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THE MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA | OCTOBER 2018
WWW.WORLDSCREEN.COM
MIPCOM Edition
STORYTELLERS Dick Wolf
Greg Berlanti
Chris Chibnall
David Shore
Angela Kang
Carlton Cuse
ร lex Pina
Bruce Miller
Lorenzo Mieli Jรถrg Winger
Eric Newman Hisashi Tsugiya
Tony Hall BBC Josh Sapan AMC Networks Jon Feltheimer Lionsgate Paul Buccieri A+E Networks Alex Mahon Channel 4 Mark Burnett MGM
ngela A Bassett
Plus: Hulu Turns 10
+
Mariska Hargitay Shemar Moore Matthew Rhys
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CONTENTS
OCTOBER 2018/MIPCOM EDITION DEPARTMENTS WORLD VIEW By Anna Carugati.
20
70
66
Group Editorial Director Anna Carugati
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE 24 By Bruce Paisner. VIEWPOINT By Jérôme Delhaye.
26
MARKET WATCH By JP Bommel.
28
Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise
Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Managing Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Associate Editor Sara Alessi Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari
UPFRONTS What’s new for MIPCOM. MARVISTA SPECIAL REPORT The independent producer and distributor is marking its 15th anniversary. SPOTLIGHT MGM’s Mark Burnett. TRENDSETTERS A look at the recipients of this year’s World Screen Trendsetter Awards.
32
Associate Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Rafael Blanco Editorial Assistant, Spanish-Language Publications Jessica Ávila
53
Contributing Editor Elizabeth Guider
74
ANGELA BASSETT
93
SPECIAL REPORT
Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell
104 STORYTELLERS
Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Dana Mattison
This special report on how studios, networks and platforms are managing relationships with top-tier showrunners, executive producers and writers includes interviews with Dick Wolf, Greg Berlanti, Chris Chibnall, David Shore, Angela Kang, Carlton Cuse, Álex Pina, Bruce Miller, Lorenzo Mieli, Eric Newman, Jörg Winger and Hisashi Tsugiya.
Sales & Marketing Coordinator Nathalia Lopez
MILESTONES 96 Lisa Holme talks about Hulu’s achievements on the ten-year anniversary of its launch.
MARISKA HARGITAY
Production & Design Director Victor L. Cuevas
ONE-ON-ONE ADVERTISERS’ INDEX 651
161 BBC’S TONY HALL
WORLD’S END In the stars.
The director-general of the world’s most prolific public broadcaster weighs in on maintaining relevancy in a world increasingly dominated by the global digital players, investing in top-tier British programming and battling “fake news.”
654
Online Director Simon Weaver
Business Affairs Manager Andrea Moreno Contributing Writers Steve Clarke Andy Fry Neil Crossley Joanna Stephens Jay Stuart David Wood Copy Editors Amy Canonico Marina Chao Daniel Ellis-Ferris Maddy Kloss Kate Norris Tamara Schechter Vivian Wick
ON THE RECORD
315 AMC NETWORKS’ JOSH SAPAN Distinctive content continues to drive the success of the AMC Networks portfolio, according to the company’s president and CEO.
Ricardo Seguin Guise President
IN CONVERSATION
Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development
403 LIONSGATE’S JON FELTHEIMER WORLD SCREEN is published ten times per year: January, February, March, April, May, June/July, September, October, November and December. Annual subscription price: Inside the U.S.: $90.00 Outside the U.S.: $160.00 Send checks, company information and address corrections to: WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. For a free subscription to our newsletters, please visit www.subscriptions.ws.
A year since the takeover of Starz, the independent studio’s CEO reflects on the benefits of the merger and reveals the company’s strategy for aligning with top-level talent.
EXECUTIVE BRIEFING
467 A+E NETWORKS’ PAUL BUCCIERI The brand-new president of A+E Networks discusses what’s driving the gains across his company’s channels, production and distribution businesses. 12 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Anna Carugati Executive VP
WORLD SCREEN is a registered trademark of WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreen.com ©2018 WSN INC. Printed by Fry Communications No part of this publication can be used, reprinted, copied or stored in any medium without the publisher’s authorization.
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CONTENTS
OCTOBER 2018/MIPCOM EDITION
THESE TARGETED MAGAZINES APPEAR BOTH INSIDE WORLD SCREEN AND AS SEPARATE PUBLICATIONS:
OTT PLATFORMS CHANNEL 4’S ALEX MAHON
150 156
TWEEN DRAMA COMMISSIONERS MUSIC-BASED SERIES GAMING EXTENSIONS SUPER RTL’S CLAUDE SCHMIT BBC CHILDREN’S ALICE WEBB KIDS TRENDSETTERS
220 226 234 242 254 286 304
LEGAL DRAMAS MEDICAL SERIES SHEMAR MOORE MATTHEW RHYS ITV STUDIOS’ MARIA KYRIACOU FREMANTLE’S SARAH DOOLE TELE MÜNCHEN’S HERBERT L. KLOIBER
352 360 378 382 386 392 400
MEGA BRANDS GAME SHOWS KID-CENTRIC FORMATS MIKE FLEISS ABC’S ROBERT MILLS ENDEMOL SHINE’S PETER SALMON
432 444 452 456 458 462
WILDLIFE DOCS BIOS & CELEB-REALITY STEVE BACKSHALL DISCOVERY’S KATHLEEN FINCH
496 504 508 512
CO-PRODUCTIONS VIACOM18’S SUDHANSHU VATS AMAZON’S JAMES FARRELL HOOQ’S PETER BITHOS
528 536 542 546
ARABIC & AFRICAN CONTENT OSN’S MARTIN STEWART
556 560
LATIN AMERICAN DISTRIBUTORS CARACOL TURNS 50
590 600
LISTINGS FOR MORE THAN 140 DISTRIBUTORS ATTENDING MIPCOM 621
14 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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WORLD VIEW
BY ANNA CARUGATI
Seeking Truths Besides Our Own Do you recognize these lyrics? “Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.” They are from a Billy Joel song, “Honesty,” that was released in 1978. Since then, technology has given us multiple devices that allow us to communicate instantly, but it can still be exceptionally difficult to figure out our feelings and thoughts and find the right words to articulate them. How many times have we struggled when speaking to family, friends or co-workers, to translate jumbled or inflamed emotions into phrases that accurately reflect what we feel? It’s so easy at times to take shortcuts and just yell, without detailing what is making us angry, while at other times we shut down in fear or frustration and not say anything, which can be worse because the problem then festers in the silence. How challenging it is to be honest and speak the truth. And when it comes to discussing politics, policies or issues, oh boy, the polarization is frightening—and not just in the U.S. While America may be the biggest culprit at the moment, the sense of “us” versus “them” exists in many countries. And the malignancy of fake news has metastasized into a condemnation of established news organizations and distrust of journalists. As a result, we don’t judge issues with the same set of accepted facts. Too many politicians and citizens find comfort in remaining entrenched in their belief silos and seek only those opinions that match their own. In public discourse, too often different points of view are not taken into consideration and there is no willingness to listen—truths are not heard. Do you know where there is an abundance of viewpoints and depictions of lifestyles and beliefs that are different from ours? On television, in scripted series. So many of today’s high-end series speak truths we may not know, or show a side of an issue we may ignore or refuse to consider. But through compelling characters, we are more apt to pay attention. Television series provide the perfect vehicle for examining topics, motivations, actions and their consequences—better even than a feature film can. In fact, talent in front of and behind the camera moves back and forth between film and TV constantly, much more than they used to. It wasn’t too long ago that film was considered the higher art form. Film still provides the unique experience of enjoying a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end, but because so many studios are focusing on franchises and blockbusters, the best character-driven stories have moved to television. Writers, directors and actors are now flocking to the small screen. Showrunners love the luxury of long-form storytelling, and many of them made the switch from film to television. In this issue, we speak to 12 showrunners and
So many of
today’s high-end series speak truths we may not know.
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executive producers who have brought to life shows that entertain but often also make us reflect. These individuals convey the truth and honesty of three-dimensional characters struggling with the demands and pressures life throws at them. Through their stories, we see ourselves and often learn of situations, lifestyles, choices and problems different from our own. We often understand a complex issue better through the eyes of a favorite character than we do through a news report. Writing a powerful story is one thing; executing it with the highest production values is another. Today’s audiences expect both; consequently, there is an unprecedented premium on talent. Studios, platforms and companies that have a reputation for pursuing quality and respecting creators’ visions attract the best writers, showrunners, executive producers and directors. In turn, A-list actors want to work on their projects. The triedand-true tenet “the cream rises to the top” also applies to the world of storytelling. Even in today’s extremely crowded environment, if a show is good, it will find an audience. Very often these series become hits because they introduce us to worlds and ideas that are new to us. The quest for the best and broadest array of voices is a common theme throughout this issue. Lionsgate’s Jon Feltheimer talks about the value proposition the studio offers talent. The BBC’s Tony Hall says the public broadcaster’s top priority is to feature British content that reflects the U.K. in all its diversity. AMC Networks’ Josh Sapan emphasizes the importance of operating with discretion, ingenuity and innovation. Paul Buccieri, the new president of A+E Networks, talks about the range of talent collaborating with the company. We also hear from Hulu’s Lisa Holme as she outlines the service’s strategies for finding high-end content, even successfully branching out into unscripted programming. We speak to the person who has raised the bar of unscripted fare, Mark Burnett. He is the chairman of MGM Worldwide Television, which is applying the same focus on quality to scripted programming. Angela Bassett, who has worked extensively in both film and television, talks about the creative opportunities offered by both. And Mariska Hargitay, who has played Olivia Benson for nearly 20 years on Law & Order: SVU, tells us how she has become an activist for victims of sexual abuse. What makes both actors’ performances unique is the honesty they imbue in their characters. What makes the work of the showrunners we speak to so exceptional is the truth they bring to their stories. Honesty and truth—more urgent today than ever before.
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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
BY BRUCE L. PAISNER
Looking Back at Time Life The sale of the Time Life magazines to Meredith and then the purchase of the rest of Time Warner by AT&T has led me to think about the life and death of this once great media company. I joined Time Inc. in 1963, when the company was still thought of as Paradise Publishing, and no amount of money was too great for a worthy end. That was the summer of the New York City newspaper strike and Life had decided to create a tenpage New York supplement and bind it into all the copies of the magazine distributed in the New York metropolitan area. It must have been extraordinarily expensive, but I don’t ever remember a discussion about what it cost. I was assigned to the supplement and told to report stories. We covered everything from the arrest of spies in an apartment building in Queens to Fernanda Wanamaker Wetherill’s destroy-the-house party in Southampton. And whatever it cost, the formula was working. In those days before the ubiquity of television, Life was the country’s most important source of news and its most famous. I never recall anyone turning down a request to talk to a reporter from Life. The reporter at the desk next to mine, Maynard Parker, once flew to Lisbon and chartered a 707 so a photographer could get pictures of a sinking cruise ship. That was the way you did things at Life in those days. The story and the pictures came first. Maynard later went on to cover the Vietnam War for Life, then Newsweek, where he rose to the position of editor. The Vietnam War was perhaps Time Life’s high point as the major information supplier to the American people. Time magazine supported the war and attacked the reporters who were covering it (kind of the Fox News of its day) until the war became unsupportable. Life’s pictures made clear the hopelessness of the war earlier on, without much editorial comment. But by the end of the 1960s, more and more people were getting their war news from television. My career at Time Inc., interrupted by law school, lasted from 1963 to 1980 and spanned the last great days of Life and its demise in 1972. At that point Time and People picked up the slack, but the real innovation came in newly developing media businesses: Manhattan Cable, Home Box Office and Time Life Films. It is evident in retrospect that those assets and the spinoffs they could generate
“Steve Ross [then
chairman of Warner Bros.] bought Time Inc. with Time Inc.’s money.”
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would have ensured a great future for Time Inc., but in the 1980s and ’90s, a company that had seldom made mistakes in its 50-year history started to make a lot of them. The problem, I think, was the absence of a plan. Deals were done for the sake of the deal, not because they fit into any overarching strategy. A company that had been led since its founding by Henry Luce and his handpicked successors—Andrew Heiskell and Jim Linen— was taken over by a new and bullish group of younger managers, with heady aspirations but little grounding in most of Time’s actual businesses and its philosophy. The first bad choice was a merger with Warner Bros., an alliance that brought a lot of baggage and a wholly different kind of cash flow. It was a deal that Warner Bros., under enormous economic pressure, wanted desperately, and Time never should have entered into it. The deal was pretty much summed up in the quip: “Steve Ross [then chairman of Warner Bros.] bought Time Inc. with Time Inc.’s money.” Then came the disaster: management’s decision to merge with AOL, just at the moment when AOL was being outpaced by newer, non-dial-up web portal companies. The merger has been called, by many observers, the worst media deal of the 20th century, and I wouldn’t argue with that. The ultimate irony is that Time Warner did not need AOL. Within HBO, Manhattan Cable and even the magazines lay the seeds of the digital world. All Time had to do was stay on course. But that is an insight and a discipline many media managers have trouble with. They reach for huge, “transformative” deals, instead of steady accretive growth, and they end up with partial failure or even the collapse of the original business. There are exceptions, of course: CapCities’ acquisition of ABC, and then the sale of that combined entity to Disney; Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal. But there are many more cases of the Time Life model: a basically sound company ruined by its managers’ pursuit of tempting but ill-advised leaps of faith and poor judgment. Now we’ll see how AT&T does. Time Incorporated was a great company that reflected its founder’s vision and served an important social purpose for many decades. RIP. Bruce L. Paisner is the president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
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VIEWPOINT
BY JÉRÔME DELHAYE
The Big Shift to a Reshaped Landscape Some 14,000 leaders from the international TV and digital content industry will attend MIPCOM at a time when the world’s entertainment sector is transitioning to handle changing viewing habits, ongoing competition from the SVOD giants, continuing consolidation, increasing demand for standout programming and new technology offering opportunities to producers and broadcasters. Over four days, the MIPCOM community of producers, creators, distributors, investors, studio and channel executives, talent and media will have the chance to hear and discuss how broadcasters can obtain the kinds of shows, particularly drama, that attract huge audiences in the face of the cash-rich online platforms. There will be showcases devoted to how the “love” factor is proving to be such a success in the format sector, and how new technology such as blockchain and the use of Big Data is impacting the entertainment business. With over 110 countries represented, MIPCOM is the largest annual gathering of the international television industry. And this year, one of the world’s most dynamic territories, China, is the MIPCOM Country of Honour. The China Pavilion will be the biggest ever hosted by MIPCOM. The conference program will deliver panels discussing the Chinese market and showcasing the latest in Chinese programming, and the ever-popular Fresh TV presentation will include the hottest shows in China today. While demand for new content remains strong, raising production financing can still be a challenge. MIPCOM will see the launch of a new initiative, the Production Funding Forum, which will bring together producers and financiers. The new forum is designed to help producers of high-end, international content find financing and commissioning partners, while allowing financiers to identify producers that meet their strategic investment criteria. A series of show-andtell presentations will see representatives from funds and venture capitalists explain what content they want to invest in and how they work. In addition, commissioning editors and heads of programming will share their strategies. Finally, seasoned producers will discuss how they identify intellectual property and talent, how they raise finance, protect their intellectual property and close deals. In the fast-moving world of entertainment, understanding where the industry is heading can be the key to success. MIPCOM 2018’s conference lineup provides delegates with access to a host of forward-thinkers who will be keynoting, including ITV CEO Carolyn McCall; BBC Studios’ CEO, Tim Davie; actor, producer and MIPCOM
With over 110 countries represented, MIPCOM is the largest gathering
of the international
television industry.
26 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Personality of the Year Issa Rae; celebrity chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver; AMC Networks’ president and CEO, Josh Sapan; Endeavour CEO Ari Emanuel; and Twitter’s VP and global head of content partnerships, Kay Madati. MIPCOM is where business is done at an international level, where new relationships are formed and where members of the entertainment community are recognized and celebrated. This year, those celebrations include recognition of Personality of the Year Issa Rae and World Screen’s Trendsetter Awards, which will be presented to Eric Newman (Narcos), Lorenzo Mieli (The Young Pope, My Brilliant Friend) and Álex Pina (Money Heist, The Pier). Television is about entertainment, and MIPCOM is where great shows are launched. This year is no exception, with World Premiere TV Screenings of CBS Studios International’s Ben Stiller–produced and directed Escape at Dannemora, the MIPCOM Pre-Opening TV Screening of new Russian drama Trigger, Movistar+/Telefónica’s original series The Pier from creators Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato, and the Asian World Premiere TV Screening of Nippon TV’s Way Too Kawaii! Audience consumption of content has never been higher, as younger viewers use their handheld devices to watch their favorite shows when and where they want. At the top end of the viewing spectrum, enhanced viewing technology has brought an image quality that was unimaginable two decades ago. MIPCOM’s Advanced Imaging program of events will see demonstrations of 4K, 8K, UHD, HDR and VR content, and conference presentations from NHK, Sony Corporation, Discovery, Viacom and France Télévisions. As a partner of the global entertainment industry, Reed MIDEM, the organizer of MIPCOM, is committed to promoting diversity and equality at all its events. With its partners A+E Networks and Lifetime, MIPCOM will host the seventh edition of the Women in Global Entertainment Power Lunch, which last year saw a powerful opening address by Catherine Zeta-Jones. The second edition of the MIPCOM Diversify TV Excellence Awards will recognize programs that provide a fair and accurate representation of BAME, LGBTQ and disabled communities, that have had a positive impact and that stand out in originality and excellence. Within the program, 22-year-old Rania Ali will share her experience of escaping from Syria with Norwegian filmmaker Anders Hammer, who directed Escape from Syria: Rania’s Odyssey. Jérôme Delhaye is the director of the entertainment division at Reed MIDEM.
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MARKET WATCH
BY JP BOMMEL
A Brave New World NATPE, in its 55-year history, has always been at the forefront of the constant reshaping of our industry. Our members were among the first to welcome video back in 1978, we embraced the DVD in 2000, and we were there when the internet first became popular in 2001. Just a few years back, streaming platforms were so avant-garde only a small number could foresee just how they would alter the viewing habits of us all, but boy they have, and they have opened up the content world in a way that was simply unimaginable then. Together we’ve discussed the challenges, considered our responses and then maximized the potential of these changes and moved on to the next opportunity. Right now, one of the big debates on the agenda is the evolution of the international sales business. How, with direct commissioning opportunities between the global streamers and producers, do distributors continue to fit in with the new order? Distributors remain a necessary link in the chain as they carry out the invaluable (sometimes unenviable) function of being the buffer between the producer and the platform provider. It might appear to be a slam dunk to walk into the streamer’s office and give an outline of a mega-production and walk out with the money to make it—but that is a rare occurrence. Distributors know their clients better than anyone, avidly following programming activity and developments in markets all around the world—looking at what’s getting hotter, as well as what’s losing its charm with viewers. This in-depth and often time-consuming intelligence is a vital tool for producers, enabling them to be in the very best place to develop and create content that has the legs to travel globally—and for it to achieve the maximum value for the longest amount of time. It certainly can be a challenge to find the right IP to sell internationally, but equally, there is still a lot of opportunity out there as programming is being created and eagerly consumed around the world. Savvy distributors are also stepping into projects at an extremely early stage and making investments to retain rights of shows that do not have an anchor broadcaster at the start. Seeing a show’s potential, taking a calculated risk and making it happen with upfront money before a sale is increasingly becoming an integral part of a distributor’s role.
We encourage everyone to
join us in Miami to continue
their education in this brave new world and seek out every opportunity it can offer.
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Being the cushion between two very different disciplines—producers and platform owners—alongside building and nurturing relationships with creatives, speaking their language and carefully managing their needs and that of the production, are all necessary as the distribution model we know evolves. At NATPE Miami we put the marketplace at the forefront of our event—encouraging influencers, creators, buyers and sellers to come together in the same place each year to get to know each other, to understand one another even better and to build relationships that will last for years to come. We deliver time and space for ever more complex and innovative deals and windowing strategies. This coming year we are making it even easier with our NATPE Connect service, which will provide a series of confirmed meetings for those who need additional support during the market. We also provide firsthand insight from global leaders on a wide range of subjects that are essential for all delegates—from the development of content for brands to the “what’s next” in the growth of platforms and forward-thinking social media and marketing strategies. In Miami in 2019 we will present a new initiative to pull together the creative community of emerging and diverse backgrounds. We will present an exclusive and timely event—taking place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Monday before NATPE starts—called Living the Dream: A Career in Content, designed to spotlight inclusion awareness in the entertainment world to an audience of young content creators, students from neighboring universities and local youth groups. This pioneering event will focus on the needs of young people of all genders, cultures and ethnicities, with the aim of inspiring and helping them gain a foothold in the media environment, supported by a lineup of high-profile and diverse creatives, actors and executives, who will team up to give clear advice and encourage engagement to all. We encourage everyone to join us in Miami to continue their education in this brave new world and seek out every opportunity it can offer. That said, we are also justifiably proud of our dedication to helping young people start their journey in this wonderful business— NATPE’s Educational Foundation is in its 40th year! I did mention a “brave new world” earlier—and it is. We all just need to be brave enough to keep riding the punches, opening up our minds and embracing the change and opportunity that every day brings. JP Bommel is the president and CEO of NATPE.
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UPFRONTS
ABS-CBN Corporation Betrayal / Now & Forever / The Hows of Us
Now & Forever
Jericho Rosales (The Promise) stars in Betrayal. Macie F. Imperial, ABS-CBN Corporation’s head of integrated program acquisitions and international sales and distribution, says, “Betrayal, our banner title for MIPCOM, is the Philippines’ sexiest prime-time series of 2018.” ABS-CBN Corporation is also touting Now & Forever. “These dramas have been receiving rave reviews and are consistently enjoying high ratings in prime time,” says Imperial. “We believe that they will also do well internationally as these are excellent titles that are relatable for viewers around the world.” The film The Hows of Us is also on offer. “The Hows of Us is our biggest movie of the year,” Imperial adds. “We believe that The Hows of Us will surely appeal to buyers who are looking for stories that touch and transform lives on a personal yet universal level.”
“ABS-CBN proudly introduces our newest prime-time series and our biggest blockbuster movie of 2018 that will surely be a hit at MIPCOM.” —Macie F. Imperial
all3media international Cheat / Drowning in Plastic / Flirty Dancing Following on the success of Liar comes Cheat, a new series from Two Brothers Pictures. Sundance Now has taken the North American rights for the four-part drama, which focuses on the dangerous relationship between a university professor and her student. “While shorter-run series were [once] harder for us to place in the U.S., we’re finding that given the volume of content being released annually, viewers welcome a quick binge-worthy show,” says Maria Ishak, the VP of sales for North America at all3media international. Another highlight for MIPCOM is Drowning in Plastic, a 90-minute special that investigates the impact that plastics are having on coastlines and natural habitats worldwide. Then there is Flirty Dancing, a brand-new dancing/dating hybrid show for Channel 4 in the U.K. Flirty Dancing
“Flirty Dancing is a simple yet effective show that recaptures the magic and romance of the dancehall days.” —Maria Ishak
AMC Networks International AMC Global / SundanceTV Global AMC Networks International’s AMC Global and SundanceTV Global have new original series and films premiering over the coming months, including the horror-comedy series Stan Against Evil on AMC Global that will be available to operators with enhanced rights. SundanceTV Global will showcase the second season of Jack Irish, a noir-style mystery starring Guy Pearce as a former criminal lawyer turned PI. Looking ahead, Fear the Walking Dead from AMC Studios will return for a fifth season. The second season of The Terror, AMC’s acclaimed horror-anthology series, is co-created and executive produced by Alexander Woo (True Blood) and Max Borenstein (Kong: Skull Island) and will be set during World War II. SundanceTV will celebrate the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with a selection of movies alongside an array of original series. Stan Against Evil 32 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Unspeakable
AMC Studios Unspeakable / Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle / This Close The drama Unspeakable is based on the real-life taintedblood scandal that happened in the early 1980s. In the docuseries space, Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle examines how Jim Jones transformed from a charismatic preacher and champion of civil rights into an egomaniacal demagogue who led a mass suicide. The series “will have viewers on the edge of their seats as it paints a picture of and attempts to answer the burning questions surrounding the grim massacre,” says Valerie Cabrera, the senior VP of international content distribution at AMC Studios. Meanwhile, the dramedy This Close is about deaf best friends. “The chemistry between the cast and their performances will draw viewers in and make them want to follow along on their unique journey through life,” Cabrera says.
“Unspeakable is a powerful and sweeping drama.”
—Valerie Cabrera
Artist View Entertainment Axcellerator / Abducted / Curse of the Black Lagoon Artist View Entertainment is presenting the action-packed, sci-fi adventure Axcellerator. The story begins when a car thief stumbles upon the inventor of a teleportation device, which leads to him meeting the girl of his dreams. Also from Artist View are Abducted, about a war hero who takes matters into his own hands after his young daughter is kidnapped, and Curse of the Black Lagoon, a thriller that follows what happens when a researcher is cursed by a mermaid-like creature deep in the Amazon. “These three new titles have unique storylines, the production values are high, and the content is diverse enough to play on pay TV, free TV or any digital platforms,” says Scott Jones, the company’s founder and president. “They all skew toward a younger demographic but can be enjoyed by an older audience as well.” Abducted
Atresmedia Televisión Presumed Guilty / Slaughterhouse / Down Below There are two brand-new series coming from Atresmedia Televisión for MIPCOM buyers: Presumed Guilty and Slaughterhouse. “Presumed Guilty is a thriller where emotions play an essential role,” says Diana Borbón Cuchí, the company’s sales manager. She describes Slaughterhouse as a “comedy thriller with a dark tone.” Atresmedia Televisión also has a new season of the comedy Down Below, which is a love story about a man from the north of Spain and a woman from the south. The novela The Secret of Old Bridge has already seen success in Spain, Italy and countries in Eastern Europe, and Atresmedia Televisión is looking to further its reach by notching up new deals at the market. There is also a catalog of documentaries available from the company this MIPCOM.
“Renowned for their quality and appealing characters, Atresmedia’s stories fascinate viewers all around the world.” —Diana Borbón Cuchí
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Down Below
“We will be actively seeking new co-production deals and acquiring new product as we move through the latter part of this year and into 2019.” —Scott Jones
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BBC Studios Dynasties / Les Misérables / MotherFatherSon The natural-history series Dynasties shines a light on the family dynamics of five different wild animals, “with dramatic storytelling that will captivate audiences,” says Paul Dempsey, the president of global markets at BBC Studios. “We have seen the huge global appetite for premium natural history following the international success of Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II, and with BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit again at the helm, Dynasties raises the bar of what is possible in this genre.” Dominic West and David Oyelowo are among the cast of Les Misérables, adapted by screenwriter Andrew Davies. Richard Gere makes his return to the small screen in MotherFatherSon, a political and psychological thriller. He is joined by Helen McCrory and Billy Howle in playing the family at the heart of the drama.
Dynasties
“We have a tremendous slate to mark our first MIPCOM as BBC Studios.” —Paul Dempsey
Calinos Entertainment Forbidden Fruit / Our Story / Woman Based on a Japanese format, Woman tells the story of Bahar, a young widow who has to endure all life’s hardships alone with only her two kids by her side. Our Story is also adapted from a format, Shameless. The Turkish drama centers on a woman who has been struggling to survive in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Istanbul while looking after her younger siblings and their alcoholic father. “Our Story and Woman have been two of the most-talked-about and best-rated TV series in Turkey,” says Asli Serim Guliyev, international sales director at Calinos Entertainment. Forbidden Fruit, meanwhile, follows two sisters with different values and goals. There is Yildiz, who is about to make the most important decision of her life, and Zeynep, who is about to get involved in a life-altering chain of events.
“All of these stories depict the lives of strong, independent and driven women who would stop at nothing to protect their families or their dreams.” Woman
Canada Media Fund
—Asli Serim Guliyev
Murdoch Mysteries is one of Canada’s best-selling drama series.
Policy development / Funding programs / Promotion of Canadian content The Canada Media Fund (CMF) was created to support TV and digital media production in Canada. “Through funding received by the government of Canada and Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors, the CMF can develop policies and funding programs that directly impact the country’s audiovisual production industry,” says Valerie Creighton, the organization’s president and CEO. “Beyond funding content, we also foster the screen-based industry and promote Canadian content and audiovisual production in Canada. This key promotional pillar of our activities is centered on the positioning of Canadian content both in Canada and abroad with audiences and industry leaders.” The CMF also has a variety of funding programs that target diversity, such as minority languages and Indigenous content.
“Developing new international partnerships and co-production opportunities for Canadian producers continues to be a top priority.” —Valerie Creighton 36 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Caracol Internacional Bolivar / The Queen of Flow / The Mafia Dolls 2 The biographical series Bolivar tells the story of the eponymous hero before he became a legend. Caracol Internacional is presenting the title at MIPCOM, alongside a second season of The Mafia Dolls. There’s also the telenovela The Queen of Flow, which follows Yeimy Montoya, a talented young woman who is wrongfully imprisoned. Her only desire is to get out and take revenge against all those who destroyed her life. At the top of this list is Charly Flow, a famous reggaeton singer who plagiarized her lyrics and got her sent to jail. She must fake her own death and change her identity to accomplish this. Lisette Osorio, the company’s VP of international sales, says that these shows “speak to audiences around the world through action, music, romance and outstanding production values.”
“We bring to life stories with emotions that move the world.” The Queen of Flow
—Lisette Osorio
Cisneros Media Distribution Killer Instincts / Zara: The Rise of a Fast Fashion Empire / Notorious Crimes The world’s deadliest animals are front and center in Killer Instincts. “Nature has taken over our screens for years, and there’s no sign the trend is going anywhere,” says Ailing Zubizarreta, VP of creative services at Cisneros Media Distribution. “The thirst for animal content seems to be endless.” The clothing retailer Zara is in the spotlight in Zara: The Rise of a Fast Fashion Empire. “This special is part of a 13episode series about how fashion designers and entrepreneurs have changed the world,” Zubizarreta explains. The catalog also features Notorious Crimes. Audiences are drawn to programming about crimes and serial killers “because they trigger the most basic and powerful emotion in all of us: fear,” according to Zubizarreta. “Watching true-crime TV shows offers a guilty pleasure to thrill-seeking adults.”
Killer Instincts
“The appeal of Killer Instincts is in the compelling visual narrative of some of the most fascinating animals on our planet.” —Ailing Zubizarreta
Crown Media International Distribution Love at Sea / Christmas at Graceland / Season for Love Crown Media International Distribution is offering programming from the Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Hallmark Drama and the SVOD platform Hallmark Movies Now. This includes the movies Love at Sea, starring Alexa PenaVega and Carlos PenaVega, and Christmas at Graceland, featuring Kellie Pickler and Wes Brown. Season for Love caps off the new highlights. “Our movies are shot on location all around the world, giving our strong storylines a beautiful background and a high production value that’s unmatched,” says Francisco González, senior VP of international distribution. “Our new holiday movie Christmas at Graceland was shot in Memphis at Elvis Presley’s former home, as the title indicates, and Elvis’s music is featured throughout.”
“The Hallmark brand always stands out in the marketplace.” Love at Sea
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—Francisco González
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Deutsche Welle/DW Transtel BauhausWORLD / Motoring Legends / The Mysteries of the Brain DW Transtel, the distribution arm of Deutsche Welle, has documentaries to present to buyers in Cannes. The top highlight for this year is BauhausWORLD, which covers the history and cultural impact of one of the most iconic design movements. “Our three-part series not only portrays the Bauhaus as a design school, but also shows what its teachings and effects can contribute to mastering the challenges our societies face in the 21st century,” says Petra Schneider, DW’s director of distribution. Motoring Legends, meanwhile, is a showcase of classic cars, ranging from the brands Mercedes to Jeep. There is also The Mysteries of the Brain, which explores new discoveries in the field of brain research. “What these documentaries have in common is the detail in which they showcase and explain these widely different subjects,” says Schneider.
Motoring Legends
“The variety of titles DW Transtel offers makes them stand out because they cover such a wide range of tastes.” —Petra Schneider
dick clark productions International The Football Show / Unknown Champions / Fail Army Viewers get an exclusive, inside look into the lives of superstar soccer players in The Football Show. The series covers some of the sport’s biggest names, including Real Madrid C.F. and Brazil national team’s Marcelo and football legend Ronaldinho. “The Football Show is unique and revealing, allowing the viewer unprecedented access to the world’s leading professionals, who are now global icons of the game,” says Bob Kennedy, the senior VP of sales and acquisitions at dick clark productions International. Unknown Champions profiles the most unusual competitions held across the globe. “The audience gets to witness the hard work and dedication required to achieve greatness in these unconventional sports,” Kennedy says. The company is also presenting Fail Army, featuring user-generated HD videos.
Unknown Champions
“Unknown Champions features eclectic competitions in a very positive and upbeat format.”
—Bob Kennedy
Dori Media Group
Eilat Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Eilat / The Box / El Marginal The adventure drama Eilat follows as a group of teens from different backgrounds meets at a prestigious hotel for a summer that will change their lives. Nadav Palti, the president and CEO of Dori Media Group, highlights the show’s “clever writing, excellent directing and outstanding acting, with a story and characters that are international and therefore can be adopted everywhere in the world—which is just what broadcasters are looking for.” The company also has in its catalog the reality format The Box, a talent show for kids ages 5 to 14. The series is searching for the next social media star. There’s a second season of the crime drama El Marginal on offer as well. The “violent, edgy and realistic” storylines stir up “mixed emotions for the viewer, who cannot relax,” says Palti.
“Eilat is a new and exciting teen adventure drama series.” —Nadav Palti
38 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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DRG The Cry / Inner Circle / Manson’s Bloodline Jenna Coleman (Victoria) and Ewen Leslie (Safe Harbour) play a couple whose relationship disintegrates when their baby goes missing in a small Australian town in the psychological thriller The Cry. “Exploring the myths and truths of motherhood and the consequences of an unthinkable tragedy, The Cry is a truly gripping, multi-layered story, destined to be one of this year’s most-talked-about dramas,” says Richard Halliwell, CEO of DRG. The company also has on offer Inner Circle, a political thriller from Sweden. The factual slate includes Manson’s Bloodline, which marks DRG’s first commission. The four-part series focuses on Charles Manson’s grandson, Jason, who was filmed for 16 months as he tried to connect with his grandfather and come to terms with his atrocities.
The Cry
“We continue to offer a wide range of top-quality content, featuring incredible and compelling XXXXX stories from producers around the globe.” —Richard Halliwell
Eccho Rights
Conspiracy of Silence
The Pretender / Stiletto Vendetta / Conspiracy of Silence Eccho Rights has a selection of dramas from Turkey, as well as new titles from across Europe and scripted formats from Korea. There’s a second season of Stiletto Vendetta, produced by Turkey’s Ay Yapim. “Stiletto Vendetta was one of Turkey’s biggest hits of last season, as evidenced by the fact that it has returned,” says Fredrik af Malmborg, managing director of Eccho Rights. “The competitiveness of the Turkish drama industry makes renewals extremely rare.” The company also has in its catalog Conspiracy of Silence. “We had great feedback from its exclusive world premiere at MIPTV, and now that the series has aired across the Nordics to a great reception, interest continues to rise,” says af Malmborg. There’s a new title for MIPCOM as well, The Pretender, a crime drama from Russia.
“Our focus right now is very much on selling more content to global and regional digital platforms.” —Fredrik af Malmborg
Endemol Shine International The Bridge Malaysia-Singapore / Insoupçonnable / Second Chance Dresses Insoupçonnable In a brand-new adaptation of The Bridge, a body is left on the border of Singapore and Malaysia, and two investigators—one from each country—must work together to catch a killer bent on highlighting social problems that they think are plaguing people on both sides of the border. In Insoupçonnable, the French treatment of The Fall, a criminologist is sent to Lyon to investigate the murder of the daughter-in-law of a powerful local MP. “With the resurgence of non-English-language drama series, these programs have already tasted success internationally, and we can see the local adaptations furthering that success,” says Cathy Payne, chief executive of Endemol Shine International. Alongside these adaptations of hit series, the company is presenting the bridal show Second Chance Dresses.
“Endemol Shine International is a must-meet global distributor now with a portfolio of over 55,000 hours of owned and third-party programming.” —Cathy Payne 40 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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FilmRise The Miseducation of Cameron Post / Life in the Doghouse / Mountain Rest Chloë Grace Moretz stars in the movie The Miseducation of Cameron Post as a young woman sent to a gay conversion therapy center after getting caught with another girl in the backseat of a car on prom night. The FilmRise catalog also features Life in the Doghouse and Mountain Rest. “Due to the universal issues that lie within these three full-length feature films, I have no doubt that all audiences will relate to them,” says Danny Fisher, the company’s CEO. “The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Life in the Doghouse had overwhelmingly positive critical response when released theatrically in the U.S., and we expect Mountain Rest to continue its positive film festival reviews. A large fan base has already been established for all three films, which shows that these independents are extremely marketable.”
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
“Our plans at the market include licensing global digital rights for high-quality film and TV libraries.”
—Danny Fisher
Fremantle Beecham House / Expedition with Steve Backshall / America’s Got Talent: The Champions Tom Bateman (Vanity Fair) leads the cast of Beecham House, a scripted highlight on offer from Fremantle. The period drama is slated for broadcast on ITV in the U.K. “It’s being filmed in some of the most beautiful locations across India and includes a strong storyline and a stellar cast of international actors,” says Jens Richter, the company’s CEO, International. On the factual side is Expedition with Steve Backshall, in which the famed adventurer explores dark corners of the world. “Steve Backshall has a huge global following who have grown up watching him and his adventures,” says Richter. “Expedition is Steve doing what he does best.” Also being showcased is America’s Got Talent: The Champions, a spin-off of the hit variety show that is being judged and executive produced by Simon Cowell.
“With an outstanding mix of high-end scripted and distinctive non-scripted shows, from some of the best on- and offcamera talent, we have something for everyone.” Beecham House
Gaumont
—Jens Richter
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
El Chapo / Narcos / NOX Gaumont has picked up the distribution rights for all three seasons of El Chapo, which explores the life of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. “El Chapo tells not just the story of a cartel, but also some of the governmental and institutional corruption that allows it to thrive,” says Vanessa Shapiro, the president of worldwide TV distribution and co-production at Gaumont. The company also has Narcos in its catalog. “The rise and fall of the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is a story people can’t get enough of,” says Shapiro. “We are thrilled that we can finally answer the worldwide demand for the show as the TV linear rights are becoming available for the first time.” The slate also includes NOX, an original for France’s Canal+.
El Chapo
“This year, the company will be focused on developing new co-production alliances.” —Vanessa Shapiro 42 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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GRB Studios Executed / Showdown of the Unbeatables / Man At Arms GRB Entertainment has refreshed its branding and is headed to MIPCOM under the new banner GRB Studios. “GRB’s long track record of world-class production and distribution output has positioned us as a mainstay on the Croisette in Cannes,” says Patrice Choghi, the company’s senior VP of international. Highlights for the market include Executed, an examination into the world of extreme crime and cases that resulted in the death penalty, and Man At Arms, in which expert craftsmen re-create deadly, iconic weapons from film, TV and video games. In Showdown of the Unbeatables, inventors and entrepreneurs pit their unique products and machines against each other and put their reputations on the line in an invention battle. “Tech- and craft-oriented docs are top performers from our catalog,” says Choghi.
Man At Arms
“We are excited to come to MIPCOM with a fresh rebrand and a rejuvenated focus —Patrice Choghi on global expansion.”
HBO Latin America The Business / Sr. Ávila / Magnífica 70 As part of HBO Latin America’s 15th anniversary celebration of Latin American original productions, the company is highlighting three series that have reached their final seasons throughout 2018. This includes the Brazilian drama The Business (O Negócio) and the Mexican crime series Sr. Ávila, which won an International Emmy. There’s also Magnífica 70, which is set against the backdrop of the Brazilian independent movie industry in the 1970s. “We’re thrilled to see the culmination of these three amazing stories, and are eagerly looking forward to the road ahead,” says Xavier Aristimuño, VP of licensing for HBO Latin America. “We will also highlight The Bronze Garden (El Jardín de Bronce), an action thriller based on the bestseller by the Argentine author Gustavo Malajovich, with a second season currently in production.”
Sr. Ávila
Intellecta
“Our local original productions all carry the stamp of quality that HBO is known for.” —Xavier Aristimuño
Family Secrets
The Singing Star / Family Secrets / The Wait for Love Intellecta has been working as a syndication partner of Star India for the last six years, offering a selection of the latest and highest-rating Indian drama series and Bollywood movies. “Europe has become home to a lot of success stories,” says Christina Vlahova, general manager of Intellecta. “For us, it also holds a lot of potential for both original rights and scripted formats.” Intellecta is offering The Singing Star, which “has the potential to capture the hearts of a lot of European viewers,” Vlahova says. There’s also Family Secrets, about a girl who was abandoned at birth but is reclaimed by her mother on her 17th birthday to become an heir to a royal family, as well as the dramatic story The Wait for Love. “For markets that might not be ready for original Indian content yet, we offer a selection of the best Star India stories as scripted formats,” Vlahova adds.
“For European broadcasters that might not be ready for original Indian content yet, we have a rich offer of some of the best scripted formats.” —Christina Vlahova
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Inter Medya The Pit / Flames of Desire / The Perfect Couple Aras Bulut Iynemli and Dilan Çiçek Deniz star in the drama series The Pit. An Ay Yapim production, The Pit follows the story of Yamaç, whose family wields power over the Istanbul neighborhood of Çukur. Flames of Desire is another drama series that Inter Medya is representing in Cannes. The story centers on two young people who are betrothed to marry, but whose goals and interests take them in very different directions. Can Okan, Inter Medya’s founder and CEO, is also highlighting the reality format The Perfect Couple. Developed with DMT Producciones in Colombia, The Perfect Couple looks on as 11 men and 11 women take part in challenges to score the key to a room in a luxurious villa. But there aren’t enough keys and rooms for everyone.
ITV Studios
Flames of Desire
“Flames of Desire is a very successful series that addresses a Turkish tradition in which two young people are forced to marry.”
—Can Okan
Spotless
Love Island / Spotless / I’ll Get This A group of singles comes together in a luxury villa in Love Island. They not only have to choose their partner wisely but also win the hearts of the public, who ultimately crown one lucky couple as the winners. “Love Island is a truly innovative reality show that connects with both broad and younger audiences globally across multiple platforms,” says Mike Beale, the managing director for the Nordics and the global creative network at ITV Studios. “It’s delivering record audiences for both linear and nonlinear TV networks.” ITV Studios also has on offer Spotless, which Beale describes as a “messy family game show.” I’ll Get This features celebrities dining together at a top restaurant as they challenge each other to a series of games, tasks and questions.
“We continue to bring a range of format genres, with various durations and slot suitability, so that buyers feel they can always find something on offer from ITV Studios.” —Mike Beale
JKN Global Media
Nakee
Nakee / Switch / Rising Sun The story of a goddess who has been yearning for her lover for more than a thousand years plays out in Nakee. In the program, which features CGI, the goddess is able to transform into a human figure. In Switch, the souls of a man and woman are swapped, with the male actor playing a female role and vice versa. “You will smile the whole time you’re watching this program,” says Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, CEO of JKN Global Media. The company also presents Rising Sun, which explores the mix of Thai and Japanese cultures. She highlights the unique stories and high production quality of the content in the company’s catalog. “Compared with the high-quality production, Thai programming’s price is considered reasonable and affordable,” she adds.
“Thai programming has unique stories that can entertain audiences worldwide.” —Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip 46 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Surrounded
MarVista Entertainment A Focus to Kill / Surrounded / The Perfect Christmas Village MarVista Entertainment is showcasing around 20 new movies at MIPCOM, including A Focus to Kill. Jody Cipriano, the company’s head of distribution and acquisitions, describes the movie as “an edge-of-your-seat thriller in the same vein as Fatal Attraction.” Then there’s the adventure thriller Surrounded, about two sisters struggling to survive a dire situation that includes being surrounded by sharks. The movie was filmed on location in Thailand, “so the scenery is just exquisite,” Cipriano says. Romance abounds in the holiday movie The Perfect Christmas Village, which was filmed in Ireland. “It’s a wonderfully magical and fun film that plays with the notion of waking up from a dream to discover you’re living in your Christmas village holiday display and underscores the true spirit of the holidays,” Cipriano says.
“We’re coming to MIPCOM with the largest movie slate in the company’s history.” —Jody Cipriano
Multicom Entertainment Group For Now / Streaker / Film restorations The comedic drama movie For Now follows four Australians on a road trip to California to audition for dance school. “This film was completely improvised and shot over a seven-day period,” says Darrin Holender, the president of Multicom Entertainment Group. The company’s catalog also features Streaker, about a down-on-his-luck high school teacher who starts taking bets on how long a streaker can remain on the football field. Since mid-2017, Multicom has completed more than 20 film restorations from 35 mm and 16 mm film to digital 4K and UHD, and the company has a catalog of these to present to buyers. This includes the documentary The Long Way Home, horror films The Convent and Slaughterhouse Rock, classic tale The Adventures of Pinocchio and romantic biopic The Whole Wide World.
For Now
“Having acquired several hundreds of hours of content in 2018, Multicom’s vast catalog can provide buyers with content from nearly any genre.” —Darrin Holender
NBCUniversal International Distribution New Amsterdam / Magnum P.I. / The Enemy Within
New Amsterdam
Ryan Eggold (The Blacklist) stars in the new medical drama New Amsterdam, about a doctor at one of the largest hospitals in the U.S. who is determined to cut through the bureaucracy and put patients first. “The show has been given one of the best time slots on NBC this fall, following This Is Us,” says Belinda Menendez, the president and chief revenue officer for global distribution and international at NBCUniversal. Jay Hernandez takes the lead as Thomas Magnum in Magnum P.I. “We believe this show will stand out as the Magnum brand is extremely well-known globally,” says Menendez. In the drama The Enemy Within, an FBI agent enlists a former CIA operative (turned traitor) to help track down an elusive criminal. The show features a procedural story each week as well as a larger serialized arc involving the lead character.
“We feel that New Amsterdam really has everything: the medical genre, which travels so well internationally, a unique point of view and a stand-out lead actor.” —Belinda Menendez 48 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Way Too Kawaii!
Nippon TV Way Too Kawaii!/When Life Gives You Money/OASIS, A Love Story The Asian World Premiere TV Screening at MIPCOM is Way Too Kawaii!, which Nippon TV will be showcasing for buyers. In the series, an elite editor finds himself unwillingly transferred to a teen fashion magazine where cuteness (kawaii) reigns supreme. “In this golden age of drama, it is a title that is particularly fitting for digital platforms around the globe, and we hope that our world premiere will pique the interest of buyers the world over,” says Cindy Chino, senior director of international business development at Nippon TV. The company is also presenting the formats When Life Gives You Money, an unscripted series featuring celebrities, and OASIS, A Love Story, a scripted drama with comedic elements sprinkled in. “This is a story about finding out the blessings of true love,” Chino says of the latter title.
“From the beginning stages of planning Way Too Kawaii!, our target has been overseas viewers.” —Cindy Chino
One Life Studios Porus / Chandragupta Maurya / Suryaputra Karn One Life Studios’ Chandragupta Maurya tells the story of one of the most well-known rulers of India. The company also has in its catalog the historical drama series Porus, about an Indian emperor who must defend his motherland against a mighty power from the West, and Suryaputra Karn, about a ferocious warrior and great archer. “We have had the opportunity to make the greatest epics, which interpret the grandness of Indian history and mythology,” says Siddharth Kumar Tewary, founder and chief creative of One Life Studios. “History and mythology are something people relate to no matter where they are from. The depiction of era and time in our shows give the audiences a flavor of India when it was known as a Golden Sparrow due to its riches.”
Suryaputra Karn
“One Life Studios thrives on combining masterful artistry and storytelling with technology.” —Siddharth Kumar Tewary
ORF-Enterprise Wild Austria: Created by Water / Secrets of Squirrels / Atatürk: The Father of Modern Turkey There are new highlights from the Universum nature and wildlife strand, including Wild Austria: Created by Water. Featuring 4K cinematography, Wild Austria: Created by Water shows the country’s flora and fauna shaped by water. Secrets of Squirrels paints a portrait of the furry little acrobats. “Animal stories work all over the world,” says Marion CamusOberdorfer, the head of content sales international at ORFEnterprise. “Thinking of squirrels, everybody loves them and enjoys watching these cuddly little creatures. Combined with unknown details of their lives and never-before-seen sequences in UHD, this program will conquer the heart of every viewer.” Universum History presents Atatürk: The Father of Modern Turkey, which illuminates the life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Secrets of Squirrels
“Convincing co-production partners and buyers with our top Universum programs is a longstanding tradition at ORF.” —Marion Camus-Oberdorfer 50 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Moses and the Ten Commandments
Record TV Jesus/Moses and the Ten Commandments/The Rich and Lazarus The soap opera Jesus, the newest project from Record TV, is being introduced to international buyers for the first time. “Jesus continues the line of highly successful biblical productions in the national and international markets,” says Delmar Andrade, international sales director. “We are continuing with biblical stories that also include all the ingredients that a soap opera must have: passion, hatred, envy and solidarity,” he notes. Moses and the Ten Commandments was Record TV’s “most important success of all time. The production had a great reception in the international market for being the first soap opera based on the Bible.” In Brazil, it is available on Netflix, and Record TV has closed further agreements around the world. Other highlights from the company include The Rich and Lazarus and The Promised Land.
“Biblical stories have conquered the whole world, and Record TV has obtained great success with its productions.” —Delmar Andrade
Red Arrow Studios International Death and Nightingales / Pirates Inc. / Don’t Stop the Music Pirates Inc. A story of love and revenge is told in Death and Nightingales, a period drama set in the Irish countryside. The show is from Allan Cubitt (The Fall). Pirates Inc. is a factualentertainment series about a team that “makes danger their business by flipping the spoils of drug runners, from speedboats and mini-submarines to exotic cars and light aircraft,” says Henrik Pabst, the president of Red Arrow Studios International. Then there is the reality format Don’t Stop the Music, in which students attending an underperforming school are given publicly donated musical instruments. “A well-known singer and a music educator are on hand to encourage and inspire the kids, workshopping songs one-on-one and helping to draw the music and talent out of the young people,” says Pabst.
“Our slate for MIPCOM has been commissioned by a broad range of broadcasters and platforms.” —Henrik Pabst
Sato Company
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Tokyo Ghoul / BraveStorm / Bruce Lee movies For the Latin American market, Sato Company is offering up Tokyo Ghoul, BraveStorm and Bruce Lee movies that have been remastered in HD. Tokyo Ghoul is a live-action movie based on the anime franchise. It is “considered the best live-action adaptation from a manga comic book,” says Nelson Sato, the company’s CEO. “This niche content is growing with OTT platforms and deserves attention.” BraveStorm is a tribute to the Red Baron anime. The movie launched in theaters in Latin America last month. The Sato catalog also boasts an array of films from kung fu icon Bruce Lee that have been remastered in HD. “Sato is a reference in the Latin American market not only with Asian content, but also with blockbuster movies from Lionsgate and other suppliers,” says Sato.
