and while we find our negotiations challenging, we always learn something new. I have always found them to approach our discussions with a spirit of fairness and with the hope of continuing a very good long-term relationship.” JEFFREY SCHLESINGER, PRESIDENT, WARNER BROS. WORLDWIDE TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION
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Sky has a wide-ranging association with HBO that includes an exclusive output deal for the premium channel’s original series, including Game of Thrones (left). HBO has also acquired the rights to the Sky original series Doll & Em (right) for launch in the U.S. this spring.
we’re a commercial platform, but we have the advantage of havdrama from Kudos for Sky 1. We have the very lovely and charming Doll & Em for Sky Living, which for us is a great first ing a portfolio of four very different channels, so therefore the because we also sold it to HBO, talent can create and produce who are not particularly known across a wide range of audi“Over the years Sky has been a terrific for buying in a lot of content.We ences and genres. Ultimately, it felt that that was a great feather in just has to be more fun to propartner for CBS and Showtime on a variety our cap, because obviously we’ve duce for Sky. had a very long relationship with of different levels. We have a close HBO. Then, for Sky Arts, we’ve TV EUROPE: Would you give relationship of which we are very proud. just finished Portrait Artist of the us some highlights of the slate? TURNER LAING: Like all It is always a pleasure doing business with Year, which some journalist described as The Great British mothers, you can never have Sophie Turner Laing, someone I’ve known Bake Off of painting! The thing favorite children, so I have to be that really excites me about Sky slightly careful about which for too many years than I care to mention.” Arts is that not only do we shows I mention, otherwise it have the very wonderful Harry gets perceived as if those are my ARMANDO NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT & CEO, Shearer doing Nixon in Nixon’s favorite ones! All the channels CBS GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION GROUP the One, but we have a slew of over the next year will have the Playhouse Presents, which is where most wonderful array of new content and that is across all the genres. We’ve got Fleming, our we attract the most incredible talent, both on and off screen, to new drama for Sky Atlantic. We have The Smoke, a new big come and do half-hour plays.The lineup is simply extraordinary. 180 World Screen 4/14
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Sky Atlantic’s Fleming, distributed globally by BBC Worldwide, is a four-part miniseries from Ecosse Films about James Bond creator Ian Fleming, chronicling his life in the years during and following World War II, before he became an iconic, world-famous author.
“The Fox-Sky long-term relationship exemplifies what a great partnership is all about: a strong creative collaboration where both sides bring immense passion to the table every time we meet.” MARK KANER, PRESIDENT, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION TV EUROPE: Even with this new push toward original productions, what role do acquisitions play in your bouquet of channels? TURNER LAING: Well, we’re still very proud that the tag “The Best of the U.S.” sits with us and in pay TV. It’s a very important genre for our customers, who love American shows.We are waiting with desperate bated breath for Game of Thrones in April! It’s going to be absolutely fascinating to see how the zeitgeist U.S. show, certainly of the last four years, really takes off. We’ve had amazing viewing on-demand recently as people are catching up on the back series. TV EUROPE: Tell us about your European co-productions,
like the one you did with CANAL+, The Tunnel. TURNER LAING: That was totally fantastic. What was really
rewarding about it is that it was a great success for us and a great success for CANAL+. It’s one of the most unique coproductions ever because it was genuinely written half in English and half in French. Nobody has ever done split language. 182 World Screen 4/14
Hats off to the Sky drama team and to Kudos, the indie who produced it, because these things can be very complicated beasts to run and they did a fabulous job. The Tunnel did great numbers for us, and great numbers for CANAL+, and we have more in the works with them. The thing that I love about Game of Thrones—which is shot in Belfast—that we also had with The Tunnel is that we have huge casts of Europeans. That brings a whole new array of fresh faces to the screen. So in addition to working with the very best of British talent and new talent as well, having that European angle gives us a different flavor from the free-to-air channels. TV EUROPE: What growth opportunities do you see for
your group in the next 12 to 24 months? TURNER LAING: As a platform, it’s not only about the
Sky wholly owned channels; it’s also very much about our
“Fox and BSkyB have been in business together for 25 years…. And each one of those years has been anchored by that wonderful yellow family, The Simpsons!” MARION EDWARDS, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL TV, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION
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“I have admired Sophie for longer than I should admit! She is not only one of the greatest executives I have ever met, but additionally an enormously kind and fun person to be with. Her wonderful career is much deserved and I can only congratulate Sky to have such great leadership. And by the way, I have been an investor in Sky [since] even before the BSB merger.” HERBERT G. KLOIBER, CHAIRMAN, TELE MÜNCHEN GROUP partnerships with our partner channels, from Discovery to Disney to A+E to National Geographic. They also are investing more in British production. We can’t forget that our customers join us for a breadth of content, and particularly in the factual genre, which is not an area in which we have really any wholly owned channels, those big brand names deliver a very big and important amount of programming for us. The other thing is, Dracula was a co-production with NBC and we’re currently co-producing Penny Dreadful with Showtime, which is being shot in Ireland. Along with our focus on acquiring shows, there is increasingly this co-production effort, partly to get real scale on screen, which is expensive, but also to have talent from both sides of the Atlantic involved in making these shows even bigger and better than they would be otherwise.
