TV Europe MIPTV 2019

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TVEUROPE

WWW.TVEUROPE.WS

APRIL 2019

MIPTV EDITION

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

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CONTENTS

1989: A Year to Remember

FEATURE 8 HOT PICKS

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

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

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Alison Skilton Associate Editors Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

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

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

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

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

That year also heralded other new beginnings in Europe.

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

—Anna Carugati

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INTERVIEWS

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Sky’s Gary Davey

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ProSiebenSat.1’s Max Conze

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

Vote for Juan

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

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

Monica & Sex

“Mediterráneo’s content is an innovative bet.”

—Silvia Cotino

The Hunt. Monteperdido

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

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

—María Jesús Pérez

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Lambs of God

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

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

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

—Leona Connell

SPI International/FilmBox

Kurt Seyit ve Şura on Timeless Drama Channel

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

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

—Berk Uziyel

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

The Greatest Race

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

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Sky Vision’s Riviera.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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DRG’s The River recently launched on Channel 4.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Anna Carugati

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TV EUROPE: Tell us about Sky Studios.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CONZE: Esports is the fastest growing segment of the sports and entertainment industry and an excellent fit for our portfolio. For quite some time, we have been the major broadcaster covering esports not only through a digital channel but also through

linear programming. We just set up eSports.com, a 50/50 joint venture with an international startup, to establish a digital esports platform for the German-speaking market as part of our esports strategy. We’re in active discussions about how to support the leagues, the teams and the stars. We want to be an active agent to build that whole ecosystem.

TV EUROPE: Tell us about ProSiebenSat.1’s commerce division.

CONZE: Commerce is a very important and fast-growing part of the group. ProSiebenSat.1 is a €4 billion company and NuCom Group, our commerce unit, will contribute around €1 billion of that in 2019. It’s a business we’re growing organically at a 10- to 15-percent range. The portfolio currently consists of ten companies that are leading in their segments and that we have bundled in four core verticals. We have a brand called Verivox on what used to be called online price comparison. Or, as I like to say, “saving people money.” We do that for energy, mobile and insurance contracts. We have a company called Parship Elite Group, which is number one in matchmaking in the German-speaking countries. We bought eHarmony in the U.S. We have Flaconi, which is the number two beauty e-retailer, and it’s growing 40 percent a year. I spent some of my early years at P&G in beauty. It’s a business I love because the dynamics are great and people are willing to spend money to look good. The fourth is experience and gift vouchers with two companies that make us the market leader in German-speaking territories. That’s a business with great potential because consumers’ tastes everywhere in the world are shifting from acquiring physical things to acquiring experiences.

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