Tokyo Ghoul
“We are always looking for potential new content for consumers.” —Nelson Sato 52 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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WS: What were your goals when setting up MarVista 15 years ago? SZEW: The business has changed dramatically over the years, and we’ve continued to adapt and grow steadily. The goal in setting up the company was to turn my father’s sales agency, Whamo Entertainment, into a venture that would establish a growing asset base by expanding its library of controlled content and to be a key supplier of great programming to the world. I was very fortunate to have the stars align when, in 2003, we partnered with Michael Jacobs and George Port and launched with that vision a new entity rebranded as MarVista Entertainment. Michael, George and my father have all since made successful exits and all remain trustworthy advisors to me. I now lead an incredible team of diverse and energetic individuals who inspire me to continue to grow on that vision. From our early days as a quasi-startup to today, it’s been a great ride, and we’re by no means close to the finish line. WS: What strategies did you put in place to achieve those goals? SZEW: It was about taking an in-depth look at the relationships that we had and where we could excel. As founders, we appreciated each other’s strengths and how we could convert those into core competencies for the betterment of the organization. Although those operating partners are no longer active, the DNA we created is still here, even as we have evolved into a much larger company with many more tentacles and capabilities. From day one, our strategy involved caring for the
By Mansha Daswani
Since its founding in 2003, MarVista Entertainment has earned a reputation as a trusted creator and provider of successful content among broadcasters and platforms across the world. Following a capital injection and the rapid growth of its development and production pipeline, the company, led by co-founder and CEO Fernando Szew, has evolved into a full-service studio platform with vast capabilities. MarVista is now among the leading independent developers, producers and distributors of movies, series and kids’ and family content. MarVista has led the industry in innovative approaches in several key areas that have established it as a preferred partner to many major clients around the world. As the company turns 15, Szew tells World Screen about how MarVista has forged a successful path in a competitive marketplace.
creative and being true to our word when it came to delivering the type of content that we were committing to—and at the same time, retaining an entrepreneurial spirit, a can-do attitude, and being focused on being valuable partners to broadcasters and platforms. WS: Tell us about MarVista’s “buyer-first” approach to both clients and content development. SZEW: At an early age going to trade conventions, I saw so much content being created that didn’t have a purpose in the marketplace. I didn’t have the luxury of not being intentional, so we immediately became a solutionoriented company. We actively listened to key clients to understand what their needs were and if and how we could respond to them. At the time, for many of our
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MarVista is a prolific provider of TV movies, with a library that includes House of Versace for Lifetime.
clients and certain slots they were attempting to fill, we found our niche in meeting the demand for stories geared toward women, stories for families and tween/teen coming-of-age stories. We were able to better refine the type of creative material that we were seeking. Over time, as we developed breadth and scope to our operation and many more capabilities, we have focused on being able to respond to different needs from different clients. We can now amplify at the different points of the content creation and distribution value chain—from early development to creative production to full production to financing to distribution and monetization. Being focused on the “buyers” does not mean that we are being reactive—actually it makes us more proactive as we aim to be solution-oriented and anticipate needs. This has led to us being recognized as an efficient and effective company with which to partner. WS: Tell us about the team and the structure you have in place to meet the challenges of the current marketplace. SZEW: This has been the greatest joy in my career—building an incredible team, seeing talent flourish and careers catapulted for working at or collaborating with MarVista. When we raised capital in 2011 from an investor group led by Brian N. Sheth, the premise was to be able to create a more scalable model for the company we could become. Brian and I were very aligned and he has been incredibly supportive. We have invested in people, systems and resources along the value chain I mentioned, and now, after significantly upgrading our capabilities, we are leveraging our scalability for further growth. We talk about the “smarts” of our business but focus persistently on the “health” of it with equal or more importance. As we think about what we do and how we will continue to grow the business, we never lose sight of how we behave as a team and the culture that we cultivate. There’s nothing greater or more important than the team. I believe that in large part because
of our culture, we have been able to develop a team and attract new members who have lots of different capabilities that contribute to making us a significant and a best-in-class partner in the creation and distribution of content that is seen by audiences around the globe. WS: What creative alliances are you entering into in the U.S.? SZEW: We’ve always been very friendly to partnerships, both from a business and a creative perspective. One example is when we “answered the call” from Will Ferrell who wanted to be the lead in a “Lifetime-type” of movie along with Kristen Wiig. Together we conceived A Deadly Adoption (pardon the pun), which was a successful popculture moment for all involved. We have some formal and informal partnerships with great talent that we have continued to support and collaborate with. Our relationship with Company X/SpectreVision, Elijah Wood’s company, is a creative partnership that fits the bill of being solution-oriented. Elijah and his partners are great creative visionaries, and we complement them with an ability to execute on production, financing and the goto-market strategy. We’ve had a good level of success with the first two movies, premiering the first one at Sundance and the second one at the Tribeca Film Festival, following with distribution plans to maximize the audience for each film. Another relationship that is very dear to my heart is our partnership with Debby Ryan, which originated with our friends at the Disney Channel. We seized on the moment when she was a rising star and provided a vehicle where she excelled and became a major talent on Disney Channels around the world. The first movie, 16 Wishes, cemented her as a true lead actress and from there on we have made more movies with her, including Radio Rebel and Rip Tide. She also partnered with us to executive produce Jessica Darling’s It List, and we are currently developing another project with her.
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WS: How has the expansion into scripted drama series progressed since you did Rebel with John Singleton? SZEW: This is a very telling story of MarVista as an agile independent studio that is able to work with someone who had traditionally not worked with independents. John is an Emmy- and Academy Award-nominated director, and we were very fortunate that we were able to align ourselves with him and the team to produce the original and successful prime-time drama series Rebel for BET. We are also very excited to be in the young adult drama space with our new comedy series Best.Worst.Weekend.Ever. with Netflix. We were able to leverage our great development team and relationships to bring to Netflix a unique project, aligned with a seasoned comedy creative force in Jeremy Garelick, who wrote The Break-Up and wrote and directed The Wedding Ringer. Jeremy serves as director, showrunner and executive producer. Internationally, we recently partnered with Arnie Zipursky, a longtime friend and well-respected colleague, to form Neshama Entertainment to give us the opportunity to expand into Canada. More news will be coming out of that venture as we create greater relationships within the Canadian creative community. Additionally, we recently formed a joint venture with Hemisphere Media Group. They acquired the entity we had in Argentina with our partner Ariel Tobi (Snap TV) and together we have formed a partnership to create content for the Latin American marketplace, as well as to bring IP from Latin America to a global audience. WS: How do you craft a route-to-market strategy for any given title?
SZEW: We don’t take a one-size-fits-all strategy to constructing a go-to-market plan. Even with our vast volume, we curate each piece of content to understand its salient points for its intended core audience and develop a sales plan and collateral marketing material for each project. We have a cross-departmental team that collaborates to determine this positioning and the best go-to-market strategy. WS: What other growth priorities are you focusing on? SZEW: It’s a phenomenal time for MarVista and the industry. We feel very fortunate to have positioned ourselves as we have in this very moment when there is an explosion of content demand all over the world. In the past couple of years, we have produced and/or co-produced approximately 50 movies per year, and our goal is to increase that pipeline significantly. We are also working with some exciting higher profile, talent-driven movies both for multiplatform distribution and also straight for broadcast. We are in the midst of steadily increasing our scripted series business and are very eager to bear the fruits of Neshama in Canada and our joint venture with Hemisphere.
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WS: You grew up in this industry. What do you love most about it? SZEW: I love that I’m still growing up in it! About two years ago I put together a presentation for our executive team and then rolled it out to the whole company. The first question I answered was, “Why do we [as an organization] exist?” and the answer was and will always be, “To create opportunities to make the world a smaller place.” I love the global aspect of our industry and the growing global demand for content; there’s great storytelling coming from all over the world and reaching audiences everywhere. And I love the fact that we’re able to provide a lot of opportunities for people to watch content and interact with content and be entertained.
The shark film Frenzy aired on SYFY this year.
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2003 MarVista launched with the vision of 2015 The original movie A Deadly Adoption, starbeing a major content creator and supplier to the ring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig, premiered on Lifetime, drawing over 2 million viewers. global market. 2005 First license agreements for original movies 2016 Moved into prime-time dramas with the signed in the U.S. with Lifetime Television, Universal production of Rebel in partnership with director John Singleton and BET. Cable Group and ABC Cable Networks Group. Partnered with Elijah Wood’s Company X/ 2006 Beyond the Break, MarVista’s first co-pro tele- SpectreVision to co-produce multiple films, beginning vision series, debuted to top ratings on MTV’s The N. with Bitch and Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss. Multi-picture deal with Caracol signed to pro2009 Strategic Latin American investment and duce English-language movies in Colombia. production and distribution alliance formed with 2017 Secured rights to develop, co-produce and Snap TV in Argentina. co-finance the live-action series King Kong Skull Island. Ramped up scripted-series development 2010 First co-production with Disney Channel slate, partnering with writer/director Jeremy for 16 Wishes, starring Debby Ryan, premiered as Garelick to produce the comedy series the number one telecast in kids 6-11 and tweens Best.Worst.Weekend.Ever. for Netflix. 9-14. Appointed by Saban Brands as the exclusive 2018 Neshama Entertainment launched with international TV distributor for Power Rangers Arnie Zipursky to source Canadian creative content Samurai and the classic Power Rangers library. and further its presence in Canada. Joint venture In a flurry of sales activity, MarVista positioned with Hemisphere Media Group finalized to cothe brand with new broadcast partners all over produce Latin-based/themed new original productions for global distribution. the world. Demand for MarVista-produced content continues 2011 New investment capital secured to increase to soar with slate of holiday movies scheduled for preproductions from 15 to 50-plus movies per year miere this season on Nickelodeon, Hallmark, Freeform and Lifetime; as well as originals for SYFY and accelerate acquisitions strategy. and other channels set to premiere at MIPCOM. 2012 A star-studded cast of actors from The Sopranos reunited for the original family movie Nicky Deuce for Nickelodeon. 2014 Direct-to-digital business launched releasing approximately 20 titles per year, and now includes Zapped, Jessica Darling’s It List, The Year of Spectacular Men. House of Versace, an original movie for Lifetime starring Gina Gershon and Enrico Colantoni, received a Primetime Emmy nomination. Signed multi-picture deal to produce Hallmark original movies based on novels from number one New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, The Bridge 1 and 2 and A Time to Dance.
MarVista’s long association with Debby Ryan includes the film Rip Tide.
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Happy Anniversary MarVista Entertainment from your friends at
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Sky Vision Escape to the Chateau / Animal Conversations / Young, Dumb and Banged Up in the Sun The documentary Animal Conversations explores the secret world of communication between animals, as well as between animals and humans. “It will appeal to science-hungry audiences, which we feel are generally poorly served, but will also attract classic wildlife viewers with key insights into littleknown animal behaviors,” says Barnaby Shingleton, the director of entertainment and factual at Sky Vision. “With a generous budget, the quality of the production is clearly [seen] on screen.” There’s also Escape to the Chateau, now in its fifth season in the U.K., and the spin-off Escape to the Chateau DIY. Meanwhile, Young, Dumb and Banged Up in the Sun delivers “bold factual content with a strong appeal to younger audiences looking for gripping true stories from around the world and fascinating but relatable characters,” says Shingleton.
Young, Dumb and Banged Up in the Sun
Smithsonian Networks
“We are proud to include in our catalog shows that provoke passion and debate.” —Barnaby Shingleton
America in Color
America’s Hidden Stories / America in Color / Apollo’s Moon Shot Key moments from history are brought back to life in America’s Hidden Stories. “We love to take big, popular stories and bring new insights and surprising revelations to our audiences, and that is what we do with our eight-part series America’s Hidden Stories,” says David Royle, executive VP and chief programming officer for Smithsonian Networks. There’s also America in Color, which makes use of colorization techniques to tell the history of the country. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, and Smithsonian has the six-part series Apollo’s Moon Shot. “It’s a great dramatic story, and we bring a unique Smithsonian angle and authority to the narrative as we are able to draw upon the definitive collection of space artifacts and imagery from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum,” says Royle.
“Buyers recognize that we bring a special combination of compelling storytelling and stunning visuals to our programming.” —David Royle
Sonar Entertainment Das Boot / The Son / Taboo Inspired by the film and novel of the same name, Das Boot has already been sold in a number of major territories around the world. Sonar Entertainment heads to MIPCOM looking to further the reach of the 8x1-hour drama series. “With a cinematic look and feel, it features French, German and English dialogue and characters throughout,” says David Ellender, the company’s president of global distribution and co-productions. The catalog also includes The Son, starring Pierce Brosnan, and Taboo, led by Tom Hardy. “In addition to showcasing scripted series, we have expanded our genre offerings to include kids’, family, factual and lifestyle titles,” Ellender says. Highlights include the kids’ series Go Away, Unicorn! and the lifestyle show Kickasso, which chronicles the hustle of a custom sneaker artist.
Das Boot
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Moscow Noir
STUDIOCANAL Moscow Noir / Interns / Esther’s Notebooks The thriller Moscow Noir looks at the dark, corrupt and violent world of Russian oligarchs and their private armies at the turn of the 21st century. The series is inspired by true events. The drama Interns is set in a public hospital, where the main medical staff winds up quarantined. Three inexperienced interns and a medical examiner who don’t know each other must take control. “Interns is an intense and engrossing drama with a highly researched and realistic medical narrative created by former doctor Thomas Lilti, director of three critically acclaimed medical-themed features,” says Beatriz Campos, the head of international sales at STUDIOCANAL. Aimed at young viewers, the animated series Esther’s Notebooks is based on bestsellers that have already been translated into eight languages.
“STUDIOCANAL continues to deliver a broad portfolio of engaging, high-end drama series with universal themes and stories.” —Beatriz Campos
TV Asahi Ossan’s Love / Falling in Love Like a Romantic TV Drama / Yuri!!! on ICE the Movie: Ice Adolescence TV Asahi is offering the dramedy Ossan’s Love as both a finished series and format. The show, about an unconventional love triangle, “has become a phenomenon of sorts,” says Motoko Nakai, the director of TV Asahi’s international business department. “It took the young female audience by storm like never before and is still in demand by millions even months after its initial broadcast.” Further highlights include the format Falling in Love Like a Romantic TV Drama and the animated movie Yuri!!! on ICE the Movie: Ice Adolescence. Nakai describes Falling in Love Like a Romantic TV Drama as a “fresh, catchy reality format with a unique twist.” Meanwhile, the animated series Yuri!!! on ICE is headed to the big screen with a movie hitting theaters in 2019.
“We are looking for new partnerships in the areas of licensing, co-production and co-development for our unique formats and drama remakes.” Ossan’s Love
—Motoko Nakai
Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution 9-1-1 / Proven Innocent / What We Do in the Shadows The series 9-1-1, which explores the high-pressure experiences of police officers, paramedics and firefighters, now has a second season in the U.S. “9-1-1 is the perfect example of an outstanding procedural that combines suspense and wild hope with every daring rescue,” says Cristina Sala, VP of sales for Europe at Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution. “The series has managed to balance character development and heartfelt dramatic moments with actionpacked sequences explored in each episode.” Also a procedural drama, Proven Innocent features “lots of twists and turns,” says Sala. The company is also presenting the comedy What We Do in the Shadows, based on the cult classic film of the same name. “What We Do in the Shadows is unique because of its amazing script,” Sala says.
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—Cristina Sala
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Voxx Studios Dubbing / Audio post-production Voxx Studios provides dubbing and audio post-production services. “We are the largest dubbing facility on the West Coast of the U.S., and the only one offering in-house dubbing services in ten languages,” says Andrei Zinca, the company’s president. “In addition, through our well-established network of partner studios across the globe, we can accommodate requests in a multitude of languages.” Together with the L.A. creative video lab ColorTime, Voxx Studios created Voxx ColorTime, positioned as a “one-stop shop for all your postproduction needs, covering all aspects of digital media content creation, management and distribution, from sound design to visual effects and color grading,” Zinca says. “At Voxx ColorTime, we can also remaster old movies and TV shows and give a new life to aged audio tracks.”
Voxx Studios facilities
“Creatives of all ages from around the world and diverse walks of life work at Voxx.” —Andrei Zinca
ZDF Enterprises Over Water / Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem / History of Weapons The documentary series History of Weapons shines a spotlight on weaponry that played leading roles during major battles in history. On the scripted side, ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE) is promoting Over Water, a Flemish psychological drama, and Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem, an adaptation of a bestselling book trilogy. “We are very proud to be in charge of the international distribution of these series,” says Fred Burcksen, the company’s president and CEO. Another highlight is The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War, a three-part program that starts off by analyzing Germany’s role as a battleground for spies working on behalf of their leaders in Washington or Moscow. Then there is a selection of ZDFE.junior programming, including The Athena, a live-action series, and Zoom— The White Dolphin, which is an animated show. Kristina Ohlsson ’s STHLM Requiem
“We have a lot on our plate, but we know that the quality we are proud of in our programs will also be appreciated by others.” —Fred Burcksen
Zee Entertainment Enterprises The Life of Earth from Space / Altar’d / Finding Fido The blue-chip documentary The Life of Earth from Space charts the history of Earth, from its inception to the present. “There is a universal curiosity about how we came to exist as a planet and civilization, to see how the Earth and its people have formed and evolved,” says Sunita Uchil, chief business officer of international ad sales, global syndication and production at Zee Entertainment Enterprises. “We worked with a premium production company, Talesmith, to produce the two-hour documentary utilizing the latest technologies, including 4K cinematography and HD cameras.” The company also has new seasons available for Altar’d and Finding Fido. Altar’d is about couples trying to slim down before their wedding day. Finding Fido follows a canine expert helping people who are looking for the perfect dog to suit their lifestyle.
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—Sunita Uchil
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ominated for an Academy Award and winner of a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Tina Turner in the 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do with It, Angela Bassett has worked continuously in theater, film and television. She brought to life the historical figures Rosa Parks and Betty Shabazz and, more recently, the fictional Queen Ramonda in Black Panther and a CIA agent, Erica Sloan, in Mission: Impossible—Fallout. She directed the TV movie Whitney and a Breakthrough documentary for National Geographic. After playing multiple characters on American Horror Story, Bassett is now starring in FOX’s 9-1-1, created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear, in which she plays an L.A. cop, Athena Grant, who works alongside a team of first responders. Bassett talks to World Screenabout the intriguingly tough and By Anna Carugati tender sides of her character and the roller-coaster pace of 9-1-1.
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WS: How did you hear about 9-1-1? BASSETT: I heard about it soon after I finished my four years on American Horror Story. [I had completed] my contract, so I was free as a bird! Ryan Murphy reached out to me and said that he had a project he was coming up with about a 911 concept. He told me the name of it and, of course, I’m thinking 9/11, like September 11. He said, no, it’s about first responders. I thought, OK, this could be interesting. Maybe it was another year before we got started on it and I got the script. But because I had had such a wonderful working relationship with the company and felt like part of the family and am familiar with the writers and the entire team, I felt pretty confident that it would be an opportunity and a role that I would enjoy. For the previous four years, I had had the opportunity to play a lot of different characters. 9-1-1 was going to be different, but I didn’t feel it would be less fun, interesting, intriguing or compelling.
at it! He also put me in touch with a woman who is on the force, a lieutenant who I was able to spend time with, go on a run with, go to an event with and observe her in action with her colleagues and those who work under her. Seeing this woman who is really in charge at this big outdoor function was interesting and fascinating. But also to sit down with her and get some insight into what the journey for her has been like as she has risen in the ranks and become a lieutenant.
WS: Did the role of Athena Grant require any special prep? Did you meet any first responders or cops that helped you get into the character? BASSETT: Yes, I worked with a retired cop, who is one of our consultants. He was very helpful to me in terms of how our policemen go about procedures, what they would do, how they neutralize a situation, how they take down a perpetrator, how they work handcuffs. We even spent time at the shooting range, which was very different for me, because I had never handled a gun before. That took a little getting used to, but I quickly got in line with it and got pretty good
WS: I find myself doing that, too! But I love the interactions between characters. The scene when Athena’s husband, Michael, has to tell their kids that he is gay was full of sensitivity and authenticity. BASSETT: This show is somewhat procedural, but it also veers away from that in terms of getting to know the characters. As you said, the relationships they have and that they are building and the issues that they are going through are modern issues. And [what Athena and Michael are facing] is one of them, and what sort of family they are going to become. Athena is very confident in her position, in her
WS: I imagine it’s a difficult job in many ways. BASSETT: It is, but what is really wonderful about her is her commitment to her community, to the area that she serves. WS: I’m a bit of a squeamish person. So at times while watching some of the rescue scenes, you know how little kids hold their hands over their eyes and look through their fingers? BASSETT: Yes!
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end. For instance, Peter Krause [who plays the firefighter Bobby Nash] and I were both surprised when we saw the last script of season one, in which Bobby and Athena get together. It’s not like getting the full 115 pages [of a feature-film script], and OK, you know the beginning, middle and end. No, [with a TV series] we know the beginning. Then we get to next week and might know step two! And then the next step, but we never get to run with it. That’s interesting, because sometimes you have a script and you look at it as a whole. You go all the way with it and make strong choices. Then you get another script and go, Ah, I might have calibrated it a little differently if I had known I was going in this direction. But it’s interesting. WS: You’ve directed episodes of other series. Is that something you might do on 9-1-1 as well? BASSETT: I may. I’m still getting my feet wet, because an element of 9-1-1, unlike American Horror Story and Whitney and the Breakthrough [documentary], is the element of action. I don’t feel extremely confident, but of course, we’ve got lots of help. I have to understand that I don’t do that by myself. You have others whose expertise that falls in. But that is something that I am observing and trying to get a really good handle on how it’s done.
Ryan Murphy’s first procedural, 9-1-1, sold by Twentieth Century Fox, is now in its second season on FOX.
job, on her feet, with others. She is very discerning in how to deal with people and what they are going through. But she gets knocked off her center—all of the characters do in their private lives. How do they save themselves? Who comes to their rescue? WS: Does the role of Athena, between the action scenes and the relationships, offer a satisfying range for you as an actor? BASSETT: Absolutely. You are able to be tough and commanding, but you are also able to play the other side, the vulnerability and the tenderness, the confusion and the questioning. I enjoy that; it keeps me very satisfied as an actor. WS: What added responsibilities do you have as a coexecutive producer? BASSETT: Just spending time with the writers and the main writer, Tim Minear, and talking about what the shape of the season is going to be. We’ll do 18 episodes this year, so there will be a lot of conversations! WS: From what I hear, the demands of episodic television are pretty intense, with long days on the set. Compare that to shooting a film, like Black Panther or Mission: Impossible— Fallout. Are TV and film very different experiences? BASSETT: In a way, they have been. In terms of the work, no, there is no difference in how you approach the character and what you are trying to do—be as authentic as possible, as compelling as you can be. But in terms of the commitment and the day-to-day, Black Panther and Mission: Impossible, you may go in and do a week in New Zealand or stay in Paris! [Laughs] On 9-1-1 you are shooting week to week for maybe nine straight months. There are 18 scripts this season. You don’t know what the end will be, how it’s going to turn out at the very
WS: Because you enjoy directing? BASSETT: I do, tremendously. I enjoy working with others and bringing out the best in them; trying to unpack a scene and its tensions and emotions and what it is we are trying to convey or say. And the best way in which to do that, the most complete way, is to discover together how to do that. WS: Is there any chance we are going to see Athena sing? I’ve seen you sing in other movies. Might Athena serenade Bobby? BASSETT: Oh my God, I haven’t heard any word of that! I haven’t thought about that at all. She might find herself at a karaoke club one night with the girls and Bobby and let loose! WS: 9-1-1 was the second-highest-rated show on FOX last season. To what do you attribute its appeal? How is it connecting with viewers? BASSETT: It has that wonderful mix of “WTF?” moments in terms of the emergencies that they are trying to solve and the way that they are executed. Those [emergencies happened in real life] and some of them are very hard to believe. They’re not made up. I don’t know if the audience knows that or not, but they can go to the internet and check them out. But you get into this hole of what’s next, and we complete those emergencies, and then there’s another and another and another, so it keeps you on the edge of your seat, and as you said earlier, the dynamics of the relationships between people. They are topical and modern. We have both sides of the coin, the tough and the tender. WS: You are shooting 18 episodes. Does that give you time to pursue other projects? BASSETT: It makes it very difficult. It’s always a challenge, but as I like to put it, the possibility is open! This summer I did a movie for Netflix called Otherhood, the stage after motherhood. That was a lot of fun, very interesting. I also did Bumblebee [as the voice of the Decepticon Shatter in the upcoming Transformers film], and I’m looking forward to that coming out.
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ong before the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, Dick Wolf’s Law & Order: SVU started telling chilling and gut-wrenching stories of victims of sexual violence. The series premiered in 1999 with two lead actors, Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay. When Meloni left the show in 2011, Hargitay found herself number one on the call sheet with an almost entirely new cast. Despite the changes, and in large part due to Hargitay’s portrayal of Olivia Benson—which has earned her a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award—SVU maintains fiercely loyal viewers. In fact, the outpouring of letters from viewers recounting their own traumas made such an impact on Hargitay that she set up the Joyful Heart Foundation, which assists and empowers survivors of assault and abuse. By Anna Carugati
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WS: You’ve been playing Olivia for nearly 20 years. Does she remain an interesting character for you? HARGITAY: If it weren’t interesting and challenging, I wouldn’t still be here, and that has been a unique gift. In so many ways, I feel like I, Mariska, am Olivia. We’ve lived parallel lives in that we both grew up on the show. Olivia was a young, good, instinctual, compassionate, rookie cop who was driven by a need for justice, a need to right the wrongs of her past—many people know that she is the product of a rape—and when I read the script, I was so moved. I instantly connected with her and wanted to play this character more than anything and understood her on so many levels. And moving up as I have into more of a leadership position has been so satisfying. It’s been incredibly challenging to go from being equals with the group to being their boss, which is a difficult thing to do, especially when there’s intimacy. I always think that the rise is uncomfortable, and [Olivia also had] to make very difficult decisions, growing into her power, growing into her leadership and, most importantly, becoming a parent. When Olivia adopted baby Noah, all of a sudden, everything changed in the character and that was so exciting for me. And we’ve had different leadership in terms of showrunners: we had Neal Baer for the first 11 years, and then the amazing Warren Leight, and now, recently, Michael Chernuchin, who’s been a wonderful collaborator for me. I’m in a unique position; it’s fun to be able to be the architect of where the character is going. For example, [this season] I’m going to go in a little bit of a different direction, because of what happened to Olivia [last] year, so that is challenging. I love it. The character has changed, but it’s a new character because of the different actors and the different chemistries. When Chris Meloni [who played Detective Elliot Stabler] left after season 12, I thought, [gasps]. We were this uniquely enmeshed partnership and there was such intimacy, complexity and chemistry. Then I had a new cast. I remember at the beginning of season 13 going to the cast and saying, “Hi, I’m Mariska; I play Detective Benson,” to Danny Pino [Detective Nick Amaro] and Kelli Giddish [Detective Amanda Rollins], who joined the show. Ice-T [Detective Odafin Tutuola] was my anchor, of course. Then we had Peter Scanavino [Detective Dominick Carisi]. Raúl Esparza [ADA Rafael Barba] and I had this beautiful six-year run, and now I have Philip Winchester [ADA Peter Stone], and it’s so different. Philip and I bring out something so new in each other and just the nature of me having to be the teacher, and him not being Raúl, gives me so much to play. That is deeply unique in a long-running character, so
it’s fun to interact with all of them, because, again, it brings out so much newness. WS: What makes SVU unique? HARGITAY: I learned very early on from the type of fan mail that I was receiving that SVU was a very different kind of show, and we had an incredible opportunity. It was speaking to a different audience and was the beginning of giving voice to issues that traditionally had been swept under the carpet. The kind of fan mail that I was receiving was very different from the fan mail that I’d previously received on, say, ER, or any other show that I did. Women were disclosing stories of abuse, their own stories. I was so grateful that this television show gave voice to those issues, that if they were indeed on television, they could be discussed the next day at a watercooler and be new fodder for conversation. So as women and men started writing and sharing stories of abuse, I learned very early that it was not just a television show, and we had an incredible opportunity here. WS: You have some scenes that are very tough. How do you disengage afterward? HARGITAY: I still get nervous before a big scene, and I think that’s a gift. For example, the arc with Pablo Schreiber [who played serial rapist, killer and kidnapper William Lewis] about being kidnapped and held hostage was so rough, but you’re in it and you want to do a good job. Once I do the take, and I can feel if it was worthy, and the director is happy, there’s such a huge relief of getting it and not wanting to do it again that it’s a natural, “I’m done!” It’s like getting to the top of a mountain. It’s just a natural release. Yes, there are times—I remember one time, in particular, being held hostage in the jail, I threw up after that scene. Again, because of the issues and because of what I’m carrying for survivors of assault. WS: What’s the atmosphere on the set during the difficult life-and-death scenes? HARGITAY: It depends on the day. Our show is particularly rough and painful, and there are days that it’s brutal because to go there and do it justice and tell the truth and know that you are telling someone’s story, there is an incredible amount of responsibility that comes with that. I say to the young actors, If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right. [On the other hand, we also] laugh so hard, and we have so much fun at work. There are days when we can’t get through a scene when somebody gets the giggles and, obviously [this happens more often] in the squad room. Philip
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Law & Order: SVU headed into its landmark 20th season this fall on NBC.
and I will be doing a scene and it’s great, because, [we have] a shorthand. I’ll say, “No, this sucks,” and he’ll say, “I know it sucks.” That is so beautiful because it’s so intimate; we trust each other. So we’ll laugh about how bad we were, and then we do it again. We can go from laughing hysterically to crying hysterically, but it’s also technical. Sometimes you’re on a scene and you think, There’s too much blood. Or, This looks fake from this angle; can we change it? Or, Sorry, sweetie, get up [to the actor playing the corpse], She’s been lying down too long. Are you cold? Can we get a blanket for her? Also, the blood is dripping weird. It’s all so technical. It depends on the day, but we, as actors, feel all of it. WS: What impact has the subject matter had on you? HARGITAY: Dealing with these issues every day, I felt a calling to respond to the subject matter. WS: Is that because you started receiving letters from viewers? HARGITAY: Well, it goes back actually before that. I believe it was the first year. Dick [Wolf] was being honored at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and he invited me to go. That night I learned the statistics of sexual assault and domestic violence, and they were so mind-blowing to me that I just couldn’t believe that everybody wasn’t talking about it. One in four women and one in six men have been sexually assaulted at some point in their life. I felt like this was a conversation that needed to be started. Dick started it with the show by dealing with those issues, but I wanted to take it to the next level. So, [because of] the combination of the stories we were telling, the statistics that were so staggering and the letters that I was receiving, I started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to change the way people respond to sexual violence. WS: You also produced a documentary. HARGITAY: Yes, I did a documentary called I Am Evidence. Our number one advocacy priority at the foundation is the
rape kit backlog. In 2009, I learned that there was, indeed, a backlog of hundreds of thousands of rape kits, which is an evidence collection kit, sitting in police storage facilities. After a woman is raped, if she has the courage to come forward and get an exam, DNA is collected—[it takes] four to six hours, often a retraumatizing exam. One would expect that the kits get tested and sent to the DNA facility, but we found out that they weren’t. It was up to police officers’ discretion. So women had been waiting for justice and waiting to find out, and there was this backlog. I just thought it was a perfect microcosm—a measurable microcosm—of how sexual assault was regarded, and therefore, how important women’s lives were. So we tried to shine some light on it, talk about it, and hopefully, it will incite change. We’re trying to clean up the backlog in our country. WS: What has surprised you most after nearly 20 years on the show? HARGITAY: So much. The show has been my greatest teacher, but what surprised me is how the show changed me as a person and turned me into an “accidental activist,” if you will. When Dick hired me, I was so happy and grateful because I’m an actor and it’s what I love to do, it’s what I need to do. When I got this role, all my dreams came true because it fit like a glove. The part and the person came together, and it’s been challenging for me, very much so, in a lot of ways. I was surprised—and grateful—that I was able to bring change and aid in bringing positivity to the world. That is something that I have thought my whole life: How do I give back? How do I show my gratitude? We’re so grateful for how Dick changed our lives and made so much possible. To be given this canvas and to be able to turn it into something else has been deeply meaningful for me, and I’m deeply grateful. I met my husband on the show, I have three children now, and I have this foundation that means everything to me. To be able to affect change, and have a voice and a platform from a TV show, it’s quite surprising to me.
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SPOTLIGHT
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ark Burnett has produced some of the most successful and longest-running shows on television. An adventure and competition enthusiast, he created Eco-Challenge in the mid-’90s, and, inspired by a Swedish reality show, he executive produced Survivor, which premiered in 2000 and is still airing on CBS. Today, Burnett is the chairman of the MGM Worldwide Television Group, which has a wide range of shows across broadcast and cable networks in the U.S., including The Voice on NBC, Shark Tank and Steve Harvey’s Funderdome on ABC, Jamie Foxx’s Beat Shazamon FOX,Fargoon FX and Vikings on HISTORY. In addition, The Handmaid’s Tale has won multiple awards and made the streaming service Hulu a destination for high-end scripted series. Burnett remade the boxing competition series The Contender for EPIX, MGM’s linear and nonlinear channel, and he is in the process of bringing Eco-Challenge back to life. Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, also produce family programming under the banner LightWorkers Media. He shares with World Screen his strategies for MGM’s programming.
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WS: What’s your vision for MGM Worldwide Television? BURNETT: Global domination. The question is how! We are known for very high quality. If you look at all the studios in Hollywood right now, MGM has more successful TV shows than any other studio. From the point of view of our reality programming, we are winning Monday nights with The Voice. We win Tuesday nights again with The Voice. Survivor on Wednesdays is pretty much unbeaten at 8 o’clock in the 18-to-49 demographic. On Thursday nights, Beat Shazam with Jamie Foxx got picked up for season three, which is fantastic. Friday nights we have Kevin Hart on TKO: Total Knock Out. And Sunday nights we have Shark Tank. So, on six nights out of seven, we are dominant on American TV. In terms of our unscripted cable programming, we’ve got The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Vanderpump Rules, all from Evolution Media. They have several other shows in the works, and all are doing very, very well. Then we have Live PD, which comes from Big Fish Entertainment, our other acquisition. And on the scripted side, we expect to go into production on the fourth installment of Fargo in 2019 with Chris Rock starring. Vikings is still very dominant. The Handmaid’s Tale got picked up for season three and Condor, which airs on AT&T Audience Network, got picked up for season two. Lately, in Los Angeles, I see fantastic billboards for The Contender on EPIX, which is our boxing competition series and probably the highest-quality work I’ve ever done personally.
WS: You’ve always loved The Contender. What do you find so appealing, and how has it been reimagined now? BURNETT: A lot of it goes back to when I first started it with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sylvester Stallone. I got to know Sly, and I’ve continued to be friends with him. He said to me, The reason why Rocky worked wasn’t just the boxing. It was the relationships. If you watch the movie again and see during the fights how Adrian is in such pain watching her man getting punched, it is the best part of the storytelling. I took that on board, and when I created the first season of The Contender, I focused on the families. I’ve done that right through this current season. Very few boxers come from well-to-do families; typically, they come from poor families. They are fighting so that their families can have a better life, because it’s super tough as a sport. It’s those stories; it’s the emotional connection that we are able to make—that’s why I love The Contender so much. It’s so raw; it’s so real. There is no voting off. There is no one who is going to win the singing contest. This is an actual sport with unedited fights. You have no clue who’s going to win each week. It’s all down to two men in the ring. And Andre Ward is hosting season five. He recently retired as an undisputed world champion in two weight divisions and a gold medalist in the [light heavyweight weight class] at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. He’s an amazing person. I’m so privileged to work with him. WS: Since the days of Eco-Challenge and then Survivor, how have you seen adventure competition shows evolve, and what do viewers expect today? BURNETT: As I mentioned earlier, Survivor has been unbeaten for 18 years on network television at 8 o’clock. It’s authentic. The conditions are completely real, and it strips away the veneer that you may have on yourself as you interact with other people. As that veneer is stripped away, your true emotions are revealed. It’s true surviving while playing a very complicated mental game. It’s almost like playing three-dimensional chess. You are exhausted, and other people may want to vote you out. You have to figure out who they are and change their minds. In the case of Eco-Challenge, it was my show that preceded Survivor; in fact, I won my first Emmy in 1998 for it. We’re about to bring that show back. Bear Grylls has signed on to host Eco-Challenge in its next iteration. WS: Are unscripted shows better suited to linear channels, or do you see opportunities on streaming services as well? BURNETT: Absolutely in streaming. There is a whole new [TV landscape] now, where the cream will always rise to the top. The one thing I’ve been focused on as I’ve grown MGM TV— from a couple of shows when I came to about 800 hours of television right now—is quality. Television is the biggest division
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BURNETT: I’m so proud of that series. It was the most talked-about series of the decade in Latin America; it was so well received. We’re now looking at the possibility of doing a season two. We are very confident in making more Spanishlanguage programming. I think it’s fair to say that the Luis Miguel series set a brand-new high standard in Spanish-language television series.
MGM resurrected the boxing competition The Contender for EPIX.
at MGM. When I said global domination, I was half kidding, but if you want to be dominant globally, you have to have quality. What people care about is how good the shows are. Everything we make is top quality, and that’s because I look for showrunners and producers who are better than me. I think I’m a good producer, but I seek out people who are better than me, and I give them the means and encouragement to succeed. My version of being a CEO is Chief Encouragement Officer! WS: What message has The Handmaid’s Tale sent to the creative community? BURNETT: The Handmaid’s Tale certainly resonated globally, no question. Margaret Atwood’s brilliant novel from 33 years ago is as relevant today, in the way that Bruce Miller wrote it and our team of directors brings it to life, as it was then. What’s great is its fresh [approach]. There are lots of retreads of things. The Handmaid’s Tale is unlike anything that came before, and that’s very important. MGM’s unscripted business is run by Barry Poznick. I’ve made thousands of hours of unscripted programming with him, and he’s best in class. And Steve Stark runs the scripted division. He has great taste and has a great team under him and is also best in class. If you look at The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, Get Shorty, Vikings, the reviews on these shows are outstanding. They are a great business economically, and they are also critics’ darlings. WS: You’re making Condor for AT&T Audience Network. Is there other IP in the library that can be remade for today’s audience? BURNETT: Yes, we have a great deep library with fantastic IP. We are always looking, no question, but we’re also doing more fresh stuff as well. We’ve got Get Shorty and Fargo, which came out of the library. On EPIX we’ve also got Deep State, which did so well. And coming in 2019 there will be Pennyworth, which is the DC origin story of Batman’s [butler, Alfred]. Then we’ve got Godfather of Harlem, starring and produced by Forest Whitaker and directed by John Ridley. WS: MGM has also made a foray into Spanish-language programming with the Gato Grande venture. I’ve been watching Luis Miguel, La Serie. I’m enjoying it.
WS: What plans do you have for faithbased and family programming? BURNETT: LightWorkers Media is a huge focus right now. Roma is the president of LightWorkers Media, which is a division of MGM. We feel strongly about a faith-andfamily direct-to-consumer brand. We do have LightTV, the first-ever, 24/7 faith-and-family broadcast entertainment network, which is distributed by FOX owned-and-operated stations, as well as other faith-based broadcasters and is doing well. Roma spent the last year and a half combing through the MGM library to make sure that all the movies that air on LightTV have no nudity, no excessive violence and no explicit language. This is what that channel stands for. Roma has wrapped a series called The Baxters, which she stars in, for the LightWorkers platform. The series is based on Karen Kingsbury’s bestselling literary collection. She has sold more than 25 million copies of her books worldwide. It is the first [scripted drama] series for the LightWorkers platform. WS: I remember from a previous interview you said that when you first arrived in the U.S., you were a nanny and you sold T-shirts on the beach. BURNETT: I was a nanny and a servant. That was on 624 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. I was earning only about $100 a week. Now, as the chairman of MGM Worldwide Television, my office is at 245 North Beverly Drive, and from my office window, I can see the house where I was a servant! WS: When you were selling T-shirts, were there sales skills that you picked up that have served you throughout your career as a producer? BURNETT: Completely. At that point, I was a working-class boy who had never sold anything. I had been in the army. Then I’d been a servant in a house. I wasn’t sure I knew how to sell. I was scared. What the T-shirt selling taught me was that I was able to communicate and sell. One big thing I learned was that every person is different. You break people down into categories. If you have the same sales approach for everybody, you’ll fail. You need to find out a little bit about the person and need to understand them. Are they a scientific-type person? Scientificengineering-type people want to hear a lot of facts before buying something. Are they an artistic-type person? An artistic person does not want to hear all the technical facts. They want to know how it feels, how it looks, what the fabric is. And then if you have people who are very much leaders, you’re far better off letting them lead in the sale. And then there are people who are followers and they want to be gently led into a sale. There are more levels than that, but it taught me to pay attention to the person I’m dealing with to make sure I’m serving their needs in order to create a transaction.
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TR E N D S E T T E R
AWARDS or the eighth consecutive year, World Screen is teaming up with Reed MIDEM at MIPCOM to present the Trendsetter Awards. This year they will go to three executive producers—Eric Newman, Álex Pina and Lorenzo Mieli—to honor their contributions to the television industry. Viewers are the beneficiaries of seemingly endless choice in this golden age of television. The Trendsetter Award recipients represent the best of today’s rich offerings on linear channels and streaming services. They have mastered the art of creating complex characters, either fictional or based on real-life individuals, and making TV series with the highest quality of writing, acting and production values. Álex Pina is the creator of La casa de papel, released as Money Heist on Netflix, which quickly became a hit in several countries. Lorenzo Mieli is the executive producer of the upcoming television adaptation of the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan novels and The Young Pope, the first television project from Oscarwinning director Paolo Sorrentino. Eric Newman has been an executive producer of the critically acclaimed international hit Narcos since its first season and showrunner beginning in season three.
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They will be presented their awards at the end of the Talent Behind the Camera panel discussion, which will take place on Tuesday, October 16, in the Grand Auditorium in the Palais des Festivals from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The discussion, moderated by World Screen’s group editorial director, Anna Carugati, will range from finding ideas and creating complex characters to overcoming production obstacles and working with studios, networks and platforms. “We are thrilled to be working with our friends at Reed MIDEM for the eighth consecutive year to honor these creators with the World Screen Trendsetter Awards,” says Ricardo Guise, the president and publisher of World Screen. “With the experience they have built up crafting compelling heroes and antiheroes in gripping storylines, these professionals have developed the skills required for producing top-notch programs that satisfy worldwide audiences. At the Talent Behind the Camera session at MIPCOM, we’ll hear them share insights into their approaches to producing high-quality programming. This must-attend session will surely provide plenty of useful information for fellow writers, executive producers and everyone who loves television. We are delighted to be honoring their achievements at MIPCOM.”
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T R E N D S E T T E R AWA R D S LO R E N Z O M I E L I orenzo Mieli admits he watched five hours of television a day as a child and consequently learned to enjoy all genres of programming. He has maintained this penchant for variety as a producer. His two production companies, first Wilder and now Wildside, have created talk shows, documentaries, comedy series and the Italian version of The X Factor. Mieli is also known for reaching out to people from various professions when creating shows and emphasizes the importance of teamwork—creating a trusting environment where everyone is free to share ideas. He has collaborated with Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino, who wrote and directed the series The Young Pope, and is working on The New Pope. Mieli is also adapting for television the bestselling Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante, with the first series, My Brilliant Friend, premiering this fall.
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ERIC NEWMAN or the first 25 years of his career, Eric Newman worked as a feature film producer. His credits include Zack Snyder’s reimagining of Dawn of the Dead in 2004, the Academy Award-nominated film Children of Men in 2006 and The Last Exorcism in 2010. Back in 1996, he read an article about the drug war in Latin America and was so intrigued by the subject that he started researching it further. Eventually, he became part of a team dedicated to making a TV show. The result was Narcos, the series that became a worldwide hit on Netflix. The first two seasons focus on the hunt for Pablo Escobar. Newman became showrunner in season three, which looks at the Cali cartel. The fourth season, which premieres this fall, will examine the origins of the drug trade in Mexico.
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ÁLEX PINA lex Pina has written several feature films and is credited with having evolved the television drama genre in his native Spain. He inhabits his series with multilayered characters and plays with viewers’ loyalties and empathy as the characters display good and bad qualities. These techniques were on display in La casa de papel, a series that initially garnered modest ratings on Antena 3 but when launched globally on Netflix as Money Heist became the most-watched non-English-language TV series on the service. While many feature films have tackled the bank heist story, Pina wanted to explore it in long-form storytelling that only television can afford. Pina, through his production company, Vancouver Media, has a third season of La casa de papel in the works as well as The Pier (El embarcadero), the story of a man leading a double life with two women.
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MILESTONES
WS: When looking for acquisitions, linear channels generally aim to fill specific time slots or look for slots where they can accommodate a show they want to air. With seemingly unlimited shelf space, what is Hulu’s acquisition strategy? HOLME: We’re not programming to a time slot, obviously. We make all of the programming available on your own schedule, whenever you want to watch it. We do think about different audiences—all of whom have very distinct tastes and behaviors in terms of what they want to watch on Hulu. So, we think about programming to audiences. For example, you might be a person who watches a lot of competition reality shows with the occasional comedy and drama and movie mixed in, in which case we are thinking about shows that would really appeal to you. Or, you might be somebody who watches mostly high-end scripted dramas, but, from time to time, you might want a movie. We think about different audiences with different taste profiles—do we have the right mix of quality and volume for that consumer’s taste at any given time? And, for that user, have we added anything new recently that might be of interest? So, there is still a programming lens to [our strategy] because we think not only about what we may have available for you to watch right now, which is a variety of high-quality programming, but also, once you’re through watching something, what’s the next
By Anna Carugati
Hulu celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. In the past decade, the service has boosted its content selection, earned critical acclaim and awards for its original productions and significantly increased its subscriber base. Earlier this year, Hulu surpassed the 20-million subscriber mark, and the variety of its content offering has undoubtedly fueled this growth. Its original productions have created considerable buzz—notably the Emmy Award–winning drama The Handmaid’s Tale. As crucial as the originals are, licensed feature films, TV series, documentaries and children’s programming all play an important role in rounding out the offering and attracting and maintaining subscribers. Lisa Holme, Hulu’s VP of content acquisition, talks to World Screen about the service’s wide range of genres and the strategies used to find programming that will keep subscribers engaged—and coming back for more. 96 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
thing you are going to watch, and the next thing after that? Are we continuing to introduce you to new programming you are going to love, whether it is new to you or new to Hulu? WS: What role does acquired programming play in the larger Hulu offering? HOLME: It plays a huge role. We are known for having the best of everything, and we have the humility to know that programming can come from anywhere, whether it’s something we produce ourselves, something we license from our shareholders or something that we license from whoever has the rights to that show or movie. Licensed content drives a tremendous amount of engagement with Hulu, and
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a Stephen King mood from watching Castle Rock, you could then watch some of his movies as well. There are times, as in the case of Castle Rock, where [shows can] directly inform [each other], and we use acquired content to build up an even richer experience for somebody who wants to go super deep after watching one of the originals.
Feature films are a key part of the Hulu offering, with titles like Miramax’s Chicago.
that tends to be the biggest predictor of whether you are going to keep Hulu—are you using it enough and getting enough out of it to keep your subscription? We look to licensed content to drive the relationship with our users so that you never run out of things you want to watch. WS: What role does data play in your acquisitions? HOLME: Data plays a tremendous role in our decision-making. We look at whatever we can get our hands on to inform the decisions we are making—everything from Nielsen’s ratings data to piracy data to what people are searching for on Hulu to what people are talking about on social media. We look at whatever we can because some of these decisions are quite big bets and we want to be as informed as we can. And back to what I was saying earlier about different users and content tastes, we are drilling down to the subscriber level to ask, Is this programming that will mean a little bit to a lot of people, or a whole lot to a smaller audience? We want some of both, but we want to have a sense of that going in. WS: Has the high quality of the originals on Hulu, for example The Handmaid’s Tale, impacted the acquisition strategy? HOLME: We think about how they can complement each other so that we have the best selection of content, whatever the source may be. We think hard about, once people have finished watching The Handmaid’s Tale, what should we try to get them to watch? Sometimes that might be another original like Harlots, or it might be an acquired series or a movie. A lot of people tend to watch comedies after watching The Handmaid’s Tale, as a palate cleanser! There are some shows that inform each other even more closely. For example, we have Castle Rock on Hulu right now and that is based on a lot of Stephen King characters, settings and stories. With that knowledge, we got our hands on as many Stephen King movies as we could. So if you got into
WS: How did the decision to acquire foreignlanguage programming come about? HOLME: We’ve been importing programming from all over the world for almost the entire duration of Hulu’s existence. The strongest early offerings in the English-language space were primarily out of the U.K. In the foreignlanguage space, the first offerings were predominantly anime, which is often not what people think of as foreignlanguage, but we have a very robust anime business on Hulu. We have both subtitled versions that we are releasing at the same time as they are released in Japan, as well as dubbed versions. We have a big catalog of anime. In what people ordinarily think of as foreign-language or international programming, we have a very robust offering of Spanish-language programming, particularly from Telemundo here in the U.S. From outside the U.S., we have a high-quality drama called False Flag out of Israel. We have Real Humans from Scandinavia, which is what the AMC series Humans is based on. We have Prisoners of War (Hatufim), which is what Homeland is based on. We have the original Bron, which is what The Bridge was based on. So we do have a robust offering of European drama. Sometimes we only have the international show, and when it’s a very high-quality show, what often happens is that it gets remade for the English-speaking audience and that boosts the audience of the original show yet again.
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WS: How do movies and documentaries complement the rest of Hulu’s offering? HOLME: Movies and documentaries are a crucial part of Hulu’s overall content offering. There is an expectation among consumers that a streaming service like Hulu is going to satisfy needs across multiple types of content, whether that’s kids’ programming for a preschooler, a movie that people can watch on a Friday night or a documentary that is going to teach them something. We have a big deal with EPIX for all of the EPIX movies. We also have output deals directly with Annapurna Pictures, NEON, Magnolia Pictures and IFC Films. We also produce original documentaries. A recent one is Minding the Gap. Metacritic posted that over the weekend of August 17 to 19, it was the best-reviewed movie so far in 2018, which is pretty exciting. People who love storytelling love it in lots of different formats; sometimes that’s series, and there are some great series being produced now, but a lot of times it’s movies. We want to be able to satisfy whatever subscribers are in the mood to watch.
Hulu’s SVOD and live-TV offerings are available on multiple devices.
Hulu’s children’s slate includes Zorro the Chronicles from Cyber Group.
WS: How important is children’s programming in attracting new subscribers and keeping existing ones? HOLME: Children’s programming is also an important part of the overall content offering on Hulu. We know that about a third of our subscribers have kids. We want to make sure that we are serving their whole household, so we have a pretty fantastic offering of kids’ series licensed from Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. And we have now started producing our own kids’ originals. We have a reboot of Animaniacs coming up. New seasons of Curious George will be exclusive to Hulu, and recently, we announced a partnership with DreamWorks Animation. They will be producing originals for us. We have a lot coming in the originals space to build on the rich foundation we have of licensed programming for kids. WS: When you are acquiring product, are convenience and ease of use factors in your negotiations?
HOLME: It comes up from time to time. Among Hulu’s unique features are all of the ways you can search and browse for content. For example, you can search for ABC or Disney, brands which you as a consumer know and have an expectation about the kind of content they will offer. We enable that, and all the films from Disney that we have under license will show up in one place on Hulu. Disney likes that because it helps associate their brand with the consumer, and we think it adds value to the consumer as well. Another example is that we do a fair amount of branding and tune-in messaging for networks. You can catch up on past seasons of a show that is on Hulu and then tune in to, say, FX on Thursdays at 10 p.m. for new episodes. The fact that we do that within our experience is valuable because brands such as FX or Nickelodeon mean something to the consumer. And the folks from whom we are licensing are proud of the brands they have built, so the fact that we serve them within the Hulu environment is often a feature that makes people more interested in licensing content to us. WS: What are some of the international shows that will premiere this fall? HOLME: We have a fantastic Australian drama, Safe Harbour, which launched in August. Desiree Akhavan, director of the film The Miseducation of Cameron Post, is the writer, director and star in The Bisexual, which will launch this fall. And we have Love Island, a reality show from the U.K. that is an absolute phenomenon there. It’s released in real time in the U.K., and we get it very quickly thereafter in the U.S. That show has built a tremendous following. In part because of the audience, notoriety and awareness that Love Island has built on Hulu, it is getting remade into an American version. Producers and distributors attending MIPCOM should think of us as an outstanding U.S. home for the best content that they produce.
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Elizabeth Guider hears from commissioners, producers, agents and distributors about the high-stakes business of managing talent. hey have inked eye-popping deals worth nine figures over a handful of years for what could be called their “artistic calisthenics.” And no, we’re not talking about basketball superstar LeBron James or Mission: Impossible’s impossibly youthful Tom Cruise, but rather a trio of TV showrunners— Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and Kenya Barris—who have signed huge contracts with Netflix, and über-producer Greg Berlanti, who did the same with Warner Bros. These four are inarguable mega-stars in the writer/producer galaxy, but their paychecks are also pushing up the costs of securing lesserknown talents in the showrunner firmament. In the process, they are elevating the status of the showrunner role in the small-screen pecking order and encouraging a flood of newcomers (and indie film biz refugees) to get in on the action. In short, it’s never been a more lucrative or invigorating time to be a showrunner in television. Not only do prolific writers and producers of series command head-spinning salaries— they are also championed by studio and network chiefs for their creative chops and lauded by their peers and fans. Not surprisingly, there’s been a trickle-down effect. “It’s unquestionably a very hot market right now, and not just for the very top tier,” says Eric Schrier, the president of original programming at FX Networks and FX Productions. “Any experienced showrunner with a résumé in episodic television and a willingness to rejoin the fray can, in the current climate, find
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an opportunity,” adds producer Jeff Melvoin, himself a longtime showrunner whose credits range from Picket Fences to Designated Survivor. Melvoin also oversees a Writers Guild of America (WGA) West training program for showrunners that has in the last decade turned out hundreds of graduates, many now fronting series of their own. That said, newcomers to the business, especially those starting out on disparate digital outliers, may work at the same frenetic pace as their established brethren but for far less remuneration and with far fewer resources. (“Ever thus in all artistic endeavors,” as one world-weary source puts it.)