“The team at Sky are wonderful, forwardthinking partners. We are proud to have HBO programming as part of the Sky offering and recently expanded our relationship with a joint undertaking in new production, which exemplifies the great respect we have for their operation.” CHARLES SCHREGER, PRESIDENT, PRO GRAMMING SALES, HBO TV EUROPE: The U.S. networks are certainly more open
to co-pros than they’ve been in the past. TURNER LAING: It’s interesting. NBC has really been the
first network [to co-produce with] us. Years ago we also co-produced Battlestar Galactica, which very few people knew. There are more people demanding great content, so finding these ideas is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. So we just need very good needle finders! TV EUROPE: American broadcasters are also opening up
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more to shorter-run limited series, which the Brits have been doing for years. I imagine that this also opens the door to more co-production opportunities? TURNER LAING: It also gives you flexibility to make sure that you do the right number of episodes for the material, rather than necessarily fitting it into a particular block or length. Some shows may end up resting at six episodes, others at eight, others at 12. It’s all driven by the narrative; not by needing to fit into a slot.
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R A SO E Y F 25
2008 Sky broadens its portfolio of arts programming with the launch of Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD. Growth continues for the platform as it tops the 9-million subscriber mark. It is now available in one in three homes in the U.K. and Ireland.
2009 In its 20th year, Sky announces the creation of a British road cycling team, Team Sky. Towards the end of the year, the Sky Mobile TV app becomes available for the iPhone and iPod touch. A new EPG rolls out to Sky+ HD customers with a host of new features.
2010
1989
1999
Sky launches a DTH satellite television service via the Astra satellite with four free-to-air channels, including Sky News, Europe’s first 24-hour news channel.
Sky launches a free dish and box offer to drive subscriptions.
1990
Sky News launches the world’s first interactive TV news service.
Sky merges with BSB to form BSkyB.
2001
1991 Sky Sports launches its first channel.
1992
2000
The rollout of the Sky+ PVR gives viewers more control over how they watch TV. The platform also switches off its analogue service ahead of schedule.
2003
Sky Broadband reaches 2.5 million customers. Expanding its portfolio of branded channels, Sky acquires Virgin Media Television, a portfolio that includes Living. The platform also becomes the home of HBO content in the U.K. and Ireland with a major multiyear output deal. Sky Anytime+ is a new Internet-delivered VOD service. Sky hits its target of 10 million customers.
2011 Sky Atlantic launches in February, offering the best of U.S. programming as well as British commissions. In the summer, Sky expands its commitment to British content, announcing a 50-percent increase in its budget to £600 million a year by 2014. In July, Sky Studios, Sky’s state-ofthe-art production facility, begins broadcasting. Sky Go launches, allowing Sky TV customers to watch live TV on their Internet-connected devices.
2012
BSkyB makes an operating profit for the first time. The platform inks a £304-million deal for exclusive live coverage of the new FA Premier League.
Sky passes the 7-million customer mark.
1993
Freesat becomes available, delivering 200 TV and radio channels without a monthly subscription.
Sky enters into a strategic partnership with zeebox. Sky Go expands to Android platforms and is bolstered with the addition of Sky 1, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts 1. BSkyB acquires Parthenon Media Group and rebrands it as Sky Vision.
2005
2013
To boost its broadband presence, Sky acquires Easynet. The Sky Mobile TV service delivers a live stream of the Sky News and Sky Sports News channels.
Sky launches a new subscription service, Sky Go Extra. The platform unveils its largest lineup of original British drama to date, including Fleming. On-demand surges in popularity, with average weekly downloads at 4.5 million. Sky Store, an ondemand movie rental service that was previously only available for Sky customers, is opened up to everyone in the U.K. and Ireland.
Sky launches its first multichannel package, offering 14 basic subscription channels.
1994 17 percent of BSkyB is floated on the U.K. and U.S. stock exchanges.
1995 BSkyB enters the FTSE 100 index.
1996 660,000 customers buy the Bruno vs. Tyson heavyweight boxing fight on pay per view.
1998 Sky Digital launches, offering the U.K.’s first digital TV service, with over 140 channels.
2004
2006 Sky Broadband is made available as a new product offering. The platform also begins making movies, sports and entertainment available for download to PCs. Sky+ HD becomes the U.K.’s first nationwide high-definition television service.
2007 Artsworld is rebranded as Sky Arts, the only channel in the U.K. devoted to all areas of the arts. In order to drive innovation for customers and supply chain efficiency, Sky acquires the set-top box supplier Amstrad.
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2014 Sky kicks off its 25th anniversary year by expanding its relationship with HBO. The two companies intend to co-develop and produce new original dramas. In addition, Sky Atlantic will remain the exclusive U.K. home for first-run HBO programs until 2020.
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