A GOLDEN AGE Pointing to the growing number of channels, streamers and online upstarts dipping their toes into the scripted waters, FX’s Schrier adds that those new content providers in the series business are driving costs ever higher. “It’s a great time to be talent in general,” Schrier maintains. Directors, too, have acquired more prestige and authority in the TV space (and arguably a bump in fees), Schrier and Melvoin suggest. That’s not to say that the job of showrunner or director is cushy in its demands on time, energy or mental focus. Given the fierce competition to break through the clutter, showrunners are always under the gun to raise the bar creatively, to turn out episodes that look like mini-movies, and often to act as the public face of a show. They must do all that, plus keep up with the daily grind of managing—and melding—the expectations of corporate bosses and financial backers, the sensibilities of fellow writers and the intrusions of a nosy press without dropping their guard, losing their cool or offending anyone. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 105
Consider that the number of scripted series being churned out around the world each year has never been higher, easily surpassing 500 in 2018 in the U.S. alone and showing no sign of letting up. A survey of significant commissioning players—especially those who oversee drama projects—suggests that all are scrambling to contract with, and in many cases “house,” the most sought-after established talent and to find new voices and skill sets that can be enhanced and molded for the development of series. Right now, the onus is on these studio execs to search out fresh voices and fresh ways of telling stories in order to attract and hold new audiences. The range of plots and styles that channel commissioners are embracing has never been broader, the financial outlay for talent never more eye-opening, and the need to recoup from multiple windows and territories never greater.
FINANCIAL ATHLETICS Even when all goes well, success on a global basis is never a given. “The economics of the TV business are changing and the value of the traditional back-end is changing; for example, off-net and DVD revenues are in decline while streaming and international are more important,” suggests Allan Haldeman, co-head of TV literary and a partner at UTA. “We need to be able to evaluate for our clients what the smart arrangements might be for their long-term careers, and not just settle for short-term financial gains.” The concept of “smart arrangements” has taken on some very sophisticated and ambitious connotations in the last few years as global players open their minds, and their wallets, to
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A Netflix original, the acclaimed anthology series Black Mirror hails from Charlie Brooker and his outfit House of Tomorrow, which is part of Endemol Shine Group. underwriting complicated deals for content creation, especially of the high-end variety. Endemol Shine Group, for example, recently promoted well-known producer Lars Blomgren to head of scripted for Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He co-founded Swedish outfit Filmlance (now an Endemol Shine subsidiary) and oversaw the hit Bron/Broen (The Bridge) and its handful of adaptations. His new remit is to scour the non-English-speaking world for projects that can be fashioned into series that travel the globe, in their original or formatted versions. “I’m trying to maximize the potential of creative talent and concepts that can travel, from wherever they are sourced,” he says. He hastens to add, however, that “local nuance” is paramount in getting these projects right.
In Treatment and The Affair), American producer and HBO alumnus Michael Ellenberg and playwright Amy Herzog as well as the knowhow and resources of Endemol Shine. “We debated whether we wanted to anglicize the project in Britain or the States, but we opted for the latter because we feel that more people worldwide can relate to the American mindset and way of telling stories,” Blomgren explains. As for sourcing talent for all these ambitious projects being announced lately, Jane Millichip,
the managing director of Sky Vision, notes, “It’s true that projects are proliferating ever faster, but I’d argue that there is a lot of new talent coming into the producer ranks as well.” Her own company, which is a unit of European pay giant Sky, is, she points out, “particularly focused on bringing along new voices through mentorship programs.” Moreover, the company is partnering with a plethora of established producers, writers and actors who bring their own passion projects
CREATIVE COLLABORATION “The business side eventually takes care of itself” when putting together multi-territory deals, Blomgren believes. “Figuring out the mindset of the entities in charge and syncing that with the mindset of the producers in charge is often where the challenges lie” in any big project. In Europe, he specifies, that often means the lead producer has to function as “the negotiator among disparate partners,” whereas in the U.S. there’s usually a single broadcaster that drives the direction of the project. One of Blomgren’s long-gestating efforts is a new version of the classic Ingmar Bergman miniseries Scenes from a Marriage, whose new auspices, he notes, are emblematic of how the business of content creation has evolved. The planned English-language limited series will also harness the talents of Israeli producer Hagai Levi (whose credits include
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Sky Vision partnered with Benedict Cumberbatch and his company, SunnyMarch, on Patrick Melrose, which aired on Showtime in the U.S. and Sky Atlantic in the U.K. and unique gifts to the table—folks ranging from Benedict Cumberbatch to Lennie James to Jane Tranter. Millichip explains there’s no single right way to do things, citing numerous projects in which Sky has collaborated with talent in different forms. Sky has a financial stake in Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner’s Bad Wolf; it aligned with Benedict Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch on the series Patrick Melrose and with Lennie James on Save Me; and it funded a pilot from the winner of a new-voices writing competition set up by multi-hyphenate Issa Rae.
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT Millichip makes particular note of the number of actors in Britain who are stretching themselves as directors, writers and/or executive producers. “Increasingly across Sky, we are working with a variety of on-screen talent,” Millichip emphasizes. “These are not vanity shingles but rather genuine businesses.” In the U.S., the challenges are hardly less daunting as the race to sign up top talent is ever fiercer and the dollar outlays to do so ever more eyebrow-raising. “We adopt a number of different strategies in forging strong relationships with talent,” stresses Dante Di Loreto, the president of scripted entertainment at Fremantle North
America. These approaches include overall deals, first-look arrangements and script commitments. As “an artist-centered entity,” he remarks, “we take a curated approach to projects, connecting creators with experienced showrunners and/or producers who can concretize the original concept.” And yes, Di Loreto believes that the talent pool Stateside is currently “stretched very thin.” One way that scarcity is being mitigated, he notes, is by making series with fewer episodes. Six-, eight- and twelve-episode minis allow talent to tackle multiple projects (even at different companies), prioritizing, staggering and juggling them as needed. Among numerous alliances, Fremantle has a first-look deal with acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, an executive producer of the upcoming fantasy series Gormenghast; an overall pact with Neil Cross, the creator of the BBC’s Luther; and relationships with novelists Elena Ferrante, Paulo Coelho and Brandon Sanderson to adapt one or more of their books. “We strive to be the place creatives want to call home, where a wide range of voices get heard, where the material to put on screen is exciting,” Di Loreto continues. At FX Networks, Schrier suggests that securing ongoing deals with showrunner talent is the best way to tailor and sustain an environment where those folks can do their best work. 108 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
“We’re not a widget factory,” he stresses. “Being in larger, longer relationships with writers, producers and directors is the best way for us to turn out great television.”
TALENT ALLIANCES A Hollywood agent who declined to be named estimated that two-thirds of showrunners around town are currently locked into multiyear pacts at one studio or another. Like all the major studios and many cable outfits, FX has sealed such arrangements with more than a dozen creatives, among them Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, the duo behind Emmy-nominated The Americans, and Donald Glover, the creator and star of Atlanta. From another perspective, heightened competition means indie producer-distributors have to provide all the value-added elements in their repertoire to entice and nurture toptier talent. Take indie player Sonar Entertainment, which is behind Mr. Mercedes (for AT&T Audience Network), The Son (for AMC) and The Hunt (for Amazon). “Given the saturation of the market and so many people clamoring to work in television, you can never allow yourself to get comfortable,” suggests Jenna Santoianni, the company’s executive VP of television series. She points to the creative environment that Sonar provides as a key factor allowing it to attract high-end talent
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Lee Daniels, whose drama Star, about aspiring singers, is now in its third season, recently signed a new overall deal to stay at 20th Century Fox Television. like David E. Kelley, Pierce Brosnan and Jordan Peele to its projects. Aside from the company’s history of acquiring high-end literary rights, Santoianni says it’s often “the small, simple things” that make a difference with creatives behind the lens. “We pride ourselves on providing quick responses to problems and thoughtful, specific notes to the producers; we often interface with the network or platform, so the showrunner doesn’t have to, and our own staff boasts a lot of production experience that can be brought to bear.”
“Yes, there is a polarity at work,” says Carmi Zlotnik, the president of programming at Starz. “We are operating in a highly competitive landscape and yet there is no monopoly on creativity.” One of his company’s approaches is to search out unheralded talent from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. To wit, Starz has invested time and resources in nurturing budding showrunners like Courtney Kemp on Power, Emma Frost on The Spanish Princess, Tanya Saracho on Vida and Stephanie Danler on Sweetbitter. “Mentoring is key to what we do at Starz,” Zlotnik explains, adding that the aim is to give
these newer talents “the building blocks” they need to excel. “We prefer to make stars rather than to buy them,” he quips, pointing to Kemp as someone who came to the company already with something fresh to say but then quickly picked up the process of running the writers’ room and the management skills to build a team and lead by example. “She’s the full package, in the John Wells tradition,” Zlotnik emphasizes. Power has been renewed for a sixth season, and Kemp enjoys an overall deal in the Lionsgate fold. New permutations of talent deals are taking place against a media backdrop that is being
TALENT FIRST Sonar, which is backed by private-equity firm Catalyst Capital Group, spends a fair amount on development and is highly flexible in its deal-making, Santoianni notes. While mostly opportunistic in its talent arrangements, it has inked a first-look deal with Team Downey, Robert Downey, Jr.’s company, for TV and digital projects; and Smokehouse Pictures, the venture founded by George Clooney and Grant Heslov. On how the choice of projects is affected by a company’s global ambitions, Fremantle’s Di Loreto has this to say: “I look at projects not as domestic or international in appeal but for the authenticity of their storytelling. The best ones are very specific, and, as such, have the best chance of resonating widely. You can’t make global hits based on financial modeling.” Di Loreto’s views dovetail nicely with those heard around the industry, though each executive World Screen queried approaches the current challenges differently.
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ZDF Enterprises continues to align with creators and producers across Europe after finding success with shows like the Scandinavian hit Bron/Broen (The Bridge). At Sky, for example, new courses in “unconscious bias” have been set up, and the company has pledged that by 2020, women will fill 50 percent of its senior ranks. The BBC recently took a lot of criticism regarding its gender pay gap at all levels of the corporation and is moving to remedy the disparity. Beyond these changes and challenges, some are concerned that too much content will eventually overload the system— to the point that some players may go to the wall, having spent too much on originals that don’t pan out or pay off. However, the overall expansion of scripted IP seems to be continuing, and the world’s appetite for new stories grows ever more voracious. “I don’t see the demand for good showrunners decreasing,” says producer Melvoin, “even though the job can be perilous and bewildering.” Sometimes, he and other producers note, there are too many cooks in the kitchen to contend with, the executives in charge don’t appreciate the dynamics of the writers’ room, the tone of the script veers off-key or the mood in the room shifts dramatically. Melvoin tells graduates at the WGA training program to focus on “delivering quality scripts on time” and “mastering the principles of management.” No matter what else they will confront in their showrunner careers, he advises, getting those two things right will stand Ruth Wilson is the star and exec producer of Mrs. Wilson from all3media. them in good stead.
roiled, especially Stateside, by unprecedented change, disruptive streamers, distracting mergers and corporate angst over fragmenting audiences and executive behavior. “The business is being discombobulated on a daily basis—FAANGs are eating away at traditional media’s lunch, studios are being forced to either gobble or be gobbled up, and everybody’s words and deeds can come under scrutiny at any time,” is how one producer describes the current dislocations in Hollywood.
WINDS OF CHANGE Several sources suggest that the most immediate (and perhaps easiest to implement) action companies are taking to address the behavioral issues that have surfaced over the last year is to make their hiring practices more rigorous. Still, in the wake of Leslie Moonves’s shocking exit from CBS Corporation, there are renewed calls for more forceful gender-equity commitments and stronger enforcement of antiharassment rules. “Paying lip service is not enough,” is how one longtime media player puts the need for more effective monitoring of the corporate workplace. At the same time, he observes, the “creative workspace” is a little different: writers’ rooms need to be relaxed enough for discussion to be freewheeling yet must not be allowed to devolve into an offensive or demeaning environment. “It’s one more tricky task that mostly falls to the showrunner: to set a tone so that everyone is on their
game but no one gets their nose out of joint,” the veteran player suggests. While the impact and repercussions of Hollywood’s #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have been more muted across the Atlantic, there is, especially in Britain, widespread soul-searching about the need to diversify staff and offer wage parity and equal opportunities to all.
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By Anna Carugati
years. Every time we start talking about it, I still get upset about Chicago Justice. The show should have never been canceled. WS: Why was it canceled? WOLF: It was a political decision, not a ratings decision, and I understood the decision. I had too much beachfront real estate on NBC.
hroughout a career spanning four decades, Dick Wolf has produced some of the most successful and longest-running series in television history. Law & Order was on the air for 20 years, and this year, Law & Order: SVU starts its 20th season. Chicago Fire first aired in 2012 and has since been followed by three other Chicago-based shows. FBI premiered this fall, and Wolf hopes that it, too, will become a franchise. In all his shows he maintains his signature approach to TV drama: conflict or life-and-death situations often wrapped in a moral dilemma.
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WS: How did Law & Order start? WOLF: In 1987 and 1988, you could not give away one-hour shows in syndication; nobody wanted them. They only wanted half-hour shows. The strike by the Writers Guild of America in 1988 exacerbated that; there was no development going on. So I was trying to come up with shows that could run either as halfhours or hours. We did Law & Order [structured as two half-hours: during the first half, a crime is investigated, and in the second half the suspect is prosecuted] and we also did a hospital show. Luckily, we never had to split them, because they wouldn’t have worked, but it would have been better than not getting them on the air at all. WS: How did SVU come about compared with how the Chicago franchise evolved? WOLF: SVU premiered nine years after Law & Order. It was not quick. It was not like Chicago, where all three shows were on in three or four
WS: What has given Law & Order: SVU its longevity? WOLF: Mariska Hargitay. I hate to be that simple, but it’s unprecedented. I don’t know of any show that went from a twohander with equals [two lead actors: Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler and Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson] to a single-lead drama, ever, and that’s all Mariska. The wonderful thing about SVU, specifically, is that the audience is renewed like clockwork every fall and expands because girls find SVU at 13, 14, 15 years old, and it becomes an obsession.
WOLF: Way overdue. It’s not a new story. As I’ve said, we’ve done [several] episodes on this show alone over the past 20 years that are directly on that point. The fact is, a percentage of men are absolute pigs. That’s just a reality. I don’t think the percentage has gone up. I think that it’s just talked about more and it is visible. [Some people have said,] “The casting couch has been around since entertainment began.” It’s an attitude that has [prevailed] throughout the [entertainment] industry—it’s not a new story. There is a subset of men who will be pigs; that’s, unfortunately, the real world we live in. WS: All your shows have tackled important issues. Now Chicago Med is as well. WOLF: The medicine in Chicago Med is really important and heavy and dynamic. [Some time ago] I was flying back to Chicago [where the Chicago shows are produced] with the showrunners, Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, and I said, “How do you guys know so much about
The Dick Wolf stable of shows continues to expand with Law & Order: Hate Crimes in the works for NBC, FBI on CBS and a slate of unscripted series.
WS: And there’s also honesty in the writing? WOLF: We try to tell the truth. That’s the bottom line. And some of the truths aren’t pretty.
medicine?” This is what I discovered that I didn’t know: Andy’s mother and father were both doctors and Diane’s first husband was a doctor. So I said, “Oh, OK, now I get it.” Chicago Med has insights that go beyond the disease protocols. S. Epatha Merkerson’s character, Dr. Sharon Goodwin, is at the crest point of money and care, and it’s a constant battle of who gets the money. There are horrible statistics with medical care in the United States: 90 percent of medical costs occur in the last year of life, so what should be spent on keeping people, who 20 years ago would have died, alive? It’s something that in the United States we obviously still haven’t dealt with properly; it’s a work in progress, but Dr. Goodwin gets to explain to ten million people every week why certain things happen the way they do.
WS: SVU is about sexual abuse and the victims. What are your thoughts on the #MeToo campaign?
WS: Would you have any more freedom if you were to do a show on a cable network or Netflix?
Boys not so much, but the girls buy into Mariska so completely as a spokesperson for them. It’s amazing; every year we get more teens. WS: Across all your shows, what are the most important qualities actors bring to their roles? WOLF: Honesty. Acting is being more honest than most people would care to be in terms of what they believe in, their emotions, and how they handle very, very upsetting situations. On all the shows, the drama is conflict, and the most important aspect of that conflict is being able to connect with the audience on an emotional level.
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WOLF: I can tell you exactly what the freedom would be. The one thing you can’t do on broadcast television is say “fuck.” Everything else is the same as it is on cable. I’d rather have the extra 14 episodes [of a broadcast network season] than say a word that is vastly overused and doesn’t really upset people anymore. We have never, in the 35 years I’ve been on NBC, been prevented from doing any story, because [we’re] dealing with issues that most shows don’t deal with. We get a pass. It really is a pass.
NBCUniversal’s Chicago P.D.
WS: What are the biggest decisions you have to make on your shows? WOLF: The biggest decision that I have to make is about crossovers; because the showrunners are all incredibly competent, [they handle the rest]. Mike Chernuchin is now running SVU. He started out as a staff writer on the first season of Law & Order. Most of the people who run multiple shows are still there, and these are relationships that are all more than 20 years old. It’s pretty extraordinary.
NBCUniversal’s Chicago Fire.
WS: Where did the idea for the crossover episodes come from? WOLF: The first two crossovers we ever did [were between] Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order. They’re a huge [amount of work]. But there will be crossovers [among the Chicago series] every year that these shows are on, because they are too much fun for me not to do! The Chicago shows are a continuing joy, and I’m amazed [at how close the casts are]. We always try to establish a family on each of the shows, because [there has to be an atmosphere of] mutual support. On the Law & Order shows there were no feuds, but I was amazed at the casts of the Chicago shows—they hang out together! WS: What other projects do you have in the works? WOLF: FBI [premiered] on CBS in September, and there are future chapters yet to be written on new shows, other potential crossover shows. It’s a very exciting period in television, generally, but I’m one of the last people doing traditional, mainstream network, 22-episode-order shows as opposed to cable, where you do eight.
NBCUniversal’s Chicago Med. CBS Studios International’s FBI.
WS: How did the move to CBS come about? WOLF: There was no more space on NBC. FBI is a joint production between Universal Television and CBS Television Studios. WS: How have you seen audience expectations change, and how do you satisfy those changes as you develop and produce shows? WOLF: Luckily, I’m in a position where I only make shows that I like. There is no need to do another series for the sake of doing it, but if you can do another one, and set up a base show that can be expanded on in the same way that, I hope, FBI will on CBS, [that’s great]. There are easily three shows based around FBI. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 115
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By Anna Carugati
challenging: you have to dream something up out of nothing, then execute it, deal with the studio and the network and production demands, and communicate to the actors who then have to perform it. You finish it, and you’re still dealing with post-production and then with critics and the audience. That can all be so demanding. The one thing young writers can bring to a room the most is enthusiasm and encouragement because it hasn’t been knocked out of them yet. Weirdly, I feel I’m in a place in my life and career where I can offer [enthusiasm] again and be as encouraging as possible to all the different people who have such herculean tasks.
reg Berlanti started his career in television as a staff writer on the hit teen drama Dawson’s Creek. In the third season, he was promoted to showrunner. Since then he has honed his skills at crafting intriguing stories, working with writers and actors, and balancing the needs of networks and studios. Today, he is one of the industry’s most prolific producers, overseeing more than a dozen series across linear and nonlinear platforms, including a stable of shows based on iconic DC Comics characters.
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WS: And many of your shows are on broadcast networks, each with 22 episodes. That is a lot. BERLANTI: Some of them are; some aren’t as long as they used to be. Our company made
WS: What atmosphere do you want in the writers’ rooms so that people feel free to share ideas and contribute to the creative process? BERLANTI: I’m not running any of the shows directly, but I’m working with the showrunners as though they are a writers’ room, in a sense. Very often I’ll work with individual showrunners and writers of a certain epi sode, or I’ll work with the writers’ room at certain key moments of the year, hearing the big pitches or hearing what they have in store. It’s about encouragement, and whenever you’re hearing a writer’s pitch, you are the first audience. I try to experience the story as though I’m an audience member and ask what would come to mind if I were experiencing that. I do try to separate out my production hat and let it be as creative an atmosphere as possible. If you put too many financial constrictions in terms of what we could afford, do or not do, you can hinder creativity. The job is so hard and
160 to 170 hours of TV last year. Assuming that we watch multiple cuts of each, or read multiple scripts of each, you’re talking about overseeing many thousands of hours of television.
type of person who can do it all themselves—I was not one of them. I didn’t realize how much I needed those around me to lean on and to collaborate with. WS: Have you seen the role of the showrunner evolve? BERLANTI: The job of the showrunner has gotten harder as all of these shows have gotten more expensive and bigger. [It used to be] on a network show, you would work until April at the most, and then you’d come back in June. It was almost like being a schoolteacher, because you’d get a couple of months off. Now you finish in May and you come back in May! You get one week at Christmas and a one-week hiatus between seasons. Part of that is driven entirely by audience demand for production values and the size and scope of these shows. More and more, the audience doesn’t see a difference between TV and film. They expect everything to look really good and
Greg Berlanti, who renewed his deal at Warner Bros. for a reported $400 million, is the most prolific executive producer in the U.S. today, with shows across network, cable and OTT.
WS: How steep was your learning curve when you became a showrunner on Dawson’s Creek? BERLANTI: The learning curve was very, very steep! I keep thinking my learning curve in this career is going to get less steep, but it keeps getting steeper. Every time you reach a new plateau, there is a new element to learn—that is part of why I love showrunning and this business. It’s been challenging for me. I learned very quickly that every showrunner is different and there is no one way to make a show. You have to be very open and knowledgeable and self-aware about what your strengths and weaknesses are. And it takes a village to pull one of these shows off. There is a once-in-a-generation 116 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
be exciting and big. So we are shooting for more days and we’re editing for more days. And we’re spending more money so we can compete in a marketplace where our shows are compared and contrasted with multihundred-million-dollar movies and other shows that may get twice our budget. And yet the audience [doesn’t distinguish between the two]. There’s not a budget that runs at the bottom of the screen [during episodes of shows]. They want all of them to look great. So you are working more hours to meet those demands. The job has definitely gotten more cumbersome. [It] used to be a universe where there was one de facto chief. Now there are many chiefs in charge; maybe one’s running production, one’s running the story room; it’s more dependent on multiple leaders. For more from Greg Berlanti, see page 368.
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By Mansha Daswani
takes you to other worlds! It’s almost genetically engineered to be the best piece of dramatic forbidden fruit for kids and family! That’s what I always loved about it. It always felt slightly scary, slightly more adventurous and slightly more intelligent than other things you would watch at that age. That’s the exciting thing about the show and what always inspired me to love it. Now, as showrunner, I am trying to keep those values of being thrilling for everybody from 4 to 104; it’s the most inclusive drama in the entire world. You really can watch it with everyone and different people will take different things from it.
hris Chibnall has been in the news a lot lately—that’s what happens when you take on responsibility for one of the most beloved franchises in television history. The first season of Doctor Who with Chibnall as the showrunner premieres this fall with Jodie Whittaker embodying the iconic time-traveler—the first time the role has gone to a woman. Chibnall, who rose to prominence with the twisty crime hit Broadchurch, is excited to bring his stamp to a treasured British institution.
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WS: At what point did you decide you wanted to write? Has Doctor Who opened up possibilities for you of what storytelling could be? CHIBNALL: Yes, my first memories of being alive are of watching Doctor Who! It’s ingrained in me and built into my DNA. I was a fan of it in my teens, and I started to think about being a writer when I was 17, 18. That wasn’t connected to Doctor Who, but it built out of that love of drama. I did a drama degree at university and then I started to write for fringe theater. Doctor Who was the first piece of any kind of drama that connected with me. I suppose that’s the amazing thing about Doctor Who. When we talk about the universal appeal of the show, it’s because for some children—and I started watching it at 4 or 5, in Tom Baker’s first year—it’s kind of forbidden when you are 4 or 5. There is nothing better when you are 4 or 5 than a forbidden thing that is slightly scary, slightly funny and slightly mad that
WS: You wrote several Doctor Who episodes while Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies were showrunners. What were some of the things you learned from how they worked with their writers?
make sure there is representation on the writing team and open the door to the next generation of writers. WS: Do you prefer if viewers watch once a week or binge through a bunch of episodes all at once? CHIBNALL: Number one, I’m just happy for the work to be enjoyed! That always feels like a bonus [and an] extra level of privilege! I’ve had both experiences. The last show I did, which was Broadchurch, for ITV in the U.K., played once a week, Monday night, all three seasons. It did become that watercooler show, and we ended with 12 million people watching the very final episode. That was a joyous thing, so I love the communal experience of a live transmission and feeling that everyone is watching the same thing at the same time. That is amazing. Having said that, I know in America the response we’ve had is that everyone has watched Broadchurch all in one go, bingeing
A lifelong Doctor Who fan, Chris Chibnall was tapped to take on oversight of the iconic British sci-fi series after wrapping up his hit show Broadchurch. CHIBNALL: They didn’t have writers’ rooms. It was much more the British way of working, which was how both of them ran it when I was writing. They gave you a line or an idea and said, Go away, work it up; send us an outline. You’d do an outline and then you’d go to script. It was very different from the American system. We are running it slightly differently from that. It’s a hybrid of the British and American systems. I get a little bit superstitious about talking about it, because we have devised our own hybrid process. I almost feel as if the walls of the room are slightly sacrosanct! And if you describe [the process] it becomes locked and fixed in and people say, Oh, that’s how they work! [But] it’s so fluid and so dependent on the writer and the day and the story. What I aim to do is create a production that is collegiate and collaborative where everybody feels, hopefully, a part of it. I wanted to bring in a lot of new writers to the show and 118 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
it on Netflix. It had its first run on BBC America and they did it once a week. As a showrunner, you can’t control it. All you’re trying to do is make people come back for the next episode. Whether they are watching once a week [saying], We have to be sitting here next Monday at 9 p.m., or they are saying, Just one more episode before we go to bed, even though it’s 2 a.m., your job is really to keep [them] watching. And keep people compelled to your story. So I’m agnostic, to be honest. What’s great is that I’m not sure you have to choose nowadays. In the U.K. and on BBC America, Doctor Who is going to go out once a week, but I know, come the end of the season, we’re going to box-set it and it will end up on all kinds of platforms all around the world. I hope the first transmission has a watercooler feel to it. For more from Chris Chibnall, see page 374.
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WS_1018_CSQA_SHORE_WSN_1006_ZUIKER 9/28/18 12:17 PM Page 1
By Anna Carugati
SHORE: After I had written the pilot, I got together with Freddie and our directors, and that’s all we talked about—this portrayal [of an autistic doctor with savant syndrome]. What can go wrong with it, what do we need to respect, how do we avoid clichés, how do we make this real, how do we make him honest? We had a wonderful, wonderful meeting.
e gave us Dr. Gregory House, the brilliant but misanthropic diagnostician in House. Now David Shore is offering viewers another medical genius, but one of an entirely different ilk: Dr. Shaun Murphy, an autistic surgeon with savant syndrome. Based on a Korean show of the same name, The Good Doctor focuses not on an antihero, but on a young doctor, played by Freddie Highmore, trying to overcome challenges and perfect his skills despite his blunt way of communicating. The series allows Shore to once again delve into complex, flawed characters trying to do their best.
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WS: How did you get involved in The Good Doctor? SHORE: I watched the Korean show! I didn’t realize at the time that Daniel Dae Kim [an executive producer on The Good Doctor] had the rights to it. But a couple of people told me, You should watch this show. I did! I did the smart thing and listened to them. WS: And you kept some elements from the original? SHORE: I did. I kept a fair bit from the original and I changed a decent amount. After the pilot, we diverged and went our own way, but I owe a great debt to the Korean pilot. I thought it was a wonderful show. WS: At what point did Freddie Highmore come on board, and how did you work with him to craft the character of Dr. Shaun Murphy?
WS: So much of Shaun’s communication and Freddie’s performance is nuanced, and a lot of it is nonverbal. Is that more difficult to deal with both in writing and acting? SHORE: It is more difficult. There are certain advantages, because Shaun can certainly make blunt statements that other characters might not be able to make. I think it is trickier. There are a lot of ways it could go wrong. There are a lot of ways it could be misunderstood. Freddie is brilliant because he doesn’t show us a lot but we get it. We almost always
WS: I understand that Freddie has joined the writers’ room and has written the first episode of season two. How did that come about? SHORE: From the beginning, Freddie told me he was interested in being a producer and he very much is one on the show. And from the beginning, he said he wanted to do some writing and some directing; he likes to get involved in every aspect of the show. He came down to L.A. for a little while and met with the writers, and we helped him craft a storyline for the first episode, and he wrote our first episode. WS: How do you create an atmosphere in the writers’ room where everybody feels free to share ideas? SHORE: I think people feel free to share ideas if you respond to them with respect. That doesn’t mean I’m going to like every one of them—they may not all be good. But if you value the people in the room and let them
David Shore is offering audiences another take on the medical drama genre with The Good Doctor, focusing on a surgeon with savant syndrome. understand Shaun and root for him and sympathize and empathize. But with any character, you have to be honest and realistic, and that is always a challenge. WS: I’ve heard from some actors that creatively it’s more challenging to make a good guy interesting. And yet Shaun is so compelling. Is it more challenging to make Shaun interesting compared to an antihero or a bad guy? SHORE: First of all, no! If you go with bad guys or larger-than-life characters, they give an actor and the writers something to sink their teeth into and have fun with. But I think that sometimes that’s a bit of a cheat. The more interesting characters ultimately are regular people, capable of greatness, who are flawed and have to overcome their own flaws somehow, and that’s pretty much all of us. And that’s what makes Shaun a wonderful character. 120 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
know in some way that they are valued, then they will contribute. I expect them to contribute. The other side of that coin is that if they don’t contribute, I don’t want them in the room! There’s no hierarchy in the room. I guess that is disingenuous; the writers would laugh at that! I’m at the top. [Laughs] If I don’t like something, it’s not going to happen, and if I do like something, it’s probably going to happen. But I like all the writers in my room, and I want to hear from all of them. They all have good ideas, and that’s all that matters. WS: How do you strike a balance between The Good Doctor’s procedural element and having episodes with continuing storylines? SHORE: There is a procedural core, and there is a huge character element to the show and ongoing arcs to those characters. I always believe in doing both of them at the same time. Whenever we come up with a medical
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Sony Pictures Television’s The Good Doctor.
idea, the first question to ask is how this story will allow us to reveal something about Dr. Murphy or Dr. Browne or Dr. Melendez. So the purpose of the medical story is to help us reveal character. We do have a nice medical story in there that has a resolution, neither a good or a bad resolution, but a resolution in most episodes, but that story serves a larger purpose, which is to give rise to issues that help us explore our characters. WS: Did you know at the beginning of season one that Dr. Glassman, played by Richard Schiff, would be very ill by the end of the season? SHORE: Yes, I did. I got with Richard briefly at the beginning, and he figured out that’s what I was thinking, and I confirmed that’s what I was thinking. I also knew that Shaun was going to make mistakes as he was going along; he had to. We all do. We are human beings; we make mistakes. I didn’t want him to be perfect. That was important to me when I pitched the show to the network. I wanted to be honest in the portrayal of this man and all his weaknesses. I also knew that by the end of the year I wanted [him to make] a major mistake, but it was important that he have a reason for [the mistake], that he have something distract him, and Glassman’s illness serves as a distraction.
WS: At the start of season two, how much did you know about the storylines, and how much reveals itself in the writers’ room as the season progresses? SHORE: There is a lot I don’t know. I know I want to explore Dr. Glassman’s illness and the treatment of the illness, the setbacks and the victories. So I want the whole season to be taken up with that. I know I want Shaun to grow a little bit in many ways [even if he has] setbacks. But there is so much I don’t know that we discover in the room as we go along. WS: While Dr. House was brilliant but often cruel, Shaun is brilliant but so humane. What appealed to you about this different approach to a medical drama? SHORE: That’s exactly what did. Shaun is asking similar questions to House but from a more innocent point of view. When you write a character on a TV show, you live with that character almost as much as the actor does. You take that character home with you. I loved Dr. House and I loved living with him for eight years. I’m hoping that living with an optimistic character, a more positive character, is better for my soul. It can be a burden sometimes, but I’m hoping this will make me a better person. 122 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
WS: Have you received any reaction from the autism community? SHORE: I think they were very leery of us beforehand. I don’t want to speak for all [people with autism], just for this character. What we’ve been hearing has been very gratifying. We’ve gotten a lot of letters, a lot of powerful stories. We’ve heard about the impact the show has had on individuals with autism. WS: What would Dr. House think of Dr. Murphy? SHORE: I like that question a lot! I hadn’t been asked that question before and I hadn’t thought about it before. I think Dr. House would like Dr. Murphy. I think Dr. House would be fascinated by him; he would be impressed with his skills but, most of all, Dr. Murphy would prove a challenge to Dr. House because I don’t think all of Dr. House’s usual techniques for getting under somebody’s skin and exposing their weaknesses would work on Dr. Murphy. I think he’d find his honesty refreshing. I think he’d like him. WS: Wasn’t one of the ideas behind House that everybody tells lies? I don’t think Shaun lies that much, does he? SHORE: He doesn’t lie well!
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By Mansha Daswani
ajor changes are in store on The Walking Dead as it heads into its ninth season on AMC in the U.S. and FOX around the world. The survivors of the zombie apocalypse are living in a world that is running increasingly short on resources. The core group that the show has been following since day one is about to lose its leader, Rick Grimes, as the star Andrew Lincoln prepares to return home to the U.K. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the series—based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novels—has a new showrunner in Angela Kang, a longtime fan of the comics who has been with The Walking Dead since season two.
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WS: What can you tell us about the overall theme of the new season? KANG: Season nine starts in a world that looks kind of different from when we left it. We start with a time jump—we’re about a year and a half after the end of the previous season. That’s a bigger jump than we’ve done before between seasons. And we get to tell some new kinds of stories as a result, which is really fun and exciting. We see that our characters are actively dealing with the world around them changing as resources dwindle. They’ve scavenged all the gas that’s usable nearby, so what do you do next? They’ve turned to [riding] horses and they’re making biofuels. They’re conserving their bullets more and creating and relying on different hand weapons, which means closer combat with the zombies, and that can be a little bit scarier. So those kinds of things are happening.
They’re dealing with infrastructure around them falling and crumbling and nature taking over. That provides some new challenges for them to deal with. And on a human level, you have people who have been at war for so long, fighting for daily survival, coming up against these human groups and these extended conflicts. They start in a time of relative peace, but now you have characters who are really thinking about their philosophies going forward and you see some conflict and divergence on that front. These are people who love each other very deeply but fundamentally disagree about some things. What does that do to that family they’ve built as they’re all trying to rebuild something that feels like civilization? That’s one of the big themes of this season: who are we as a civilization? How do you rebuild civilization? Does civilization even matter? Can you rebuild something that we once knew or do you have
has a ton of fans of his own from different kinds of material. We’re excited to show our first female villain; she has a unique role in this world. WS: Andrew Lincoln has confirmed that he’s exiting this season. I know we can’t discuss his final episodes, but could you talk about how you’ve prepared for his departure, given the huge role he’s played since season one? KANG: We’ve known for a while that Andy needs to go home to his family. He’s the loveliest person to work with. He was so welcoming to me from the beginning of my time on the show, and the work we did together this season has been so gratifying and satisfying. He’s such a good person who cares so deeply about The Walking Dead. We love him and we’re a family behind the scenes. All we can focus on is trying to tell the very best story we can, one that does service to this character, that gives him amazing material to work on. It’s been really fun writing scenes with him and a lot of these
Angela Kang has been with The Walking Dead since season two and has taken leadership of the show as it prepares for the biggest cast and storyline changes since its launch. to start over in a new way entirely? Those are some of the stories we’ll be telling over the course of the season. We had a lot of war in the all-out-war story [in season eight], so we start with [the ninth season] on a different axis. WS: And there’s a new villain for this season. KANG: The new villain! One of the most anticipated storylines from the comic books— certainly one that I’ve been anticipating—is the story of The Whisperers. Comic-book fans will know exactly what that means. For fans who don’t want the story spoiled, I won’t say too much about it—other than, if you’re really curious, you can read it in the comic book! It’s a storyline that makes our people question whether everything they knew about zombies is actually true, or if there’s something new that they’re learning. Samantha Morton is an amazing actor that we’re so excited to have join us this season [as Alpha]. And we cast Ryan Hurst to play Beta. He’s incredible and 124 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
characters that he’s been with for many years on the show. Because of where we are in the story, we’re able to tell some stories with our characters working together. WS: You’ve gone from story editor in season two to now running one of the biggest shows in television. Tell us about that journey. KANG: It’s been crazy and amazing! [Laughs] I had just read every issue of the comic before I was ever up for a job on the show. I loved the first season, and when the previous show I was on didn’t get [renewed], I had said this would be my dream job. It’s really satisfying to work on a show for a long stretch, because it’s fun to write for characters who get to change over time. And, at the same time, it’s been really gratifying to get to grow on this show myself as a writer and a manager, and to pick up all the skills that it takes to run the show. I think that most showrunners would say you don’t know everything—
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AMC & Fox Networks Group’s The Walking Dead. you’re constantly learning things. Making a show is by nature a collaborative process. There are so many different people who have to bring their unique skills to it. A lot of times I feel like I’m a cheerleader for people. Sometimes it feels like herding cats and sometimes it feels like you’re just sitting back and marveling at the things that other people have brought to the table and going, I never thought about that! When you’re a lower-level writer, it can be scary and intimidating, because you’re with writers who have so much more experience with the story. It’s an interesting change to realize, Oh, now I’m the person who it seems like knows much more. But we’re all still just striving to tell a great story. You never feel like you’re doing it quite right—all you can do is do it with passion and hopefully with kindness to the other people you work with. That’s the fun part. WS: There are so many storylines and settings within The Walking Dead. How do you manage your writers’ room and all of those different story arcs? KANG: Before the season even started, I had a lot of conversations with Scott Gimple [the former showrunner, now the chief content officer for the franchise], since he’s overseeing the universe. I had been reading the comics, but I reread the section that we’re working on now for inspiration. There were general conversations about what themes are interesting, what section of the story do we tell. And then I dove in with some of my senior writers for a few days. We started very loosely talking about things once I had an overall shape for the season. And then from there, we brought in everybody. I have some new hires this year that I think are doing
amazing work. And then we dive into it! We ask ourselves a lot of questions along the way and we try to look at the story. When we get into a section where we’re like, “Ugh, we’ve done a story like this before,” we look at how we can do it differently. I keep trying to challenge our room. If we’ve done a version of this type of story, is there a new way we can approach it? My approach to this season has really been wanting to play with time, with pace and with mystery. How can we really make it feel like every episode has something that’s a “holy shit” moment that propels the plot forward? How can we have things that you think you know the answer to but don’t? I also wanted to delve into some of the longstanding relationships we’ve had on the show and see how time has changed people. And how opinions can diverge and yet there can still be love and respect. Those were some of the story priorities we had this year. WS: How has the relationship between the show and the graphic novel evolved over the years? KANG: The array of characters who are in the comic versus the show has gotten more and more different over time. Daryl doesn’t exist in the comic, and he’s a major part of the show. There are characters who outlived their show counterpart or vice versa. So over time it’s become harder to do a literal adaptation of anything. But the adaptation has never been very literal. Robert Kirkman used to be in the room with us a lot early on in the run of the series, and he’d go, “I wrote that when I was like a kid; I would do that differently now!” He’s the one who challenged us to find the most exciting ways to adapt the material. So he gave us a lot of leeway and freedom, and 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 125
that was gratifying. He understands that the mediums are different. That being said, there are certain things that he just nailed perfectly in the comics! What we want most of all is for viewers of the show who are also readers of the comics, when they see a moment on screen that is adapted from the comic, to feel the way they did when they saw the comic. To feel the sense of surprise or shock or delight or grief. That’s our guiding principle as we adapt what’s in the comic. But of course there are great characters and great plot threads, so we’re going to steal everything we can that helps us along the way! [Laughs] It’s an evolving process. WS: I have to ask you about social because it’s a show that gets live-tweeted a lot. Do you pay attention to real-time fan responses or do you try to tune it out? KANG: It would be a lie to say that I’m not aware of it at all. There’s no way to not be aware of it. And I do go on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. But I don’t seek out too much of the feedback, mainly because my days are packed with actual work! And then when I’m not working, I fill them with my family. Social media can be fun and it can also waste time in ways that can hurt your heart and not help with what you’re doing. I do hear about some of the noise. Some of the comments that are repeated a lot do come to the forefront. It’s just that for the sake of time and my own mental health, I’m not usually watching a live feed of comments. You can lose hours going down a rabbit hole of what people are saying in real time. My husband is actively on Reddit in sub-threads and will go, “People are saying this,” and I’m like, “You don’t have to tell me!”
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By Anna Carugati
he novelist Tom Clancy enthralled readers around the world with his multilayered thrillers based on realworld events. Several of his books were adapted into films, including The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, all centering on Jack Ryan, a former U.S. Marine and history professor who joins the CIA. Carlton Cuse, the creator of numerous TV series, including Lost and Bates Motel, teamed up with Graham Roland to write and produce Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan for Amazon. While made for the small screen, it has the look and feel of a feature film.
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WS: How did the idea to make Jack Ryan as a series instead of a feature film come about? CUSE: The truth was, this was a moribund franchise at Paramount. The last movie, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, didn’t work. I think they had done the calculus internally that between production and marketing costs it wasn’t viable for them to make any more movies. They gave the franchise to the TV division. The TV division approached us and we jumped at the opportunity. I had read eight Clancy books as a fan, and one of the defining qualities of them was that these eight 1,000-page books just couldn’t be reduced to a two-hour movie. But the idea that you could do something like that in eight hours felt much truer to the essence of what Tom Clancy was all about. Graham and I started trying to adapt one of the books, and after a month we bailed on it, basically feeling it was dated. The more we talked, the more we were able to [pinpoint] those things
that we felt were the reasons why Tom Clancy had sold millions of books. And one was that he told geopolitical thrillers of the time. So to adapt one of the books didn’t make sense because they felt dated. He also had a mosaic storytelling style, which is less apparent in the movies because there is this imperative to go from A to Z in two hours. But we had the luxury in eight hours of being able to do that kind of storytelling. We could introduce a character like the one played by Dina Shihabi (Hanin, the wife of a terrorist), and follow her story and watch the points she crosses through Jack Ryan’s main story. That was exciting for us. There is also this high-quality authenticity to Clancy’s world, and you walk away from those books not only having had a great thrill ride but knowing a lot about everything from how the intelligence services work to antisubmarine warfare to the functioning of
WS: What kind of creative freedoms do you have producing for a streaming service as opposed to a linear channel? CUSE: The big difference is that the Amazon business model is not the same as a broadcastnetwork model. Amazon is making shows to get more people to sign up for Prime memberships. They also have the resources to make a show at a scale and scope that we wouldn’t have been able to do for cable or broadcast. We made something that is very filmic because we had the time and the money to do that. WS: And you don’t have to worry about commercial breaks. CUSE: Commercial breaks or content or dropping F-bombs. There is an innate artificiality to the construct of how television is made. And it ranges from the artificiality of telling a story from start to finish in 42 minutes on broadcast to having to work around ad breaks to limiting what characters can say and do, to Standards and Practices’ constraints. There are other limitations
Best known for his work on Lost and Bates Motel, Carlton Cuse was enlisted to reboot Tom Clancy’s CIA agent Jack Ryan for a new generation of viewers on Amazon. jet aircraft. So authenticity was an important part of our series. We spent a lot of time with CIA officers, both current and retired, people in the military, other members of the government intelligence community, trying to get it right. At its core, Jack Ryan is about this moral character. After a bunch of spy stories about antiheroes like Jack Bauer [24] and Carrie Mathison [Homeland], the time was right to tell a story with a heroic character at the center. Graham and I saw this as a contemporary prequel in a certain way. Our version of the Jack Ryan character, played by John Krasinski, is a little bit earlier than the one that we see in The Hunt for Red October. He’s an analyst. He has only been working for the CIA for four years. He’s in the very early part of his career, and we watch the transformation from being a guy who works in a cubicle and writes reports to someone who is now having his first taste of what it’s like to be in the field. 126 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
imposed by the fact that you have to shoot an episode every eight days. And there are limitations imposed by budget. If you think about it, most of the constraints that [require] television to fit into a certain box were lifted by doing a show for a streaming service. WS: How has the showrunner’s role changed? CUSE: Across my career, showrunners have gone from being anonymous to being auteurs, like directors in film. Nobody knew television writers or producers. Maybe Steven Bochco was the only exception. Now a lot of attention is put on the creators of shows. I think it’s great, because what comes with that is also a greater degree of creative freedom. It means that it’s easier to fight off those attempts that sometimes happen in the development of projects across networks to sand off the rough edges, take out the things that are interesting. The kind of storytelling and narrative expression that is possible in television right now is unparalleled—it’s fantastic.
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By Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari
hen the Spanish series La casa de papel, created by Álex Pina, premiered on Antena 3 in 2017, viewership was modest. But when it launched globally on Netflix last year as Money Heist, it gained devoted fans around the world, becoming the streaming service’s most-watched non-English-language series. It tells the story of a group of robbers who don red jumpsuits and Salvador Dalí masks and, led by a diabolically brilliant professor, take over the Royal Mint of Spain and get their hostages to print billions of euros.
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WS: What does it mean to you that Money Heist has become the most-watched nonEnglish-language series in the history of Netflix? PINA: It was totally unexpected. We made a small series in Spain and look at what it has become! It is very exciting that the series has a global reach through Netflix. We created a series that somehow touches upon moral ambiguity. We changed the moral and ethical focus of the characters and we also worked with the viewers’ empathy. In other words, we presented them with situations in which they probably wouldn’t have liked to be involved themselves or they [empathized] with characters like Berlin, who is very complicated. WS: What was your inspiration for Money Heist? Did the recent financial crisis in Europe that impacted Spain so strongly influence the story in some way?
PINA: I love stories about the perfect heist; it’s such an entertaining genre. I thought about moving the genre, which only existed in feature films, to serialized fiction. This presented us with many challenges because we had to maintain an internal flow of time in regards to how the series was structured, the moment when one episode ends and the other begins. Thanks to this, viewers got that flashback feeling and the characters grew significantly. Many times in a feature film you’re left wanting more because the story absorbs almost all of the narrative time, but a series allows you to expand the characters. In this sense, Money Heist allowed us to include a vision of what you touched upon—the disappointment there is in Europe after the financial crisis. And not only in Europe, but also in Latin America. So the series allowed us to add that certain level of skepticism that exists
WS: The format for TV fiction in Spain is 70-minute episodes, while for Netflix, the series was adapted to episodes between 40 and 50 minutes long. How will that affect the narrative for the new season? Will you have a bigger budget to present more complex narratives? PINA: In regards to the duration, we began working with 70-minute episodes and turned them into 45 minutes in post-production. A lot of work was done in post-production because, logically, the endings for each episode didn’t coincide and had to be adapted. It’s a very complex task. I like the 45-minute format better now that we’re working on it for El embarcadero, just as you’ll see for the third season of Money Heist for Netflix. I’m passionate about the format and it’s how I watch my favorite series. WS: What do you think has made Money Heist so appealing to global audiences? PINA: First of all, there’s an immediate visual element that has to do with the Dalí masks
Money Heist is the most-streamed foreignlanguage series on Netflix, which has now sealed a first-look deal with the show’s creator and executive producer, Álex Pina. against governments, central banks and immigration policies. Many things are happening that have made people think and be disappointed in the people that control or govern the world. This is present in the series, together with that moral ambiguity. WS: What have been your major creative influences? PINA: Perhaps the most important influence present in Money Heist is Breaking Bad, the series that in some way changed the way we work and write. After Breaking Bad aired, we did Vis a vis (Locked Up) and Money Heist, as well as El embarcadero (The Pier) for Movistar+. In the three shows, you can see the constant change and moral ambiguity in the characters. In the end, we’re all two different people, two different things, two concepts of right and wrong. Everyone has that duality, and I think that this is what we’ve continued to work on. 128 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
and red jumpsuits. The characters have an iconic identity that causes a very strong response, and when you see an image of the series, you know it’s Money Heist. People are entertained by the series and they’re noticing that we’re making their empathy for the characters constantly change. There’s Berlin and there’s Tokyo, who is very impulsive, although sometimes she’s affectionate and people love her. These changes are a big surprise for viewers and so they watch with anticipation. When characters are so rich in evoking emotions, people get hooked. WS: What can you tell us about the third season? PINA: We’ve been locked inside the Royal Mint of Spain, and sometimes I miss getting out for a little air. I think we’ll be traveling this time around, showing some incredible locations. Visually, people are going to love this season.
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By Anna Carugati
nervous. I was a huge fan of hers and I was trying to capture the book, I wasn’t trying to move away from it. But she was lovely, encouraging, enthusiastic and funny. We spoke a lot to get to know each other. I am in as close touch as her schedule will allow. I very much feel I’m playing in her sandbox, so letting her know what I’m thinking, and her letting me know what she’s thinking of particular parts of the show, are essential to doing the show.
argaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, about the brutal, violent patriarchy of the Republic of Gilead and its subjugation of women, has attracted legions of fans. It has been re-created as a feature film, a play, an opera and a ballet, but it wasn’t until 2017 that the television adaptation premiered. Given the current political climate, its themes of power, gender, religion, revolt and escaping to Canada have resonated strongly with viewers. The series drew high critical acclaim and won several Emmy Awards, including statuettes for actors Elisabeth Moss and Ann Dowd and showrunner Bruce Miller.
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WS: How did you become involved in the project, and how did you collaborate with Margaret Atwood on the first season? MILLER: I had read the book when I was in college, and it had always been a favorite of mine. I had heard that they were making it into a TV show years ago, so I had been tracking it, just as a fan of the book, waiting for it to come out—but it didn’t. As my career moved along, I [continued to check] and at one point the package that had been put together of writer and studio had moved. They were looking for a showrunner and a writer, but they were looking for a woman, and I’m not one. I waited very patiently and they finally were kind enough to allow me in to talk about what I would do with the show. It moved well from there. It wasn’t until after I had written the first episode that I sent something to Margaret. She read the first episode and I was very
WS: How have you worked with the writers in season two to stay faithful to the novel but at the same time move the story forward? And has the collaboration with Margaret Atwood continued? MILLER: The collaboration certainly has continued. Margaret reads every outline, every script. She watches every episode. She tells us what she thinks. Most of the time she is more encouraging and enthusiastic for us
WS: How did you decide on the tone and the look for the series? Some of the shots and scenes are so beautiful and at the same time so brutal. How did you achieve that? MILLER: That’s exactly what I was hoping to achieve. When I started, I was looking around at movies and TV shows to see if there was something that I wanted it to look like. The first operating principle was that it had to feel like a real world, because if it doesn’t, it’s not scary. [Second], Gilead wants everything to be beautiful on purpose; they are trying to make everything look perfect. I wanted that aesthetic, because it was such a part of the story and the environment—it looks beautiful, but it’s awful. It wasn’t just all these beautiful houses and streets and wardrobe and how everything looks so perfect, it was also the hangings. So I was looking around for a style that fit that was very grounded but could also be very beautiful and did that on a very simple level. It’s really Reed Morano, who directed the first three episodes, and Colin Watkinson, our
Hulu inked a first-look deal with Bruce Miller following the success of The Handmaid ’s Tale, which made it the first OTT service to land an Emmy for outstanding drama series. to divert from the original material than we are, because she is in a unique position of having had her work adapted, especially this work. It’s been an opera, a ballet, a play and a movie. I think she is much more comfortable with us changing things than we are. All the writers are very familiar with the book, and we try to hew closely to the tone of the Atwood world, where it’s so violent to the point of absurdity. We’re still very much following that map. In the first season, we invented events and moved things around from the book, and that got our feet wet for staking out some original territory. A TV show and a book are different things, so you have to make changes to bring it to life on TV. It’s the genuine affection that writers have for the book that keeps us on track. No one is interested in moving away from it; we would love to keep circling back and keep landing in the same world that Margaret created. 130 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
DP [director of photography], who created that look. And we are still creating it. In every episode, every scene, we’re asking, What is the aesthetic message? Is this a beautiful place? We think about the visuals a lot. It’s all in service of making it feel scarier. WS: What is the atmosphere in the writers’ room, considering the extremely dark nature of the stories? Do you bring that darkness home or are you able to disconnect? MILLER: The environment in our writers’ room is wonderful—lovely, respectful and congenial, but also very funny. I know it seems strange, but because we are dealing with such dark subjects, you get to know people very well, because the stories come from people’s own lives and are about how they feel about things. There is definitely the feeling that we are using our imaginations; we’re not putting ourselves in these situations on a momentby-moment basis, because that would be too
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MGM’s The Handmaid’s Tale. horrible. We are very attached to our characters and even more attached to our actors, especially when you have Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski or Joseph Fiennes, all these wonderful actors, and you believe they are going through all this trauma. Even though they are breezy about it and are doing their work and are funny, it’s still tough to watch our friend Elisabeth Moss go through this stuff on screen. So you feel for the actors who have to bring all that stuff even though they don’t have an issue with it. In terms of bringing it home, I don’t feel like I come home from work with all of this truly misogynistic, nightmarish, violent horror and bring it into my life. After talking about it and thinking about it all day long, I’m trying very hard not to get desensitized by it. You don’t want to bring it home. You don’t want to keep thinking about it. You want to make sure that it stays terrible. WS: Has the current political climate influenced the storytelling? MILLER: You can’t avoid letting the things happening in the world influence you when you are writing. You wouldn’t want to. It would be a fool’s errand to say I’m not going to have my head in the present when I’m writing a political story and a story about misogyny and violence and all of these things we are going through now. The fact that these political discussions are becoming so personal is helpful for us, because people are much more outspoken about how they feel and what they are afraid of. Even if what they feel or what they are afraid of is terrible, they are very outspoken
about it. So in some ways, people exposing their darker side helps me understand how they think. When people feel comfortable verbalizing things, it helps me understand points of view that I don’t have and that I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable verbalizing. In general, writers, actors and directors are a newsfocused bunch, engaged in the world, so there is a lot of conversation about that. I never try to draw specific parallels or try to take something that is happening and put it in the show. It’s just not the way the show works. We follow the story and it does lead to the same place [as events in the news] sometimes. WS: Do you have in mind how many more seasons you can do and how much more story there is to tell? MILLER: In some ways, it’s a testament to Margaret that there is an infinite amount of stories to tell. I would watch 45 seasons about the fall of Gilead and the Nuremberg trials of Serena and Fred, and the academic study and archaeology of Gilead—you could go on forever. That’s what Margaret’s worlds have in them, infinity. But my feeling about the show is I would like to make something that is beautiful and meaningful and neat—a companion to go on your shelf next to the book. As for how many years this is supposed to go, I don’t think about it that way. I think of story chunks. I certainly don’t want to wear out our welcome and don’t want the quality of the show to suffer. So as long as we can be doing excellent work and expanding the world of the novel, I’m very excited to keep doing that. I would like at some point, on our own terms, 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 131
to wrap things up cleanly and neatly, out of respect for the source material and our audience. One of the things I like about the show is that we are able to have moments that are incredibly satisfying. You build up to them for so long that when they finally happen it really is a [high] level of satisfaction at the end. That is what you’re shooting for. WS: What can you tell us about season three? Is Aunt Lydia dead? MILLER: Aunt Lydia is not dead. In fact, when I sent the script to Ann Dowd [who plays Aunt Lydia], the subject line of the script was “Aunt Lydia is not dead!” She certainly is injured and has to reassess her relationship with these girls who she thought loved her so much and respected her—how could they possibly stab her in the back like that? Bradley Whitford will be back to be central to the story. We’ll see in flashback June’s mom, hopefully, and we’re going to continue to follow the story both in Toronto and Gilead. We’re continuing the story of survival, the story of fighting back, which is much more of what season three is about, and the story of motherhood and family and what it means to be a mother. That’s really what the whole show is about. The whole world of Gilead is about the complicated and elemental terror that a society would have if its birthrate fell 80 percent in a year. It’s basic human terror that you get to feeling like the last generation of a species, which drives people to do incredibly interesting things. That drive has kept us moving forward from the very beginning and will continue to drive us.
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By Kristin Brzoznowski
n a relatively short period, the Italian production company Wildside has built up a reputation as one of Europe’s most sought-after drama producers. Cofounder Lorenzo Mieli is keen to employ the same auteur-led approach that has been present in Italian cinema for decades to Wildside’s TV projects, and in doing so has brought fresh voices to the television landscape and many high-profile projects to boot. This includes working with the Oscar-winning film director Paolo Sorrentino on his first-ever TV series, The Young Pope, and the upcoming The New Pope, with Mieli serving as producer on both. The film director Saverio Costanzo is bringing the acclaimed Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante to TV, starting with My Brilliant Friend, which Mieli is also producing.
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WS: Given your experience with international co-productions, what have you learned about satisfying the needs of several broadcasters while maintaining the vision of the series’ creator? MIELI: The first real international production that I did was The Young Pope. We wanted it to be international, but we didn’t want it to be international in the way that co-productions were built in the ’90s and early 2000s—the days of the “Europudding.” Usually, at least in Italy, producers sign deals with broadcasters in the very early stages of development to mitigate risk, thus giving away sovereignty (and ownership) over the project. But when all the partners are part of the development, the process becomes full of compromises and strange outcomes.
I felt that the best way to avoid this was to take on 100 percent of the risk in the development: we put forward the investment to attach Paolo Sorrentino, to write all the teleplays and to cast Jude Law. With all of this together, we went to the broadcasters and said, “Do you like the scripts? Do you like Jude Law? Do you like Paolo Sorrentino? If you do, we are supposed to shoot next summer for 24 weeks, and you can have the show.” At the time, Wildside was still a rather small independent company, with no solid financial backing, and that was a big chunk of money invested. So that was by far the biggest risk I have taken in my entire professional life. But it worked! From there, the partners could start giving notes and discussing, but this would not change the shape or vision of the show. We have used this same model with all of our projects since.
WS: What can you tell us about The New Pope? MIELI: It’s going to be a totally new world with a new pope. Paolo had this show in mind from the beginning. He was editing a scene in The Young Pope, where Jude Law is talking to the Italian prime minister, and there is one particular line that gave him the idea for this project. The New Pope will be something in between a second season and a sequel. So the idea came early on, but we waited to see if The Young Pope would be successful or not. The expectations were very low at the time for the U.S. market, but the response from the critics and the buzz gave us the confidence to move forward. WS: How did the Elena Ferrante series come about? MIELI: I read the books three summers ago. I hadn’t read them before because I didn’t think they were my cup of tea: female friendship, epic saga. I knew that Domenico Procacci, who owns the production company Fandango, had already bought the book rights, so I was reading them
With Saverio Costanzo, Lorenzo Mieli is adapting Elena Ferrante’s beloved novel My Brilliant Friend, which will be the first foreignlanguage series ever to air on HBO in the U.S. WS: How did The Young Pope, which was shot in English, open up opportunities for Wildside in the international market? MIELI: I have nothing against productions set in Italy or Europe where Italian characters speak in English. We just didn’t feel that it fit the needs of a contemporary show, where you want authenticity, specificity and originality. We decided, along with Paolo, to make the character an American pope. This pope has the power to determine what language is spoken in the Vatican based on his nationality, so from his first day on, everybody will speak English. That meant it was authentic. The Italian characters speaking in English would have an accent and make mistakes rather than having Italians played by American or English-speaking actors. Having this type of show in English opened up the market for us for other potential international series. 132 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
for fun. I fell in love with the books. Domenico is a friend, so I went to him and asked what he was doing with the four books. He said that they were already in advanced talks with Rai to make a long miniseries, and that’s where I jumped in. I asked him to give me the chance to do this together and said we could scale it up to an international show, even though it was going to be in the Neapolitan language. I thought it would be hard to sell it as an international show—getting on board important partners that could invest a lot of money in a show that needs to be aired in Italian with subtitles—but given the “Ferrante fever,” maybe it would work. He accepted, and we together decided on the director and writers, and Elena Ferrante herself was already part of the deal. We wrote the first scripts, prepared the pitch and then went to HBO. They loved it; Francesca Orsi [HBO’s co-head of drama series] believed in this attempt to make an American prime-time show in Neapolitan and has been really supportive ever since.
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My approach is based on the idea that it’s important to bring to television the type of director-writers that Italy is full of in movies. People like Paolo [Sorrentino] and Saverio [Costanzo] used to do art-house movies, and they are very good writers but hadn’t watched TV before— forget working for it. I felt that they could bring a new vision to TV series, and this is probably precisely because they never watched television. The people who are purely writers have gone on to become head writers, not showrunners. The real showrunner is a mix of writer, director and producer; they manage the budget, directing and oversee the other writers. The U.S. industry has built that up over decades. In Italy, we now have a bunch of really good head writers, and there is a bunch of director-writers/coproducers. There is also the very fundamental role of producers, which is creativity. Looking at Wildside and its competitors, each of us has a specific taste. You recognize the company behind the show. There is a clear editorial path.
Fremantle’s My Brilliant Friend. WS: How have Rai and HBO been collaborating on the scripts? MIELI: Amazingly well! It was a tough call, because the channels are very different, culturally and concerning the target audience. But we also felt that there were elements from the books that could work for both audiences, both nationalities, both of the channels’ needs. The books are very simple in a way: they’re plot-driven. Then there is another level to them that is characterdriven: full of twists, contradictions and mystery. We felt that we could play this up in a way that would fit both broadcasters, and it worked. The incredible thing is that their notes on the scripts and the production have been basically the same. I think that is because of the books themselves. They have such a strong and unique character, and people are so passionate about them, that staying true to Elena Ferrante’s vision helped keep everyone on the same page. WS: How has the role of the writer evolved in the Italian television market since you began working in TV? MIELI: I started doing scripted for Fox in Italy 12 years ago. I made a TV comedy called Boris, which was a fictional behind-the-scenes of one of the numerous crappy dramas that were aired by traditional free-to-air channels. It was the first scripted show ever commissioned by a pay-TV channel in Italy. That was the starting point for another way of writing. I found writers for that show who had never done television before; they
had worked on movies and were playwrights. It took a long time for me to find someone who could write something that was funny, weird and cool. It was liberating. From then on, the market has changed radically, and opportunities for writers have changed. Generations of writers had been forced to write horrible stuff for television for decades, in a hyper-conservative and entirely risk-averse environment. The slightest provocation was deemed inappropriate for the audience, and anyone with an independent creative vision wanted to do movies, as that was the only place where they felt they could express some form of art. Writing (or directing) for TV was a way to pay your bills, almost considered something to be ashamed of. After Fox, Sky stepped into Italian scripted production with a wave of innovative, bold and creativity-driven shows. And now the market has evolved enormously with all the new players coming in. It also happened thanks to the rebirth of international drama production, and to the introduction of local incentives that have placed more power in the hands of producers. There’s been a tremendous leap forward in the quality and ambition of Italian shows. Today, I would say that there are maybe a dozen really good writers for TV shows in Italy. And there is a new generation of writers coming up who are working with these established writers. It’s bringing new energy. All the production companies are fighting to get the few good ones under contract for the rest of their lives. [Laughs] 134 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
WS: How do writers and producers share the work of bringing a TV project to life? MIELI: We involve the writers in the development of the show early on when the project is just with us and not yet with a broadcaster. We build a very strong link between producers and writers. Wildside has a creative team comprised of writers, [former] writers and directors. Alongside myself and [co-founder and CEO] Mario Gianani, the creative team works on a daily basis in development with directors and head writers. What comes out in the end, whether it’s a pilot or a couple of episodes, is the fruit of this collaboration. WS: Is a figure like the American showrunner emerging in Italy? MIELI: Honestly, no. I think the model that we use works better. It gives a balance of power. I know too many stories about the superpower of the showrunner to say that it’s not exactly what we need. What we need are good writers. WS: What types of shows does Wildside want to offer the Italian market, and in what kinds of international projects does it want to be involved? MIELI: Our interest has been in projects that have a dominant political or cultural element. We start with topics that we think are relevant in terms of politics and culture. We’ve never done, for example, a procedural crime show. Not because we don’t love them; we do watch them. I’m interested in the future to work in genre; the way that genre was in the Italian movies in the late ’70s and early ’80s—like spaghetti westerns or Dario Argento’s horror movies. Those have been auteur-driven reinterpretations of genre. That’s something that I would love to do in the future, and I’m working on it. It’s more about the auteurs that we like to involve than the specific type of show.
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By Anna Carugati
they called us “Pulp Nonfiction.” I like that, because I do feel that, while we will take some liberties with time and composites of people involved in the story who might have a problem with how they are depicted, we’ve been pretty conservative about the degree to which we will change the story. They are the story; the events happened. Sometimes events will happen in a compressed period of time, but for the most part, we will try to remain very true to the facts, because authenticity is such an important part of our show.
arcos has told the stories of Pablo Escobar, the infamous head of the Medellín drug cartel and narco-terrorist, and the rival Cali cartel. The upcoming season will explore the origins of the drug trade in Mexico. Regardless of country or the methods used by drug lords, the show’s protagonist has always been cocaine. The series, now under the stewardship of showrunner Eric Newman, is rooted in fact and has made ample use of consultants from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It has gone beyond simplistic depictions of good guys and criminals by showing the human side of the traffickers and the not-alwaysnoble motivations of law enforcement.
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WS: How did the subject matter come to your attention, and how much research went into the prep phase? NEWMAN: I read a story about the drug war in 1996, so there were some 15 years or more of prep and research and thinking and reading, first alone but, along the way, I talked people into joining the team. We became a unit that was dedicated to making this show work. We recruited the DEA guys to whom the story happened. We interviewed journalists, politicians, ex-police, ex-military, and after a long while we had put together a pretty comprehensive, exhaustive recounting of events. WS: How did you balance the facts and the chronology of the events against the dramatizations that were necessary to bring the story to life? NEWMAN: Someone, somewhere wrote about us—and I’m very proud of this description—
WS: When you portray someone who lived in real life, do you need their approval? NEWMAN: No, you do not. If it’s been reported in any of the major publications, and obviously all of these characters have been reported on extensively, you are free to depict them. There are fair-use laws that protect them and they are very important laws. There was recently a trial
that we were looking for. They were very involved, just as in season three, Chris Feistl, who was the DEA agent in charge of the Cali operation, was very involved. This season we have new DEA agents, because we have moved to Mexico, and they are very involved. In fact, we’ve tried to build in a visit each season for the DEA guys to come to the set and walk around the office that we have built for them and live in the story that we are telling. It’s a remarkable thing to witness, because it brings back a lot of memories for them. WS: Have there been security issues or dangers in the locations in Colombia and Mexico? NEWMAN: No, I’ve never felt in any danger. We had a tragedy [a crew member was found dead in Mexico] at the beginning of the season this year that had nothing to do with the show. It was a random crime that this poor man stumbled into. We’ve never had a threat against the show. We’ve never attracted any undue or unwanted attention. I feel our
Known largely for his feature-film work, Eric Newman is the showrunner of Narcos, now in its fourth season of exploring the history of the drug trade. where Olivia de Havilland sued Fox and the makers of [the FX series] Feud: Bette and Joan to try to protect her reputation, because she felt that things they had said damaged her, and it was a subjective conclusion to be drawn. She didn’t like what the show said, so she sued. Had she won, it would have meant problems not just for us, but for everyone. But thankfully, once you are a public figure and have achieved a certain level of notoriety, provided we’re not inventing things that make you seem worse than you were, we have a license to depict them fairly honestly. [At press time, de Havilland is filing a writ to take the case to the Supreme Court.] WS: How much input did the DEA agents have in crafting their characters and the story? NEWMAN: We relied on the DEA and a lot on [the agents] Javier Peña and Steve Murphy. They offered an insight into the story that had not been widely reported in the kind of detail 136 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
depiction of the traffickers and the men and women who are pursuing the traffickers is pretty balanced. I don’t think that we’re taking one side or the other. Obviously, we believe that drug trafficking is wrong, but so are many of the methods and means by which drug dealers and drug users are chased and prosecuted. We tend to be pretty balanced. WS: A word about the cast—where did you get such talented actors? NEWMAN: They are the greatest! We’ve been a great combination of good and lucky. We always—as I always have in my career—would take a great actor over someone who looks the part. We were very fortunate to introduce Wagner Moura hopefully to a wider audience. He’s a giant star in Brazil, but outside of Brazil he was known in certain circles, but he’s just a spectacular actor. Spanish was not his first language. Early on we received some criticism for that, but once people watched the show
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and fell in love with the character he created, that ended. Pedro Pascal, Boyd Holbrook, the characters in season two [were part of an] amazing multinational [cast]. We’ve had Chileans, Argentineans, Colombians, Mexicans, Spaniards, and that has been fun. In season three, because the Cali godfathers were a foursome, we had Alberto Ammann, Damián Alcázar, Pêpê Rapazote and Francisco Denis as this amazing foursome who were all great. Yeah, our cast is pretty spectacular! WS: It’s wonderful how the show reinvented itself for season three, and I imagine it will again for season four. NEWMAN: It’s really hard, because we always have to restart. I envy those shows where everybody comes back and they do roughly the same thing they did last year. I have to come up with not only a new storyline and a new set of characters, but a different tone and sensibility. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I love it! WS: Season four will go back in time? NEWMAN: Yes, it goes back in time and takes place in Mexico [and traces the roots] of how the drug war started, so the common ground is cocaine. WS: That’s the star of the show, right? NEWMAN: Yes, cocaine is the star of the show, and that was always the intention. It was never about one guy.
very beginning, we worried about there being too much Spanish and [we wanted] to have a little bit of English here and there that we could throw in because, to be honest, I never thought it would work so well in the Spanish-speaking world. We knew it would work in the English-speaking world, and we knew it would work in the Portuguesespeaking world in Brazil because of Wagner. So we were surprised not only that it has performed so well in Latin American countries but also that people are willing to disengage from their phones long enough to read subtitles, which was always a concern. So it started off as a preemptive countermeasure against people who would say, Ah, it’s too much Spanish; I don’t want to watch it. What it offered us as we went along was an unvarnished inner monologue of the American fairly primitive psyche of the war on drugs, the simplicity of it. If these brown people in Latin America are sending us cocaine, let’s go get them; let’s go fix them. That was the attitude of Boyd Holbrook’s character, Steve Murphy. By season three, it had shifted to the point of view of Javier Peña [played by Pedro Pascal], who knew a lot more but not as much as he thought, because similarly, he believed that there are good guys and bad guys, and even though it’s more complicated, I’m still a good guy—and yet, he discovers, not. It was an interesting way not only to get inside the head of the
character and help the story, but to also get inside the very uniquely American point of view that has led us here, which is, frankly, born of ignorance and racism and something that we are encountering more now than ever, which is willful ignorance, where it is OK not to know anything. WS: What has this experience meant for you personally and professionally? NEWMAN: I was a movie producer for a long time. It’s been a very strange left turn for me, but it’s been the most rewarding and enjoyable professional experience of my life, because I work with people that I love in two places that I have come to love, doing something that I am fascinated by. It’s sort of the perfect job for me. WS: And television allows you to explore characters in ways film doesn’t. NEWMAN: In ten hours. And in the case of Pablo Escobar, you can take a character that you should hate and find reasons to love him. In two hours [in a movie], you’ve got a guy who blows up an airplane and kills a bunch of innocent people and he’s only a bad guy. I love James Bond, but the James Bond villain is just a villain, it’s not, Oh, I understand that he’s driven by [this or that]. No, you can’t do that in a two-hour movie. But in 20, 30, 40 hours, you can come to understand these people and find human qualities to them.
WS: Did the DEA agents have a problem with showing the human side of Escobar? NEWMAN: To be honest, I think they missed the human side of it. Lawenforcement members, for the most part, are short on subtlety. They view the world—because they have to—in black and white. There are bad guys and good guys. One of the things that works very well on Narcos is that you can watch the show and root for the good guys and be happy when Escobar ends up dead on a rooftop at the end of season two. Or you can be happy when all the Cali guys go to jail. Or you can watch it and find the Pyrrhic victory in it and the tragedy, which is how I choose to look at it. WS: How did you decide on the voice-over narration, and how does it help you? NEWMAN: It came about for a number of reasons. In the
Gaumont’s Narcos.
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By Anna Carugati
Matthias Pfeifer, from ZDF, to do a show that was not like an American series but that worked more in that model. That was unusual at the time.
ermany has a long tradition of TV drama series. The public broadcasters ARD and ZDF started airing procedural cop shows in the 1970s. Knowing how popular the genre was with viewers, commercial broadcasters, like RTL, have followed suit. Jörg Winger, the managing director of UFA Fiction, has changed the way crime series are produced and introduced audiences to continuing story arcs across episodes. With his wife, Anna Winger, he created Deutschland 83 and then Deutschland 86, both set during the Cold War with real-life events serving as a backdrop to the drama. Winger jumped forward in time with Hackerville, which examines today’s world of computer hackers.
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WS: What was your first show and, at that time, what was the role of the writer? WINGER: SOKO Leipzig premiered in January 2001, in the famous ZDF Friday-night crime slot. When I came in, it was at a time when the writer had no say. It was all about the broadcaster’s commissioning editor and the director. The director was really in charge. Even the producer was still a disputed position. I came in as a writer and a producer in the beginning, when it was still considered a conflict of interest to be a producer and writer. So rewrites or writing expositions were considered a conflict of interest. But before I started this job, I asked some friends in New York how you run a TV show, because I had never done it. They said you do this and this and this. I thought, OK, I’ll try that. I was in Leipzig, pretty far away from the centers of power, so it was possible, together with the wonderful
WS: Were there lessons learned that you transferred to Deutschland 83? WINGER: Absolutely, especially since we started SOKO Leipzig as a purely selfcontained drama procedural. The protagonists had no memories, nor dreams or desires for their personal lives. We evolved the show slowly, and that was another real paradigm shift. It was not easy to convince people, because broadcasters loved the freedom of airing episodes out of sequence. They argued, but if we have a serialized arc, we will not be able to do what we want. We said, yes, but the audience will become attached to the show if we have more fully developed characters. Then, and that was a real blessing, our main female actress got pregnant. So we started writing a storyline for her that would not allow
managed to get into a class where I got Russian lessons for eight hours a day for four months. Then I was put in front of a huge machine with very big headphones, and I listened to the Russian troops in the GDR. We then realized that the Russians were also listening to us. On some holidays they greeted us by name! So we thought there must be a mole, somebody must have sold information or something like that must have happened. I had toyed with the idea of turning that into a comedy or thriller, and then Anna had the crucial idea to use the East German mole as the protagonist. So the idea for the series came from different sources. WS: What broadcasters did you approach? WINGER: First, we took it to RTL, which was very excited about it, and to this day I am very thankful to RTL, because it was a real risk for them, because they didn’t do that type of series. It was unusual for RTL, but they were very good partners and very supportive. The series wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for RTL.
Developed by Jörg Winger and his wife, Anna, Deutschland 83 and its sequel, Deutschland 86, ushered in a new wave of serialized Germanlanguage dramas. switching episodes around. While she was interrogating the prime suspect, we had her threatening to deliver the baby if he didn’t confess! Everybody saw that continuing story arcs work well and we expanded that. Of course, I learned a lot not only about plot points and storytelling but also about the craft and effects of serializing. We had four-episode arcs, eight-episode arcs, and that was the best training ground. WS: How did you get involved in Deutschland 83? WINGER: Anna had written three or four episodes of SOKO Leipzig, and before that she had written a novel. At the time, we were watching a lot of TV together and we were frustrated with the German insistence on cops and crime dramas. We watched Borgen together and decided to develop a show that was political, aspirational and had something to say. The other starting point was my time in the military. When I was 18, I joined a special unit and instead of crawling around in the dirt, I 138 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
WS: You and Anna ran Deutschland 86? WINGER: Anna and I were the showrunners. After the writers’ room, Anna did an amazing ten-week rewrite of all ten episodes. In contrast to most U.S. shows, and because of our limited resources, we needed more or less finished scripts before we started shooting. It was tough, but she did a great job. We oversaw all the scripts together and made all the decisions about casting actors, directors, and the final cut in the editing room. But of course, the second season would not have been possible if there hadn’t been this groundbreaking deal between UFA, Amazon, Fremantle and RTL that gave us the possibility to continue this great journey with our amazing cast and crew. WS: And when will the worldwide audience see it? WINGER: Amazon has the first window in the German-speaking territories and will start the
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series on October 19 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and has later windows for international. RTL has the second window in Germany. The series will also launch on Channel 4 in the U.K., Canal+ in France, Sky in Italy and on SundanceTV and Hulu in the U.S. The U.S. audience does not have to wait long—SundanceTV will premiere the ten new episodes on October 25. WS: Deutschland 83 was one of the shows that made Americans realize they can accept subtitles. WINGER: Yes, and the audience grew in the U.S. It was beautiful to watch, and there was a very engaged conversation about it. Especially for German drama, Deutschland 83 has opened a lot of doors. Other German producers feel emboldened because now, with the second series, Deutschland 86, Fremantle contributes a huge amount of financing because of the international sales. That is a model we never had. To this day, it’s the only German series that is on so many different channels internationally in prime time. WS: Do you think of storylines that could appeal to more than one country or do you focus on the best story you can write? WINGER: Just the best story. Anna was the head writer on Deutschland 86. We have four writers and me, so it’s a collaborative effort. In the room, we would have debates about storylines, but I have a big problem with trying to secondguess some audiences. If you are in a room with four or five people [who have different opinions and sensibilities] and you can get everybody excited about an idea, it’s very likely that people out there are going to like it, too. The whole data-driven approach is somewhat flawed. It’s good for some things. Data is good, for example, for marketing. Germany also used to be a culture where people had such
strong assumptions about what people want and don’t want without any real empirical underpinnings. This is a generalization, but I think too often people in Germany didn’t trust their gut feelings and tried to come up with some rational justification for what was needed. A good story has to be contagious. You can talk about an idea and see how people react. With Deutschland 83 it was very clear from the beginning that as soon as we had the first pages, you could see it in people’s eyes that it worked. In that respect, it was a really easy show, because people were attracted to it; actors, directors, everyone wanted to be part of it.
WS: What can you tell us about Deutschland 86? WINGER: One headline is that in 1986 East Germany was so desperate for cash, they were basically bankrupt, that they tried to save communism by becoming hyper-capitalists—you can also say mafioso capitalists. So they were trading blood, weapons, people, patients and art. Because of that, our show is going more international. It goes to South Africa with some really interesting connections but still based on real history. All the missions that Anna and I have looked into are related to this effort. WS: Tell us about Hackerville. WINGER: Hackerville is an international coproduction that I co-created with Ralph Martin, one of the writers from Deutschland 83. He’s an American living in Berlin, and he brought the idea, based on a true story. Romania had become the hot spot for hacking a while ago and the world descended on specific towns to get the hackers—either to arrest them or to hire them. A good hacker is a real asset these days! And often they are very young. So Ralph went there and came back and we developed it. We wrote the story and brought it to Antony Root
Fremantle’s Deutschland 86.
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and Johnathan Young at HBO Europe. I’ve known Johnathan since we did a SOKO Leipzig/The Bill co-production ten years ago. He’s a crucial bridge-builder and participant for Hackerville. Johnathan and I are exec producing the series together. Later, TNT Serie in Germany came on board. Anke Greifeneder and Hannes Heyelmann have had quite some impact in Germany with wonderful series like 4 Blocks and Arthur’s Law, so they fit well into the Hackerville team. What’s also really interesting, it’s basically a German-Romanian story with more international implications, so it required a writers’ room that had Romanian writers. There was a lot of very lively debate, because Romania is one of the most underestimated, underappreciated countries. I have come to love it. It’s very interesting culturally, very energetic. They haven’t had a high-end TV series yet, so I am very curious about the international reaction. It’s one of those series that could put Romania on the map. There is so much talent there. WS: Because viewers connect with the characters, a drama can often explain important issues better than a news program. WINGER: Yes, exactly, because they identify with the characters, and if two characters look at the same thing, they [often have different opinions about it] and then viewers [can discuss the issues]. Often the best arguments you have in the writers’ room make for the best scenes. This is especially true with long-running series—writers start to impersonate a certain point of view and then you can defend that position and go through all the arguments that you’re never allowed to have in real life! For UFA Fiction, Hackerville and Deutschland 86 are both outstanding models of an extraordinary and groundbreaking new way of storytelling.
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By Mansha Daswani
what if I could snap my fingers and suddenly erase my existence from the entire world? If my existence is erased from people’s memories, then it becomes OK for me to not exist. I am thinking of how I can create a story that delves into this.
wo of the biggest drama exports out of Turkey over the last few years were actually born half a world away—in Japan. Woman and Mother have blazed a trail across the globe in their adapted versions; the latter also has a Korean edition that was among the ten finalists of this year’s CANNESERIES festival. Both shows come from prolific producer Hisashi Tsugiya, who has developed a knack for articulating societal problems in his creations.
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WS: What are the major themes you like to focus on in your dramas? TSUGIYA: It is actually about developing a story around the family or society, and in that process, the “problems” come to the surface. The problems are simply phenomena and not the core, but in shedding light on the core, the problems get noticed. As we portray a family, it is not just the problems that emerge—we see their joy, delight and suffering. At the root of it all, I want to depict humans and what they are making out of their lives. This might be complicated but, to go even deeper, I have been thinking about the possibility of creating dramas that delve into memory and existence. What does it mean to exist? What does it take to exist? I also believe that it is memory that keeps humans alive. I have this desire to use “memory” and “existence” as themes in future dramas. Hollywood has tended toward those themes for 10 or 20 years, as well as neurological phenomena. People will be sad when you die, right? But
WS: Why do you think Mother and Woman have been able to be produced locally in other markets? What qualities have resonated with international audiences? TSUGIYA: The core themes are family, motherhood and child-rearing, which I believe are universal. [When we first produced] Mother and Woman, we did not have the rest of the world in mind. Yet, looking back, the fact that they have been remade beyond our borders gives me the conviction that the love that families and mothers have for their children is universal. Those core themes became the launching
TSUGIYA: At Nippon TV, in terms of overall responsibility, including promoting the title, I shoulder that role as the producer. Yuji Sakamoto [the screenwriter] has the final say on the story and Nobuo Mizuta [director] and I respect and prioritize that because we believe in his talent. [Mizuta], as the director, is in charge of visualizing the story. It seems that in Hollywood, whether for dramas or movies, there are several screenwriters that get involved. They discuss the turning points of the story and how it should unfold. In Japan, the director and producer also take on that role and form a creative team with the screenwriter. WS: What are the biggest challenges in developing Japanese dramas that can resonate with audiences globally? TSUGIYA: We need to be careful not to create dramas with the desire to showcase Japanese culture. For something to
Tapping into universal themes, Hisashi Tsugiya’s hit Japanese dramas Mother and Woman are now traveling across the globe as scripted formats. pad that allowed the dramas to cross borders. Japanese drama series run shorter, so, after watching the localized versions, I was struck by the meticulously detailed character development. As the Japanese originals are produced with 10 or 11 episodes, we cannot always develop the characters as deeply as we want. [The adapted versions] also allow us to see the unique aspects of each culture; for instance, certain professions that do not exist in Japan. It is such a delight to see how the overseas portrayals enrich what we originally created, and I feel that we have so much to learn from our partners abroad. WS: In the U.S., the showrunner is the person who has the final say on all aspects of a series. Who takes full responsibility for a drama series in Japan? Is it a team or a single voice? 140 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
reach the global market, the primary motivation should be to create a human drama. You can find Hollywood movies where the main character likes to wear kimonos, and I see these as showcasing Japanese culture. But we must not go down that path and introduce Japanese people and culture as having such and such qualities and charms. To establish a foothold on the world stage, it is important to focus on people in general and create human dramas. So, in terms of challenges, it is crucial to suppress the temptation to feature Japanese culture and any details that are too Japan-specific. I grew up watching a lot of stories from the West, like Aesop’s Fables and Hans Christian Andersen, so I have this profound belief that humans are fundamentally the same. For more from Hisashi Tsugiya, see page 397.
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TVEUROPE
WWW.TVEUROPE.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
OTT Platforms / Channel 4’s Alex Mahon
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4 TV EUROPE
CONTENTS
Days of Disruption
FEATURE 10 STREAM WARS The OTT landscape in Europe continues to evolve as local players look to take on the big global giants.
Winds of disruption are blowing through Europe, threatening the social fabric and political status quo.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor 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 © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tveurope.ws
Populist movements are filling in the gaps created by economic inequality, distrust of institutions and the failures of established political parties. Nationalist populist parties have amassed followers across the continent. Driving these groups is a fear of immigrants and resentment at globalism—all of this reinforcing a pull backward to a perceived better and simpler past. We saw that in the 2016 vote that led to Brexit, with the U.K. pulling out of the European Union. Disruption has been wreaking havoc on the media business as well. But while voters may be harkening back toward simpler times, consumers are not longing for VCRs, VHS tapes and only a handful of free-to-air channels. No, they want more choice, more convenience, more screens, and they want content at any moment of the day and every day of the week. Consumers are drawn to the abundance of options and accessibility that streaming services offer. In this issue of TV Europe, Jay Stuart examines the different forces at play in the OTT businesses across Europe. There are those launched by broadcasters to offer their viewers the convenience of watching favorite shows either live or on demand. There are niche services that zero in on specific genres, like drama or sports. Then, of course, there are the behemoths, Netflix and Amazon, using their substantial budgets to scoop up rights and talent. And they are starting to produce originals in Europe; case in point, Netflix recently set up its first European production hub in Spain. This smorgasbord of programming begs the question—how many of these streaming services can consumers afford? For all the appeal, convenience and hours of bingeable joy offered by these OTTs, there remains a place and a role in the media market for linear broadcasters—especially those that seek unique voices and are intent on innovating. We speak to Alex Mahon, the chief executive of the U.K.’s Channel 4, a broadcaster that has a history of taking risks and experimenting. Mahon believes that in today’s media landscape that is impacted by competition from digital services and new distribution models, and in which consumers have an overabundance of choice, public-service broadcasters are more important than ever. And with the need to understand complex issues like immigration, globalization and automation, she believes delivering impartial and independent news is also of vital importance these days. —Anna Carugati
INTERVIEW
16 Channel 4’s Alex Mahon As chief executive of the British broadcaster, Alex Mahon is encouraging her programming teams to take risks, focus on innovative shows and invest more in the All 4 on-demand service. She is also establishing new creative hubs outside London.
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Audiovisual from Spain The Pier / Forever or Never / Wild Hunters The Audiovisual from Spain pavilion will host more than 30 exhibitors with hundreds of new hours of scripted series, movies, entertainment formats, animated shows, documentaries and TV services, including 4K channels. Among the titles for the market is The Pier, a Movistar+/Telefónica original in collaboration with Atresmedia Studios. The drama will have its World Premiere TV Screening in the Grand Auditorium. “Spanish fiction and drama series are really hot properties now because they have proven the undeniable talent and expertise of scriptwriters and producers” from the country, says Javier Martínez, the film and TV promotion manager at ICEX Spain Trade and Investment. The dating show Forever or Never comes from Mediapro and Phileas Productions, while Wild Stories is presenting the 4K doc series Wild Hunters.
Wild Hunters
“Buyers are convinced of Spanish content’s ability to attract audiences.”
—Javier Martínez
Imagina International Sales Side Games / Forever or Never / I ’m Alive Money, power, betrayal and sports are central to the thriller series Side Games. The drama centers on an ambitious executive of a regional soccer club who becomes entangled in a web of corruption. “Side Games is an outstanding thriller set in the world of soccer that quickly became the biggest title on DirecTV [Latin America] for both linear and nonlinear,” says Beatriz Setuain, Imagina International Sales’ director. The company is also presenting the entertainment format Forever or Never, which Setuain calls “a brilliant dating show.” The series explores what it really means to “be together forever” when it comes to choosing a partner. There’s also I’m Alive, a thriller that features supernatural elements. The story follows an inspector who, after suffering a fatal accident, is returned to Earth in another body to track down his killer. I’m Alive
Kanal D International
“Imagina International Sales will attend MIPCOM with a catalog full of quality productions from all genres that will fulfill our clients’ needs.” —Beatriz Setuain
Wounded Love
Price of Passion / Wounded Love / For My Son Love stories are the focus of the drama series Price of Passion and Wounded Love, which Kanal D International is highlighting. Price of Passion examines whether love can come about in the presence of corrupt relationships. Wounded Love, meanwhile, is a period drama that tests if love can survive in the face of enormous obstacles. “Over the years, our all-time favorites that have proven successful in the European market are Time Goes By, Forbidden Love and Fatmagül,” says Kanal D International’s executive director, Kerim Emrah Turna. “Especially after the success of Fatmagül in Spain and France, increasing our penetration in the Western European market will be the main focus. We believe that this title will open up new markets.” The company is also presenting For My Son.
“We will be focusing on strengthening our relationships in CEE countries.” —Kerim Emrah Turna
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Madd Entertainment My Little Girl / A Litre of Tears The Turkish producers Medyapim and Ay Yapim have aligned for the distribution venture Madd (Medyapim Ay Yapim Drama Distribution) Entertainment. The company heads to MIPCOM with the new drama series My Little Girl and A Litre of Tears. Kivanç Tatlituğ (Forbidden Love, Kuzey Güney, Kurt Seyit ve Şura, Brave and Beautiful) has a new as-yet-untitled project that will be part of the catalog as well. “We also have different types of Turkish dramas,” says Özlem Özsümbül, director of international sales. “We have two ‘super series,’ Persona and Phi, which feature talented casts.” There is also an adaptation of a series from a U.S. studio. In addition to selling Turkish series, Madd is looking to position itself as a direct link between production companies and content creators, according to Özsümbül.
“Madd Entertainment will be the distributor of new titles from Medyapim and Ay Yapim.” —Özlem Özsümbül
RTVE
A Different View
El Continental / A Different View / Detectives The prime-time drama El Continental features a story of love, violence and the struggle for power between rival gangs. It is set in a Madrid nightclub during the 1920s. “We’ll see the first woman leader of a gang,” says María Jesús Pérez, RTVE’s international sales director. A Different View shows Spanish society in the ’20s through the lens of teachers and students at a finishing school for young ladies. A dog that can talk is one of the central characters in Detectives. In the series, Alberto and his canine sidekick Max work together as a detective team to solve complicated cases. “Our company is engaged in the production of highend scripted TV in Spain and also has a wide range of international channels to offer high-quality content for each member of the family,” says Jesús Pérez.
“These three high-quality productions address current issues or offer entertainment for the whole family.”
—María Jesús Pérez
ZDF Enterprises
Over Water
Over Water / Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem / History of Weapons The psychological drama Over Water is about a man whose family gives him one last opportunity to get his life back on track. ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE) is presenting that title alongside Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem, a crime show based on a trilogy of best-selling books, and History of Weapons, a documentary series that looks at how weapons have always been a part of the human existence. Other highlights include The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War, a three-part program; The Athena, a live-action show for kids; and Zoom—The White Dolphin, which is one of the latest additions to the company’s animation catalog. Fred Burcksen, the president and CEO of ZDFE, says the company is proud of the quality of its programs, and he believes that clients recognize this quality as well.
“We work with renowned producers and popular actors—some of the greatest talents of their generation.” —Fred Burcksen
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Netflix’s The Crown.
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Jay Stuart reports on the fast-developing OTT landscape across Europe. n the ongoing battle between legacy operators and digital upstarts, it seems a turning point has already been reached in the U.K. The total number of subscriptions to the three most popular online streaming services has surpassed pay-TV subs. Per Ofcom, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky’s linear online NOW TV reached a total of 15.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of this year, topping 15.1 million for pay TV. Revenue for the latter, dominated by Sky, declined for the first time last year—by 2.7 percent—to £6.4 billion. Meanwhile, online audiovisual revenues jumped 25 percent to £2.3 billion. Overall U.K. OTT customers will reach 20 million in 2022, according to research firm Ovum. Britain leads the way among the biggest markets in Europe for the growth of OTT, but the upward trend is also visible across the continent. In Germany, OTT video subs will rise from 8 million this year to 12 million in 2022. Italian OTT will grow more slowly, from 3 million to 4 million over the same period, while in France, subscriptions will increase from 4 million to 7 million.
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SHIFTING LEGACIES So how is the traditional ecosystem responding to the rising dominance of OTT? For broadcasters, OTT used to be about offering flexibility to the consumer. Catch-up television made it possible for viewers to see what they missed the first time around. And it has become a real must-have, as the BBC saw this summer. Fremantle’s Picnic at Hanging Rock launched on BBC Two on July 11 at 9 p.m. The only problem was, much to everyone’s surprise—certainly the BBC schedulers—England was playing Croatia in the World Cup semi-finals at the same time on ITV. A few years ago, that would have been a total disaster. Now, viewers could find the show on catch-up. “If I go to catch-up and I can only see a new show I’ve heard about from episode three, I won’t be happy,” says Jamie Lynn, the executive VP, head of sales and distribution for EMEA, International, at Fremantle. “I’ll be even more unhappy if I’m
paying for a subscription and can’t see what I want. Everybody has to adapt to viewer expectations.” The change in expectations has naturally affected the way programs are sold. “It used to be that linear could launch a show and have catch-up but couldn’t stack episodes, so an SVOD partner could come in and they could coexist,” Lynn says. “That has been changing. Now the question is whether they can still coexist or if it’s winner takes all.” Lynn continues, “What’s important is the first window. Broadcasters still live for the overnights. They want the big bang. But that is changing because they can’t live on the overnights. Now it’s about live+7 ratings. So they need the catch-up.”
PLAYING CATCH-UP All of the big broadcasters in Europe have OTT offerings with their linear programming available on catch-up. Louis Matignon, multiplatform solutions manager at Eurovision, the business arm of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), says it is still early days with regard to the competitive picture. “They are not dominant in OTT, but they are catching up, and that’s because they are learning how to leverage one of the strategic pillars of their businesses—knowledge of their audiences. It’s not just about micro-data, it’s about 50 years of experience in curating content. This is a genuine competitive advantage. There are no better-placed organizations than the big broadcasters to thrive in the OTT market. The EBU members are in a very good position. They have strong commercial relationships, and they have their own powerful trusted brands as content providers.” To build scale, European broadcasters have been reaching out to each other. France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 have joined forces in an online SVOD platform called Salto. In Germany, ProSiebenSat.1 has teamed with Discovery, Inc., to launch a VOD service in 2019. The fifty-fifty partnership would be based on the existing 7TV alliance formed last year and integrate ProSieben’s maxdome SVOD offering
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Banijay Rights distributes The Restaurant, an acclaimed drama that Viaplay co-produces with SVT.
and Discovery’s Eurosport Player. The goal is to reach 10 million users two years after launch, with a free adsupported service as well as premium tiers with access to exclusive sports and films.
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opportunities,” Bastin notes. “That said, most of the push to fill the drama pipeline comes from Viaplay, and you could say that the SVOD sometimes shares with the broadcast channels, rather than the other way around.” In France, Canal+ axed its CanalPlay SVOD platform and is consolidating its OTT offerings under myCanal. Sébastien Audoux, head of sports, digital, at Canal+, comments, “We want all of our customers, including traditional linear satellite subscribers, to be able to enjoy the OTT features.”
In the Nordic region, entertainment provider Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT) is driving its SVOD service Viaplay with its own exclusive original content. “I don’t see us going head-to-head with Netflix because what they offer is usually coming from the U.S., while our focus is very strongly on local Nordic content, especially local drama,” says Alexander Bastin, the senior VP at NENT Group and the head of Viaplay and Viafree. The group is ramping up its originals push. The plan is to reach 50 originals by 2020. New series Rig 45 made its exclusive Viaplay debut in June, with Conspiracy of Silence slated for September and Four Hands Menu and The Restaurant also scheduled for the autumn. The average Viaplay customer watches 32 hours of the service per month. Sometimes, the OTT operation collaborates with the free-TV channels in the group as additional windows, or with public broadcasters if there’s a better fit. NENT Group is basically the broadcast, streaming and production sister to MTG, which split its business in two earlier this year. Viaplay can tap into a big portfolio of production companies as well as produce with others. “We work in tight collaboration with the rest of the group to maximize Walter Presents recently landed the rights to Red Arrow’s Scandi drama Farang. 152 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Apple TV has already become the main device for Canal+ subscriptions. The group is also upgrading its own set-top box for existing linear subscribers, to enable them to access OTT seamlessly. “We used to have many different platforms and apps and websites for different digital packages,” Audoux says. “Now it’s all going to be myCanal, and it will be available on all devices. You can start watching a match or a program on the TV at home and continue seamlessly on your mobile or wherever you want to watch.” In Eastern Europe, meanwhile, OTT is lagging. “The take-up in our markets is ongoing, but generally the level of subscribers is comparatively lower than Western Europe and more developed markets,” says Hendrik von der Linden, COO of PRO TV and coordinator of digital initiatives at CME. “This can be attributed to many factors, including broadband penetration, payment mechanisms and cost of a VOD subscription relative to that of the average pay-TV package. We also see higher rates of piracy in our markets.” CME launched its OTT service Voyo in 2011, and it has been operating as an SVOD platform in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. A subscription generally includes on-demand viewing of each country’s local library and select foreign titles where CME has rights, as well as streaming of the linear channels. “We think that the success of an OTT product in our markets will depend on the availability of local content,” von der Linden says. “Given that our markets are smaller and consumers are price sensitive, it is difficult for an OTT platform itself to support the production of high-quality, local entertainment programming for one single market as viewers are accustomed to seeing on TV, but Voyo does provide an alternative way to consume TV content. We have produced some limited titles exclusively for VOD platforms, including spin-offs of popular TV shows. We also provide extended coverage and behind-the-scenes footage on Voyo related to our popular TV shows.” CME also has AVOD platforms, which it plans to relaunch to offer a state-of-the-art user experience that combines livestreaming with catch-up content and online exclusives.
GLOBAL GIANTS While local incumbents expand their OTT services, the global giants are continuing to make big plays in the region. Netflix in particular has been aggressively expanding across Europe, aligning with Liberty Global and spending heavily on local content. Originals are being produced in Germany, Scandinavia and other markets. Its first European production hub is being established in Madrid to serve as a central facility for the platform’s growing slate of Spanish-language original content in the coming years. “Netflix and Amazon have the financial firepower to produce that blows everyone else away,” says Ed Barton, chief analyst of the entertainment practice at Ovum. And yet, despite the dominance of global giants, new services are emerging, especially for niche audiences.
Take, for example, the success of Walter Presents, which specializes in non-English-language scripted content. The service was created by London-based Global Series Network and is a joint venture with the U.K.’s Channel 4. In the U.K., it is offered through the ad-supported All 4 platform. International expansion is underway. In the U.S., it’s up and running as an SVOD service. Walter Presents is launching in Italy as a block on cable channels Nove and Giallo. Walter Iuzzolino, co-founder and curator of Walter Presents, says that Channel 4 understood the concept right away. “They saw that it was a clear niche proposition that was not big enough for linear. But they understood the power of linear to drive OTT and their All 4 on-demand platform. They also saw the value of AVOD. We originally envisioned being behind a paywall.” According to Iuzzolino, the real differentiator for the Walter Presents brand is curation. There is so much content in the market that viewers have trouble finding something they want to watch. The proposition is about finding what viewers want for them. Walter Presents premieres the first episodes of new series on linear Channel 4 in a branded window. Then the whole series is available to binge-watch online. The broadcaster connection is critical. “Broadcast television has the marketing real estate,” Iuzzolino says. “You can be in millions of homes 24/7. That is a massive advantage.”
GAME DAY Another niche offering that is becoming increasingly important in the OTT space is sports, so much so that even global players like Amazon are getting involved. The platform bought a share of the U.K. rights to the English Premier League, the most valuable content in the British market, for Prime Video in the U.K. Leading sports-specialist digital agency Seven League, which advises many top rights owners including the likes of FC Barcelona, the Bundesliga, UFC and the NBA, has built a model that values this package at approximately £80 million. Sports rights are tricky because they come up for renewal with new bidding, and the appetite for sports can be very different based on the territory. But that can be a
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puhuTV is an OTT platform in Turkey that has begun commissioning originals such as Phi.
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Gaumont’s Nox premiered on Canal+ and then was made available on a catch-up basis on myCanal.
good thing because it enables Amazon to test how much various rights move the needle. They can experiment. If something works, they might want more, or if not, they can leave it. They can do the analysis directly from the data and correlate the rights cost to the value. So they can see precisely how, for example, The Man in the High Castle compares with the Premier League. In contrast, Netflix has said they are not interested in sports rights, and there is no indication that the policy is about to change. Amazon may also be dipping into sports as a differentiator from Netflix. DAZN, which is part of U.K.-based Perform Group, has raced to make itself the preeminent global OTT player in sports, with high-profile deals such as buying live Italian Serie A this season for Italy. Ex-ESPN chief John Skipper recently became executive chairman of Perform Group, which is controlled by Len Blavatnik, purportedly the wealthiest man in the U.K. “The model of a Netflix of sports is achievable,” says David Dellea, director and head of the sports business advisory at PwC. “If you have very broad reach and you pick up the rights, it may be possible for one player to achieve critical mass and move the needle in terms of the whole future of the market.”
SPORTS WARS A leading sports market consultant and insider at Perform who asked not be named says, “There is going to be a Netflix of sports that isn’t Netflix. The American view is that it’s all about content, and the center of the world for content is Hollywood. That may be true for movies and TV drama, but it’s not true for sports. The center of the world for sports is Europe and European football. A big difference between movies and TV drama is that there is a finite amount of sports available. The TV market for these rights is softening, and the rights owners of these sports are fed up with three-year deals. They want to see a longer-term commitment to their sports.” PwC’s Dellea reports that DAZN is buying “global non-exclusive rights, and it can geoblock where it has to. It’s not unlike buying movies. If you can buy highlights rights for everywhere and the rights are relatively
cheap, you can establish a product that gives consumers a decent level of access to content no matter where they are. You can then build from there. We’re not going to reinvent the wheel in sports. We have to watch the broader trends. Geographical exclusivity is the basis of the sports market and it is very difficult to break up exclusivity. That said, exclusivity is mainly about live rights. You have to make the transition to a global market with highlights.” With so many services available across Europe, the question of market saturation is an important one to answer. “We are in a period of unbundling,” says Charlie Beall, a senior consultant at Seven League. “When it comes to consumer tolerance to pay for entertainment, there is an upper limit. People may be willing to pay for two or three OTT services, and that would leave room for both Amazon and Netflix. It’s hard to see them paying for six or seven. So there is only a bit of space for niche products to squeeze in.” “There is quite a small tail in OTT,” adds Ovum’s Barton. “Selling yourself as a standalone subscriber service is extremely difficult. Many standalone services have horrible numbers, and it’s hard to see how they will survive. A lot of them could use an aggregation platform to climb onto.” In the view of Eurovision’s Matignon, smaller content owners can play in the OTT game. “Why not? There is no reason why, say, Studio 100 or Talpa couldn’t create a platform with their own content available on-demand.”
AGGREGATION OPPORTUNITY He agrees that aggregation is the likely direction of the market. “If you think about it, it’s what the cable and satellite players already do by offering bouquets. The key issue of OTT is going to be knowing which platform you can watch things on. If content owners are building their own OTT services, how can you find things? Netflix tried to be that facilitator or aggregator of content, then they started producing and owning content and got into another kind of competition.” Both Amazon and Netflix will have to soon allocate more funds to European content; the European Commission has mandated that at least 30 percent of operators’ slates must be from the region. That is very good news for European producers and distributors.
The Central and Eastern European OTT operator Pickbox has acquired content such as Kew Media’s British drama Line of Duty.
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When Alex Mahon was appointed chief executive of Channel 4 in 2017, she brought years of experience managing talent in the media and technology sectors. She had been CEO of Foundry, a special-effects software developer. Before that, she was at the helm of the Shine Group with business partner Elisabeth Murdoch. Recognizing the challenges broadcasters face today, including increasing competition from streaming services and digital companies, Mahon is encouraging the Channel 4 programming teams to take risks, focus on innovative shows and invest more in the All 4 on-demand service. She is also establishing a new headquarters and creative hubs outside London, to better reflect the entire population of the U.K. in front of, and behind, the camera. TV EUROPE: What is Channel 4’s mission in today’s media landscape and what does it offer that viewers can’t get anywhere else? MAHON: Channel 4 is unique in the media landscape. We’re the youngest public-service broadcaster in the world, an editorially independent creative business that operates at scale and exists to take creative risks with high-quality trusted, innovative and popular content. In an increasingly crowded landscape, we’re here to give viewers something that they won’t find elsewhere. To take more risks than others, to have a point of view on society and a place in society, to back new talent and new ideas and to represent all communities. At its best, Channel 4 can drive the national conversation. TV EUROPE: What balance do you and your programming teams aim for between drama, entertainment and factual programming? MAHON: We always want to have a blended mix of all genres, but of course with a clear and unique Channel 4 tone of voice and approach. Increasingly we’re blending the genres themselves. When you look at some of our most successful formats recently, such as The Island with Bear Grylls, SAS: Who Dares Wins and Hunted, they’re blurring the boundaries between factual and popular entertainment in new and exciting ways to huge global success. Scripted genres are, and will continue to be, an important part of our offer, too. We’ve made a new commitment to investing even more in comedy and drama. We’re continuing to look at how audiences want to watch, whether that’s across multiple platforms, in the way we released The End of the F***ing World on Channel 4 and All 4, or the phenomenal way the shorter-run four-part Kiri punched through earlier this year. TV EUROPE: What types of shows should Channel 4 be commissioning?
MAHON: We should be looking at new, fresh, innovative and exciting ideas—raising the bar creatively and taking some big risks. That’s what we’re here for. Take The Last Leg. Who else would have made a returnable, popular satirical entertainment show out of an idea for a latenight segment in coverage of the Paralympics? Who else would put a grime MC [rapper Big Narstie] in charge of a brand-new talk show, as we’ve done recently with The Big Narstie Show? Or give a YouTube critic his own review show on the main channel, as we’ve done with Elijah Quashie in Peng Life? Our shows should also have something to say about the world. In scripted this autumn, with The Bisexual and Pure— written by the fantastic Desiree Akhavan and Kirstie Swain, respectively—we’re tackling big issues like sexuality and mental illness in provocative, irreverent and sometimes shocking ways. TV EUROPE: What can linear channels do to remain relevant? How much innovation and risk-taking are required in programming? MAHON: Risk-taking, experimentation and innovation are all intrinsic to Channel 4, but in a world where there are almost infinite choices for viewers, it’s even more important that we have a clear editorial proposition—and that people know they can come to Channel 4 for something they won’t find in the same blend elsewhere. There’s something special about the immediacy of concurrent viewing that linear channels offer that just isn’t achievable behind a subscription VOD paywall. We’re also able to offer a combination of human editorial curation of fresh ideas on broadcast TV alongside algorithmic recommendation on digital All 4, and they both feed each other. That combination is something that you don’t get on streaming services or social media, and that layer of creative expertise [needed] to curate an experience for our viewers is incredibly important as we seek to bring viewers new ideas. TV EUROPE: What is the role of acquired programming in the Channel 4, E4 and More4 schedules? MAHON: Channel 4 and E4 have always been about a blended mix of high-quality, U.K.-produced originations and the very best from the rest of the world. The Handmaid’s Tale, for example, has something powerful to say about the world. And this summer [we partnered] with Showtime to bring a talent we originally launched on Channel 4, Sacha Baron Cohen, back to the channel with his provocative and mischievous Who Is America? TV EUROPE: How are you evolving the All 4 service? MAHON: We’re investing a lot more in All 4 to build the scale of the offer for viewers and improve the experience for them when they’re using the service.
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First launched to run alongside the 2012 Summer Paralympics, The Last Leg is now in its 14th season on Channel 4.
When we commission content now, we’re also looking carefully at how it’s going to be consumed across all our platforms and how we can experiment more with windowing and box sets, and even better reflect the different ways people are watching. We’ve also been looking at innovative partnerships to build the scale of the service, and in the last couple of months, we announced a major new deal with VICE to bring more than 900 hours of programming, including 200 hours of new content, to All 4 in a new youth-focused branded hub. TV EUROPE: Tell us about Channel 4’s plans for a new headquarters outside London. MAHON: This is about representation and how Channel 4 can better reflect all the U.K. After the EU referendum, there was a clear sense of disenfranchisement across many areas of the U.K., outside of the southeast particularly, and it became clear to us that as a publicly owned broadcaster, we needed to think about how we respond to that. At the heart of what we’ve committed to is a move to spend 50 percent of our production investment in the nations and regions [encompassing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland], which is an extra £250 million over the next five years, and I hope this will be transformative in terms of the regional creative economy, but also in regional representation in front of, and behind, the camera. The second part is about making sure we have the right infrastructure in place to support that increase in spending, so we’re establishing a new national headquarters and two new creative hubs across the U.K. They’ll contain both
commissioners and staff from across many areas of our business. And [we’re] moving our programming, including co-anchoring Channel 4 News from the nations and regions [bureaux] and launching a new daily program there. I’ve visited regions across the U.K. as part of the process over the last few months, and I’ve been phenomenally impressed with the caliber of talent outside London and the impact we could make. Despite being a relatively small organization, you see what a totemic cultural and creative value Channel 4 has and what huge impact we could create. TV EUROPE: What is the advertising climate in the U.K.? MAHON: The television ad market has been incredibly resilient despite the political uncertainty over the last two years. After a dip in late 2016 and early 2017, we’ve seen growth at the end of last year and in the first half of 2018. We’re optimistic about the rest of the year. TV EUROPE: What prospects for growth do you see for the Channel 4 group in the next 12 to 24 months? MAHON: In an era of digital competition and new distribution models, where consumers have an oversupply of content, I think our role and the role of U.K. public-service broadcasters is more important than ever. We can deliver trusted, high-quality, independent and impartial news at scale—you only have to look at the impact that Channel 4 News had with its Cambridge Analytica investigation to see how valuable that can be and how that can cut through in an era of echo chambers, social media and fake news. I think that sense of British democratic values is perhaps more important now than it has been at any time in Channel 4’s history.
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he BBC is arguably the best-known public broadcaster in the world. Established in 1922, for nearly 100 years it has followed its mission of enriching people’s lives with programs and services that inform, educate and entertain. A license fee paid by U.K. households funds the BBC’s many services, which include nine national channels— among them the flagship BBC One, the children’s channels CBBC and CBeebies and BBC News—the online service BBC Three, 10 national and 40 local radio stations, and BBC World Service, which broadcasts news and information around the globe on the radio, on TV and online. The BBC reaches well beyond the U.K.’s borders not only with its World Service but also with BBC Studios, which recently merged with BBC Worldwide. As the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Studios is responsible for producing or co-producing content across multiple genres and distributing it around the world, turning brands like Doctor Who, Planet Earth and Dancing with the Stars into global hits. Like all broadcasters, the BBC is facing challenges: viewing habits are changing, young people are finding entertainment options beyond linear channels and tech companies
have entered the content business wielding enormous budgets to attract talent and their IP. Director-General Tony Hall knows from firsthand experience the impact the BBC has in the U.K. and around the world. He was hired by the BBC as a news trainee in 1973 and rose in the ranks until becoming chief executive of BBC News in 1996, a position he held until his departure from the company in 2001. He returned in 2012 when he was appointed director-general. He is equally aware of what needs to be done to maintain the BBC’s relevance so it can continue to carry out its mission. He is prioritizing reinventing the BBC for new generations, not only serving young viewers with entertainment and educational content but also helping them navigate the media landscape. Determined to battle “fake news,” he is investing in the BBC’s news capabilities at home and around the globe. He is also increasing investments in the U.K.’s independent production community to make sure British content doesn’t get squeezed out of the global market. He is keen on revamping the BBC’s iPlayer and transforming it from a catch-up service to a content destination in its own right. Despite the work that needs to be done, Hall is confident in the prominent role the BBC will continue to play in the U.K. and around the world in the coming years.
TONY HALL BBC
By Anna Carugati
WS: In today’s rapidly changing media environment, what must the BBC do to maintain and protect its role as a public-service broadcaster? HALL: I believe that the role of the BBC, and of publicservice broadcasting more widely, has never been more important. In a world where false information can spread around the globe in seconds, audiences rely on us for news that is trusted and impartial. At a time when consumers have an incredible array of global content to choose from, it’s the BBC whose first priority is brilliant British content that reflects and represents our country in all its diversity. And at a moment when the U.K. is seeking to forge a new relationship with the world, it’s the BBC that can be such a powerful voice for Britain’s identity, values and influence abroad. At the same time, our role has never been tougher. Our financial challenge has become greater and greater. The way young people are watching and listening to content and finding their news is changing at a pace far faster than many could have imagined. And while the billions now being poured into content by the U.S.-based media giants have led to what’s often described as a golden age of television, it has also massively driven up costs in the global marketplace and British content risks being squeezed out. To respond, we need to reinvent the BBC for a new generation. We need to find new ways to invest in world-beating British programming. We need to do more to back ideas, talent and creativity from across the whole of the country, not just London. We need to do more for children and young people—in programs, in education, in helping them thrive in the new media environment. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 161
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Richard Gere returns to television for MotherFatherSon, an eight-part drama from BBC Studios for BBC Two. We need to revolutionize our services to meet audience expectations. That’s why we’re transforming BBC iPlayer from a catch-up service to a destination in its own right, and we’re developing BBC Sounds as a single, personalized service for music, speech radio and podcasts. We need to take on fake news at home and abroad, and expand the World Service to give more people more access to impartial news they can trust. All this work, and more, is underway. It’s why I’m tremendously excited about the role the BBC can play for the country in the years ahead. WS: How has the BBC been supporting the U.K.’s independent production and creative communities? HALL: The BBC remains the cornerstone of the U.K.’s creative economy. Of the £3.8 billion ($4.9 billion) we receive from the license fee each year, £400 million ($519 million) is spent buying programs or services from the wider U.K. creative sector. That’s a huge economic investment. Independent research has shown that for every £1 of the license fee we spend, the economy benefits by £2. A major part of our commitment to the U.K.’s creative industries is everything we do outside London—right across our nations and regions. A few years ago we made a bold move to shift hundreds of jobs from London to Salford, along with some of our major operational output—including BBC Breakfast, Children’s and Sport. Many people questioned the move, but today it’s an incredible creative hub, worth more than £275 million ($358 million) each year to the U.K. economy. Now we’re increasing investment in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, where we are building a new headquarters in the center of Cardiff. That’s on track to be worth £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) to the economy, creating nearly 2,000 additional jobs over ten years. We also recently announced that we’re joining other cultural and educational institutions in
the East London development project at Stratford, home of the 2012 Olympics, where we’ll be building state-of-the-art music recording and rehearsal studios. We think it’s going to help transform the area into an essential destination for music lovers. For me, these are great examples of what the BBC—and only the BBC—can do at its best. I liken our role to acting as a ringmaster: bringing people together; mobilizing ideas, talent and investment; and making things happen that simply would not otherwise be possible. I’m particularly proud of everything we did for Hull during its year as the U.K.’s City of Culture. We broadcast hundreds of hours of content from the festival across all our platforms and promoted the city to millions of viewers worldwide through BBC World. We even took the Proms outside of London for the
first time in over 80 years and gave Hull a permanent place on the BBC weather map. It shows the difference the BBC can make—and we’ll do the same for Coventry when it becomes the U.K. City of Culture in 2021. Recently we’ve made some important changes to create more opportunities for independent producers. We’ve increased competition in program-making and removed the old guarantee that 50 percent of shows would be made in-house. At the same time, BBC Studios is now able to compete to make programs for other broadcasters. I have also always seen BBC Films, our filmmaking arm, as playing a vital role in supporting the British independent film industry. As many reading this will know, establishing funding partners and being able to turn those brilliant creative ideas into a viable production is enormously difficult. But BBC Films provides that essential cornerstone funding. It may not always be huge sums of money, but it plants trust in the project, which allows the producer to source money from other partners. It also provides the license-fee payer with great value for their money with award-winning films being given their television premiere on the BBC in return. WS: What motivated the merger of BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios? What is the combined entity’s remit? HALL: It’s all about ensuring that the BBC is best placed to succeed both creatively and commercially. Across the rest of the industry, production, sales and distribution are often in one place. Merging BBC Worldwide into BBC
A big Saturday night hit on BBC One, Strictly Come Dancing has been successfully adapted in 50-plus markets. 162 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Starring Idris Elba, the critically acclaimed BBC One drama Luther is back for a fifth season, which BBC Studios will be showcasing to buyers this MIPCOM. Studios means we can continue to create world-class content that we know our audiences love and distribute it around the world, competing on a level playing field. Studios will have a crucial role in growing and exploiting intellectual property for the BBC. Where we own the IP, we can do even more to maximize its value and generate funds to reinvest back in our content. The profits BBC Studios generates will help to augment the license fee and increase our effectiveness as a public-service broadcaster—not to mention help invest in the U.K.’s cultural exports and global influence. I have set BBC Studios the challenge of looking at how we can best grow our business and exploit IP further to deliver more returns back to the public-service arm. That’s why it’s so crucial that BBC Studios is able to compete on a level playing field with other independent production companies. WS: How can co-productions and commercial growth help the BBC keep pace with global players? HALL: Co-productions are really important. Some of our biggest hits have been co-productions— look at Blue Planet II and major dramas such as War and Peace, McMafia and The Night Manager. Given the financial pressures the BBC faces, co-productions have become increasingly important; and it’s something we’re keen to continue, as we know that, ultimately, it’s our audiences who reap the biggest rewards. However, we all know that some of the biggest global players are keen to take full control of the content they fund. So the market for co-productions may become more challenging. That’s why maximizing our own commercial income is so important if we’re going to be able to compete. It’s another reason why
creating BBC Studios—and making a success of it—is so vital. WS: How are the FAANGs affecting the BBC and British media? HALL: It was not long ago that the BBC, ITV and Sky were still seen as the titans of British media. When you look at the sums the big U.S. media giants are now investing in content, it’s clear that while we can more than match them in quality, we can’t match their financial muscle. Let’s be clear: the quality and choice available to viewers is fantastic. It’s never been better. But in the U.K., if we’re not careful, there’s a real risk that British storytelling could face decline. The costs of ideas and talent have skyrocketed. We’ve seen extraordinary superinflation in key areas like sports rights and drama production. It’s getting harder and harder to compete, and British content has already suffered as a result. Ofcom’s latest report shows that investment in original British content by public-service broadcasters has fallen by £1 billion ($1.3 billion) since 2004. It’s a trend that is set to continue: recent research by consultants at Mediatique forecast that spending on British programming could fall by a further £500 million ($651 million) in real terms over the next decade. Whatever the quality of the content available, it can’t be good for U.K. audiences or for the country if we are no longer able to choose content that reflects and represents our own lives. It’s no coincidence that all this has happened during a period when the BBC has come under real financial pressure. Championing British talent has always been our priority, but we need to find new streams of funding to keep investing in the best British ideas and help safeguard the future of British content. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 163
I believe it’s now vital for everyone who cares about British content and the strength of the U.K.’s creative industries to come together like never before. We all need to collaborate to compete on the world stage. And we need up-todate regulations in the U.K. that can ensure that the homegrown, public-service content our audiences care about remains easy to find as people are increasingly guided to content in new and different ways. WS: What plans does the BBC have for expanding its reach to young viewers? HALL: The BBC remains the biggest provider of content to adults aged 16 to 34 in the U.K. among all media. That’s great to know. But we also know that there’s a real challenge when it comes to young audiences: 82 percent of children now go to YouTube for on-demand content and 50 percent to Netflix, but only 29 percent use BBC iPlayer. This is why our plans to reinvent the BBC for a new generation are so important. We’re investing more in children’s content—particularly digitally—and have commissioned new shows specifically for 13- to 15-year-olds. We’re thinking hard about the services and support that young people need in the digital age, and how we can help them navigate their lives online and get wise to fake news. What we’re doing with iPlayer is going to mean they can benefit from more personalized services and find it easier to find something they love. And we’ll be adding more features to BBC Sounds in the autumn so they can explore our entire audio offer in one place. WS: How has BBC Three been received as an online-only service? HALL: Moving BBC Three online was a decision we made partly because we saw the way viewing was shifting, but also because we had to
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There has been much speculation in the press about future plans for a paid streaming service. We are well aware of the challenges that lie ahead in an ever-changing and increasingly competitive market, but all I’ll say for now is that it’s a challenge we’ll be carefully considering.
BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit is known for epic blue-chip wildlife productions like the upcoming Dynasties. make savings. It was a bold decision, but I’m incredibly proud of the success of Damian Kavanagh and all the team at BBC Three. Creatively, BBC Three has gone from strength to strength, with programs such as the BAFTAwinning This Country and acclaimed documentaries from Drugsland to the Stacey Dooley Investigates series. It has set new standards for short-form content. As just one example, an Amazing Humans video featuring ballet dancer Gabi Shull, who continues to perform despite having lost her leg to cancer, was viewed 78 million times. BBC Three has won a string of awards, including the coveted RTS Channel of the Year, and I hope we’re proving any naysayers wrong. WS: The iPlayer has been very successful. What plans do you have to develop iPlayer further? Are there any plans to offer some content through a subscription model? HALL: It was a huge revolution when we launched it, creating a brand-new market for video on demand. But, as I’ve said, I now want it to make the move from being a catch-up service to a destination in its own right. I want it to be the number one online TV service in the U.K. Many users will already have seen how we’re starting to make iPlayer much more personal
and tailored to each individual—whether it’s recommending more content you might like or want to discover or telling you when new editions of shows you love have arrived. Thirty-one million people have now registered with the BBC and 17 million of them are signing in each month. There’s much more to come on personalization, and the fact that we’ve now appointed the BBC’s first chief customer officer is a sign of how determined we are to create a much closer relationship with our audiences. Users will also know that we have been experimenting with how we release content. Some programs, such as Top of the Lake 2, Hard Sun, Motherland and, of course, Peter Kay’s Car Share, were made available as full series at the same time as their television premieres. Over Christmas, we released every episode of Line of Duty and the full back catalog of Peaky Blinders to accompany the latest series. It helped iPlayer to its best-ever festive season, capping off its best-ever year. More recently I’ve been pleased with how viewers have responded to box sets from our archive. They were even reacquainted with Mr. Darcy this summer, since Pride and Prejudice was among a number of classic dramas we brought back for audiences to enjoy again. 164 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
WS: At a time when issues and world events are becoming ever more complicated, and when viewers are bombarded with so much information, including fake news, how are BBC News and BBC World Service meeting the challenge of keeping viewers and listeners informed? HALL: The BBC is the most trusted source of news at home, and the most trusted news brand for international audiences. It’s a responsibility we take more seriously than ever when the need to rely on an accurate and impartial source of news has never been greater. The battle against fake news is something we’re working hard on, from continuing our everyday journalism and investigative reporting to expanding our award-winning factchecking service, Reality Check. We’ve also taken the fight out of the newsroom and into the classroom, with up to 1,000 schools around the country being offered mentoring from our expert journalists to help young people distinguish between real and fake news. Across the U.K., we’ve now begun the biggest transformation of our local and national news services in more than 30 years. I know that local journalism is so important because it’s so often what communities trust and rely on most. We’ve invested in a partnership with regional newspapers and the wider local media sector to fund more reporters to hold local power accountable. Meanwhile, in Scotland, we’re launching a new channel, which will have its own flagship daily news bulletin, bringing national and international news to audiences across Scotland. We’ve also been massively enhancing our news services around the world. This year we’ve completed our biggest expansion of the World Service in 70 years, providing services in 12 new languages. I’m particularly proud that this includes a new Korean service, providing a vital source of news to audiences in the North, and a digital service for Korean speakers around the globe. Meanwhile, in India, for example, journalists in our Delhi bureau are working to stop misinformation and scare stories on chat platforms. At home and abroad, the BBC is working hard to challenge fake news and hold those who produce it to account. I believe this is one of the key areas in which the BBC can play a unique—and uniquely important—role in the years ahead.
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TVKIDS
WWW.TVKIDS.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPJUNIOR & MIPCOM EDITION
Tween Drama / Commissioners / Music-Based Shows / Gaming Extensions / BBC’s Alice Webb / Super RTL’s Claude Schmit Hopster’s Nick Walters / Kids Trendsetters / We Bare Bears’ Daniel Chong / Raven-Symoné / CAKE’s Tom van Waveren
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24 TV KIDS
CONTENTS
Future Leaders We live in a world full of complicated problems; perhaps every generation has made that claim, but it seems that nowadays the stakes are higher and the need for knowledge, open minds, diversity and inclusion is greater.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Kids © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvkids.ws
Every generation has also looked at younger generations hoping they would be agents of change. Indeed that hope prevails today as well, but nowadays children and youth need to be armed with equal parts information and open hearts if they are to confront the difficulties that face them. Of course, the burden of teaching our children lies with parents and schools, but since content is so pervasive—always just a click or a swipe away, 24 hours a day—it, too, can play an important role in kids’ lives. The executives and creatives we speak to in this issue of TV Kids share this view. While they are intent on engaging and entertaining children, they are also interested in shows that help kids better understand themselves and their world. Yes, buyers want a broad range of shows and definitely want to offer a lot of comedy. But we also hear calls for gender-neutral shows, or live-action series for tweens that touch on all sorts of topics relevant to this vulnerable age group, including the dangers of violence and cyberbullying— there’s nothing like a relatable favorite character to drive home a message. We learn about the impact of music in shows for children of all ages and how essential gaming extensions are to many kids’ brands. Raven-Symoné, who enchanted kids in That’s So Raven, talks about reprising the role of Raven Baxter in Raven’s Home. Daniel Chong explains what served as inspiration for We Bare Bears, a show that, besides being incredibly funny, also touches on the themes of immigration and inclusion. Xand van Tulleken of Operation Ouch! stresses the value of making children more comfortable with doctors and hospitals. Claude Schmit talks about the strategies that are keeping Super RTL a market leader in Germany, which include reaching kids on all platforms; Alice Webb weighs in on the continued importance of public-service kids’ broadcasting; CAKE’s Tom van Waveren stresses the significance of working with independent producers and developing both local and global shows; Guru Studio’s Frank Falcone talks about the importance of quality over quantity; and Nick Walters traces the growth of the digital service Hopster. Everyone we spoke to wants to provide fun entertainment for kids, but in the process, help them prepare for the future. —Anna Carugati
FEATURES 56 TWEEN APPEAL 62 EYES ON THE PRIZE 70 TUNING IN 78 PLAY DATE 140 KIDS TRENDSETTERS
70 SPECIAL REPORT 101 BRAND LICENSING EUROPE Key trends in the L&M business, plus an interview with Scholastic Entertainment’s Caitlin Friedman.
INTERVIEWS RTL’s 90 Super Claude Schmit Bare Bears’ 96 We Daniel Chong Home’s 100 Raven’s Raven-Symoné Children’s 122 BBC Alice Webb
128 Hopster’s Nick Walters Ouch!’s 132 Operation Xand van Tulleken
136 CAKE’s Tom van Waveren 147
Guru Studio’s Frank Falcone
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3Zero2
“We produce these stories with the utmost care in every phase: from the script to the soundtrack, as well as the casting of characters.”
Alex & Co. / Penny on M.A.R.S. / School Hacks
—Piero Crispino
For the first time, Euro Media Group’s 3Zero2 is presenting its live-action children’s series to the international market. Among the Italian production company’s highlights is Alex & Co., a teen drama following friends who share a passion for music. Serving as a spin-off of that show is Penny on M.A.R.S., about a girl who dreams of attending a prestigious school for performing arts. “Season one has just aired on Disney Channel in Italy and the U.K., with amazing success in both countries,” says Piero Crispino, co-founder of 3Zero2. “We are now shooting season two, while season three is planned for 2019.” School Hacks, meanwhile, is a brand-new sketch comedy about a group of classmates. That series begins airing on Disney Channel in Italy this fall. Penny on M.A.R.S.
4K Media Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS / Contra / Frogger The focus at 4K Media continues to be on promoting the long-running anime franchise Yu-Gi-Oh!, including the latest installment, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. The new show recently premiered on K2 in Italy and TELETOON in Canada, and the company is hoping to attract additional broadcast partners at the market in Cannes. 4K Media is also distributing the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! library, with more than 800 episodes in the catalog. There is also the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading-card game as well as the successful mobile app Duel Links, which has more than 70 million downloads. In addition, 4K Media is looking to secure potential co-production partners and presales as the company develops new content for Konami’s iconic video game titles, including Contra, Frogger and Bomberman. Yu-Gi-Oh!
9 Story Media Group Dr. Panda / Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum / Clifford the Big Red Dog Based on the popular app franchise, Dr. Panda is a newly acquired animated series geared toward young viewers between the ages of 3 and 6. “We have several episodes to show at MIPCOM, and the series has a targeted completion date of December 2018,” says Alix Wiseman, the VP of business development and acquisitions at 9 Story Media Group. The stories of important figures in history, including Amelia Earhart and Isaac Newton, are told from the perspective of when they were children in the tentatively titled Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. “The series teaches kids to dream big and recognize their ability to make a real and meaningful difference in the world,” says Wiseman. Clifford the Big Red Dog is a fresh take on Scholastic’s iconic book property.
Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum
“We have new shows in development, new series in production, new acquisitions, as well as new seasons of existing shows.” —Alix Wiseman 190 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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41 Entertainment Superhero Summer Camp / Super Monsters / Skylanders Academy Among the highlights from 41 Entertainment (41E) are Super Monsters and Skylanders Academy, both of which are available for streaming on Netflix. The company is also offering up Superhero Summer Camp. “Our dynamic titles—ranging from the widely popular and comedic action adventures in Skylanders Academy, to the diverse breadth of multiethnic characters and brilliant storytelling found in our Super Monsters and Superhero Summer Camp properties—all encompass global buyer appeal,” says Nancy Koff, 41E’s VP of sales and marketing. “We create and distribute titles knowing from the inception that we are talking to children in over 100 countries, and thereby producing concepts that are gender-neutral with builtin longevity.”
Animasia Studio
Superhero Summer Camp
“41 Entertainment is a major independent creator, producer and distributor of high-quality kids and family animation.” —Nancy Koff
Chuck Chicken
Harry & Bunnie / Chuck Chicken / Mighty Mechs Two of Animasia Studio’s “current hottest brands” will be presented at MIPCOM: Chuck Chicken and Harry & Bunnie, both of which are slated for sophomore seasons. “The unique 2D flash animation style that Animasia has created over the years has contributed to the quality of the animation, combined with Western storytelling,” says Edmund Chan, the company’s managing director. “The comedy level was increased significantly for Chuck Chicken as more emphasis [is put on] hiring writers with strong comedy backgrounds.” Animasia is also promoting the CGI preschool show Mighty Mechs, a new development that is being co-produced with a leading Chinese animation company. “Mighty Mechs targets an important topic,” says Chan. “This adventure comedy series promotes protection of the environment.”
“Animasia Studio has recently set up operations in Los Angeles, where the main priority is to work with strong creative talents.” —Edmund Chan
August Media
Tish Tash
Journey of Long / Tish Tash / Tilda Appleseed Long is a mysterious dragon with a problem: he needs to survive in the city despite his troublemaking ways in the slapstick comedy Journey of Long. Tish is a little bear with an incredible imagination and a larger-than-life imaginary friend named Tash in Tish Tash. “No matter what troubles they face—be it tackling the age-old terror of long, boring car journeys or maybe just helping your baby brother not be sad about losing his favorite toy—together they can create new worlds, embarking on imaginative adventures and finding their own creative angle to help solve any problems that life throws at them,” says Jyotirmoy Saha, the founder and CEO of August Media. Tilda Appleseed is a book-based, girl-skewing preschool show about friendship and problem solving.
“August Media is looking for new opportunities to invest in a wide variety of shows that appeal to older kids and teenage demographics.” —Jyotirmoy Saha 192 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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BabyTV Big Bugs Band / Billy BamBam / Charlie & the Alphabet A global television channel geared toward infants, toddlers and their parents, BabyTV provides 100 percent commercialfree programming in a safe and entertaining environment. The 24/7 network, which is part of Fox Networks Group, adds new content on a monthly basis. It features such popular series as Charlie & the Alphabet, Billy BamBam and Draco, which help introduce young viewers to early-learning themes like language and creativity. Another highlight is Big Bugs Band, about a group of insects putting on musical performances in the woods. The animated show exposes children to a number of different genres, including samba and jazz. The channel’s lineup also comprises Lale Ki Lolu, which aims to illustrate the importance of imagination, and Tiny Bunch, centered on a baby butterfly and his animal friends. Big Bugs Band
Beyond Kids MythBusters Jr. / Wow! That’s Amazing / Gym Stars The new children’s division of Beyond Distribution, Beyond Kids, “has more than 950 hours of content featuring internationally renowned kids’ programming from the last 25 years,” according to Munia Kanna-Konsek, the head of sales at Beyond Distribution. “These include the BAFTA Awardwinning Ocean Girl, CBBC’s Numberjacks, The Dengineers and Junior Vets.” Among the company’s highlights for the market is MythBusters Jr., a factual-entertainment series hosted by former MythBuster Adam Savage and meant for viewers between the ages of 6 and 12. There is also Wow! That’s Amazing, a live-action factual-entertainment show targeting the same age demo; Gym Stars, a live-action documentary series; and Beat Bugs, an animated program with music made famous by The Beatles.
Wow! That’s Amazing
“Our aim is to further strengthen the company’s role in the production and distribution of global children’s content.”
—Munia Kanna-Konsek
Blue Ant International When I Grow Up! / News of the Wild / Detention Adventure A girl is on a mission to decide her career path in the STEM-themed series When I Grow Up! “Mikaela speaks directly to her audiences as she navigates through the world of science and technology to determine what she wants to do when she grows up,” says Solange Attwood, the executive VP of Blue Ant International. News of the Wild is a factual-entertainment program that puts a comedic spin on a broadcast news report for kids ages 7 to 10. “The series is hosted by two young anchors, alongside onsite kid news correspondents, who keep nature fans upto-date with the latest from the animal kingdom,” says Attwood. Offered as a presale, Detention Adventure comprises an ensemble cast and marks Blue Ant’s first scripted show for children.
News of the Wild
194 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
“We have a lineup of new kids’ series that center on great storytelling with inspiring, super-smart characters and kid hosts.” —Solange Attwood
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CAKE Total Dramarama / Kiri and Lou / Mighty Mike Serving as a prequel to the hit Total Drama franchise, Total Dramarama features the characters as toddlers. “Total Drama was an instant hit when it debuted ten years ago and still commands a huge fan following around the world,” says Ed Galton, the chief commercial officer and managing director at CAKE. “Total Dramarama uses the same key characters but is a completely new take on this successful global franchise aimed at a younger demographic.” Another highlight from the company is Kiri and Lou, a stop-motion show for preschoolers that follows two friends in a “forest of feelings.” “Kiri and Lou centers on the universal themes of kindness, empathy and how to get along,” says Galton. Then there is Mighty Mike, an animated, non-dialogue, slapstick comedy series from CAKE’s long-term partner TeamTO.
CJ ENM
Kiri and Lou
“This year CAKE has a development slate of 16 titles, with six in production.” —Ed Galton
Rainbow Ruby
Robot Trains / Rainbow Ruby / Pucca Friendship, teamwork and problem solving are the main themes in the animated series Robot Trains, which “features a variety of characters with their own distinctive personalities and skills, along with an attractive storyline,” according to Joseph Kim, head of the global business team for the animation division at CJ ENM. The company is also promoting Rainbow Ruby, which is more of a girl-skewing property. “Rainbow Ruby delivers the message that children can become anything they want with their passions and dreams,” says Kim. Pucca, meanwhile, is a globally successful brand that is being rebooted with an animated show. “The new series is to be launched in 2019 in the form of 3D CGI,” adds Kim. “Pucca will be appealing to every consumer group, regardless of age or gender.”
“The animated series Rainbow Ruby contains several appealing elements such as vivid colors, various characters, a multitude of professions and educational activities.” —Joseph Kim
Cosmos-Maya
ViR: The Robot Boy
Tik Tak Tail / Eena Meena Deeka / ViR: The Robot Boy An adorable rabbit is constantly on the run from a ferocious tiger in Tik Tak Tail, one of Cosmos-Maya’s highlights for MIPCOM. “The show essentially tells the story of the unending attempts of a tiger to catch a rabbit and how the rabbit always outruns the tiger with his speed and smarts,” says Anish Mehta, the company’s CEO. More chasing takes place in Eena Meena Deeka, with a hungry fox pursing three chicks. “Very similar to Tom and Jerry, the series is watched by children and adults alike,” says Mehta. Tik Tak Tail and Eena Meena Deeka have been syndicated in a number of countries. There is also ViR: The Robot Boy, which “marries science fiction with action adventure” and is “peppered with comedy,” according to Mehta.
“We endeavor to enter new markets. With our recent foray into Eastern Europe and baby steps in LatAm, we are slowly realizing our goal.” —Anish Mehta
196 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Cyber Group Studios Gigantosaurus / Taffy / Sadie Sparks Making its World Premiere TV Screening during MIPJunior is Gigantosaurus, a new book-based, animated preschool show for Disney Junior Worldwide and France Télévisions, among other partners. Also on offer from Cyber Group Studios is Taffy, a Boomerang original series that is coproduced in partnership with Turner. Then there is Sadie Sparks, a collaboration with Brown Bag Films in Ireland for Disney Channel. The supernatural-themed animated show tells “the enchanting stories of 14-yearold Sadie, who finds out that she has magical abilities and is being trained by a grumpy rabbit,” says Raphaelle Mathieu, the senior VP of sales, acquisitions and new media at Cyber Group Studios. The series has “a unique level of special effects and hilarious adventures.”
Distribution360
Taffy
“We are looking forward to strengthening the partnerships we have with independent producers.” —Raphaelle Mathieu Yaya & Zouk
Super Mighty Makers / It's My Party / Yaya & Zouk Distribution360 (D360) has a kids’ slate that includes both animated shows and live-action programs such as Super Mighty Makers and It’s My Party. “Super Mighty Makers and It’s My Party are two series that showcase kids giving back to their community and crossing cultural divides,” says Diane Rankin, the company’s senior VP of international sales and acquisitions. “At their core, both projects are fueled by purpose, and are part of a movement that promotes kindness, compassion and tolerance.” There is also season two of the preschool show Yaya & Zouk, about the adventures of two siblings. According to Rankin, the series now has 143 episodes, “which is great volume to schedule and stack for preschool audiences.” D360 is also presenting Yaya & Zouk holiday specials.
“We are launching 22 new kids and family series this market—the titles span animation to live action, scripted to unscripted and preschool to teens.” —Diane Rankin
Entertainment One Family & Brands Ricky Zoom / PJ Masks / Peppa Pig The key highlight for Entertainment One (eOne) Family & Brands is Ricky Zoom, the newest preschool show in the company’s catalog. The comedy adventure series is about a little red motorbike that loves to speed. “The show’s central themes of friendship, community and learning to stand on your own two wheels will be wheeling onto TV screens from spring/summer 2019, with consumer products planned for rollout in autumn/winter 2019,” says Monica Candiani, the executive VP of content sales. The company will also be showcasing the popular series PJ Masks and Peppa Pig. “PJ Masks is now an established global hit,” says Candiani. “The fresh content coming through for Peppa Pig ensures that the show is relevant to each new generation of young fans and their families.”
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Ricky Zoom
198 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
“We genuinely believe that our new series Ricky Zoom is very special and has the potential to be another preschool hit.” —Monica Candiani
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Federation Kids & Family Squish / Find Me in Paris / The Ollie & Moon Show The animated comedy Squish centers on a suburban community of amoebas. “We are sure of two things: buyers have never seen anything like this, and it will make them laugh,” says Monica Levy, the VP of international sales at Federation Kids & Family. The company is also highlighting Find Me in Paris, a tween series that “is in a class of its own” and has “an extremely promising licensing program,” according to Levy. “Our partner in France has already negotiated licensing deals across publishing, apparel, homewares, back-to-school and more,” she says. In addition, there is a second season of the slapstick comedy The Ollie & Moon Show, which follows the adventures of two globetrotting cats. The animated program has been sold into a slew of territories worldwide.
“We are looking to further ground the success of our shows with other platforms, for example, through our digital partnership with Little Dot Studios.” —Monica Levy
The Ollie & Moon Show
FUN Union Panda and Krash / BabyRiki / KikoRiki Co-produced with CCTV Animation, Panda and Krash is a new series that will be making its global premiere in Cannes. “China is the country of honor during MIPJunior and MIPCOM, and we anticipate that this will incite particular interest from buyers in new animation productions made in China,” says Christine Brendle, the CEO of FUN Union. Also on offer from the company is BabyRiki, which uses a combination of live action and animation. “Each episode has its own musical story, which appeals to all preschoolers and their parents,” says Brendle. “Two seasons are now complete [and] season three will be completed in early 2019.” FUN Union is also presenting a 7-minute extension of the show, tentatively titled BabyRiki New Adventures, as well as KikoRiki and its sister series PinCode.
“We will continue to strengthen our presence in the U.K., U.S. and Latin American markets, which we have now entered.” Panda and Krash
—Christine Brendle
Gaumont Bionic Max / Belle and Sebastian / Furiki Wheels Aimed at viewers between the ages of 6 and 11, Bionic Max is a buddy comedy about a bionic guinea pig prototype and a social-outcast goldfish. “After their escape from the lab, they have to learn how to [live] in the forest metropolis of Central Park with a gang of zany animal inhabitants,” says Vanessa Shapiro, Gaumont’s president of worldwide TV distribution and co-production. “Kids will escape into the chaotic madness, laugh out loud and do what kids should do—have fun!” Belle and Sebastian is based on a live-action show from the 1960s. “The series is about a courageous young boy from the Alps who befriends an exceptionally large and generous dog,” says Shapiro. And Furiki Wheels is a slapstick comedy about a hyperactive young sloth.
Belle and Sebastian
“Our goal is to create a whole range of compelling and engaging children’s projects that will become part of the Gaumont heritage.” —Vanessa Shapiro 200 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Brainiacs
Gloob Gigablaster / Anittinha ’s Club / Brainiacs The Globosat-owned Gloob is presenting two new animated series to international buyers during MIPJunior. “Gigablaster, geared toward kids from 6 to 10 years old, follows the crazy adventures of blue rhinoceros Giga, whose family runs the coolest karaoke bar in the city of Corner Pocket,” says Paula Taborda dos Guaranys, the head of content and programming at Gloob and Gloobinho. “Anittinha’s Club is a preschool animation created by Anitta, Brazilian biggest pop star.” Also being promoted are new seasons of Brainiacs, a live-action show that has been enjoying success in territories around the globe. “With ten main characters from diverse origins and backgrounds, Brainiacs stimulates values such as friendship, tolerance and social transformation,” says Taborda dos Guaranys.
“We focus on inspirational characters and behaviors in order to include contemporary affairs and values in our programming.” —Paula Taborda dos Guaranys
GO-N International
Tib & Tumtum
Simon / Tib & Tumtum / Zip Zip Following the success of the first season of Simon, GO-N International is showcasing a 52-episode new installment of the animated series, which chronicles the adventures of a small rabbit. The company is also bringing to the market Tib & Tumtum, a new comedy focused on the friendship between a boy and a dinosaur. “It is pure kids’ entertainment, but with substance,” says Marie Congé, the head of sales and business development at GO-N International. “The show portrays mind-blowing adventure from a child’s perspective.” Zip Zip, meanwhile, is a “high-octane comedy full of unexpected jokes and much foolishness, which appeals to kids worldwide.” The series already airs in a number of territories. “More than ever, GO-N is committed to producing original content that can entertain, engage and inspire kids,” adds Congé.
“GO-N’s expansion continues as it is on the lookout for dynamic and new content that will appeal to all media platforms around the globe.” —Marie Congé
GoldBee
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Chop Chop Ninja / The Worst Witch / Lassie Inspired by a collection of apps, Chop Chop Ninja is an animated adventure comedy that has been commissioned by Corus Entertainment for its TELETOON networks in English and French. “Chop Chop Ninja follows the exploits of rookie Iro and his three best friends at the Ninja Academy,” says Christophe Goldberger, the managing director of GoldBee. “The Chop Chop Ninja brand already has awareness in the market because of the success of its ten apps and also because of the fillers, which have been successful on many platforms,” says Goldberger. In addition, the company is showcasing the first and second installments of ZDF Enterprises’ The Worst Witch and Lassie, respectively. “The Worst Witch and Lassie are established properties with long and successful track records,” he adds.
Chop Chop Ninja
“Our offering of programs is a great combination of classic brands and innovative content.” —Christophe Goldberger 202 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Green Gold Animation Dragon Kingdom / I Am Number One / Jungle Trouble Chhota Bheem and his friends explore an exotic land in Dragon Kingdom. “The show, in splendid 3D, sees Bheem and his friends take part in fun adventures, make new friends and become heroes to the people of China,” says Rajiv Chilaka, the founder and CEO of Green Gold Animation. In the slapstick series I Am Number One, two jungle cats strive to be the strongest of all the creatures. Chilaka describes the series as “humorous” and “gag-driven.” The fast-paced comedy Jungle Trouble, meanwhile, centers on four animals as they try to save their home from invaders. “The unique chemistry between the animals and the attributes each of them brings to the show make it stand out,” adds Chilaka. The series “is something viewers should look forward to.”
Dragon Kingdom
“Green Gold is producing amazing shows that are rooted in distinctive cultural identities, with edgy narratives and positive messaging.” —Rajiv Chilaka
Guru Studio
True and the Rainbow Kingdom
True and the Rainbow Kingdom / Pikwik / Big Blue Available for streaming on Netflix, True and the Rainbow Kingdom follows the adventures of a brave, smart and compassionate little girl. “With a timely message of fostering joy, empathy and mindfulness, it’s very quickly becoming a breakout hit for preschoolers and their parents,” says Jonathan Abraham, Guru Studio’s senior director of sales and new business development. The preschool show Pikwik looks on as Suki the Hedgehog and her team deliver surprise-filled parcels to the residents of Pikwik. “We’re working with the incredible team at Disney Junior that shares our passion for these characters and stories,” Abraham adds. Underwater adventurers Lettie and Lemo lead their submarine crew on a mission to uncover the origins of their new recruit, an ocean fairy stowaway named Bacon Berry, in Big Blue.
“It’s been a very exciting year at Guru as our roster of originals continues to grow.” —Jonathan Abraham
Hasbro Studios My Little Pony Friendship is Magic/Transformers Cyberverse/Transformers Rescue Bots Academy The newest season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic sees the ponies teaching each other valuable lessons about what it means to be a good friend. “They’ll continue to spread friendship beyond Equestria,” says Finn Arnesen, Hasbro Studios’ senior VP of international distribution and development. Transformers Cyberverse is a new take on the Transformers franchise, while Arnesen calls Transformers Rescue Bots Academy an “entry-level Transformers series for the younger viewer and [a] new take on the successful Rescue Bots series.” He adds, “This MIPCOM will be our first with the newly acquired Power Rangers franchise in the Hasbro portfolio, with the entire back catalog and the upcoming new series, Power Rangers Beast Morphers. We are excited to share our plans going forward for this evergreen property.”
“We are always trying to innovate in our approach to our shows.” —Finn Arnesen
Transformers Rescue Bots Academy
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Inter Medya King Shakir / Niloya Shakir is a typical teenage lion who loves superheroes and playing video games in King Shakir. His father, Ramsey, and friend Ned the Elephant are constantly getting into trouble, while his mother, Katy, tries to keep things together. Then there is Jane, Shakir’s younger sister, who proves to be a gifted problem solver. “All of these unique characters make up this fun and entertaining cartoon that is equally interesting for kids and their parents,” says Can Okan, the founder and CEO of Inter Medya. A happy 4-year-old lives in a charming village where birds are always singing in the animated series Niloya. The little girl enjoys exploring nature and playing with friends. “The 3D animated series has a unique song for every single episode,” says Okan.
“Niloya teaches children to be sincere, loyal and have moral values.”
Niloya
—Can Okan
Jetpack Distribution The Cul de Sac / Daisy & Ollie / Wolf The Cul de Sac represents Jetpack Distribution’s first foray into live action for older kids and teens. “This critically acclaimed show draws on contemporary audiences’ appetite for dystopian thrillers and offers some truly intriguing drama,” says Dominic Gardiner, Jetpack Distribution’s CEO. “This makes it appeal to a broader age group of 9- to 16-year-olds. It features a stellar cast, including KJ Apa from Riverdale.” Another recent acquisition for Jetpack Distribution is the animated preschool show Daisy & Ollie. “It encourages kids to be curious and ask questions about the world around them,” says Gardiner. A third highlight is Wolf, following a friendly protagonist who is always up for an adventure. “Wolf launched this year and is a popular choice in the Jetpack catalog,” adds Gardiner. “Wolf wants to try everything and anything.”
Daisy & Ollie
“Our burgeoning catalog is 800 half-hours of quality content featuring timeless themes for all age groups.” —Dominic Gardiner
Lacey Entertainment
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Kiva Can Do! / Dinosaur King Renewed for a second season on Nick Jr., Kiva Can Do! is about an imaginative little girl who enjoys exploring the world with her best friend, Saul, and puppy. “[We are] targeting free-TV broadcasters globally and SVOD platforms for the popular Kiva Can Do! series, which becomes available for exhibition in early 2019,” says Brian Lacey, the president of Lacey Entertainment. “With different language versions available, Kiva Can Do! is an attractive property for free-TV broadcasters worldwide, as well as OTT platforms.” The company is also offering up Dinosaur King, which is geared toward young viewers between the ages of 6 and 10. “This fantasy adventure series underscores the timeless and universal appeal of dinosaurs,” adds Lacey, who describes the show as a “contemporary classic.”
Kiva Can Do!
“We are very selective in the content that we seek to co-produce and distribute, and that is what allows us to compete.”
—Brian Lacey
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MarVista Entertainment Back of the Net / Driven to Dance A science fanatic boards the wrong bus and winds up at Harold Soccer Academy instead of Harold Academy Australian Semester at Sea in the kids and family feature Back of the Net. To make matters worse, the star player on the soccer team is determined to make her life miserable. “Back of the Net was shot on location in Australia,” says Jody Cipriano, the head of distribution and acquisitions at MarVista Entertainment. “The star of the film, the very talented Sofia Wylie, is known to legions of kids around the globe as the star of the Disney Channel series Andi Mack, and this is her feature-film debut.” In Driven to Dance, a young girl is torn between her own dreams of making it big as a ballet dancer and the expectations of her mother.
Back of the Net
“MarVista continues to commit to expanding its production and development in the kids’ and family realm and is always on the search for new projects, partnerships and concepts.” —Jody Cipriano
Mediatoon Distribution The Fox-Badger Family / Martin Morning / The Minimighty Kids Mrs. Fox and her daughter move in with Mr. Badger and his three children, and they have to learn to get along in The Fox-Badger Family. Coming out in Q4 this year, it “is a vibrant watercolor series aimed at an upper-preschool audience,” says Jérôme Alby, Mediatoon Distribution’s managing director. “The theme of the blended family is very important in this series and serves to help young children understand the importance of being tolerant.” There is a new CGI season of Martin Morning as well. “We are looking forward to this new season as it is a revamp of a very popular and already successful series,” says Alby. Mediatoon is also presenting The Minimighty Kids, which, Alby notes, “tackles the important themes of accepting your flaws and turning them into talents.”
Martin Morning
“Mediatoon is really looking forward to the release of some exciting programs at MIPCOM.” —Jérôme Alby
MISTCO Aslan / Momo / Ege and Gaga A little boy often causes trouble when he invents new things, but he also learns important lessons in Aslan. Momo tells the story of a gifted bunny that possesses a special ability for finding lost items. Momo and his friends go on adventures together while they look for missing things. Along the way, they improve their problemsolving skills and learn more about their environment, all while having loads of fun. “Momo is a hit on the kids’ channel TRT Çocuk [in Turkey], and we truly believe that it will be loved just as much globally,” says Aysegul Tuzun, the VP of sales and marketing at MISTCO. Both Aslan and Momo are new series that MISTCO is launching at the market. Ege and Gaga is about a boy and his best friend, a talking crow.
“It will be our pleasure to meet with partners who are searching for the best animation titles for their screen.” Ege and Gaga 208 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
—Aysegul Tuzun
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Mondo TV MeteoHeroes / Invention Story / Robot Trains Six kids transform into superheroes using their power over the weather in MeteoHeroes. Kit is a fox with a penchant for creating amazing new contraptions in Invention Story. Mondo TV’s slate also includes Robot Trains. “We are mostly focusing on these shows, building on their success and extending their broadcast reach where appropriate or, in the case of MeteoHeroes, which is a new project, telling likely broadcast partners about the enormous potential of the property,” says Micheline Azoury, the company’s head of acquisitions and TV sales. Azoury notes that Mondo TV is highlighting the expansion of its distribution catalog, a strong focus of the company’s Iberoamerica division. “Equally important, given our success in this field to date, is extending our offering—and in particular our involvement in co-productions,” she adds.
Invention Story
“All three shows have a strong comedy element, which is a definite requirement of most children’s shows for viewers ranging from preschool up to 9 years old.” —Micheline Azoury
Motion Pictures Entertainment MyaGO / White Dragons / Horaci the Inuit
White Dragons
A Spain-Ireland co-production, the preschool series MyaGO is making its premiere at MIPJunior. “MyaGO is an outstanding series in production with beautiful stories,” says Jorge Patiño Donaggio, sales manager and executive producer at Motion Pictures Entertainment. “Original in its design, with top-quality animation done in Spain, [it showcases] positive stories of a non-stereotypical little girl.” White Dragons is a CGI and live-action project developed by Diagonal TV and Motion Pictures. It is about a mystery that must be solved by a group of international friends. Patiño Donaggio says: “It is a hybrid show in which there is a CGI character that will surprise everyone who watches the teaser.” Motion Pictures Entertainment is also offering the second season of the preschool comedy Horaci the Inuit.
“We always say White Dragons is The Da Vinci Code meets The Goonies.”
—Jorge Patiño Donaggio
Portfolio Entertainment The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! / Cyberchase / Addison The beloved feline character from the world of Dr. Seuss takes center stage in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! “Following two previous internationally successful seasons and four one-hour specials, we’re back with an allnew third season that buyers and audiences are sure to love,” says Donnie MacIntyre, the VP of sales and business development at Portfolio Entertainment. Another highlight from the company is Cyberchase, which has been a hit around the world, including on PBS Kids in the U.S. “With 114 half-hour episodes currently available, Cyberchase will continue entertaining longtime fans well into the future and is now positioned to be discovered by an all-new generation of fans as well,” says MacIntyre. Also on offer is Addison, the newest addition to Portfolio’s children’s catalog.
Cyberchase
“Portfolio is a full-service producer, distributor and animation studio on the lookout for both fresh and established talent.”
—Donnie MacIntyre
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Rainbow Shark4 / 2 Happy Farmers / Dancing Horses
“Rainbow programs have a pedigree for quality and great visual execution, and as always, we’ve enjoyed the process of creating new characters and new worlds.”
A group of sharks with super powers are lifeguards at Hunter Island Beach in Shark4, on offer from Rainbow. “Shark4 is a great character-driven, surreal comedy with key themes of bravery and friendship that mix with crazy rescues and thrilling action,” says Andrea Graciotti, Rainbow’s head of sales and co-productions. In 2 Happy Farmers, a brother and sister bear run a farm with a little help from the animals and talking vehicles that live there. The series “inspires kids to get in contact with nature,” says Graciotti. There is also the musical comedy Dancing Horses, about three friends who are united by their love for dance and their magical horses. Other highlights from Rainbow include Pinocchio, 44 Cats and the newest installment in the Winx franchise, Winx Club 8.
—Andrea Graciotti
Scholastic Entertainment Clifford the Big Red Dog The reimagined Clifford the Big Red Dog series from Scholastic Entertainment will feature new adventures and characters. “Emily Elizabeth has been realized as a stronger and more independent female character to inspire today’s girls,” says Caitlin Friedman, the VP and general manager of Scholastic Entertainment. “And for the first time, Clifford and Emily Elizabeth will speak to each other! With Clifford-sized humor and a curriculum focused on imaginative play, early literacy and social-emotional skills, the series will engage young viewers as it helps reinforce important developmental concepts.” The new show will also feature an original song in every episode. Friedman adds that the company is “currently involved in the production of several feature films, animated series and live-action shows.”
“The stories in the new Clifford the Big Red Dog series are funny and entertaining, but at the heart of each episode is an exploration of books, imaginative play and friendship.” —Caitlin Friedman
Serious Lunch/Eye Present Flix / Gigglebug / Best & Bester A dog growing up in Cat Town with a feline family is the focus of Eye Present’s Flix, the latest series from the studio. Serious Lunch holds worldwide rights, excluding Germany and Scandinavia, for the English-language version of the preschool show Gigglebug. “The series and the apps are beautifully crafted and based on the very simple idea of infectious laughter,” says Genevieve Dexter, the CEO of Serious Lunch and Eye Present. There is also the buddy comedy Best & Bester, about two nobodies in search of the best thing ever. Other highlights include Operation Ouch! and Art Ninja. “We have also just completed the first 11minute episode of Xephos & Honeydew, which is a teen/young adult series based on the famous Minecraft avatars. We are looking for presales and partners.”
“Flix’s unique concept is based on a book by the famous children’s author Tomi Ungerer.” —Genevieve Dexter 212 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Flix
Clifford the Big Red Dog
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Sesame Workshop Abby ’s Amazing Adventure / Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck / When You Wish Upon a Pickle Abby and her monster stepbrother Rudy go beyond Sesame Street in the new animated show Abby’s Amazing Adventure. “Together with their magical basket, they take off on amazing adventures to incredible locations, learning all about different careers,” says Ed Wells, the senior VP and head of international media and education at Sesame Workshop. “With a new job mission at each place, Abby—who’s got a brand-new, updated look—uses her confidence and humor as she and Rudy overcome obstacles and persevere until their mission is complete.” Cookie Monster and his buddy Gonger learn about different cooking ingredients in Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck. When a mysterious pickle is delivered to Sesame Street, Elmo, Abby and Bert’s wishes start coming true in When You Wish Upon a Pickle.
“With five programs in production, we are focused on expanding our offerings through new IP.”
Cookie Monster ’s Foodie Truck
—Ed Wells
Spin Master Entertainment Super Dinosaur / Hatchimals: Adventures in Hatchtopia Tech whiz Derek Dynamo and his best friend Super Dino, a genetically altered T-Rex, set out on exciting missions to protect the planet against evil in the animated action comedy Super Dinosaur. “The series will capture kids’ attention with epic encounters and will have them laughing hysterically with sharp, witty writing and performances,” says Thom Chapman, the senior director of sales and distribution at Spin Master Entertainment. “And best of all, what kid wouldn’t want a T-Rex best friend to save the world with?” In Hatchimals: Adventures in Hatchtopia, Penguala, Cheetree, Draggle and Puppit discover all the magic and wonder of their world. “This fall we will be unboxing a new set of short-form content based on the Spin Master toy phenomena Hatchimals,” Chapman adds.
Hatchimals: Adventures in Hatchtopia
“Spin Master Entertainment’s priority is to produce and distribute creativedriven content that truly captivates children with bold action, playful comedy and exciting adventures.” —Thom Chapman
Studio 100 Media & m4e Wissper / Maya the Bee / Mia and me
Maya the Bee
A little girl who can communicate with animals uses her unique skill to help creatures in need in the preschool show Wissper. Studio 100 Media & m4e is heading to Cannes with season two of the series. “The show is designed to attract kids and their families as well, with a unique story about a cute animal whisperer and her animal friends,” says Dorian Bühr, senior sales executive at Studio 100 Media and m4e. There is also a sophomore season of Maya the Bee. Bühr says the series “already has a proven international track record, and we have continued [Maya’s] story with 52 new episodes for season two and a second feature film that we successfully released this spring in numerous territories.” There is also the girlskewing Mia and me.
“We are constantly pursuing our mission to create brands that are content-driven and entertain kids and families on every platform, wherever they are.”
—Dorian Bühr
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SUNRIGHTS Beyblade Burst / Beyblade Burst Evolution / Beyblade Burst Turbo The Beyblade Burst franchise is front and center for SUNRIGHTS, which is presenting three seasons, each with 51 animated episodes, to buyers. Season one, titled Beyblade Burst, follows Valt Aoi and his Blader friends. In season two, Beyblade Burst Evolution, Valt travels to Spain, where he and his buddies battle to make it to the World League. Beyblade Burst Turbo is the third and newest installment. It introduces Aiger Akabane, a wild child who sets out to unseat Valt and claim the title of World Champion. “We have had great success licensing Beyblade Burst’s first two seasons to partners around the world,” says Natasha Gross, the director of TV sales and licensing at SUNRIGHTS. “We’re particularly pleased to showcase the newest season.”
“We continue to look for additional distribution opportunities for all seasons of Beyblade Burst.” —Natasha Gross
Beyblade Burst
Bo Bear
Superights Pat the Dog / Bo Bear / Clay Time The lovable pup Pat is back for a second season of Pat the Dog. Natalie Pinguet, deputy managing director for international sales and acquisitions at Superights, says: “After a successful first season aired in more than 180 territories with prestigious broadcasters such as Turner’s channels in EMEA and Asia Pacific; Disney Channel in the U.S., Spain and Germany; and Discovery Kids in Latin America, our little Pat is back with new adventures!” Bo Bear represents Superights’ first live-action program intended for a preschool audience. In each episode, a teddy bear spends time with a different child. Superights is also offering the edutainment series Clay Time. The show invites preschoolers to develop their imaginations through modeling clay. It is comprised of 30 3-minute animated episodes, each accompanied by a short live tutorial.
“We are proud to offer a premium, diversified catalog covering all demographics, genres, techniques and lengths from first-class producers around the globe.” —Natalie Pinguet
WeKids www.wekids.com WeKids presents a variety of animated titles in the Chinese market, including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. “With more than 6,000 episodes of outstanding kids’ animation, WeKids works with digital distribution partners to be the premier on-demand destination for millions of Chinese kids who are eager to view great animated programs from across the globe, available on multiple new-media platforms in both Chinese and English,” says Sean Chu, the founder and CEO of WeKids. “In addition, WeKids oversees the merchandising, publishing and ancillary exploitation of key properties throughout greater China, including all aspects of brand management.” The service features such programs as Tip the Mouse, Wissper, Trucktown, The ZhuZhus, LoliRock (seasons one and two), Ranger Rob and Zack & Quack.
XXXX
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Xilam Animation Coach Me If You Can / Zig & Sharko / Mr Magoo A mad sorcerer has turned the world’s greatest football player, Erico Platana, into a ball in Xilam Animation’s brand-new original comedy series Coach Me If You Can. To return to his human form, Erico must deflate his ego and help clumsy Daniel Sissou become a football champion. “Coach Me If You Can is a comedy about an unlikely friendship between two people who should never have met and the clash of culture that ensues,” says Morgann Favennec, Xilam Animation’s executive VP of global sales development. Xilam is also launching the third season of its animated slapstick comedy Zig & Sharko. Another highlight is Mr Magoo, based on the classic cartoon. “There’s been a huge level of interest in Mr Magoo from broadcasters all around the world,” Favennec adds.
Coach Me If You Can
“Coach Me If You Can is profoundly touching, lighthearted and refreshing.” —Morgann Favennec
ZDF Enterprises The Athena / The Bureau of Magical Things / Zoom—The White Dolphin Two live-action children’s shows lead the slate that ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE) brings to Cannes. The first, The Athena, tells the story of a young model whose career implodes after she complains about a famous designer treating her like an object. “The Athena is full of super-creative, superambitious students—photographers, graphic artists, fashion designers, jewelery makers—all intent on pursuing their dreams at any cost,” says Peter Lang, the VP of ZDFE.junior. The second live-action highlight from the company is The Bureau of Magical Things, which follows the adventures of a teen girl caught up in a clash between an elf and a fairy. On the animation side, ZDFE is showcasing Zoom—The White Dolphin, about a boy who becomes friends with a mysterious and intelligent sea creature.
The Athena
“ZDFE.junior is definitely the number one address when it comes to successful live-action series.” —Peter Lang
Zodiak Kids The Stinky & Dirty Show! / Lost in Oz / If You Give a Mouse a Cookie After recently signing an agreement to distribute 17 Amazon Prime originals, Zodiak Kids has a number of new children’s programming highlights to present to international buyers. The Stinky & Dirty Show! is about a pair of best friends who work through problems together. “Parents and kids will love the thoughtful stories as these characters embody the idea to try, fail, learn and try again,” says Delphine Dumont, the senior VP of sales, acquisitions and co-productions at Zodiak Kids. Lost in Oz, meanwhile, continues the adventures of Dorothy and Toto from L. Frank Baum’s novels. There is also If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, which is based on characters from a best-selling book series. “Using the circular nature of the books, the stories highlight creative thinking and limitless possibilities,” adds Dumont.
“Having a host of new Amazon originals that range from preschool to live action really bolsters our catalog this market.” If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
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—Delphine Dumont
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ZDF Enterprises’ The Athena. 220 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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TV KIDS
David Wood explores the new renaissance in live-action drama for tweens. etflix and Amazon are not just revolutionizing the world of big-budget, marquee stories for grown-ups; they’re doing it in the children’s space, too. Having brought their high-end game to tween scripted live action, they’ve helped to reinvigorate a sector that has traditionally been limited to the likes of Disney and Nickelodeon and a handful of European pubcasters, among them ZDF and CBBC. “Five to six years ago, the market was dominated by the U.S. [kids’] networks, mostly doing high-budget sitcoms,” observes David Michel, co-founder and president of Cottonwood Media and the managing director of Federation Kids & Family. “Then there were a few European broadcasters, such as ZDF, which started doing on-location live-action shows like H2O. But the big change came when Amazon started doing live-action shows for kids. The way they were shot was different—with high production values comparable to premium adult fare and no Disney-style laugh track.” Michel continues, “Overnight, the SVODs created a new subgenre of premium kids’ drama that looked like nothing else: expensive, shot on location, single-camera live action with a heavy episode order, typified by shows such as Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street. Now [others] have taken on that trend.” The Cottonwood and ZDF Enterprises co-production Find Me in Paris, which is currently in production on a second season, is a good example. “All we knew at the start was that ZDF wanted a high-production-value series shot on location at the Paris Opera Ballet School. The budget is $14 million for 26 episodes—that’s not so expensive for an SVOD drama, but it’s pretty high for a kids’ show.” The broadcast partners for the project include ZDF in Germany, ABC in Australia, Hulu and NBCUniversal in
N
the U.S., France Télévisions in France and Disney Channel in select European markets.
GROWING PAINS “The OTTs have opened up what can be produced in the teen and tween space,” notes Mark Bishop, co-CEO and partner at marblemedia and executive producer of the Canadian tween drama Open Heart. “A couple of years ago there were only comedies for the 9-to-12 demo, but now there is an interest in a much wider range: drama, adventure, mystery, supernatural, sci-fi and romance, all with a real eye to serialized and character-driven stories.” Bob Higgins, the executive VP of kids and family at Boat Rocker Rights, is of a similar perspective. “Everyone is looking at this as the white space—an opportunity market,” says Higgins on the prospects for tween drama. “Over the years you have seen the kids’ market fragment into different audience segments. The latest is this new 11-to-15 space, for viewers who have graduated from sitcoms aimed at 9- to 14-year-olds and are ready for something meatier and more relevant that they can sink their teeth into. Something that isn’t a silly sitcom but more dramatic.” Higgins continues, “At that age, kids are tremen dously awkward, have lots of questions and need a lifeline. In drama they can find it with more nuanced, flawed characters—someone who they can identify with.” The idea that there is a growing market for tween drama with more serious dramatic storytelling is underlined by the success of titles such as The CW’s Riverdale and by the viewing habits of tween girls who are seeking out more challenging content. Higgins says his 13-year-old daughter— much to his chagrin—has binge-watched the millennial drama Pretty Little Liars, whose themes are very advanced for a tween audience. The question, Higgins says, is whether producers can develop shows with grown-up themes that are addressed
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Federation Kids & Family secured a host of co-pro partners for its bigbudget drama Find Me in Paris, which has been renewed for a second season.
in an age-appropriate and responsible way for the tween audience. The demand for that very much exists, and there’s little doubt that the SVODs have hit on an audience that is currently underserved. While CBBC has been screening challenging dramas such as The Dumping Ground, about a British children’s home, for years and continues to innovate, the commercial pay-TV networks and terrestrial platforms tend to play it safer. “Commissioning decisions are advertiser-driven and shows are squarely aimed at a 6-to-11 target demographic because that’s what Kellogg’s wants,” notes Higgins. “The space where they can’t go is the space that Netflix and other SVODs cater to—and these audiences are hungry and want to be fed.” Federation’s Michel agrees that one of the problems with financing tween drama is that terrestrial networks are programming in kids’ blocks and don’t want shows that are too adult-themed, whereas the SVODs are trying to go broader and older.
CASTING CALL The other major challenge in tween drama is finding the appropriate talent— youngsters who will be able to carry the story and be relatable to viewers. Arne Lohmann, the VP of the junior slate at ZDF Enterprises, advises that when it comes to the production of tween drama, the casts should look older than their target audience. “Kids, in general, are more interested in what the slightly older ones are up to, so the protagonists should always be a bit older than the target group. Nevertheless, the stories need to be suitable. A good example is our new tween drama The Athena, based in the creative but fickle world of fashion.” Produced by Foz Allan (Wolfblood, The Dumping Ground, Hetty Feather), The Athena, which will air on Sky Kids in the U.K. next year, will have a
look and feel comparable to programming for young adults. “But the scripts are targeted at the tween demographic with stories and situations suitable for their age,” declares Lohmann. “For tween dramas, the main cast has to look 13 to 16 because the audience is very aspirational,” agrees Michel. The target audience is “not getting a realistic vision of the future but a fantasized version of what they think their lives will be in five years.” Tween dramas should assume a mostly female audience, Michel adds. “Networks might talk about gender neutrality, but the audience for tween drama is basically 70 percent female.” Tween girls are also firmly on the agenda at Mondo TV. Following the success of Heidi, Bienvenida a Casa, the group is planning more investments in the genre through its sister company Mondo TV Iberoamerica. “Fortunately, the market offers many opportunities to exploit this genre and our goal is to continue to benefit from them,” says Micheline Azoury, the head of TV sales and acquisition at Mondo TV. “The tween drama market we are aiming for is more girls than boys. Girls tend to want to grow up faster and watch what their older sisters are watching.” Kids’ viewing habits can be very complicated or very simple, depending on your point of view. For Michel, it’s straightforward. “Kids broadly watch animation until they are 6 or 7, then they watch live action on SVOD or linear until 11 to 12, and then it’s off to YouTube. On YouTube teens and preteens find something that appeals to them, like I did when I was a teenager and stopped watching TV and started listening to the radio. For 12- to 13-year-olds it’s all about freedom—they are interested in danger and taking risks and seek out different, edgier content.” So can the polished, big-budget, SVOD-inspired tween series compete with the lure of low-cost edgy YouTube
Produced in Canada, Boat Rocker’s The Next Step focuses on a group of dancers.
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dreadful, there wasn’t much competition [since we had] a good show. So it was easy to sell.” And just when more investment is needed, Canada and Australia, two key territories for kids’ live action, have been stepping back—the former roiled by consolidation, the latter struggling with changes to the funding ecosystem.
NEW SOURCES
Following the success of Heidi, Bienvenida a Casa, Mondo TV is planning additional live-action dramas for tween girls.
ZDFE.junior’s Lohmann says that fluctuations in the Canadian and Australian markets “had a significant impact on our coproductions. With the lack of funding from these countries, we will have to find other ways of financing to maintain the high standard and quality of the productions.” If only all tween live action had the gilt-edged good fortune of The Next Step, the Canadian series that has spawned spinoffs such as the CBBC talent series Taking the Next Step, a stage show and a strong line of dance-related merchandising. The reality is that most tween drama’s commercial potential is limited to channel distribution, so ideas need to travel well. Shows that are too culturally specific or non-Englishlanguage and need dubbing tend to be a harder sell. “Themes need to be universal,” says Boat Rocker’s Higgins. “We try to create characters and stories and relatable issues and avoid concepts that are too culturally specific. This can often be—for better or worse—the North American high school experience. It has become a global staple so that even if kids around the world don’t have that experience, they still understand it—they get the references.” Higgins adds, “Tweens are going through massive changes, both physically and psychologically, so if you can tap into that you are likely to be watched by kids wherever they are in the world.” The consensus is to focus attention on strong storylines and characters and not to shy away from controversial subjects like violence or cyberbullying. “It is important to address all those difficult subjects,” ZDFE.junior’s Lohmann says. “The audience needs a realistic view on such topics and it may help them to face the challenges of growing up.”
content? Yes, says Higgins at Boat Rocker. “Tweens have a number of sources for their entertainment, from the highend million-dollar dramas to YouTube, where things are much cheaper. But for drama, success comes down to delivering great characters and great stories—if you can do that, then they will watch.” Everyone agrees there is a big opportunity to serve a market of tweens “watching up,” but can it be financed? Not terribly easily is the consensus, because production costs have gone up and finding money has become tougher. First of all, the SVODs have helped push production values higher and have encouraged binge-watching habits, so tweens are developing bigger appetites, says ZDFE.junior’s Lohmann. “The audience is also demanding a cinematographic look for tween drama and productions now routinely include extensive CGI effects. This all means that budgets are much higher than they were five years ago.” A good example is ZDFE.junior’s new series Heirs of the Night, a sevenway European co-production. “Only combined investments from those partners enabled us to close the financing,” reveals Lohmann. “It’s a micro, micro market,” says Federation’s Michel. “You have to convince two buyers to finance it or you are toast—and it’s a market where there aren’t too many commissioners. It’s the global SVODs, Hulu, Disney and Nick and then a few channels such as ZDF, Rai, the BBC and ABC in Australia.” But having financed Find Me in Paris, selling the series was pretty straightforward, admits Michel. “Everyone was drawn to the luster and quality of the show. We created a new category and pushed it a step further. So once we had passed the financing, which was marblemedia’s Open Heart was accompanied by a mobile app and second-screen experience. 224 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Superights’ Pat the Dog.
EYES ON THE PRIZE Andy Fry hears from leading commissioners at global and local channels about budgets, wish lists and digital initiatives. rom the global pay-TV behemoths to marketleading commercial channels and pubcasters, the pressure has never been greater for programmers to deliver compelling, engaging content for kids amid heightened competition from OTT, YouTube and a million other digital distractions. The good news for content makers and distributors is that, for the most part, channels have maintained their levels of investments in children’s programming. “Lagardère Active’s youth channels are profitable,” reports Caroline Cochaux, managing director of TV at the French channels operator and president of its DTT service Gulli. “Gulli is in the top three most profitable DTT channels. Each year we invest 10 percent of our turnover in animation, including linear and nonlinear rights. This is a good performance in a market transformed by digital developments.” Sebastian Debertin, the head of fiction, acquisitions and co-productions at German kids’ pubcaster KiKA, says budgets have not changed—but there is additional pressure because digital activities need to be financed with the existing pot of money. Jackie Edwards, the head of acquisitions and independent animation at BBC Children’s, reflects a similar sentiment when she states, “Our budget for acquisitions and
F
independent animation has stayed the same over the last few years, but there is more funding for digital commissions.” All kids’ linear channels have stepped up their online and on-demand activities to keep up with constant changes in viewing habits. So securing as many rights to a show as possible is crucial.
KEEPING PACE “Consumer patterns are changing and we must adapt,” Cochaux notes. “We have learned to work with new [platforms], such as Netflix and YouTube. For example, our DreamWorks series have the first window on Netflix before arriving as linear exclusives on Gulli and Canal J. These series remain very efficient on our channels despite this first window. We are also present on YouTube with thematic channels that sometimes promote programs even before they are launched on linear.” “We know we need to be everywhere our young, mobile fans are, so we don’t manage linear and nonlinear rights separately,” says Layla Lewis, the senior VP of global acquisitions and content partnerships at Nickelodeon. “The management of different rights creates opportunities for us to program across an entire ecosystem and also launch specifically focused, targeted and curated services, such as localized content unique to different markets in Noggin, our educational SVOD preschoolers app in Latin America and the U.S.”
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Hasbro worked with Cartoon Network on the development of Transformers: Cyberverse.
Lewis’s view is backed up by Orion Ross, the VP of content, animation, digital and acquisitions, at Disney Channels EMEA. “The way we manage linear and nonlinear rights is continuing to evolve. The rights we take may differ dramatically on a show to show basis. If a series is a co-production, we may have the flexibility to share rights with partners. The biggest challenge is trying to make our deals future-proof.” Frank Dietz, the deputy program director and head of acquisitions and co-productions at Germany’s Super RTL, adds, “One of our most important objectives is to reach kids on every possible content platform and to create sustainable excitement for our brands. We are strong believers in controlling the rights to our own IP and always try to gain rights for our own SVOD platform, Kividoo.”
DIGITAL SPIN
As the market evolves and channels have to stretch their budgets over linear and digital platforms, partnerships have become increasingly important across the kids’ channel landscape. Lewis explains that while Nickelodeon draws on a robust pipeline of shows from the U.S., the company can also be “flexible and partner with content creators in a number of different ways with different deal structures. A recent example is the prebuy acquisition we did for Becca’s Bunch from JAM Media, which we committed to very early on and then got involved in the production.” Lewis says Nickelodeon is also developing a new CGI-animated series called Deer Run with iQiyi, China’s largest video streaming platform. “It’s the first time Nickelodeon has taken a Chinese original series from its conception stage. Overall, we are always looking for new ideas and formats that allow us to tell stories in a different way.” Disney balances its in-house production activities with third-party collaborations, says Ross. “We create content by working with independent companies and studios across Europe. For co-productions, we work with independent studios in a way that lets them hold onto some of their IP.” Expanding on this theme, Ross adds, “We have several financing models and every series is different. We always look to set up a co-production structure that gives us the biggest budget we can achieve within the constraints of how the series is financed. We have more competition than ever and we have to deliver quality content, but that doesn’t mean throwing money at something; it can mean structuring the production in a smarter way.” Cochaux at Lagardère says her channel group is involved with a raft of collaborations with French and international animation studios, including Squish with Cottonwood Media and Bionic Max with Gaumont. Debertin at KiKA also points to the importance of coproductions. “We are very happy to have teamed up with Komixx for the animated series Dog Loves Books,” he says.
As Dietz notes, investing in digital is not just about making sure you can window effectively—it’s also about developing content exclusively for nonlinear services. “We invest in digital content significantly—apps, short-form content, etc.,” he says. “With the launch of Viacom Digital Studios, producing original premium digital programming is a big priority across all Viacom brands,” adds Lewis. “This is taking shape in a variety of ways, including the new JoJo and BowBow Show Show.” Patricia Hidalgo, chief content officer for EMEA kids and international kids strategy at Turner, references The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe as a good example of how Turner is experimenting with digital formats. “The ten comedy shorts launched as part of an interactive web game. The ability to launch new content on digital platforms allows us to experiment with how we put content out and get almost instant feedback.” Disney XD EMEA is one of the commissioning platforms for Gaumont’s Furiki Wheels. 228 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Disney Channel EMEA prebought the Brown Bag Films and Cyber Group co-production Sadie Sparks.
“For Christmas, we are also looking forward to Lupus Films’ The Lost Letter, which tells the story of an enthusiastic boy and a lonely old lady who share a love for Christmas.” The KiKA exec also mentions Hope Works, a project initiated by BBC Children’s and Sky Kids. “Hope Works brings together broadcasters and production companies from all over the world to work on a series of short films for children aged 4 to 12. KiKA will work with Sixteen South on Rise, which explores the impact social networks can have on children when used uncontrolled.”
WISH LISTS Regardless of the funding model, kids’ commissioners are on the hunt for an eclectic mix of ideas and styles. “For CBeebies, animation, please—we are always looking for fresh, inventive concepts with great characters and compelling stories,” says Edwards. “We only prebuy for the preschool channel. For 6 to 16, live action and animation are always on the shopping list, as are shows with a strong female lead. We’re always happy to see non-pink girl shows.” Comedy is, of course, key, “but we’re also interested in a strong action adventure with a public-service heart,” she adds. Comedy remains the focus at Cartoon Network. Likewise at sister channel Boomerang, Hidalgo says she’s “looking at classic, slapstick humor and less complicated characters and stories. Together with Cyber Group Studios, we have produced Taffy, an homage to the Hanna-Barbera style.” The focus at Boomerang, she continues, is “visually funny squash-and-stretch animation that we know is loved by the channel’s core audience target of kids 4 to 7.” Cochaux also highlights comedy, but says Lagardère is “open to all projects, even the most atypical, as long as they match our values: openness, good humor and tolerance. We are delighted to find nuggets all over the world that represent our viewers’ diversity, whether in Rabat, Abidjan, Moscow or Paris.” Concerning what Disney is looking for, Ross cites “character-driven and creator-driven comedies. Comedy is an
essential component for Disney Channel and Disney XD audiences. Our focus for Disney Junior remains on storytelling that incorporates a sense of magic, optimism, adventure and, of course, humor. We are also looking at different formats such as short-form, limited series, miniseries and special events, because the standard series formats are not the only game in town.”
FRESH PERSPECTIVES For Super RTL, Dietz has his eye on shows that are “not look-alikes and have a fresh fit in our portfolio.” The channel reinvented its programming lineup after it was forced to replace its pipeline of Disney content at the start of 2014. “As a result of that, we remain very active in every aspect of content sourcing,” Dietz says. “We will broadcast many originals over the next six months, some of which are co-produced or co-edited by Super RTL, and we have invested a lot of energy in the production process of these shows.” At Super RTL’s main competitor, KiKA, Debertin is keeping an eye out for “appropriate, high-quality programs for 6to 9-year-olds, although an outstanding preschool show could also make it on our shopping list. We’re putting a lot of effort into co-production because it is difficult to find appropriate shows that reflect today’s kids’ needs. Too often there are action-driven, violent boys’ shows or far too many ‘pinkish’ girls’ shows on offer, which in terms of gender questions are very outdated.” More generally, says Debertin, KiKA needs “kid-centric, character-driven, adventurous stories with a good portion of humor, reflecting issues like diversity. We are finishing the production and dubbing of Tib & Tumtum, a GO-N, TF1 and KiKA co-production that offers a wonderful new world for girls and boys. With Gerhard Hahn, we are preparing the first season of Mystery Museum. KiKA and Hahn Film are open to additional partners for co-production here.” Debertin is also looking for new hits that can emulate shows like The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill, Insectibles
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Gulli in France is one of the partners on the comedy Squish from Cottonwood Media.
and Super Wings. “In other words, shows that have a great potential to work for the core target as well as reach younger and older kids with humor and adventure. We found Super Wings and Insectibles in Asia, so we keep a close eye on concepts from this part of the world. In general, KiKA is looking for appropriate, high-quality TV shows which we can co-develop, wherever they come from.”
BACK IN ACTION While everyone is on the hunt for fresh, compelling ideas, there is still plenty of room on broadcaster schedules for shows based on existing IP. Nickelodeon, for example, is launching Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which Lewis says “reinvents the franchise for a new generation of fans.”
Disney Channel has in the works 101 Dalmatian Street, inspired by Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel and Walt Disney’s 1961 film 101 Dalmatians. “Disney has a wealth of heritage properties, and that allows us to draw on a well of storytelling and reimagine classics for a new audience,” Ross says. Cochaux at Lagardère Active is excited to roll out the Barbie animated series Barbie Dreamtopia and Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures via its long-term partnership with Mattel. Even with the wealth of content, new and returning, on the market, there are still some things that are in short supply. Super RTL’s Dietz points to the limited availability of kids’ live-action “because the shows don’t have the same shelf life as their animation equivalents.” Turner’s Hidalgo references a lack of “experimental content that incorporates the language and style of YouTube. That’s something we are focusing on at Turner. Our team in Latin America launched two formats that worked well, Another Week and Toontubers. We’re now looking at rolling these out across EMEA. We’re also excited to have our own Cartoon Network YouTuber in EMEA, Toony Tube (a puppet).” Nickelodeon’s Lewis adds, “There is a plethora of serialized content, but we’d love to see something that works as standalone episodes and is fun and funny. We are always happy to partner early, so come and talk to us.” Commissioners are also eager for shows that address pressing contemporary issues. “Diversity and inclusion are very much top of mind,” says Turner’s Hidalgo. “Relatability has always been key for us, but it’s great that we’re now seeing more and more diverse characters.” KiKA’s Debertin says he wants to see “stories that capture kids’ attention while addressing diversity in a way that goes far beyond the gender issue. We need content that strengthens not only the self-confidence and self-awareness of children but also their respect for other people, no matter what culture, country or religion they represent.”
The preschool offering on Germany’s Super RTL includes 9 Story’s hit PBS Kids animated series Daniel Tiger ’s Neighborhood. 232 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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By Joanna Padovano Tong
Music-based children’s series are resonating with young viewers around the globe. Jetpack’s Kitty is Not a Cat. 234 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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TUNING IN here’s something about a song that can have a strong influence on a person’s mood. From an upbeat track evoking happy feelings to a slow tune that brings tears to the eyes, the power of music is undeniable. And for children who are still learning about their emotions, music can play a big role in the television they watch—whether it is in the form of background melodies that express a character’s attitude or songs that are central to a show’s main storyline. “Music helps communicate emotion and meaning,” says Christine Brendle, the CEO of FUN Union. “Any story can be enhanced by musical scores where less is told and more is conveyed—joy, melancholy, disappointment, anger, etc.” Music is key to the storytelling in BabyRiki, a preschool show that follows the adventures of five young characters as they explore their environment. “Each episode is 5 minutes long, comprising over 2 minutes of music for young children to dance and sing along to,” says Brendle. Music is an integral aspect of the hit preschool series Peppa Pig, even though the show is not specifically about music per se. “First experiences for preschoolers are often the main thread of episodes, so catchy songs in the show often relate to moral messages,” says Olivier Dumont, the president of Entertainment One (eOne) Family & Brands. Examples include tunes about fruits and vegetables as well as recycling—“songs that relate to everyday activities that turn into little adventures for preschoolers.” Also in the eOne Family & Brands catalog is the animated show PJ Masks, which features a very popular theme song. “In terms of the music on that show, we wanted a nostalgic style,” says Dumont. “Parents, as a result, really love the music in the show.”
T
FEEL THE RHYTHM Music plays a big role in the storyline for Taratabong: The World of the Meloditties, a preschool program focused on a group of creatures that communicate by sound and rhythm. “It’s very musical because it teaches kids the different notes and also the different instruments that exist,” says Jérôme Alby, the managing director of Mediatoon Distribution. The company also represents Teen Crumpets and MaXi, both of which feature prominent musical themes. Jetpack Distribution’s portfolio includes Kazoops!, about a little boy who goes on musical journeys to explore the answers to his many questions about the world around him. “Each episode has a unique song sung by a musician,” says Dominic Gardiner, the company’s CEO. “The narrative of the song reflects the narrative of the series.” The preschool program Boj follows the adventures of a rare Australian marsupial. “Music is a really strong backbone of that series,” says Gardiner. There is also Dennis &
Gnasher Unleashed!, based on the comic character Dennis the Menace, who, in the animated television show, plays guitar in a band with his friends. Then there is Kitty is Not a Cat, an older-skewing animated comedy that Gardiner says “has got music at its core.” The show centers on a little girl who lives in a household of felines and thinks she is a cat. “Music in that show is more of a driver of style and attitude,” says Gardiner. “Music is not just added on to fill the gaps between the dialogue; it’s actually a really important thing that holds the whole series together and makes it feel different.”
CAT-CHY SONGS Speaking of felines, Portfolio Entertainment represents The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! “It’s got all of these very catchy, entertaining songs that seamlessly help with the storytelling,” says Lisa Olfman, the company’s cofounder and CEO. “They heighten an emotion or a mood or some activity they’re doing in that moment in time. It allows the kids to get physical in front of their screen, where they can jump up, they can dance, they can sing along. The songs really help complement the storytelling.” Another feline-focused series that incorporates music is 44 Cats. “The name of the show references a song from 1968 that won a children’s music contest in Italy and since then has become a much-loved part of Italian culture,” says Cristiana Buzzelli, the senior VP of sales and acquisitions at Rainbow. “The lovable cats in the show are part of a music band that breaks into song at every opportunity.” Rainbow’s catalog also includes the animated Winx Club and live-action Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends. “Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends has a massive musical element and is proving to be hugely popular amongst teens and tweens, [while] Winx Club addresses girls 6 to 9 years old,” says Buzzelli. “At Rainbow, we firmly believe that music is a fundamental element of every IP for children and families.” The animated series LoliRock is part of the Zodiak Kids portfolio. The show follows the adventures of a teen girl who, after joining a band, discovers that she is an alien princess with magical powers. LoliRock is geared toward young viewers between the ages of 6 and 11. “Kids relate to the magic and language of music,” says Eryk Casemiro, the chief creative officer of Zodiak Kids Studios. Beat Bugs, a Netflix commission that is sold by Beyond Distribution, incorporates songs made famous by The Beatles. “We wanted to bring the extraordinary music of The Beatles to life on screen with heart and imagination, so a new generation of viewers and listeners all over the world could learn to appreciate the music and all it has to offer,” says Josh Wakely, who created the animated series. “We were able to dissect the vibrant imagery within the
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Beat Bugs, sold by Beyond Distribution, incorporates songs made famous by The Beatles.
lyrics of each song and reimagine the world in a way we haven’t seen on television before, in a way that both kids and parents can experience and enjoy together.”
LEARN TO THE BEAT
But these types of shows can also prove difficult when it comes to securing international sales. “There are several challenges linked to the initial costs for the original songs/scores, followed by adapting and dubbing costs,” says FUN Union’s Brendle. “Joy Rosen [also co-founder and CEO at Portfolio] oversees our global distribution division and every time we talk about [musical] shows—either our shows or other people’s shows that we’ve acquired that have a number of songs in them—she goes, OK, that’s going to be tough,” says Olfman. “What makes that challenging is, first of all, it’s very expensive. Translating and dubbing songs into a country’s native language presents both a creative and a technical challenge. Song lyrics can rarely be directly translated and still fit with the existing music, so it means we’re hiring creative writers to adapt the lyrics.” At Zodiak Kids, “When you say you’re going to have music in a show to your sales team for distribution, their eyes roll to the back of their heads and they convulse because it’s expensive to dub songs,” quips Casemiro. “When you’re going into different languages, not all dubbing actors and actresses can sing. Then you have the complication of lyrics and language. There’s a certain amount of syllables you can get away with when lip-synching speech [that] in song you can’t because there’s rhythm. So it becomes much more expensive.” “The tricky part about shows that are based on music is that it’s always more expensive to exploit,” agrees Mediatoon’s Alby. “Then you have to translate a show; it’s easy to translate dialogue [but] you don’t always find a good actor that
In addition to its entertainment value, music in kids’ TV programming can be an effective teaching tool. “Young children learn better when they move and dance while experimenting with a new concept,” says FUN Union’s Brendle. “Kinesthetic learning—when a notion is acquired through movement or physical activities rather than listening to a lecture—is particularly adapted to young children. Anyone who has tried to memorize a long piece of text by adding a tune or a dance to it will understand the appeal of musical shows for children.” “Funny words and rhymes set to memorable melodies are a part of almost every child’s development,” says Portfolio’s Olfman. “Children learn extremely well through songs.... The pure entertainment value of fun songs really helps cement the show in a child’s mind.” Music also helps keep a show fun and light while simultaneously giving youngsters an outlet for their seemingly endless amounts of energy. “Younger audiences are attracted to music as they love to move about, and when they are listening to music they are swaying, bouncing, dancing, marching and clapping,” says Rainbow’s Buzzelli. Aside from the benefits for viewers, music-based kids’ series are also appealing to distributors due to their universal nature. “Music is the most international language there is; that’s something we have in common in all cultures,” says Mediatoon’s Alby. Rainbow’s 44 Cats, inspired by a famous Italian song, features characters who play in a band. 236 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Music helps to drive the storytelling in Portfolio’s The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!
can also be a good singer, especially when it’s programmed for kids, which can be even more tricky. And of course, that significantly increases the dubbing costs.” Dumont at eOne Family & Brands also mentions the difficulty of securing the international rights for songs. “You need to make sure your music is cleared for everywhere, which is not always easy,” he says. “Beyond this, it’s the cost—particularly the lyrics to the songs when dubbing— that is very expensive. So when songs are [involved], you need to make sure that the show is really strong.”
TEST OF TIME In order to have a music-based kids’ show that can be sold into territories around the globe, it’s crucial to have a solid storyline to justify the high costs associated with translating and dubbing. “You need to have a good plot,” emphasizes Mediatoon’s Alby. “The character diamond has to be well-polished. Music is very good for a show, but if it lacks the other key components, it will be a failure.”
It’s also important that the music will remain relevant as time goes by. “Music can date a program,” says Jetpack’s Gardiner. “If you’re watching stuff from the ’80s, the first thing you always notice is the music. A lot of preschool stays quite timeless because of the types of music. You’ve got to be careful with music; you want it to be cool, you want it to feel light and resonate now, but at the same time, you don’t want to make it too tied to a particular style because in three or four years, [it may not] stand the test of time.” In addition, producers should include the right music for the audience that’s being targeted. “Occasionally, you’ll get somebody who’s trying to use inappropriate, older-skewing music for preschoolers because they think that’s really cool,” notes Gardiner. Music should also be authentic and relevant to what is taking place in the show. “Sometimes in comedy, music’s really just there for comedic effect,” he adds. “But if your series is about a bunch of skaters on high-tech missions, you want to make sure the music reflects what kids might actually be doing today in the real world, and therefore you’ve got to get artists or musicians who are able to emulate that.” “The songs must be connected with the themes and values of the show so that they are an integral part of the content,” concurs Rainbow’s Buzzelli. “Only once this is properly done can music be a central part of what makes a brand successful.” Zodiak Kids’ Casemiro also suggests that producers of preschool programming switch up the musical style every now and then. “Preschool music should allow a live instrument or two,” he says. “We don’t always have to use synthesizers in our scores for kids’ shows.” Even for series where music is not central to the storyline, Gardiner feels that it’s best to get a head start on
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Preschoolers are encouraged to sing along and dance to the songs featured in FUN Union’s BabyRiki.
mapping out the score. “Music often is one of the last things that people think about when they’re making a show,” he says. “They spend so long sitting in front of bibles and artwork and pitch materials, then they go into production and it’s all drawings and computers. At the end, somebody is like, Oh right! It’ll feel empty without music, what are we going to do? [Instead of] suddenly just adding music, you probably should have made sure that musical direction was woven in at an early stage.”
LICENSING POTENTIAL L&M can be extremely complementary for this type of programming. “Licensing and merchandising is always important and strengthens the brand across a number of mediums and platforms,” says Portfolio’s Olfman. “Kids feel like they need something to hug, they need something to hold, they need something to sing along to, something to play from the show, and all of it reinforces the relationship to the characters.”
However, Zodiak Kids’ Casemiro cautions against nonlinear extensions just for the sake of it. “You never want the tail to wag the dog,” he says. “You want that business to follow organically and make the experience for the user better. That’s easier said than done; we all know how hard the music business is and how different it is.” “Music is a huge part of all the experiential activities” for Peppa Pig, notes eOne Family’s Dumont. “We have a theme park in the U.K. called Peppa Pig World, so music is a great way to make the show come alive in those parks.” Another example is Move with Peppa, a series of classes and parties for kids that use music to encourage them to stay active. Then there are Peppa Pig musical albums, with new releases in the works as the property gears up to celebrate its 15th anniversary next year. Dumont continues, “Music is also a big part of all the apps that we make on each of our shows. We created a subscriptionbased app called World of Peppa Pig, in which music is featured very prominently. The minute you download the initial app, you’re greeted by the theme song for the show. It’s a really key part of getting more recognizability of the brand and hooking fans into any of the extensions.” “With our master toy partner for 44 Cats (Toy Plus), we are developing a wide range of toys and every item features musical content that is linked to the TV show,” says Rainbow’s Buzzelli. “Music also gives a wonderful added value to digital media content to support the show.” Jetpack’s Gardiner adds, “Kids want to listen to stuff that they see on TV. It makes them happy; it makes them want to sing along. If you can use music from a series to connect, it’s a very powerful thing.”
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Eye Present & Gigglebug’s Best & Bester.
Gaming extensions have become essential to many kids’ TV brands. By David Wood t’s been reported that some 125 million people worldwide play Fortnite, which has been the biggest story in online gaming this year. Many of those players are kids, spawning parenting blogs with titles like “What The Heck Is Fortnite, And Why Are My Kids Obsessed With It?” and “Why Can’t My Kids Stop Playing Fortnite?” The Fortnite phenomenon—on the heels of the Pokémon GO craze—has underlined the importance of gaming extensions to kids’ shows as producers and broadcasters alike look for new ways to get viewers to spend more time with their properties.
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“The primary reason for investing in gaming extensions is they extend the life of the property beyond the TV show,” states Pierre Sissmann, the chairman and CEO of Cyber Group Studios, which created a new interactive division this year. “They increase the engagement of the audience.” Frank Falcone, president and executive creative director at Guru Studio, concurs, noting, “Game extensions allow us to bring a show’s core values to an interactive medium and let children build deeper connections to the characters they already love. For instance, with True and the Rainbow Kingdom, we focused on the core values of kindness, problem-solving and mindfulness, which are transferred over to our game True Wishes through task-related
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Cyber Group, which is premiering Gigantosaurus at MIPJunior, recently established a new gaming and interactive division.
problem-solving for preschoolers. New platforms and devices are popping up all the time, so to stay top of mind it’s important to be where kids are and where they’ll be next.” Brice Dubat, interactive creative director at TeamTO, the French animation studio behind the 41 Entertainmentdistributed Skylanders Academy, which is based on the Activision video game, and the CAKE-represented Angelo Rules, points out that another big plus of gaming is that it can keep viewers connected with a property, particularly outside of the broadcast windows. “A long time can go by between two seasons of a show, so by investing in video games you can continue creating content between seasons,” Dubat explains. “Gaming can also be used to promote the show along with a TV launch campaign, and is also a good way to reconnect the show with former viewers. Angelo Rules launched eight years ago, so people who started watching it then are teenagers now. They no longer watch the show but are happy to download a game and play with their old friend.”
Thierry Braille, the head of Cyber Group’s interactive and video game division, emphasizes that gaming experiences have multiple benefits for the young. “Playing a well-designed game can contribute to the development of the young players’ skills, such as decision-making, understanding choice and consequences, improving psychomotricity [the interrelationship of mental processes and motor skills], increasing agility and developing concentration and memorization. These are things that watching a linear TV show cannot do.” Braille adds, “And if watching a TV show is a personal experience, playing a game is an experience that children love sharing with others. To this point, we will make sure our games offer multiplayer features so that the children can play with their parents, friends or siblings.” Cyber Group Studios is taking the gaming side of its business very seriously. Braille, former VP and managing director of Disney Interactive EMEA, joined the French independent producer and distributor earlier this year to drive the development of games and interactive experiences on digital platforms (iOS, Android) as well as on consoles (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch) and PCs. Braille will apply his know-how to Cyber Group-owned and third-party brands developed as TV series, including Gigantosaurus,
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY For Sesame Workshop, the producer of the world-famous preschool brand Sesame Street, the prime motivation for gaming extensions is education. “Education is the pillar of everything we do—show or game,” says Michelle NewmanKaplan, assistant director of learning design at the nonprofit organization. “Some use games to keep a connection with their IP, but we use them to connect to the learning experience. Sesame Street has enormous potential for direct instruction. We are able to walk kids through learning opportunities, but this is a pretty passive experience. With games, kids can learn through play, becoming active participants in their learning experience, and we can give them immediate feedback. This increases learning and mastery of skills.”
41 Entertainment distributes the TeamTO-produced Skylanders Academy.
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Sadie Sparks, Zorro the Chronicles and Zou. “Each gaming platform has its own audience and its own technological benefit,” Braille says. “For Gigantosaurus, we have designed a great game concept that can be played on any platform. We will be looking at making it available on as many devices as possible. Each version of the game will leverage the specificities of its platform.”
AGAIN AND AGAIN When it comes to spinning off a game from a TV proposition, there is a lot to think about. For starters, crafting TV narratives and designing gameplay require very different skill sets, says Marc du Pontavice, the chairman and CEO of Xilam. “The scripted Sesame Workshop’s educational games are built around its beloved characters like Elmo. business is all about storytelling. Guru Studio uses both approaches in game development, But gaming is all about the gameplay. However much you Falcone says. “We have a hybrid approach and adapt it to the know about the storytelling, it’s never going to tell you how specific project. We have an internal games team that has built to invent and create good gameplay that kids will want to several successful games over the years, including extensions repeat again and again.” for our preschool series Justin Time. At the same time, when That’s why so many TV producers have hired gaming additional resources or skill sets are required, we seek out partexperts to run their interactive divisions and are outsourcners, as was the case for True and the Rainbow Kingdom.” ing more complex extensions to specialist agencies.
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rewarded while they play. Our goal is to produce games All independent producers of kids’ content face the chalthat the players not only finish but also want to replay lenge of how to fund gaming extensions. many times. In order to achieve that, the game needs to “Producers should expect to budget around $200,000 for a constantly introduce new challenges.” mobile game,” says Xilam’s du Pontavice, with games for higher-end platforms likely to cost considerably more. More complex gameplay and higher-resolution graphics and video all add to the cost. The benefit is that big platforms and games For Sesame Workshop’s Newman-Kaplan, intuitive and publishers are more likely to pay a fee to develop a game.” straightforward gameplay is critical for younger gamers. The choice is whether to license a popular kids’ brand to “Make sure there is no barrier to entry to stop kids engaga third party for game development or to develop it youring,” she advises. “We make sure our instructions are clear self, which involves upfront investment and risk but and concise. And we always put games in front of the higher potential revenues. experts—preschoolers—so we are able to make revisions Braille at Cyber Group says that the most critical step is to and improve them.” identify the most appropriate development studio for a particular game. “Each studio has its own gameplay expertise. Some are experts in racing games while others are the best in action-adventure games. Our vision is that our games should include gameplay values such as innovation. Innovation has been a key driver of Cyber Group’s rapid growth in TV animation—it is part of the company’s DNA and it is also a common trait of all successful games.” Braille continues, “Also, players need to feel they are constantly making progress and have to be Chop Chop Ninja, based on the mobile games, is a new series on offer from GoldBee.
PLAYTIME
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Todd Slepian, a senior digital producer at Sesame Workshop, adds, “In gameplay, we design in time-outs to support the child—to prevent them from becoming discouraged. When they come up with wrong answers, we have structures to guide them through and keep them engaged.”
DNA PROFILES It’s also crucial to translate elements of a show’s DNA into the gameplay, Cyber Group’s Braille says. “The first step is to identify the most relevant gameplay to transpose the values of the show while making sure we can deliver the best possible gaming experience. With the development studio, we produce a high-level game design highlighting the key features. Xilam’s Oggy and the Cockroaches has a dedicated mobile gaming app. We then develop the full game design While thematic or creative connections between TV as well as a playable execution of the game’s key features. It show and game are important, designing physical links allows us to validate that the game will deliver the experibetween the two media, such as codes contained in the ence we have in mind. During the development process, we show that can be used to unlock gaming levels, can be organize focus groups so that we collect feedback on the level of tricky, argues Genevieve Dexter, the CEO of distribution difficulty of the game, its perceived values and competitive outfit Serious Lunch and production company Eye advantages. We transpose the DNA of the show to the game by Present. “Plenty of companies are looking at it,” she developing both in parallel via an iterative brainstorming says. “Sometimes it works, but sometimes it’s just too process. The idea is that the show and the game generate great complicated—particularly for a younger, less sophistiexperiences as standalone products, but together they create cated gaming audience.” an unparalleled enhanced experience.”
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“The main challenge is the difference of temporality,” says TeamTO’s Dubat. “Watching a TV show is like a meeting. It happens at a certain time, at a certain place. It’s also broadcast a long time after being produced. Games usually have a shorter lifetime and evolve quickly depending on how players play and react to the game. If a game needs a special code to unlock some levels that will only appear in an episode of the TV show, it could be very frustrating to be blocked in the game because the episode has not yet been broadcast. There are a lot of possibilities, but also a lot of things that could go very wrong.” Having direct links between games and TV episodes can also make the process more expensive, says Eye Present’s Dexter. The goal for many companies is to support the development of games by persuading the end user to pay for downloads, although in the kids’ market that usually involves the complication of convincing a parental gatekeeper to purchase it. “Besides, people generally expect kids’ games and apps linked to TV shows to be free—particularly those associated with public-service content,” says Dexter, who has been involved in the development of two games to support the CBBC show Operation Ouch!, which Serious Lunch distributes. “People are more likely to be willing to pay for content specifically designed to educate that is not linked to a TV brand,” she declares. The aforementioned Skylanders Academy is just one of several examples of video games being adapted into a TV series. Dexter explains that her animation studio, Eye Present, is making a 78x7-minute comedy series, Best & Bester, for 6- to 9-yearolds with the Finnish producer Gigglebug. “At the center is a simple principle—comparison and choice—with two characters who have to choose to be a new thing every day,” Dexter says.
“Originally it was a game, but we are making it into a show by developing it in tandem.” “Games can reach very large audiences globally and successful games do present opportunities to become TV shows,” Cyber Group’s Braille says. “For example, Cyber Group helped turn the Mini Ninjas adventure-action game into a TV show.”
APP INSPIRATION GoldBee arrives at MIPCOM with Chop Chop Ninja, a series of 11-minute episodes and accompanying interstitials based on “ten apps that have generated over 20 million downloads,” says Christophe Goldberger, managing director. “The Chop Chop Ninja brand already has awareness in the market because of the success of its apps and because the fillers have been successful on many platforms.” Guru’s Falcone adds, “We recently helped launch an indie game studio called 4L Games whose adventure game FRACTER has quickly risen to the top of the App Store charts. Though not strictly a kids’ property, it has a very wide appeal and is gaining incredible traction. The next IP hit could very likely come from the world of mobile gaming, and at some point maybe even FRACTER will have licensing and broadcast opportunities. We leave no stone unturned.” The gaming space certainly holds lots of potential for kids’ producers, with high-tech areas such as augmented reality being actively explored to produce concepts that could bring TV shows and gaming together. This would undoubtedly take TV show gaming to the next level. “I have heard there is some very heavy R&D going into enabling gameplay within a TV show,” says Dexter. “While nobody is convinced about the potential of virtual reality, with AR you could play a game within the TV show at the same time as you are watching it.”
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TV KIDS: How has the last year been for Super RTL in terms of ratings and market share? SCHMIT: Fantastic! In 2017 we had a share of 21.5 percent; our colleagues from Disney had 9.1 percent and Nickelodeon had 7.8 percent. So we had more than double the share of our [commercial] competition, and more than the competition combined. We cannot complain—it was a really good year. TV KIDS: What’s driven that dominance for you? SCHMIT: Our in-house productions, our magazines, are working very well. That’s not surprising, because they distinguish us from the American channels. We do invest heavily in our own shows. We have Super Toy Club, which we first had on air 15 years ago. Boys compete against girls and the winning team gets three minutes to run through the aisles of a toy store collecting whatever they want in a shopping cart. We are producing the second season and there are more seasons to come. We have Woozle Goozle, a science and knowledge magazine that is very funny. The classic Warner Bros. titles are doing very well. The DreamWorks shows are doing fine. Angelo! is doing terrifically. PAW Patrol, a Nickelodeon production, airs on Super RTL and the ratings are going through the roof. It has a huge market share among younger kids. It’s our best-performing preschool format. We are also the merchandising agent on PAW Patrol. That’s a very interesting blueprint. We did a similar deal with Peppa Pig, which was part of German public television’s Die Sendung mit der Maus (The Show with the Mouse). That is working well as well. That might be a blueprint for future cooperation.
By Mansha Daswani
An institution in children’s broadcasting in Europe, Super RTL has never shied away from embracing change to move its business forward. As the marketplace in Germany has evolved over the last few years, Super RTL has shifted with it. In 2014, when The Walt Disney Company (co-owner of Super RTL with RTL Group) opted to launch its own outlet in the country, Super RTL found a raft of new suppliers to make up for the content it was losing. As viewing has moved online, Super RTL has stepped up its digital initiatives. With young ones spending more and more time on YouTube, the channel is exploring what it can do in the short-form web content space. CEO Claude Schmit tells TV Kids about how Super RTL is strengthening its position as a market leader in linear TV while expanding its reach onto all the other platforms kids are seeking out content from today.
TV KIDS: What have been some of the key lessons since the move away from Disney Channel content to sourcing from the open market? SCHMIT: We learned that there is a lot of stuff available. That is the good part. We also learned, the hard way, that most of that additional volume has been triggered by Netflix, Amazon and company—they are investing heavily. Our expectations are entirely different from those at Netflix. We need shows that are self-contained; we are not for the binge-watchers. Our shows have to have endings. We don’t want kids to be anxious to see what’s going to come next; interested, yes, anxious, no. Netflix wants to generate subscriptions, and they want to do it fast. After a week of being binge-watched, the format can die, as far as they’re concerned. We are in the long-term business. We are in the episode-by-episode business. We also noticed that Netflix is a niche offer, they are not targeting a large audience, so the product under their direction tends to become more niche and less suitable for Super RTL. We are lucky that other people are producing good shows that suit our needs well. We have good products from Warner Bros., NBCUniversal, Sony and also from our Canadian partners, our French partners, from Australia, and we have our own productions. So the mix is what makes the difference. TV KIDS: We’re always hearing about how kids are growing up faster than before. Has that impacted your programming strategy? Have you needed to age up, or down, any of your shows? SCHMIT: I don’t think kids have changed so much. They do have other means at their disposal to satisfy their need for
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Acquisitions on Super RTL include Entertainment One’s hit series Peppa Pig.
highly entertaining shows, be it digital or linear. The offer has expanded dramatically. However, I don’t think children have changed, especially the younger ones. Yes, the older ones have become older faster, that is true, but the younger ones haven’t, or at least to a much lesser extent. From 3 to 6, kids are undergoing such fundamental educational processes. You cannot speed them up. A 12- or 13-year-old is older nowadays than he used to be. But a 3-year-old is still a 3-year-old. TV KIDS: There have been many headlines recently about immigration in Europe. Are you thinking about any future shifts in your content strategy for these emerging populations in Germany? SCHMIT: Almost 30 percent of the kids living in Germany have a migrant background. We know they use Super RTL as an integration vehicle; it even sometimes supports them learning German. TV KIDS: How has the advertising market been? SCHMIT: I would love to report 20-percent growth. It’s a saturated market. You might have a percentage point up or down, but we are not expecting substantial additional advertising revenues to flow towards linear. We are expecting to see additional advertising money flow to digital. We have nearly doubled our reach in digital over the last years, and have quadrupled our sales. Unfortunately, it is still at a low level compared with what we do on linear, but it is increasing. The increase is a very nice development. However, the absolute numbers are still very small.
TV KIDS: Tell us about those digital initiatives. What have you learned from them so far? SCHMIT: We are learning on a daily basis. We have refocused Toggo.de, which is our main website for school kids. We have added a video app to that offer and, in January, a games app. We feel that video and games are two different offers, so we had to separate them. Those two apps have been doing tremendously well. The Toggo video app was very successful. We have launched a Toggolino video app. We launched a new product in the preschool business called WoodieHoo. It’s a games app for preschool children that we developed internally. It’s 100-percent owned by Super RTL and has been set up in a way that we can easily transform it into a linear television show if we want to. Because it’s preschool, and there are no speaking characters, we can do it internationally. We are going to launch it in China and the U.K. Furthermore, we are working on a total relaunch of our Toggolino offer by concentrating everything in one app—video, gaming, audio, reading material; everything you need as a parent to offer high-quality educational entertainment to your kids. The Toggolino media hub will launch in November. In addition to that, we will launch a social media offer for kids called PopShake. There is a comparable model in the U.K. named PopJam. We will license the technical platform and build a German version early next year. We’re launching the Super Toy Club app, extending the show digitally, and we’re launching a Woozle Goozle app.
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Super RTL took on the German broadcast and L&M rights to the preschool hit PAW Patrol.
In addition to all those visible actions, we’ve hired a data architect and are now looking into data collection, how to use it and what to learn from it. We are reviewing our IT and social media structure as well as our data management, front-end technical solutions and back-end technical solutions. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work happening to make us fit for the digital future. TV KIDS: You mentioned earlier that Super RTL is the German merchandising agency for PAW Patrol and Peppa Pig. How has your licensing and merchandising business been, and what are your forecasts for it in the years ahead? SCHMIT: Fifty percent plus. There is much positivity in that business right now. We are, after Disney, number two in the merchandising field in Germany; we used to be number four or five. A powerful impact is coming from PAW Patrol. That is going through the roof. TV KIDS: And in addition to the third-party brands, are you developing consumer-products extensions to your inhouse properties? SCHMIT: We are launching consumer products for Woozle Goozle and Super Toy Club. TV KIDS: Tell us about Super RTL’s research initiatives to better understand your audience and how they are engaging with your content. SCHMIT: We are the number one spender as far as kids research in Germany is concerned. This includes a lot of traditional research, for instance, different tests to better understand the media usage of kids. Now we are looking into the new way of collecting data, where we have a disadvantage. Netflix, Google and Amazon are better at handling their data exploitation. We are not there yet, but we are working on it. That’s why we hired data architects, data managers. We combine the traditional way of collecting data with the new way of collecting data. TV KIDS: How is your SVOD platform, Kividoo, performing? SCHMIT: We launched it three years ago. When launching a TV show, it has to be perfect, because there is no second
chance. In digital it’s different. We said, We’re launching Kividoo and it’s not perfect, but we’ll launch it and see how it works. It will turn profitable next year, which, in the digital world, is a hell of an achievement. We increased our initial business plan. We even changed it to a better [forecast]. In addition, on Kividoo we now have content from Viacom and many other content producers, not just Super RTL. TV KIDS: Would you consider producing content specifically for Kividoo? SCHMIT: Not as a priority. We have a system called near IP. If you create something, you are the IP owner. We succeed in securing precisely the IP rights we need for Germany, particularly because of our merchandising activities. We do not have to pay for the rights for international territories; we pay only for Germany. We have all the rights we need to fill our platforms. Near IP for us is a better solution than IP. TV KIDS: What are your other significant goals and growth priorities in the 12 to 18 months ahead? SCHMIT: We have launched our own web content studio as we produce our own content now. We have hired people who are very familiar with content produced for YouTube. They have their own department, their own studio. The aim is to produce original material for [streaming] three days a week, every week. That will be increased to seven days a week over the next six months or one year. We’ll have one brand-new daily web show on air. It’s possible that we’ll include something we have not done before: news for kids. Furthermore, we’re focused on sourcing the right content for our platforms. We don’t have content planning for TV, linear, apps. We have a content board bundling all content “wishes” from all our platforms. All the properties are run through that department and then dispatched to whoever wants them. All the members discuss what they want, what is needed and then we check our portfolio. If we don’t have it, we buy it or produce it ourselves.
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By Mansha Daswani
Since its premiere in 2015, We Bare Bears has emerged as a popculture phenomenon, attracting celebrity guest stars and earning its first-ever Emmy nomination this summer. Created by Daniel Chong for Cartoon Network, the charming animated comedy—which won a BAFTA Children’s Award in 2016—about three misfit bears and their misadventures has become a hit with kids (and their parents) across the globe. Chong tells TV Kids about his inspiration for the series and reaching the 100-episode milestone.
TV KIDS: What was the inspiration for your The Three Bare Bears webcomic, and how did it become a TV show? CHONG: I was working in feature animation, and I think I needed an outlet. I was in the library with my girlfriend’s niece, and I drew these three bears stacked on top of each other, and it just made her laugh! So I went with it. The webcomic came from that. It was just a goofy thing I put online that almost nobody read! Eventually, I realized I wanted to make it a TV show because I wanted more for my career. So I formed it into what I thought could be a TV show, and then I worked with Cartoon Network to fine-tune it. TV KIDS: How did you define the characteristics of each of your three main characters? CHONG: The nice thing was, I had the bears stacked on top of each other from the beginning. As I looked at them as a stack, I thought, well, maybe they are brothers and maybe there’s a reason they stack—there’s a brothers’ hierarchy. So the top bear, Grizzly, is the older brother, he’s the leader, he tells them where to go, he can see more than anyone else. The middle brother is Panda and he’s the middle child—more emotional, more to himself, more of the rebel. And then the bottom bear, Ice Bear, he’s the younger brother, not paid much attention to, more of an oddball. In a way, it naturally all came together once I saw them as siblings. TV KIDS: What were some of the things you were listening for as you were voice casting the show? CHONG: For Grizzly, I needed someone who felt like a leader, who felt like somebody who could take charge and people would want to follow him. Eric Edelstein was very welcoming and you could tell he lit up a room. That’s exactly what Grizzly needed to be. For Panda, I was looking for someone who could play the sweet side and be broad. Panda tends to have the worst luck of all three bears. He gets put into bad predicaments. Bobby Moynihan played the comedy so well. And then for Ice Bear, I needed someone who could be quick with his delivery and very succinct, but also very funny and make an impression. Demetri Martin’s comedy is like that. It’s short one-liners; he makes a point and moves on. They all worked out perfectly for what I needed. TV KIDS: I understand that you created the show in part to reflect what it’s like to be a minority and feel like an outsider. At a time when the immigration debate is front and center, do you think that message has taken on even more resonance?
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We Bare Bears is now in its fourth season on Cartoon Network.
CHONG: Absolutely. And the nice thing about animation is I can use these three bears to tell these stories about something that hopefully everyone will understand. And I hope that everyone sees that we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have the same struggles and problems and issues. That’s the nice metaphor that we can show the world and hopefully illuminate some of the problems that the world is having right now. TV KIDS: What kind of creative environment have you found at Cartoon Network Studios? CHONG: They know when to step in, and they know when to leave you alone. That is probably the most valuable thing you can hope for when you’re being guided by a network. And I think they’ve balanced it very well. There were times when I was a little unsure or something was unclear, and they would step in and start asking the right questions and start poking at the right things, and they’d allow us to problem-solve it ourselves and find our own way to resolve a situation that maybe needed to be cleared up. I’m very appreciative of the freedom they’ve given us. TV KIDS: You’ve made a lot of episodes! How do you approach keeping it fresh every season? CHONG: It is hard. As you get further in, it becomes less about me and more about the team. For me as showrunner, it’s about knowing the things I can let go of and the different places I can allow the show to go. I have to be a little more open-minded. The show has benefited from that. Getting to 100 episodes is the culmination of me and my team taking ownership and wanting it to be more than it is. TV KIDS: I’ve been told by many media execs that writing comedy for children is the hardest thing to get right. How do you know when you have the appropriate tone for your demo? How do you know if you’ve taken the comedy too far in a grown-up direction? CHONG: The key is, we don’t think of kids right away when we’re writing. If we’re laughing a lot at an episode, we believe that’s going to be a good thing for the audience. The only thing we can do to write comedy for children is to entertain ourselves and make sure we like it. The studio will help if
they think something is a little too out of reach. But overall, my taste and the tastes of my team align with what children will like. We follow our own instincts. TV KIDS: Some of the episodes feature the three bears as toddlers. What storytelling challenges do the baby bears present? CHONG: The baby bears were there from the webcomic, so they were built into the original pitch, but I didn’t realize how important they were going to be to the show. I thought we’d do one or two [episodes with them every] season, but we’ve done a lot more. That’s not just because they became really popular and fun to do. They provided a different style of storytelling that we could play with. The baby bears can be a little crazier, a little broader. They’re honestly a little smarter than the adult bears! They can go anywhere, which has been very liberating for us. We use them to break up the storytelling, so it’s not always the adult bears in the city dealing with possibly more adult problems. They give us a different sort of mood to go with. It’s honestly been a lifesaver to have them in our arsenal. TV KIDS: What inspires you creatively? CHONG: I grew up reading a lot of comic strips, like Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. I learned how to draw that way. I would copy comic strips. But then I started getting into animation. One of the first things that struck me was Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit. The comedic sensibility, the deadpan dryness, I thought it was so funny and so appealing to adults and to me as a kid. Those are my main inspirations. TV KIDS: Are you looking to develop other projects, or do the bears take up all of your time? CHONG: We Bare Bears takes up tons of time! It’s a very timeconsuming project. Even though they’re drawn very simply, it’s a super complex show to make. How big can the episodes get? How many backgrounds and characters [can we have]? These things have haunted us since day one. Everyone going into it, even the animation studio, thought it was not going to be a hard show to make, but it turned out to be really, really hard! It’s a lot of work to make the show, but the great thing is I have a team of very talented people who care about the show. That’s what got us to over 100 episodes.
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From 2003 to 2007, Raven-Symoné endeared herself to tweens around the world as Raven Baxter, the young psychic on Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven, whose attempts to make her visions a reality resulted in hilarious escapades. A decade later, she is back on Disney Channel, reprising the role in Raven’s Home, on which she also serves as an executive producer. The series centers on her character’s twins, one of whom has inherited her psychic gene. Raven-Symoné tells TV Kids about returning to the role as a grownup and the importance of children’s television in shaping the minds of future generations. By Sara Alessi 264 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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CONTENTS
Toys from TV Online retailer Amazon recently released a list comprising the top 100 toys and games for this year’s holiday season. Not surprisingly, many are based on properties from the world of kids’ television.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Kids © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvkids.ws
Included in the top 25 is the Ultimate Rescue Fire Truck inspired by Nickelodeon’s hit animated series PAW Patrol, which follows the adventures of a group of heroic pups. The truck comes with an extendable two-foot-tall ladder as well as water cannon launchers— how fun! (I wonder if it’s socially acceptable for a 31year-old to play with this toy? I mean, the product description does say that it’s intended for ages 3 and up!) Also on Amazon’s list are various items tied to such TV shows as Disney’s Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sesame Workshop’s Sesame Street, Entertainment One Family & Brands’ PJ Masks and SUNRIGHTS’ Beyblade Burst Evolution. This list helps confirm that youngsters around the world continue to enjoy merchandise featuring their favorite characters from the small screen and beyond. Kids want to play with a doll that looks like one of the magical creatures from the Studio 100 Media and m4e show Mia and me, hug a stuffed animal based on Mercis’s Miffy or put together a puzzle featuring characters from the action-packed R obot Trains, which is represented by both CJ ENM and Mondo TV. The variety of plush, plastic and powered toys inspired by television brands is enough to make you appreciate the comparative simplicity of cats. You can spend money like there’s no tomorrow on playthings for them, but they’re usually more intrigued by the packaging than the actual products. Children, however, are a bit more challenging to entertain since they are less interested in hopping in and out of boxes and bags. Instead, they want engaging merchandise that they can rip out of boxes and bags. That’s where Brand Licensing Europe (BLE) comes in. In the lead-up to BLE 2018, this issue of TV Kids includes an article in which rights owners share their thoughts on the strategies needed to catch the attention of licensees and retailers with products that children will fall in love with. We also have an interview with Caitlin Friedman, the VP and general manager of Scholastic Entertainment, who discusses, among other things, licensing and merchandising plans for the reimagined book-based animated series Clifford the Big Red Dog. —Joanna Padovano Tong
FEATURE 4 RETAIL BATTLE Ahead of BLE, rights owners outline the strategies needed to get products onto retail shelves and into consumers’ hands.
INTERVIEW
12 Scholastic Entertainment’s Caitlin Friedman The VP and general manager of Scholastic Entertainment discusses how Clifford the Big Red Dog has been refreshed for contemporary audiences and reveals what’s in store for the property’s new licensing and merchandising campaign.
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Studio 100 & m4e’s Arthur and the Minimoys.
In the lead-up to BLE, rights owners outline the L&M strategies needed to get products onto retail shelves and into consumers’ hands. By Sara Alessi ids do seem to still be getting what they want these days, even with the shuttering of Toys“R”Us earlier this year. Toy sales reached $18.4 billion in the first half of 2018, up 4 percent over last year across Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.—the 13 international markets tracked by The NPD Group’s Global Toy Market Report. In the U.S. alone, toy sales were up 7 percent to $7.9 billion. And the collectibles market continues to be strong, with global sales increasing by 26 percent. In fact, collectibles now account for 11 percent of dollar sales in the overall toy industry. That’s music to the ears of com-
K
panies like 4K Media, which manages the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise outside of Asia for parent company Konami Digital Entertainment. Collectibles are high up on consumer wish lists, says Jennifer Coleman, the VP of licensing and marketing at 4K Media. “Offering bespoke and limited-edition collections is something retailers and consumers all around the world are looking for.” Two different Yu-Gi-Oh! collectible ranges—one from Funko and the other from GameStop—recently launched to the mass market. “We’re also excited to be working with the high-end collectible company First 4 Figures, which is going to be doing a beautiful resin statue for Yu-Gi-Oh!,” Coleman continues.
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For 4K, the popularity of Yu-Gi-Oh!’s lead character has been key to its L&M success. Peter Kleinschmidt, the international commercial director of Studio 100 Media and m4e, believes that brands such as Maya the Bee, Mia and me, Arthur and the Minimoys and Wissper also lend themselves so well to toys and other consumer products because they all feature “likable key and secondary characters” that work well for a “wide toy range.” Marie Congé, GO-N International’s head of sales and business development, notes that as both boys and girls Toys is a major category for GO-N International’s preschool property Simon. can relate to the titular character in Simon, the property should be a home run in the Story, the tale of an intelligent, thoughtful and creative fox L&M market. Simon is “an adorable little boy who who in each episode comes up with a new invention, is toylooks like a rabbit, but he also makes mistakes,” just oriented, most obviously through the various inventions and like young viewers, she says. “Kids can see themthe tools used to build them, as well as the memorable charselves in him, and children and parents love him.” acters in the show,” she explains. Kleinschmidt echoes La Macchia, noting that the basis of the licensing and merchandising of Studio 100 and m4e’s brands lies in “continually adding more content to Yet, it’s not just the characters themselves that can strike a the series in the form of new seasons or feature films.” chord with young viewers. For Joseph Kim, head of the Storytelling is also a vital pillar of the L&M strategy for global business team of the animation division at CJ ENM, SUNRIGHTS, which represents the Beyblade franchise. the messaging behind brands also makes them appealing “The very essence of the Beyblade Burst brand sets it up for and can help drive the licensing program. success,” says Natasha Gross, the director of TV sales and “Pucca has been a huge hit in the past across the world, licensing at SUNRIGHTS. “The brand is a continuing rollout and we are rebooting this outstanding brand soon,” Kim of new, relevant stories wrapped around highly collectible says. “With love and passion as themes, Pucca will be toys, all lending themselves to further merchandising appealing to every consumer group, regardless of age or opportunities.” gender.” The same goes for the girls’ property Rainbow Gross adds, “The key to keeping the brand fresh is Ruby, which “delivers the message that children can making sure its television content and merchandise are become anything they want with their passion and dreams.” relatable to today’s young, active consumers from Valentina La Macchia, Mondo TV’s licensing director, also around the world.” Thus, the company is ramping up the believes that the nature of a property and the storylines in a brand’s digital and social media presence. TV show can drive licensing and merchandising. “Invention “We have worked on creating a more robust social experience for the Beyblade Burst brand through our GEN BEY campaign [offering fans new products, sneak peeks, giveaways and more] and new partnerships with WildBrain and BeybladeGeeks for a global YouTube experience and new, original social content,” Gross explains. Once the content message is in place, rights owners must then convince licensees and retailers to support a property. Kleinschmidt notes that the current focus for Studio 100 and m4e is on “signing licensing agents for important markets. Our strategy on new brands is to first get the classic, contentdriven categories in place in order to create awareness and acceptance within the target group.” Food and beverage, home and living, and personal care are top-of-mind at the moment. “Regarding Arthur and the Minimoys and Gormiti, we are still looking for licensing partners in several categories,” he says. For Mondo TV, La Macchia says the goal is to expand its brands’ L&M programs to “any and all territories where our shows are available.” Similarly, CJ ENM’s Kim states that the company is keen to “enter into every available L&M category for all of our
CHARACTER APPEAL
Invention Story is one of Mondo TV’s key properties for BLE this year.
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properties, which includes toys, publishing, apparel, accessories, back-to-school, shoes, housewares, food and beverage, promotions and events.” 4K started working with a new subagent in France in the past year for Yu-Gi-Oh!, Coleman says. “We’re still looking to get further penetration for Yu-Gi-Oh! in Europe, including the U.K.” The company also wants to continue the momentum it has experienced in North America and hopes to expand further in Latin America as well. “We are talking to a couple of agents there, so Latin America is probably going to be our next big push following Europe.” Getting the attention of retailers is never an easy process. It’s one that can be helped along if a property has some level of brand awareness already.
BACK IN STYLE
4K Media is focused on driving the L&M program for Yu-Gi-Oh! across Europe.
“For retailers, the awareness level is one of the most significant factors to building trust in a brand,” Studio 100 and m4e’s Kleinschmidt explains. “Every buyer wants products on shelves with a strong turnaround, and we deliver this from the bottom up to marketing campaigns. To work more closely with retailers, we created the position of retail manager last year. This enables us to focus even more strongly on the needs of every retailer and create tailormade promotions.” It’s also important to work with licensees to ensure that everyone is on the same page as far as where to take the brand and its L&M program. “In general, our licensing department works closely with the production staff in order to produce a TV series that is not just a good production in terms of quality and content, but that can also translate into appropriate merchandise,” explains Mondo TV’s La Macchia. “We back up our merchandising work with strong graphical material and the rich style guide we try to provide every time we work on a new show. Character-based graphics as well as logos, patterns, icons, backgrounds and any materials that can aid in the development of good merchandise are part of this process.” “Finding like-minded partners has always been and continues to be key to our long-term success around the world,” says Mark Teunissen, senior project manager at Mercis, which owns the rights to the classic Miffy property. “We truly relish long-term partnerships and find it very important to grow the business and global footprint together. Our task is to stay extremely focused on what collaborations or other initiatives fit the DNA [of the brand] and will further build on the rich heritage it already enjoys. This not only means finding partners but also sometimes saying no to deals that are commercially very lucrative but not in line with our core values.” Coleman says that 4K Media works with its licensees as much as possible to leverage opportunities in the retail space. And it helps to have partners that are aware of the brand and what fans want. “The partners that we’re working with are staying on trend. Therefore, the designs that they are then able to create from the style-guide materials that we’re providing them are spot-on.”
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CJ ENM’s portfolio of animated kids’ brands includes Rainbow Ruby.
To stay true to a brand like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Coleman notes that it is critical to work with partners that aren’t necessarily looking to “stock the next Frozen or Moana. You need to try to embrace your difference, own it and figure out where you can make it work in the market.” Indeed, in this crowded L&M landscape, it is difficult to be “an independent Nickelodeon, Warner or Disney,” she acknowledges. “It’s an uphill battle. That’s why opportunities with specialty chains such as FYE, Hot Topic and GameStop are so valuable.” It’s retailers like these that tend to recognize the value of niche brands.
KNOW YOUR BRAND “You have to respect your fan base,” Coleman adds. “It stems from that: be true to your brand, give fans the quality they’re looking for, give them the designs they want, because at the end of the day, if you don’t have them, you don’t have a basis for your business. Respect their knowledge, respect the investment that they’ve made in the brand, and they’re going to come back for more, especially with a brand like Yu-Gi-Oh!” “The key to standing out lies in keeping your brand connected to its target audience of consumers, knowing what they want and what motivates them into action,” SUNRIGHTS’ Gross maintains. “To that end, we have looked to form licensing, merchandising and promotional deals that keep Beyblade Burst in sync with young fans.” But rights owners agree, it’s still not easy. “The most difficult thing right now is the distribution of products,” GO-N’s Congé says. “It’s not only limited to dealing with the licensee; it’s getting your licensed product onto the shelf.”
“There is more competition than ever [vying] for less retail shelf space than ever,” says Lloyd Mintz, the senior VP of global consumer products at Genius Brands International, which represents the new girls’ preschool property Rainbow Rangers and the genderneutral, book-based brand Llama Llama. The company has seen success with Rainbow Rangers, which it created from the ground up in “response to a market void in the girls’ preschool segment.” Yet, bringing an entirely new property to retail can pose quite the challenge. “While everyone is interested in something new and different, at the same time, everybody is afraid of sacrificing shelf space from the triedand-true for that ‘something new and different,’ so it’s a bit of a catch-22 for the retailers and the licensors to position their property as that ‘something new and different,’” Mintz explains. “The biggest challenge is that the market is overcrowded and a property’s life can be very short,” La Macchia of Mondo TV states. “This means we need to make our properties stand out with lots of supporting marketing activities.” For example, Rocco Giocattoli, the toy distributor in Italy for Robot Trains’ master toy licensee Silverlit, planned a marketing campaign to support the range. Similarly, the Italian launch of Heidi Bienvenida was supported by social media campaigns, competitions, cast interviews and appearances by the show’s star, Chiara Francia. “Our challenges are to never become complacent or follow what others do, but always rely on the intrinsic strength of the brand and the people working with it,” stresses Mercis’s Teunissen. Mondo TV’s La Macchia concurs, but notes, “Maintaining momentum is another challenge. We always work on long-term plans to renew the content and the brand constantly in order to keep awareness high and allow licensees to work on a long-term program.” “It ultimately comes down to a brand’s relevance, collectibility and demand,” adds SUNRIGHTS’ Gross. “You not only have to know and stay in sync with the needs of your target consumer base, you also have to find ways to keep them hungry for and gobbling up the newest iterations of your brand.”
SUNRIGHTS has a broad range of licensees for Beyblade.
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TV KIDS: What new elements does the series incorporate? FRIEDMAN: The essence of who Clifford is—his sweetness, his childlike behavior and his loyalty—are qualities that are absolutely still there. We decided to reimagine Emily Elizabeth—who adopted Clifford when he was a puppy—after spending a lot of time talking about how she could be brought forward to drive more of the story. She’s now a modern girl who comes up with her own adventures with her best friend, Clifford. To further build upon their friendship in the new show, Emily Elizabeth and Clifford now speak to one another. Clifford still talks to his dog friends and Emily Elizabeth still speaks to her friends and family, but they have these special moments in every episode together. We’ve also added a diverse cast of new characters that help make for a richer and more exciting world on the island; that was very important to us. In addition, each episode features an original song, which is something completely new for the show. Similar to the previous series, the new show features Clifford stories that are focused on friendship, family and adventure, but with the added layers of literacy moments and an emphasis on empathy as well as some fun imaginative play.
CAITLIN FRIEDMAN SCHOLASTIC ENTERTAINMENT
By Mansha Daswani
Clifford the Big Red Dog has been beloved by children (and their parents) for over five decades. Penned by Norman Bridwell, the book series helped establish Scholastic as a preeminent children’s book publisher. PBS Kids successfully broadcast a TV adaptation from 2000 to 2003 that became a fixture on preschool schedules worldwide. Next year, the cuddly, oversized canine will be back in an all-new production from Scholastic Entertainment. Caitlin Friedman, VP and general manager of the company, tells TV Kids about the reboot. TV KIDS: How did the new Clifford the Big Red Dog series come about? FRIEDMAN: Clifford has continued to be a favorite character of kids and caregivers everywhere. While we haven’t been airing new shows, we have continued to hear from viewers asking if we’re going to make more episodes and if Clifford still lives on the island. Happily, we know Clifford fans are still engaged, and with the first book having been released in 1963, we also know they are multigenerational. From the engagement we see on the Clifford Facebook page, it’s clear that it has become a brand that represents kindness, loyalty and friendship. We have always thought about bringing him back, and after speaking with both PBS and Amazon about it, they saw our vision and Scholastic Entertainment is now in production on the new series.
TV KIDS: What about the look of the new series? Is that being updated? FRIEDMAN: Yes, the upcoming series will have a brandnew look. We are working with 100 Chickens to help us create a fresh, modern Birdwell Island. Emily Elizabeth still has blond hair, but her clothing, her expressions and the way she jumps and climbs and moves around her world is very current. Clifford looks very familiar with the addition of more facial expressions since he now talks a lot and is on a more emotional journey with Emily Elizabeth. The island itself is quirkier and brighter with an almost classic children’s book look. TV KIDS: What are the qualities that have made Clifford such a beloved property for so long? FRIEDMAN: Part of it is wish fulfillment. Kids engage with the brand because of how amazing it would be to have a giant dog as their friend. Just imagine having a dog who could carry you around, lift you high, open up the world to you while keeping you safe. Beyond just the fun of having a big red dog as a best friend, Clifford has always been written as accessible and relatable to a young demographic. He’s not perfect; he is always growing and learning while also trying his best and being kind to everyone.
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Clifford the Big Red Dog is heading back to screens in 2019 with a new TV series.
TV KIDS: And the brand has remained prominent with the continued book-publishing line. FRIEDMAN: Even though the show has been quiet, the Clifford publishing program has continued strongly. We just released a line of Clifford fairytales and we’re doing a refresh of the classic Clifford books. We’re also kicking off a publishing initiative in spring 2019 to support the new show with books featuring art from the series, and we’ll be launching a big book inspired by the show next fall. We are focusing on our global publishing as well, with new programs launching around the world in conjunction with the series’ international rollout. TV KIDS: Tell us about the L&M strategy you are devising for the new production. FRIEDMAN: We have a plan for domestic L&M and are working with 9 Story to manage our international program. The strategy has a couple of pieces to it since, as we talked about earlier, our Clifford fans are all ages. We will be looking to develop a line for girls inspired by the look and design of the new Emily Elizabeth. The designs and patterns in the style guide will be more nautical because we’re building stories around Clifford and Emily Elizabeth living on an island and all of the fun and adventures that offers. In the future, we will be developing a line for babies, as so many moms today grew up with Clifford and want to share him with their kids. We are also developing a vintage line featuring Norman’s original art targeted to adults to give them a new way to engage with their favorite big red dog. TV KIDS: How are you mining your library for content? FRIEDMAN: The exciting thing for us is we have lots of legacy brands. We were just going through our library and found properties from 15 and 20 years ago, one of them a
series with ten books with ten stories to tell. The amount of great content and stories we have is amazing! We are also in an exciting time with so many different platforms on which to tell these stories—Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Hulu, traditional kid-focused broadcast, YouTube, feature films. And since we have and are always coming out with such great content, we can build off of things that readers have loved or recently discovered. TV KIDS: What are your overall goals for Scholastic Entertainment in the 12 to 18 months ahead? FRIEDMAN: Producing the new Clifford series tops our list as well as finalizing our global plan, both for new publishing and L&M. We look forward to working closely with 9 Story, which will be helping us on the animation of the new series as well as taking on the global distribution of the show and international L&M. The new Clifford live-action hybrid movie with Paramount Pictures is also a priority and we have six or seven other projects now in development at studios and broadcasters to push forward, too. And we’re always looking at what’s coming up next. TV KIDS: In general, when you’re rebooting a classic property, how do you retain the charm of the original while still engaging with a new set of audiences? FRIEDMAN: With Clifford, we took a step back and looked at what people originally fell in love with, which was his heart, his loyalty and his humor. There are aspects of Clifford’s personality that are core to the viewing experience, so we made sure that they were all incorporated into the new series. And we added on layers, including original music, a stronger Emily Elizabeth and a fresher world that appeals to kids. But with children, it doesn’t matter when they were born—they respond to love, friendship and family. Those core values are universal.
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TV KIDS: How did the idea for Raven’s Home come about? RAVEN: While I was on [the ABC talk show] The View, I was in conversations with people at Disney Channel about how I would love to work with them again in some capacity. They presented the idea of doing a show where Raven Baxter has kids, and I said, I am down for that all the way through and through. So, it came about organically, it came about with the need for me to be back in television in a different type of capacity than live, and it all worked out for me in a great manner. TV KIDS: What is it like to be working with Disney Channel again? RAVEN: I worked with Disney Channel from age 13 to 21, and then I took a break, and then I came back. So I worked with the channel during the years of life when everything is going on, every emotion, every change is happening. [Laughs] I had such a fantastic time that I wanted to go back to a place where I knew I felt safe. I tried my best to be a good girl during that time away. [Laughs] I feel that my brand and Disney’s brand go hand in hand. We all felt that, so Gary Marsh [president and chief creative officer at Disney Channels Worldwide] and Adam Bonnett [executive VP of original programming at Disney Channels Worldwide] really embraced me as an adult and who I am now and they created this journey for us to all take together. I’m an executive producer, and this is a family here at Disney Channel. So I’m learning, I’m being mentored, I’m being taken care of. TV KIDS: How do you go about evolving the series for a new generation of viewers while also winking at fans of That’s So Raven who are watching with their kids? RAVEN: That’s the thing: I think bringing Raven Baxter back in all of her crazy glory helped to incorporate my generation [into the show]. I have a set of twins, a boy and a girl named Booker [Issac Ryan Brown] and Nia [Navia Robinson], and one of them is psychic. The kids are the focus of the show. Showing the camaraderie and the gap that separates the two generations actually proves that the gap is not that large at all. As long as we’re telling the truth and caring for one another, putting others first and being smart and kind, everyone can be a part of this family. I have my kids and then Chelsea [played by Anneliese van der Pol] has her child there, so we’ve constructed a unit with these two single moms that can be looked at as a construct for a family. TV KIDS: What has it been like to reinhabit the character of Raven Baxter after ten years? RAVEN: It has been so much fun because I get to act crazy on stage. I get to do whatever my body feels like it needs to do in order to get that line out, and people laugh, which is amazing to me. Otherwise, my mom just says, I don’t know what’s wrong with you! I can’t do that at home, but
I can do it on set, and having that type of freedom on set is liberating. It hopefully will teach the kids on set that to be free and happy and comfortable in your character will [make] for a good character. To be stiff and uncomfortable and to choose a role that you are uncomfortable with will show through the camera, and we don’t want that. TV KIDS: Do you try to keep the on-set atmosphere lighthearted, especially for the young talent? RAVEN: Yes! We keep it professional first, and then we keep it fun. This is a kids’ show. This is not a documentary; this is a fun show. [Laughs] We do physical comedy, we do comedy, we do characters. Oh, my goodness, we do everything! So if I have constructed a set that is not fun, you won’t be able to see that [playfulness] on film. TV KIDS: With the show, do you feel a responsibility to teach young viewers important life lessons while also making them laugh? RAVEN: I think it’s everyone’s responsibility in television and entertainment to teach. Not everybody does it. [Laughs] But I do believe, especially in children’s programming, it’s up to us to realize that we’re molding the minds of the future. We’re entertaining them, we’re showing them how to deal with situations that they might not necessarily go through in life right now, but when they encounter that same scenario later, they can go back and say, Hmm, how would Booker handle this? Did he get in trouble, or didn’t he? I know that was the way for me when I was growing up. Sometimes people are scared to talk to other people, and we go to these television shows and sitcoms and cartoons, and they become our family. So, I have always felt [this way], even from before I was able to choose my roles. My parents chose the roles I was in, and they always taught me to be aware of what I’m saying yes to, and the marks that I make on society with my role choices. TV KIDS: What advice do you have for individuals currently navigating the TV landscape? RAVEN: You have to do what you’re comfortable with. You have to choose roles that will lead you on the path that you want to be on. You have to be aware of your surroundings and make sure that you keep it 100 percent business. TV KIDS: Do you view yourself as a role model for young girls? RAVEN: It’s funny—people ask, Do I want to be? I think the career that I’ve chosen is constructed of role models. That comes with the territory in the situation I’m in, and it’s another reason my parents always said to be mindful of what you choose to do because people are looking up to you, and I have to remember that. What’s most important is a girl needs to know to be herself, to
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Raven’s Home, the follow-up to That’s So Raven, is currently in its second season on Disney Channel.
not be pressured by society to be something that she’s not innately. We all have the mirror syndrome, but I think if we continue to be true to who we are, take each day at a time, and breathe before we get all heated and riled up in a situation, we’ll be able to think clearly. Hopefully, as Raven Baxter—a mother who has to deal with kids who will not always make the right decision and who will come up against some challenges—I help young parents and their children to make better decisions. TV KIDS: Why do you think That’s So Raven and Raven’s Home have both resonated so well with viewers? RAVEN: I think Raven’s Home and That’s So Raven resonate with viewers because we are a genuine family. It’s about love, it’s about kindness, it’s about fun and excitement. It’s working through challenges. It’s all of the above. TV KIDS: What are some of your favorite episodes or moments from season two? RAVEN: In terms of guest stars and journeys, we want to be as current as we can within the landscape of society. We have a great episode with Michelle Williams. She plays a fashion designer. Raven and her daughter, Nia, go on a retreat together. They both learn the lesson of letting someone shine in their own light, not trying to morph them into someone that they’re not in order for you to succeed. The best way to succeed is to embrace people’s faults and who they are
and let them shine through that way. That’s a great lesson that I really like. We have a great Halloween episode featuring Debbie Allen and a special musical episode that is super fun. Everybody in the cast performs a song and dance number that creates a journey that’s fun and exciting. Let’s just say there’s pie, juice and a little Bruno Mars influence in the beginning, and by the end you see the heart of the Baxter family. We’re very excited and proud of the musical. Everybody in Raven’s Home is musically inclined in some fashion, so being able to put a spotlight on other aspects of our talent brought joy to everybody. We had a screening of the episode after it was done with just the cast and crew. We worked so hard. It was sometimes tiring, but it’s a good type of working, and being able to see the product come together as the musical has come together is rewarding, and [to have] your network be so proud of it—Disney Channel is behind it 100 percent. The producers, the writers, everyone is behind it. We put our all into it and I think it will show. We did an episode touching on social media, and it was about more than what I’m about to speak of, but what I got from it is: just because you have a whole bunch of followers that doesn’t mean family isn’t important. There are so many micro and macro lessons sprinkled with fun and excitement within this season that hopefully will resonate with ages across the board.
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By Mansha Daswani
Despite a wealth of competition, both linear and digital, BBC Children’s reigns supreme in the British kids’ market. Across CBeebies, CBBC and BBC iPlayer Kids, the British public broadcaster is serving its mission of educating, and entertaining, young audiences across all the platforms they are using. Alice Webb, the director of BBC Children’s, is committed to that public-service mission, which, she tells TV Kids, is more important than ever. Ahead of attending MIPJunior to speak about the role of children’s programming on public broadcasters, Webb shared with TV Kids her strategy for maintaining BBC Children’s ratings, and relevance, to British youth audiences today. TV KIDS: What’s driving the overall success of the BBC Children’s portfolio? WEBB: The simple answer is the content. I’m really proud of the range of content we have. It’s a real breadth. We’re still the mostwatched and the most-loved [kids’ channels] in the U.K. The other thing that is helping us drive that is our ability to get content to children in the way they want it. BBC iPlayer was ahead of its time and it still continues to be right at the top end of video on
demand in terms of the experience. We have a full-fledged kids’ version of it. So we’re making sure we have the right content and are getting it to children in the way that they want it. TV KIDS: How is the dedicated kids’ iPlayer doing? What have you learned from the data there about how your audiences are interacting with your content? WEBB: It’s really interesting. It works particularly well for the youngest audience. It’s only an app on mobile and tablets—it’s not on connected TVs—so it’s not on every device. We see week in and week out that iPlayer Kids is visited even more frequently than the main iPlayer. If you’re on iPlayer Kids, you love it even more than being on the iPlayer. There’s something that’s really working for that younger audience with iPlayer Kids. TV KIDS: How are you using the data from both digital and linear to inform your programming decisions? WEBB: That’s a really important part of what we do. We have a much broader range of measures that we look at
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WEBB: We had a real desire to bring liveaction drama to preschoolers, and boy have they rewarded us for that! They absolutely love those shows. We bring the same standards, the same expectations and the same craft to preschool as we do for our older children. A lot of our writers are writing for grown-up TV as well. The way we do children’s drama, it’s not about compromising, it’s not about dumbing down. We believe children deserve the very, very best. And I think that’s an ethos we’ve kept at our hearts. We’re expanding into the 12 to 16 bracket as well, so you’ll see some new dramas coming down the line there. It’s the age-old stories of rites of passage, loyalty, betrayal, finding your place in the world. Overall we are as exacting with our children’s dramas as we are with BBC grown-up dramas.
CBeebies has entered into the preschool drama space with acclaimed series such as Apple Tree House.
because what represents value to us isn’t just money and eyeballs. We have a strong public-service remit, so it’s about making sure we’re delivering for everybody and that we have a broad range of genres. We judge our shows against lots of different criteria, which means that it’s as much art as it is science. There’s a good dollop of science in there, but of course, there has to be a good degree of art as well. TV KIDS: Tell us about your programming teams’ efforts to source and develop content that is inclusive and reflective of all kids in the U.K. WEBB: That’s a topic that is close to our hearts. We get a lot of recognition for the range of diversity that we have on our channels and in our content. It’s a natural part of what we do. Pablo features an autistic little boy. It’s a beautiful show that has captured the heart of the entire nation. Apple Tree House is from the same stable as Rastamouse. It’s live-action drama for CBeebies. It’s set in an inner-city tower block and has an incredibly diverse cast and, excitingly, a diverse crew as well. So it’s not just in front of the camera, but behind the camera, too. We’re pushing that. We have schemes to bring on new, diverse writers, and when I talk about diversity, that is literally in every direction. It’s not just about ethnicity or disability. We’ve had some powerful stories of kids who are discovering things about their own identity. We had a BAFTAwinning show about a transgender [child], My Life: I Am Leo. So [diversity is] completely part of our DNA and it’s almost hard to talk about it because it’s something that just happens. TV KIDS: The BBC is one of the few backers of high-end children’s drama. What’s the key to getting it right, especially for preschoolers?
TV KIDS: Tell us about the importance of your factual productions. What have been some recent stand-outs for you? WEBB: My Life holds a special place on CBBC for us because it is children telling their own stories. It never ceases to amaze me the emotional cut-through that children can get by telling their own stories, whether it’s I Am Leo or The Boy on the Bicycle or one about a child whose parents have Alzheimer’s. We have CBeebies factual as well. There’s Do You Know?, Maddie Moate’s show. And our Newsround service for children continues to be the gold standard. That has now gone international, so you’ll find versions in several countries in Africa. We got an incredible response nationally and internationally when we covered the Manchester Arena bombing last year. That whole sense of how you talk to children about these types of attacks, especially since that one was aimed at children [when terrorists bombed an Ariana Grande concert]. And then I have
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Blue Peter, on CBBC, is the longest-running kids’ show on TV, having launched in 1958.
to mention Blue Peter, which is a flagship show and it’s about to be 60! I will be flying back from MIPCOM a couple of days early to attend the 60th birthday of Blue Peter, which by any standard is the most astonishing achievement. TV KIDS: What do you think it is about that show that has allowed it to last for so long? WEBB: I think it’s a world record for the longest children’s show ever. It could be the longest-running TV show ever. It’s still as relevant today as it was in the days that it started. It taps into everything and anything children are interested in, whether that’s a presenter skydiving in some daredevil way through to campaigning and saving the environment to learning a new sport. Literally everything. We have amazing competitions and of course the ability to win your Blue Peter badge, of which there are now quite a few! People like you and I spend a lot of time talking about the world of digital and what it means for children. We receive about 75,000 letters into Blue Peter every year. Kids are still engaging with it as much as they ever have done. TV KIDS: What were some of the things you learned from your international compatriots at the Children’s Global Media Summit that BBC hosted in Manchester last year about the issues they are facing in their markets? WEBB: One of the things that was a hot topic at the summit, which we’re all grappling with, is that our content lives on many different platforms in many different territories. As responsible content makers, we’re wrestling with, What if my content is on a platform that isn’t as responsible as I am? We had a big open forum devoted to this subject and what level of responsibility we should have as the content makers versus the platform providers. Nobody works in this business without a massive degree of love for our audience. We’d like to see that reflected more by some of the platform providers. As
content creator and broadcaster and platform provider, we have that level of trust and safety and responsibility. We’d like to see that with others. TV KIDS: What are your big-picture priorities for BBC Children’s in the year to two ahead? WEBB: We’ll be bringing new shows to the channel and to iPlayer for the older age group. We’re going to be getting behind a smaller number of brands in a bigger way. Everybody is clear that if you’re going to break through a very busy, noisy landscape, you’ve got to have a fewer number of titles that punch above their weight. We’ll be doing that. I’m excited that we’re adding more ways for children to connect to the brands and the characters and stories they love. We’ve got apps for CBeebies around stories and games. We’re adding to that with new creative apps coming down the line. We’ve launched CBBC Buzz for that older age group. We’re increasingly doing more around kids’ online wellbeing. At the summit, we launched BBC Own It, which is a great website about helping kids to be empowered to own their online lives. You’ll see more from us in the next six months in that space. TV KIDS: Can you give me a bit of a preview of what you’ll be talking about at MIPJunior concerning the importance of kids’ public-service broadcasting? WEBB: Just that—the importance of it. And the fact that it’s more important than ever that there is a strong public-service broadcaster as a staple of a kid’s media diet. Making shortterm decisions is easy. We all create a patchwork of funding to get a show made. And if we’re not careful, what we’ll be doing is selling our future. If we’re all reliant on big SVOD platforms, we risk finding we’ve sold our future and our ability to fund shows. Public-service broadcasting needs to make sure that it’s still funded well enough around the world to be a great partner.
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TV KIDS: Tell us about the Hopster journey so far. WALTERS: Before starting Hopster, I worked in TV. I was at Viacom and spent a lot of time working at Nickelodeon. Back in 2012, you could begin to see kids turning off the TV and moving into a world of digital products. Our now 9-year-old was just beginning to discover that world herself. As that shift played out, it felt like there were opportunities to do better things, to take the essentials of a kids’ TV channel and turn it into a much more interactive and stimulating experience, something that is completely safe, adfree. A digital world that parents would feel as good about as kids. That’s what we set out to do. TV KIDS: Did you have to course correct, as it were, at any point as you were building out the platform? WALTERS: [Laughs] You constantly learn and course correct every day. There were things we thought would work but didn’t. One of these things was launching globally. We thought there would be a percentage of every market that we’d pick up without having to do too much work, but we later realized that this percentage is very, very small. To build scale and a presence in any territory, you have to invest in that region, spend time there and build a marketing and distribution strategy around it. There’s no place in the world where you’ll grow organically and sustain a subscriber base without investing in it. That’s just one thing we came to understand over time. TV KIDS: Tell us about your recent deal with STV in Scotland. Do you see that as a model you’ll pursue going forward? WALTERS: It’s such an interesting deal. STV in Scotland has an online streaming platform, STV Player, and they made our content available on it in a dedicated Hopster-branded area. They have second-to-none brand awareness and audience reach in the region but didn’t have a particularly large kids’ offer on the Player. To upgrade it and make it more premium, it made sense for them to partner with us. As part of our agreement, they will be offering marketing and sponsorship for us across their portfolio of services. What’s interesting is that there are more and more digital platforms like STV that are aggregating content to build their service that way. In the past, if you wanted to distribute content you had to go to TV channels or pay-TV operators, but now it’s all changed. This shift allows us to set up some fantastic partnership deals, like this one with STV.
By Mansha Daswani
When it launched in late 2013, Hopster had both parents and little ones in mind. For 2- to 6-year-olds it wanted to deliver storytellingbased learning. For parents of preschoolers, it aimed to provide a worry-free experience, for a monthly subscription fee, with no ads or in-app purchases, accessible on as many devices as possible. Five years later, the platform has expanded outside of its home base of the U.K., inked deals to be bundled into a raft of consumer-electronics devices and moved beyond licensed content into original series, while also extending its offer to include music, games and ebooks. Founder and CEO Nick Walters talks to TV Kids about the Hopster mission and reveals his growth aspirations for the service.
TV KIDS: What were some of the things you needed to do to prepare to launch outside of the U.K.? WALTERS: You have to prepare some big global content agreements to go international. We’re still working with some of our core launch [suppliers]—DHX, Nelvana, Millimages, CAKE—who have been great partners throughout our international experience. Later, we signed deals with independent producers specific to one market or territory. In Iceland, for instance, where we have a partnership with Vodafone and are distributing to tens of thousands of households, we have six titles that are locally originated. We have a similar story in France and we’re looking to do the same in other territories. So we start with a core selection of global deals and then look around on the market and add content that we think is relevant in that specific territory. TV KIDS: What’s the Hopster programming ethos? What sorts of content do you look for?
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short-form, fairly low-volume and low-budget productions. This means that we can bring shows to the market quickly—instead of it taking three to four years, we can produce series in three to four months, then take the learning and iterate from that. We launched our first slate of original productions last year, including Clever Brenda, our STEM-focused animation, and Two Minute Tales, based on Grimm’s fairy tales. We’ve greenlit our second slate of series and started working on an exciting new animation about social and emotional literacy called Saturday Club.
Launched in 2013 in the U.K., Hopster is now available in multiple markets, delivering preschool content via an app for a monthly fee.
WALTERS: There are a couple of big things. One, our mission as a platform is to help kids learn through the stories they love. All of our content has strong stories and great IPs at the core, so they are fun to watch. But we also want kids to learn something new every day. So the second big thing we’re looking for is learning opportunities. We have an early learning curriculum that drives most of our content decisions, so before we license a piece, we evaluate whether it fits into that. Sometimes it can be teaching kids about relationships in a family or managing emotions, which a show like Peppa Pig does really well, but it might be something more explicitly educational, such as Sid the Science Kid. Lastly, we’re always on the lookout for what you might call socially conscious content. We’re a gender-neutral platform and are committed to encouraging diversity. One of our favorite shows is Punky, a beautiful Irish animation of a little girl who has Down syndrome. It does a nice job of showing kids that we’re all different and it’s great. It’s really important to us that diversity is celebrated across our content. TV KIDS: When did you decide to expand beyond video to also feature music, games and books? WALTERS: We wanted to have games from day one as we thought it was a really important part of delivering our learning mission. We have certainly developed the range and extent of interactivity of our games over time. The most recent game we launched teaches preschoolers the fundamentals of coding, but we also have a game designed with kids on the autism spectrum in mind. Music has also been important to us from a very early stage. Initially we started with nursery rhymes and then added fun children’s songs from performers like Nick Cope and Caspar Babypants. Books arrived on Hopster in 2017 when we launched a selection of HarperCollins Children’s Books. TV KIDS: What are you doing in the original-content space? WALTERS: Over the last few years we’ve seen the distribution landscape completely change. Netflix started and YouTube got big. The TV industry got shaken up but [the digital platforms] still had little impact on the production side. The new players like Amazon and Netflix are still commissioning content in a way that is very similar to the old linear model. But we wanted to do things a bit differently. We’re working with independent producers and are focusing on
TV KIDS: Building an OTT service is generally seen as a cash-burn endeavor. How have you and your team been able to create a financially sustainable operation— without running through all of your funding? WALTERS: We have supportive investors who I’m super grateful to. We initially had private investors, then a venturecapital fund called Sandbox and now most recently Sony Pictures Television. We couldn’t have done it without these investments. That said, we’re focusing on growing without having to put billions into marketing. The STV partnership is a good example of how we can reach thousands of families in Scotland without the need to spend millions on advertising campaigns. We have tried to be smart and strike those kinds of partnerships where we can build our brand and our partners get something in return as well. TV KIDS: In the next 12 to 18 months, what are the initiatives you’re going to be most focused on as you drive the business forward? WALTERS: You’re going to see us doubling down on original content production—that’s video, games and books. We’re pleased with how our originals are performing so we are going to do more of those as quickly as we can. You’ll also see us push pretty hard on distribution. We announced the STV deal recently and an SVOD deal with TalkTalk in the U.K. where we’re bundled in with their Kids Boost subscription. We have a full business-development pipeline with a good chunk of deals that we’ll be announcing in the second half of this year. And we’re also trying to keep pushing the pace on our platform and products. We launched our first companion app, Hopster Coding Safari, recently and we’re excited to keep developing these projects. TV KIDS: You said Scotland was a market that was important to you. What are some of your other key territories? WALTERS: The U.S. is important. We launched there in 2016 and have been steadily building our user base. We launched on Apple TV 3rd generation recently, which has been good for us. We will have some significant announcements in the U.S. in the next couple of months. We’re looking very closely at some opportunities in Australia and New Zealand at the moment, and in Europe and the Middle East. It’s a pretty rich world out there right now.
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By Joanna Padovano Tong
The BAFTA Children’s Award-winning Operation Ouch! revels in being gross—and kids love it. Fronted by twin brothers Chris and Xand van Tulleken, who are both doctors, the series uses humor and experiments to demystify the human anatomy. TV Kids hears from Dr. Xand about why the show, represented by Serious Lunch, works and what’s in store for the CBBC hit as it heads into its seventh season.
TV KIDS: What made you and Chris decide to enter the world of children’s television? VAN TULLEKEN: We wanted to make the show that we wished we could have watched when we were kids. We loved science shows, but there was nothing really about the human body. Maverick, the company that makes Operation Ouch!, had an incredible track record with Bizarre ER and Embarrassing Bodies, two iconic medical shows of the last couple of decades in the U.K. [featuring] amazing bits of public health with incredible access. So we knew Maverick would do a very good job. And there’s something quite fun about the fact that if you’re siblings, you can mess around on children’s telly in a way that you can’t on adult telly. TV KIDS: How does Operation Ouch! help young viewers become more comfortable with doctors and hospitals? VAN TULLEKEN: The message in every episode is that if something goes wrong, there are teams of people who are there to help you all over the country. No matter what goes wrong, whether you’re having an asthma attack at school, you get lost on a mountainside, you get stuck in the mud or you drift out to sea—whatever the situation is, there are people who can help. We’ve filmed with paramedics, firefighters, police officers, Coast Guard—all sorts of different people. Then in the hospital itself, there are a few things that we try to do. First, we get the kids to tell the stories themselves, so you hear what’s happened from them. The story is then animated, so there’s heightened reality, but you get a good idea of what’s happened. And then we show a huge amount of the details. A lot of the show is quite gory, but it removes all the mystery [behind] stitching and injections and the processes. The way that we put it together, we don’t show kids in pain, we don’t show kids who are embarrassed or screaming; we usually show kids having a pretty good experience, which is quite typical of an emergency room. A modern emergency room is pretty good at managing pain, at getting kids comfortable and relaxed, and we show that. The nicest feedback we get is when we’re filming in hospitals now, the staff will say, Your show makes kids better patients and they’re just more relaxed. We give them enough information that they’re quite informed about their body. The hospital is demystified. They’ve seen lots of doctors, nurses, radiotherapists, physiotherapists and all kinds of other people in the hospital—all of whom we show the best side of. TV KIDS: Is there anything on the series that still grosses you out? VAN TULLEKEN: I was doing the voiceover for a little girl who had been rolling down a hill and had
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caricatures of us. You know how when you’re with your family, you regress and go back to being about 12 or 14? That’s every day filming Operation Ouch! [Laughs] You can’t pretend to be someone else when you’re with your brother.
Distributed by Serious Lunch, Operation Ouch! is a CBBC commission hosted by Chris and Xand van Tulleken.
her arms above her head so that as she rolled, her arm pushed her earring inside her earlobe. It’s sometimes the small things that make you squeamish; watching the doctor get the forceps and have to pull hard to extract this thing from her earlobe while I’m in the recording phase was like, Eww! Every time something gross is going to happen, there is a big “gross” alert on the screen; there’s a voiceover saying, Look away now if you’re squeamish! Don’t look now! Whenever we’re filming in schools, we ask everyone, Should we make it more gross or less gross? And we have never met a child yet who doesn’t say, Make it more disgusting! TV KIDS: What are some of your favorite experiments from the show? VAN TULLEKEN: When we were little, our dad used to do weird experiments with us. When we went to the butcher shop, he would buy hearts and show us that if you held a heart under a tap of running water, you could fill it and squeeze it and make it pump the water in one direction; the valves still worked. Then we’d cook them and eat them. We did that as a proper experiment in Operation Ouch! and showed it to our dad. It was just a silly thing that he did one afternoon to amuse his kids—it was cheap and easy and a bit ridiculous. It was nice to have our old dad’s idea on the screen. There’s another experiment where we show how sneezes work. If you get a room full of doctors or medical students and ask them what a sneeze is, most of them will give you the same answer, which is: A sneeze is an irritation in your nose; you take a deep inhalation and when you sneeze, it blows the irritation out of your nose. That is completely wrong. If you sneeze in a relaxed way, your entire sneeze comes out of your mouth and nothing comes out of your nose at all. You can direct it out of your nose, but a free sneeze comes out of your mouth. It’s stimulating pressure receptors at the back of your mouth, which effectively trigger mucus production and your nose will start to run. So, your sneezes are about getting your nose to wash itself out. TV KIDS: How do your interactions on the show compare with how you and Chris behave around each other in real life? VAN TULLEKEN: Because we’re not actors, we can only be exaggerated versions of ourselves. So in real life, I’m the sillier one and he’s quite serious and stern. The characters are sort of
TV KIDS: How do you achieve the right balance between being both educational and entertaining? VAN TULLEKEN: We start with the idea that we can take something fascinating that people don’t know and the material is engaging. It’s so interesting to understand your body. And then because it’s fun explaining it, it’s not too hard. The body up close is just full of poo and pus and blood and guts—all of this disgusting stuff that’s intriguing as well. The material of what makes us human is so fascinating, particularly to children. There’s a limitless supply of it. You make it as fun as possible. TV KIDS: Is it challenging to keep the show fresh season after season? VAN TULLEKEN: Medicine is just endless; every patient is different, every human body is different, every condition is fascinating. Medical stories, particularly in which people are getting ill or injured, have a beginning, middle and end; they’re just such perfect, natural stories. I felt that after six years of medical school, we’d barely scratched the surface. I’m still learning things now when we do Ouch! And then science is always evolving. It’s just the gift that keeps on giving. We haven’t even covered all the organs in the body yet. TV KIDS: What’s in store for the future of the series? VAN TULLEKEN: We constantly get emails saying, Because of your show, a kid was able to call 9-9-9 and save their parent’s or grandparent’s life; they knew how to treat a severe injury, they were able to stop some bleeding, they were able to do some CPR, etc. We wanted to recognize those kids, so in the next series, we’ve got the Ouch Awards, which is for kids who have either showed immense personal courage in coping with an illness themselves, have called the emergency services to help someone or have done amazing first aid. We have a burp filmed from the inside. We managed to get a camera to the back of my throat and then up and around into the back of my nose to see my nasal turbinates, which is a view that I cannot find anywhere on the internet. We’re also doing more search and rescue. We’ve done paramedic stuff in the past where we’ve gone out with a rapid response vehicle and got to the scene of emergencies quickly. The next season, we’re going out with a proper ambulance to follow the patients all the way to the hospital. We have a boy who’s lost his leg and we’re following him as he deals with various prostheses and his ambition to become a sprinter. We’ve also got a little girl with scoliosis who’s got a magnetic spine. They’re serious health problems, but the kids are all super lovely and all the stories are very optimistic. And we have a new presenter who’s joining us. She is an emergency department doctor and she’s phenomenal.
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For instance, My Knight and Me’s creator, Joeri Christiaen, has a company with Perrine Gauthier, La Cabane Productions. We joined their project Mush-Mush and the Mushables at the end of last year and it’s about to be greenlit. The concept was already well advanced, so it’s just been a question of fine-tuning, but we will have an editorial role on the production, which will mainly be produced and managed by La Cabane. Space Chickens in Space is created by Ánima Estudios from Mexico. We joined the development and pitched it to Disney EMEA, who came on board to develop it, and now we are showing the first episodes to the market this MIPCOM. We not only put those people together and managed the development process with Disney, but we also created a joint-venture studio with Studio Moshi, another co-pro partner on Space Chickens, called Gingerbread Animation, based in Dublin. It’s a pre-production studio, so it’s a manageable size and gives us hands-on involvement in the production process. We are acutely aware that running a studio and a production is a skill in itself, so we’ve brought experienced people on board to help manage that process. Rob Doherty joined CAKE as VP of production in February and we have Lindsey Adams, who is the supervising producer at Gingerbread. Then there are the shows on which we’re already taking on a producer role during the development process. You can only do very few of those. Mama K’s Super 4 is a great example of such hands-on involvement, working alongside Triggerfish Animation to identify writers to take the script and other materials to the next level. Based on a spectacular initial pitch created by Triggerfish and Malenga Mulendema, [we are] working with the creator and the studio as one team.
By Mansha Daswani
London-based boutique outfit CAKE has developed a reputation as being a go-to supplier of compelling kids’ and family series. With a portfolio that boasts such hits as Angelo Rules, the Total Drama franchise and series based on the Angry Birds gaming phenomenon, CAKE has developed close relationships with animation producers, broadcasters and platforms across the globe. As Tom van Waveren, the CEO and creative director at CAKE, tells TV Kids, boarding projects at an early stage has allowed the company to work collaboratively with creatives to develop properties that will resonate worldwide. TV KIDS: Tell us about CAKE’s model for aligning with thirdparty producers and investing in co-productions. VAN WAVEREN: Five years ago our involvement in development was the exception. Today, while we still take on finished product when we find it, we have many more development roles and give editorial input on most of the series we get involved in. To get to this point, we made a conscious decision several years ago to roll up our sleeves and build our development and production slate through partnerships with independent producers from around the world. This was motivated by the observation that projects that benefit from several cultural or creative perspectives tend to be much better adapted to the international market and perform better commercially for CAKE.
And finally, there is still the business of selling finished programs. A lot of broadcasters and platforms are looking to acquire finished content, and we’re thrilled to continue doing that. We have a series called Kiri and Lou from New Zealand that we are launching at MIPCOM. It’s a delightful stop-motion preschool show. It’s one of those little presents that came to us unprompted, a real delight! Our slate is a mix of all of those different models. We can help develop and package the financing and production. And then, once the production starts, if there is a role to be fulfilled in production, we will look at that, but it’s not an obligation. We’re happy to take on production services when that makes sense. But we always want to have editorial input, so we can make sure that the concept is optimized through production, and we always want to make the international sales on completion. It’s what we think we are good at. TV KIDS: Tell us about your Popcorn Digital joint venture and the approach to online video. VAN WAVEREN: In today’s world, you need to think upfront about the online strategy for a property. How do we create content that does not replicate the linear show 100 percent, but presents the same world and the same characters? Sometimes we’ll do it jointly with our broadcast partners, sometimes independently. In all these scenarios, we’re
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Space Chickens in Space, co-produced by CAKE, Ánima Estudios and Studio Moshi, is set to air on Disney EMEA and Nine Network in Australia.
aware that for an IP to find its audience, it needs to be where its audience is. More often than not, that audience is everywhere. Consequently, while we can provide distribution solely on linear platforms, our preferred approach is to provide distribution across all platforms, which means we can be more strategic about how we market a show as well as embrace the diverse way that the audience engages in content. Furthermore, with Popcorn, we are moving increasingly into original content creation. We have a team of digital experts who are able to produce content geared specifically to YouTube. Most recently, we collaborated with Rovio Entertainment on the World Cup-themed Angry Birds BirLd Cup series. We are working on three new original shows set to be released on YouTube next year and we have further significant partnerships in the pipeline. TV KIDS: What impact have the OTTs had on the market? VAN WAVEREN: Five years ago, OTT platforms were mainly looking at buying catalog. Now they are increasingly looking for flagship, fully owned productions that they control exclusively or at least co-produce. That is a very substantial shift. It does not mean that they won’t make acquisitions as well. The shift of the audience is having an impact on kids’ specific channels. If only financially, their ad revenues have drastically diminished. At the same time, several of them have been producing very successful shows themselves and are making substantial revenues on licensing their content to the OTTs, while at the same time preparing their own OTT offerings. So, it’s in full evolution. It’s hard to gauge how many will be operating five years from now and what shape they will take. Whatever the constellation will be in the years ahead, there will be a need for high-end independent animation and liveaction content. Our challenge is to make sure that we find talent and ideas of a caliber that will attract high-end partners, be they traditional or OTT, and put a smile on the faces of viewers. I’ve been in this business for over 20 years now. There hasn’t been a year where we haven’t looked back at the year before and said, It didn’t feel quite as competitive last year! That’s just the way it is. At the same time, it’s very interesting to see what’s happening with national broadcasters, commercial and public. They’re going through ups and downs and trying to figure out in what form they’re going to exist in a digital world.
I hope we will not end up in a world where everything that’s being offered is international and commercial. If you look at each sizeable market, in the top ten properties you’ll typically find at least five, and often more, that are local. They are culturally relevant. In a balanced world, there are local players that reflect local culture—and that can still be done in a way that is interesting and attractive to others— as well as international, commercial offerings. TV KIDS: When you’re working with a producer who has only made local productions, is there a steep learning curve for them when making a show that is tailored more to the global market? VAN WAVEREN: From the Greeks to Shakespeare to Hollywood, it’s the three-act play. That’s the clearest way to tell a story. We want to know whose story it is and why you are rooting for this character. That needs to be made sufficiently explicit. It helps elevate a property from the local to the international. It’s also the level of execution. Not every market has experienced writing talent. So sometimes it’s just bringing in proven talent who can coach and guide less experienced local writers. There is a craft to writing a good script that is not necessarily present in each market. TV KIDS: What are some of the properties you’ll be showcasing at MIPCOM? VAN WAVEREN: We’ll be presenting four new shows at MIPCOM, which is more than we’ve ever done. Apart from Kiri and Lou and Space Chickens in Space, which I’ve already mentioned, we have Total Dramarama, a reboot of the Total Drama franchise from the amazing team at Fresh TV. If you’ve never seen an episode of Total Drama you can fall into it and have a wonderful time. If you do know the franchise, you’ll recognize the characters that you love and have spent a lot of time with and it’s even funnier. Total Drama has been running for ten years and it’s been reenergized by taking a different slant but effectively using the same key characters that the audience has grown to love. And finally, our much-maligned pug Mighty Mike from our long-term partner TeamTO. French studios have had a long tradition of success with non-dialogue comedy. Coupled with an unprecedented photorealistic style, Mike merges universal slapstick with the popularity of funny pet videos. This is a truly stand-out proposition.
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TR E N D S E T T E RS elevision shapes the lives of children in powerful ways. Shows for preschoolers teach 123s and ABCs along with values such as sharing and respect. Fun animated comedies offer school-age kids a break from homework, while live-action shows for tweens illustrate the problems, pressures and changes faced by that age group. Children today have a rich offering of content to choose from and they can watch their favorite shows on a variety of screens. Precisely because kids have so many options and have become increasingly sophisticated, only the best-made programs grab their attention and capture their imaginations. To satisfy children’s discerning tastes, linear and nonlinear platforms rely on high-quality content from talented creators—individuals whose original ideas, brilliantly executed, feature compelling characters in real-life settings or fantastical worlds or even parodies of prime-time reality shows. In acknowledgment of this vital segment of the television industry, World Screen, in partnership with MIPJunior, is holding its fourth annual Kids Trendsetter Awards to honor four
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individuals who have made significant contributions to the children’s television business. The honorees are executive producers and creators who have brought to life award-winning hits that have traveled around the globe: Ben Bocquelet, Tom McGillis, Angela C. Santomero and Jonathan M. Shiff. These four television professionals will take part in The Creators’ Superpanel, on Saturday, October 13, from 10:10 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. in the Grand Theatre of the JW Marriott. World Screen’s group editorial director, Anna Carugati, will moderate a lively discussion that will focus on coming up with ideas for shows and executing them for today’s media-savvy children. “We’ve been thrilled with our partnership with Reed MIDEM over the last four years to honor professionals who are tasked with delivering programming to the most impressionable and vulnerable of audiences—children,” says Ricardo Guise, president and publisher of World Screen. “Given the responsibility children’s programmers hold, we felt it was time to create the Kids Trendsetter Awards. These creators have the difficult task of producing entertaining shows while serving the developmental needs of children. We look forward to celebrating their achievements with this award.”
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KIDS TRENDSETTERS JONATHAN M. SHIFF Jonathan M. Shiff began his career practicing law but in 1988 set up the company Jonathan M. Shiff Productions focused on high-end drama and documentary series for children and families. After two science-fiction-themed and BAFTA Award-winning series, Ocean Girl and Thunderstone, Shiff produced The Elephant Princess, about a princess of a magical kingdom, Wicked Science and Cybergirl, all of which won awards. He dove into the world of mermaids with special powers, first with H2O: Just Add Water and then with Mako Mermaids. Magical worlds and empowering girls have been recurrent themes in Shiff’s shows. He says he wants to make fearless shows for fearless girls. His latest hit is The Bureau of Magical Things, about a regular teenage girl who acquires magical powers when caught in a clash between an elf and a fairy.
ANGELA C. SANTOMERO When Blue’s Clues premiered on Nickelodeon in 1996, it offered a different take on preschool programming. In each play-along episode, the animated girl puppy Blue, along with a human host, helps viewers at home find the three clues that will solve the day’s puzzle. Angela C. Santomero co-created, executive produced and served as head writer on Blue’s Clues, for which she won a Peabody Award. She has since created, executive produced and been head writer of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, inspired by the classic PBS show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; Super WHY!, which imparts reading skills; Creative Galaxy that focuses on art; and Wishenpoof about a young fairy girl. Santomero, who has a Masters degree in Child Developmental Psychology and Instructional Media & Education from Columbia University, has remained focused on educational preschool programming that teaches children through play.
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KIDS TRENDSETTERS TOM MCGILLIS Adventure-competition reality shows have been captivating prime-time audiences for two decades. Why not adapt the genre to animation for younger viewers? Emmy Award-winning executive producer Tom McGillis, president of Fresh TV, took that challenge and co-created the animated series Total Drama Island in 2007. He then went on to develop a whole Total Drama franchise, which includes Total Drama: Revenge of the Island and Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race. The franchise pays tribute to and parodies shows like Survivor, Fear Factor and The Amazing Race. McGillis also co-created the liveaction series My Babysitter’s a Vampire and a movie of the same name. He has pushed his Toronto-based production company beyond Canadian borders. Fresh TV’s development team now works with Canadian and American networks and talent, producing shows that have been sold around the world.
BEN BOCQUELET Ben Bocquelet studied 2D and 3D animation at the EMCA— École des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation in Angoulême, France, before joining Studio AKA as a designer, animator and director. He then created The Amazing World of Gumball for Cartoon Network. With its lively mix of 2D, 3D and live action, the series features the feisty cat Gumball Watterson, who has a knack for creating schemes that too often get him in trouble. Gumball is quite jealous of his sister, the brightest member of the family; mom is the breadwinner and stay-at-home dad watches a lot of TV. This comedy for school-age children was the first show greenlit by Turner out of the Cartoon Network Development Studio in Europe. The Amazing World of Gumball has won multiple awards, including eight BAFTAs and one Emmy.
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TV KIDS: Tell us how the idea for Guru Studio first came about. FALCONE: Guru started as an accidental comment at dinner. [Laughs] I felt like there was no place for me in Toronto to properly thrive as a creative person. I didn’t think there were places focusing on character animation and narratives that would come from good characters. I was debating moving abroad; I was basically debating what studios I could go to and the struggles of having to be a forced immigrant [since I felt I was] not able to do what I wanted to do in the city. I sort of jokingly said, Let’s just start a studio, to a producer friend of mine, and she said, We should! And then I was like, I guess I’ve got to put my money where my mouth is— maybe I should do it. So we went ahead and did it. TV KIDS: What are the company’s current and upcoming highlights? FALCONE: [We have a] collection of things that we really treasure and care about. We choose the projects that we get involved in very carefully. Right now, one of the highlights is our series True and the Rainbow Kingdom, which has just launched a second season on Netflix. A third season was announced [for] next year. We also launched some extended music videos from content from season one. We recently announced a new series that I’m a creator on called Pikwik. That should be slated for a late 2019 launch on Disney Junior in the U.S. and in other territories. We also have a new series greenlit at the CBC called Big Blue, a comedy adventure. There’s lots of new content coming out of the studio this year and you’ll hear more about it as the year goes on.
By Joanna Padovano Tong
With hits like True and the Rainbow Kingdom, a Netflix original also available on CBC in Canada, and PAW Patrol, airing on Nickelodeon as well as Canada’s TVO, Guru Studio has positioned itself as a boutique producer and distributor of top-quality kids’ animation. Upcoming shows include Pikwik, due to debut on Disney Junior in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Korea and India, and Big Blue, which was recently given the go-ahead by CBC in Canada. Frank Falcone, cofounder, president and executive creative director at Guru Studio, tells TV Kids how the Toronto-based company was created and discusses the importance of quality over quantity, trends in the kids’ landscape today and growth ambitions for the year ahead. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 311
TV KIDS: What trends have you noticed in the animation industry? FALCONE: The trend is producing a volume of originals. The danger is when you are focused on originals, you really can generate a catalog very quickly now. Whether you will be able to control that catalog or participate in the long tail of it is debatable as the landscape changes. But I think the danger in just generating a lot of original content for the sake of feeding the demand is that you just become, for lack of a better comparison, yet another app in the App Store. As we know, there are 2 million apps in the App Store, there are 26 million songs on iTunes, and just releasing a song isn’t enough. You have to have a great song, first of all—that helps a lot—and you have to know how to launch originals in the market. So I think it’s increasingly important for us to understand not just the shows and the content that we’re producing, and understand their DNA, but [also to] understand who our audience is, reach out to our audience, appeal to our audience and our demographics, and do what we need to do in marketing to succeed. No one should rely on any of the emerging services to make their show a success. They need to do the deep soul-searching and heavy lifting required to find their audience. TV KIDS: How important are nonlinear extensions for kids’ programming?
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Guru’s True and the Rainbow Kingdom was produced for Netflix.
FALCONE: It’s debatable whether more is more. [Laughs] I think it’s important to have a good product, first and foremost, whatever extension. I think an app could create a show, a show could create an app; I don’t think they need to all the time. Some concepts and some brands have the DNA to warrant extensions, where the audience is in search of more experiences [because] they can’t get enough of the thing they love. I think without having a brand and a set of characters and a storyline and a world that people deeply engage in and love and that has room to build more connection, there’s very little point in creating extensions because it’s just busywork and it’s cluttering the marketplace. TV KIDS: What’s in store for the future of the company? FALCONE: We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. We’re very happy with what’s on our slate at the moment. I’d like to say we’re sold out, but we’re not. [Laughs] The projects we’ve been working on and bringing to market over the last few years have all found homes, so we’re very happy with that. We have another round of projects in our development slate now that we’re very excited about; we’ll start to bring those to market later this year and early in 2019. I’m super excited about [these] new projects that will take us into new markets and new types of content. We’re known for preschool; we don’t have a preschool show to sell right now, but we have one in development that we’re very
excited about. So we are not neglecting our core competency, which has been preschool, but there are lots of other areas that we’re extending our abilities into. As artists, we’re excited to stretch what we do. I think what we do for other age groups and other demos can only strengthen what we do in preschool. Certainly there’s a lot to be learned and there’s value in exercising your brain to appeal to audiences in other demographics and to story-tell in other ways that could be leveraged back into the storytelling that you do for preschoolers. And vice versa—there’s a lot to be learned in preschool when you’re telling stories for older demos as well. So lots of fun stuff coming up in the next year. We’re expanding into licensing. We have new licensees on board for our big property True and the Rainbow Kingdom. We have a master toy [partner], we have a costume licensee in Palamon, we have sleepwear with AME, we have Global Brands Group for socks, we have Chouette for master publishing, we have Bendon for coloring books and art sets. We also have a huge success on our GIPHY page for True, which is approaching 700 million GIF shares. Clearly there are people—either guilty older-kid viewers or parents— who are sharing these things, which means that there is a connection to an audience out there that we are seeing in social media. And we are going to continue to build that brand on Netflix and outside the service.
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ON THE RECORD
oday’s media business is in constant flux, with changing viewing habits, new platforms and more and more players producing content—leaving consumers overwhelmed by so much choice and many companies forced to change strategies. In response to this continually evolving environment, AMC Networks is placing its bets on high-quality, innovative programming and providing it to viewers on its linear channels, as well as going directly to consumers with its own subscription streaming services. Josh Sapan, AMC Networks’ president and CEO, has seen how standout shows can help elevate the visibility of a channel— Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead all pushed AMC above the fray, transforming it from a classicmovie channel into a destination for must-watch series. Sapan is making sure his programming teams continue to offer content that can’t be found elsewhere. AMC aired Dietland this summer, and The Little Drummer Girl will premiere this fall. Sister channel SundanceTV has been particularly open to storytelling from outside the U.S., including Deutschland 83 and Liar, both of which have new seasons
in the works, along with true-crime docuseries such as Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle. BBC America, a joint venture with BBC Studios, has offered U.S. viewers some of the best of British programming, including Doctor Who, as well as buzzy original series Orphan Black and Killing Eve. IFC is home to independent films and offbeat comedy series, while WE tv has become a destination for unscripted fare. To reach viewers on all of their devices, AMC Networks has been increasing its offering of SVOD services. Alongside Sundance Now, Shudder and the recently launched AMC Premiere, the company has acquired RLJ Entertainment, which operates Acorn TV and UMC (Urban Movie Channel), and is a minority shareholder in BritBox with the BBC and ITV. Sapan is also spearheading the increase in output from AMC Studios in an effort to own and control more IP, which feeds the company’s linear and nonlinear platforms in the U.S. and around the world and is sold to third parties. During a far-ranging conversation in his office in Manhattan, Sapan talks to World Screen about the strengths of AMC Networks, the use of data in programming and the value of distinctive content in a crowded and evolving market.
JOSH SAPAN AMC NETWORKS
By Anna Carugati
WS: In this ever-changing media world, how are you positioning AMC Networks? SAPAN: The approach that we are taking is to be more of a studio and own more of our content, which gives us control over how our content may be rendered. We also want to be in the direct-to-consumer business more significantly and make our channels as vital as they can be and keep changing what they are doing. Our channels grew subscribers over the last year in the U.S. at a time when most others did not. That’s a function of a couple of different things: we are carried more widely on certain MVPDs than we have been in the past; and we are carried more widely in the new virtual MVPDs than any other independent programmer (meaning, programmers not aligned with a broadcast network). We have more distribution and penetration among the virtual MVPDs, and we are in fact number one. We think this is because what we do we do very well, and the price that we offer is very attractive. These are the basics of our business, and what drives it all is great content. So we think it’s important to operate with discretion, ingenuity, innovation and particularly a fresh approach to both format and story, which can energize a business enterprise. Story comes in all sorts of forms; we’ve seen it in the past. Zombies were once considered perhaps marginal, but, in fact, they weren’t marginal at all. So that approach is important for us for growth. WS: Tell us about AMC Studios. SAPAN: We began AMC Studios some nine years ago with a mind toward owning and controlling content as we began to diversify our business so that we would not be limited to our U.S. linear cable channels. We also expanded internationally some years after that, and we were able to take our IP to a greater part of the world. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 315
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might like and offer recommendations for them based on past behavior. The other thing that is occurring that is pretty interesting is companies are doing a social media “scrape” and then are making determinations of what you might like based on your social media habits, which is a different way of getting information about you. Those two things are profound. They probably have their limitations, at least today, but I don’t think they will go away; they will become ever more advanced. I also think there is one other piece of it, which is, at least in program selection, the more Don Draper part of it, although it’s not advertising, which is—may I ask you, how do you decide what programs to watch?
Adapted from the John le Carré novel of the same name, The Little Drummer Girl airs on AMC this fall. There are a significant number of shows now coming out of our studio that we own, and we can make decisions about where everything goes now and in the future. WS: How did AMC Premiere come about? SAPAN: We made a decision to be in the directto-consumer subscription-video-on-demand business five or so years ago in a few different ways. We began with Sundance Now and Shudder and developed the technology on our own; we intentionally set up the staff to work in another location (they are in a WeWork building), remote from us, because it’s such a different business. We didn’t want them to suffer from traditional media business oversight! We thought it was important to build up a whole different orientation. AMC Premiere is the most recent service we launched. In between, we also invested in a company called RLJ Entertainment that operates the SVOD services Acorn TV and UMC (Urban Movie Channel). We also made an investment in BritBox with our partners at the BBC and ITV. AMC Premiere came about through our relationship with Comcast and our mutual desire to do something different with the current formulation of what is highly desirable content on linear cable channels, as well as to have a commercial-free option. That was the beginning of it. It’s a species of its own; essentially, if you want to use fancy terms, it is an “in-ecosystem” or MVPD-centric subscriptionvideo-on-demand service that gives you a different form and flavor. We are expanding its composition, so there is stackable, bingeable material that is available sometimes before [it’s available on] the linear channel. It has recently launched on YouTube TV and will continue to undergo an evolution, as all things do.
WS: How do you decide what goes on AMC Premiere and what airs on the linear channel? SAPAN: That is an ongoing work in progress and we’ll continue to make determinations of where we get the most value, where consumers get the most value and where our MVPD partners get the most value. That will be a decided evolution; it will very likely change all the time, and is meant to change all the time, as we consider all the factors against those constituencies. WS: How are Sundance Now and Shudder being received by consumers? SAPAN: Very well. They have both been growing nicely, and they are particularly acclaimed because their constituencies don’t have much that serves them on a dedicated basis. There are pieces of what they do available elsewhere on television, but if you like high-quality television of prestigious and sometimes foreign origin, Sundance Now gives you a great collection of it. If you’re interested in the horror genre, Shudder is for you. We just began a Shudder podcast. The people who are fans are big fans. WS: Big data is revolutionizing advertising and the Don Drapers are rightfully, or wrongfully, being pushed aside by data. Is data becoming very important in programming and in platforms’ relationships with consumers? Do AMC Premiere, Sundance Now and Shudder also rely on data? SAPAN: The answer is yes, yes and yes! The rules are pretty fundamental but different for advertising than they are for programming. On the programming side, what we see in evidence is the ability for an algorithm to learn your preferences, your likes and your desires, and I think it’s going to undergo a really interesting evolution. We do look at what people have watched and then serve up what we think they 316 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
WS: We have cable, so we run down the EPG, and if we don’t find anything we go to the Amazon Fire TV. If we’ve heard about a show, but we don’t know if it’s on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or whatever, it takes us 20 minutes to finally find it! SAPAN: I’ve heard some crazy statistics, and the average time of making a television decision among a certain demo was freakishly long. Oftentimes it’s so time-consuming that we quit before we start. WS: It’s getting increasingly difficult to find shows. SAPAN: If I’ve already heard of a show or read a review, that could be of interest. If it’s suggested to me by a friend or someone whose taste I rely on, that’s of the most profound importance, so the human recommendation is, at least today for me, better than a programmatic recommendation. If someone says, “I know you and you are going to love this,” I feel there is a lot of subtlety in that— and that is nowhere in an algorithm. We have Killing Eve on BBC America. When I say to people I know, “Watch Killing Eve,” I can say with greater certainty that members of your family will like this show more than almost any show I’ve been involved in, because it’s not only well done and well rendered but fun and fanciful. Personal recommendations trump everything. WS: What is AMC Networks’ strategy for selling content to third-party streaming platforms? Has it changed over the years? SAPAN: It has not changed substantially over the years, but I keep using the term “evolution.” Historically, we’ve been careful to protect the sanctity of the window that MVPDs have so that they have it in a meaningful way alone—that’s been a pretty expansive window, and we arrived at that decision early. We have sold selectively to third parties in the U.S. and elsewhere. That has been rewarding for us economically, and it’s put us in pretty good stead with all those partners. There is nothing to suggest that we would do it differently in the future, but since we now have our own subscription-video-on-demand services, we have the opportunity, when and if we deem it
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appropriate, to keep shows to ourselves. And there is, of course, a question of money and scale and reward and momentum, so all of that is very much in the consideration of the entire media world, including in major transactions that are occurring as we speak. WS: Are you also selling your programming internationally? SAPAN: Yes, we are. We operate as a studio and as a cable channel company, so we sell programming everywhere across the globe—to free to air, to cable, to ourselves, to subscription video on demand—and it all varies by territories. WS: And those revenues are doing well? SAPAN: They are doing very well; they are perhaps among the most significant growth trajectories of our company. Happily, our content has been well received in those markets, and I think it’s fair to say that our company name in front of it has stood up to a particular reputation, so people are interested and prepared to do business with us because there has been a consistency of quality and recognition to what we’ve done. WS: What have been the benefits of the investment in BBC America? SAPAN: They have been quite abundant. Number one, the channel has succeeded perhaps beyond our expectations in terms of expanded U.S. distribution and increased advertising. The programming we’ve done with the BBC has been spectacular, and that relationship has
SundanceTV has renewed Liar, a co-production with ITV and all3media international, for a second season. been wonderful. It has borne many things, including the great franchises they have that we have been the beneficiary of, including Broadchurch; we get Idris Elba to be on television in Luther; Planet Earth is quite wellknown and Blue Planet II has recently been nominated for all sorts of awards. As an aside, I recently saw a play on the name Blue Planet. It was front page, above the fold, in the New York Times reporting on the World Cup, and the title was “Bleu Planet.” It was a reference to the French [soccer] team who wear blue shirts,
but, of course, it was also a reference to the TV series. So it struck me that this show was sufficiently well-known and in common nomenclature that the sports section of the New York Times would choose to reference it in a pithy headline. Also, the channel has developed the original series Orphan Black and, most recently, Killing Eve. It’s nice to note that two of the women nominated for best actress in a drama series at this year’s Emmys are from BBC America shows: Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black and Sandra Oh
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and content. I think that’s what’s going on in the larger world.
This Close is produced for Sundance Now, an SVOD service for series, films and documentaries. in Killing Eve. We are also minority partners in the BBC/ITV streaming service, BritBox. So we have an abundant relationship with the BBC and we coproduce significantly through our relationship with them, including series such as McMafia and The Night Manager. WS: How are the international businesses doing, and where do you see the potential for growth? SAPAN: They are doing very well. We are expanding particularly in Africa and in the Middle East, new areas for us, and doing well. Where we’ve been, we have degrees of maturity, but our businesses are undergoing evolution and growth. It’s wonderful to see our footprint expand into new countries and regions, and it gives us a view of the world that is intimate as opposed to remote. So when we do business and expand into streaming services or program sales, we have international exposure and visibility. WS: One approach to programming has been “less is more,” quality versus quantity. But we’ve been reading headlines lately that some services are going in the other direction— “more is more,” higher volume, more variety. Which, in the long run, do you feel is the best strategy for your businesses? SAPAN: I wish I could give you a good pithy answer! I think “the best” is the best answer, which is to say, there is going to be increasing abundance by definition because of the fact that companies that were not fundamentally in the TV business have moved into it for multiple reasons. We know who they are, and there are new ones coming, so the options and alternatives will increase. So, the answer for someone who primarily programs for a living is that you better be very good and get noticed, because the choices will become increasingly abundant. We came from an environment of relative paucity, and now people talk about the second “golden age” or “peak TV” or “there is too much on and I don’t know what to watch.”
What is curious is that people don’t refer to books that way. They don’t say “I haven’t heard of that book, there are too many books to read.” Of course, there are too many things to read, by definition. Now, publishing is a bad analogy because it’s a lower-margin business. But as it relates to TV, it doesn’t mean that services can’t support abundant content production, as long as the economic systems are intact. It’s a consumer experience in terms of our ability to survey the landscape and know what we want to watch. Our frame of reference is that we used to know nearly everything that was on because there was a paucity; I don’t think it suggests that systems are burdened by too much, as long as the systems are intact. When I say systems, what I mean is that we have an economic system in our company and it works and we have a 30-plus-percent-margin business. Premium services have an economic system. Studios have an economic system. Subscription video on demand is an economic system. Free to air is an economic system. Tech companies have an economic system; they may offer content at no charge, or they may offer it with free shipping. But it doesn’t mean that because one thing prospers another thing is going to die. It means that there will be an adjustment in format
WS: What challenges and opportunities do you see for AMC Networks in the next year to 18 months? SAPAN: The biggest opportunities are in a combination of content and interface. When people find things that delight them. In my case, it’s voice recognition because I don’t like to press buttons, and when that works, I think, “This is the greatest thing in the world!” That, in combination with great content, is a delightful thing. That’s not the end of it; we’re at the beginning of watching socially. It was interesting to observe the phenomenon of the World Cup and the watch parties and the joy that people find in doing something together, which media has always been a big part of. Some of the current interfaces don’t invite that. I don’t know if your 20-year-old goes up to her room, goes under the covers and disappears with a sea of machines. That’s my experience. WS: But there is still the desire for a communal viewing experience. SAPAN: Interactivity is an interesting part of television that has not yet been explored. People manage their social media accounts in a highly interactive way—they post stories, they share posts. That has not yet crept into television in a meaningful way, but it seems to be on the horizon. It’s interesting, and perhaps to be revealed, and I do think that on-demand selection and recommendation, which has great benefits, has left shared experiences on the sidelines. One sees certain signs of that occurring, not just in the easy examples of worldwide sporting events or news events. I think people—this is a personal opinion—have an appetite for doing things together. The current media construction has left it on the side, which is not to say it hasn’t done other things that are wonderful, but there is a big opportunity for [interactivity], to render it in a surprising and fun way, so we’ll see.
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TVDRAMA
WWW.TVDRAMA.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
Legal Dramas / Medical Series / Greg Berlanti / Chris Chibnall / Matthew Rhys Shemar Moore / ITV Studios’ Maria Kyriacou / Fremantle’s Sarah Doole
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16 TV DRAMA
CONTENTS FEATURES
The Diversity Question
34 JUSTICE SERVED New innovations have reinvigorated the legal drama genre.
42 IN GOOD HEALTH Spotlighting what’s new in medical dramas.
42
Like many people in the media industry, I’ve been thinking about diversity and representation a lot lately. I grew up never seeing faces like mine in the American and British shows I watched with my family. Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Drama © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvdrama.ws
The 1993 film Bhaji on the Beach, about a group of British Indian women, was a revelation to me. I had spent my whole life acutely feeling like the other, the outsider, grappling with living between two cultures. Gurinder Chadha’s brilliant film said, Yes, your story matters, you’re not alone. That was 25 years ago and there are days when I’m honestly not sure how much progress has really been made. Because we’re still talking about it, aren’t we? We’re talking about why representation matters—shouldn’t that just be a given? Why wouldn’t television fully, accurately reflect the diversity of cultures and sexual orientations and economic backgrounds and body shapes and political viewpoints that make societies great? Why would we ever have to ask if diversity is a good thing? How could it not be? Study after study has demonstrated why we’re still not where we’re supposed to be when it comes to representation behind, and in front of, the camera. But this supersized edition of TV Drama has much to feel good about when it comes to how this particular genre is embracing broad spectrums of society. Greg Berlanti’s shows have been lauded for their diverse casts. We hear from S.W.A.T.’s Shemar Moore about how his show has helped to diversify the U.S. broadcast network landscape. Chris Chibnall talks about Jodie Whittaker being cast as the first female Doctor in Doctor Who history. Fremantle’s Sarah Doole discusses how her company is putting an emphasis on fostering women directors and producers. ITV Studios’ Maria Kyriacou notes that the industry has never been more open to new ideas than it is now. You’ll hear a similar sentiment from Emmy-winning actor Matthew Rhys as he talks about his latest project, Death and Nightingales. And Japanese producer Hisashi Tsugiya shares his perspective on the importance of representing societal issues in the shows he’s making for Nippon TV. This edition of TV Drama also spotlights two hot genres in scripted—legal and medical—where stories often have to be grounded in reality for the shows to be successful. As platforms and producers finally get real about inclusion, perhaps we’ll reach a point where no one ever asks why diversity is important—they’ll just know that it is. —Mansha Daswani
INTERVIEWS
50 Greg Berlanti 56 Chris Chibnall 60 Shemar Moore 64 Matthew Rhys Studios’ 68 ITV Maria Kyriacou
74
Fremantle’s Sarah Doole
79
Nippon TV’s Hisashi Tsugiya
München’s 82 Tele Herbert L. Kloiber
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18 TV DRAMA
A+E Networks Project Blue Book / American Princess / Knightfall Aidan Gillen of Game of Thrones fame stars in the drama Project Blue Book, inspired by the U.S. Air Force’s investigation into UFOs. “Blue Book leverages a worldwide omnipresent fascination of ‘what’s out there,’” says Richard Tulk-Hart, A+E Networks’ managing director of international content distribution and co-productions. “It’s something that resonates with all of us, and the theme is universal.” American Princess is the story of an Upper East Side socialite in New York City whose storybook wedding plans are dramatically derailed when she catches her fiancé cheating on the big day. A+E Networks is also promoting the second season of Knightfall. The Knights Templarfocused series stars Tom Cullen, as well as Mark Hamill in the role of a battle-hardened veteran of the Crusades.
Project Blue Book
“Our scripted content is premium, from the talent to the stories we are telling and the production auspices.”
—Richard Tulk-Hart
all3media international
Strangers
Strangers / Informer / Mrs. Wilson Produced by Two Brothers Pictures, Strangers (known as White Dragon in the U.S. and Asia) centers on a man who is investigating the death of his wife in Hong Kong. Neal Street Productions’ Informer is a character-driven thriller following a second-generation immigrant who is coerced into becoming an informant in a counterterrorism investigation. Inspired by a true story, Mrs. Wilson from Snowed-In Productions looks on as a widow encounters another woman claiming to be the “real” Mrs. Wilson. These three series “will show us what it’s like to hunt for a killer in a strange land, the challenges of undercover policing and the secrets even our families can keep from us,” says David Swetman, the VP of acquisitions at all3media international. Another highlight, hailing from Company Pictures, is the Irish thriller Blood.
“It’s a privilege to work closely with innovative and successful producers who are making programs with some of the best creative talents in the industry.” —David Swetman
ATV
Broken Lives
Broken Lives / Foster Mother / Lifeline The female-led drama Broken Lives is being launched by ATV at MIPCOM. It centers on two women coping with their unfortunate pasts who must band together in order to move on. The series addresses the issue of domestic violence. There’s a second season of Lifeline, which has sold into 16 countries so far. Foster Mother, meanwhile, explores the concept of motherhood and the importance of family from a child’s perspective. “Foster Mother opens a box that is full of family secrets and makes it easy to see how family dynamics can be shaken,” says Ziyad Varol, ATV’s licensing and digital manager for acquisitions, sales and platforms. “Audiences will see two sisters in a touchy situation, and it causes them to question the truth.” The series Love and Hate has a third season on offer.
“ATV will continue to be the jewel in the crown of Turkish media.” —Ziyad Varol
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Hidden TV DRAMA 19
Banijay Rights Hidden / The Red Shadows / Idiomatic From the producers of Occupied and Millennium, Hidden features dark secrets, unsuspected identities and supernatural forces, which converge against the backdrop of modern-day Sweden. “Blending the paranormal with hardhitting realism and psychological drama, this suspensedriven series deals with being an outsider,” says Chris Stewart, commercial director for scripted at Banijay Rights. A woman kidnapped 25 years ago and presumed dead returns home, causing family conflict and revealing dark secrets in The Red Shadows. Meanwhile, Idiomatic follows the life and times of an urban, bilingual, environmentally conscious left-wing couple in their 30s: Aino, who’s originally from Finnish Lapland, and Swedishspeaking Micke.
“Hidden is a blend of urban fantasy and psychological thriller.” —Chris Stewart
CJ ENM Lawless Lawyer / Children of a Lesser God / Live A smart but merciless attorney takes center stage in Lawless Lawyer, one of CJ ENM’s drama highlights. The company is also promoting Children of a Lesser God, which tells the story of a pseudo-religious group, and Live, focused on a local police patrol. “Already hugely successful in Korea, these three dramas have stories that can be easily understood and recognized in different territories and cultures,” says Diane Min, the head of format sales at CJ ENM. “All of them have simple elements and interesting plots that are easily adaptable in diverse regions in different ways. Most of [our] dramas share these kinds of elements, which appeal to and attract global buyers and are the reasons that CJ ENM’s meeting tables are always full at markets.”
Lawless Lawyer
“CJ ENM’s drama lineup is getting stronger as three to five new dramas are being introduced every month.” —Diane Min
Escapade Media
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Undocumented / 600 Bottles of Wine / The Art of Killing A law-abiding Australian living in New York finds out she’s an illegal alien and must build a new life from scratch in the drama series Undocumented. The central character in 600 Bottles of Wine is a woman who finds herself flung back into the dating scene after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend. The Art of Killing is set between Liverpool in the U.K. and the Gold Coast of Australia. “These locations serve as a backdrop for a story filled with intrigue and mystery and a dark backstory that will thrill audiences around the world,” says Natalie Lawley, the managing director of Escapade Media. “Maximizing on the demand for crime drama, with a very cinematic point of difference, this series offers buyers a story that is inherently international.”
Undocumented
“These projects represent Escapade’s mission to present unique and fresh ideas that resonate with global audiences.” —Natalie Lawley
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20 TV DRAMA
Fremantle Beecham House / Taken Down / American Gods The violent death of a young Nigerian migrant is investigated in the six-part series Taken Down. Rebecca Dundon, Fremantle’s director of scripted acquisitions, International, describes it as “a gripping crime drama—full of unexpected twists and turns—that is guaranteed to keep viewers at the edges of their seats.” Also on offer from the company is Beecham House, a new drama set at the turn of the 19th century. Then there is the second installment of American Gods, a book-based fantasy series that airs on Starz in the U.S. and streams on Amazon Prime Video in other territories. “Following the success of American Gods season one, we are very excited to be launching season two this market,” says Dundon. “It is still very cinematic [with] its signature stunning visuals.”
Beecham House
“We have continued to work with some of the very best creative talent in the industry this year to bring these enormously impactful and captivating dramas to the world.” —Rebecca Dundon
Global Agency Gulperi / Finding Hope / Daydreamer From the producers of Magnificent Century, Gulperi is a brand-new drama that Global Agency is introducing to international buyers. It tells the story of a woman who has been treated unjustly her entire life just because she is female. After her husband’s unexpected death, she is in danger of losing her children. “This drama argues that a mother is only a mother when her children are by her side,” says Senay Filiztekin, Global Agency’s head of drama acquisitions. “Gulperi will remember what it feels like to really love someone as she reunites with a man from her past.” In Finding Hope, a drama from the producers of Mother, a veteran soldier meets and falls in love with the beautiful Elif. Global Agency’s slate also includes the romantic dramedy Daydreamer.
“With a touch of a feel-good approach to the emotional ingredients of the show, Daydreamer will surely capture the interest of audiences worldwide.” Daydreamer
—Senay Filiztekin
Global Screen After the Crash / Rule of Light / Racko: No Better Friend! Based on a best-selling crime novel by Michel Bussi, After the Crash is a psychological thriller miniseries about the sole survivor of a plane crash in the late 1970s. “The gripping plot—full of surprises, twists and turns— will keep viewers engaged until the very end, desperate to learn the truth,” says Alexandra Heidrich, the head of TV sales and acquisitions at Global Screen. The six-part legal drama Rule of Light centers on an ambitious lawyer who has been blind from birth. For a family audience, the live-action series Racko: No Better Friend! features a canine as its central character. “It has been a long time coming, but now this generation finally has an animal hero of its own that the whole family will love,” says Heidrich.
Rule of Light
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22 TV DRAMA
GMA Worldwide Broken Hearts / Happy Together / Heart of Courage A mother and daughter are at odds because they both love the same man in Broken Hearts from GMA Worldwide. The romantic comedy series Happy Together, meanwhile, follows a bubbly young woman’s quest for self-discovery. The superhero series Heart of Courage is about an ordinary mortal who inherits the hammer of Thor. Roxanne J. Barcelona, the company’s VP, explains that the series is inspired by the Norse myth. Barcelona adds, “We are strengthening relationships with our Asian neighbors such as Myanmar and Vietnam, as well as Thailand and Malaysia, through co-productions and possibly more format deals. At the same time, we’d like to help African broadcasters in providing content for their channels and platforms and enter more European and Latin American countries through partner distributors.”
Heart of Courage
“These shows are performing well locally, both in ratings and viewership, as well as engagement in social media.” —Roxanne J. Barcelona
Incendo Mean Queen / Mad Mom / Radio Silence In the TV-movie thriller Mean Queen, Julie Taylor takes over a senior math class for the last few weeks of school following the suspected suicide of her friend and fellow teacher. Her teenage daughter, Miya, relocates to the new school as well. Julie can’t help but worry when Miya becomes fast friends with the school’s resident mean girl, who is obsessed with becoming prom queen. The slate of Incendo thrillers also includes Mad Mom and Radio Silence. “We are always looking for new opportunities and are interested in hearing from producers with projects with an eye toward potential series co-productions and development,” says Gavin Reardon, the company’s head of international sales and co-productions. “We are also excited to open new markets, especially Asia and Africa.”
Radio Silence
“These films tell universal stories and are produced with the highest production values.” —Gavin Reardon
Inter Medya The Pit / Flames of Desire / Innocent Turkish producer Ay Yapim is behind The Pit, about a young man who is torn between loyalty to his family, the neighborhood he came from and the woman he loves. Inter Medya is also highlighting Flames of Desire, which examines the concept of arranged marriages. In the drama, Bayram and Salih plan to have their children get married in an effort to become friends after a big fight; however, as their kids grow up, they develop minds and dreams of their own. There is also Innocent, “an unusual and extraordinary story about an ordinary Turkish family,” says Can Okan, Inter Medya’s founder and CEO. At the center of the story are a retired cop and his wife, who live peaceful lives until one of their sons arrives home with horrible news.
The Pit
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“In The Pit, Yamaç’s life is never going to be the same when he has to go back to Çukur to become the head of the family.” —Can Okan
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24 TV DRAMA
Kanal D International Price of Passion / Wounded Love A hitman named Ferhat and an idealistic doctor named Asli cross paths in Price of Passion. Asli is forced to operate on a man that Ferhat shot. Asli and Ferhat wind up getting married, but will they find love in a world of corrupt relationships, ambition and power? The period drama Wounded Love examines whether true love can outlast the most difficult situations. “Production quality is always something that we are proud of, and this is combined with our unique storytelling,” says Kerim Emrah Turna, the executive director of Kanal D International. “Among our priorities at MIPCOM will be the introduction of our new titles.” Kanal D International is also revealing the details of a new drama title at the market in Cannes.
Price of Passion
“We are currently present in over 150 markets, and we hope to expand to gain maximum international viewership with new windows.” —Kerim Emrah Turna
Keshet International Stockholm / Autonomies / Sleeping Bears The story in Stockholm follows as a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in economics is found dead in his bed after an apparent heart attack just five days before the winners are announced. “This is a darkly mischievous drama featuring a stellar cast of accomplished actors that shines a light on lifelong friendships in a unique and funny way,” says Rose Hughes, senior sales manager at Keshet International. Autonomies is a dystopian drama set in an alternate reality of present-day Israel. “This family-focused drama feels so globally relevant right now, centering as it does on the burning issues of identity, religion, politics and personal freedom,” says Hughes. There’s also the family drama Sleeping Bears, written by Keren Margalit (Yellow Peppers, The A Word).
Sleeping Bears
“Viewers don’t just want explosions and thrills; they also want to think, and they want TV that connects with their emotions.”
—Rose Hughes
Lionsgate The Rook / The Spanish Princess / BoJack Horseman The supernatural spy thriller The Rook, about a woman who wakes up in London with no memory of who she is and no way to explain the circle of dead bodies around her, makes its debut at MIPCOM. Also launching at the market is The Spanish Princess, a new story in the dynastic saga of Tudor England drawn from the best-selling novels by Philippa Gregory. It is a “powerful, epic story that not only returns the audience to the world of royal-court intrigue as seen uniquely through the perspective of the women, but also sheds light on a previously untold corner of history: the lives of people of color living and working in 16thcentury London,” says Peter Iacono, the president of international television and digital distribution at Lionsgate. The comedy BoJack Horseman rounds out the slate.
The Spanish Princess
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“These exciting shows will resonate with global audiences as they marry great stories with impressive creative teams and brilliant, well-known talent.” —Peter Iacono
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Mediaset España Truth / State Secrets / Unauthorized Living There’s a second season of Truth (La Verdad), about a young girl who suddenly appears claiming to be someone who disappeared a decade ago. The political drama State Secrets (Secretos de Estado) centers on an assassination attempt on the Spanish Prime Minister. Secrets that were previously known only by the Prime Minister, the First Lady and their inner circle are unearthed. Unauthorized Living (Vivir sin Permiso) reunites the actors José Coronado and Álex González following the success of El Príncipe. Unauthorized Living is a story about “passion, fierce rivalries and conflicting interests within a family headed by Galicia’s most prominent drug dealer, providing a melting pot of ingredients that bubble over into emotional narratives coupled with some striking and violent scenes,” says Silvia Cotino, the head of sales at Mediaset España.
Unauthorized Living
“Mediaset España is a pioneer in the Spanish TV content sector.” —Silvia Cotino
MISTCO Hold My Hand / The Prisoner of Love / Resurrection: Ertugrul A well-educated young girl crosses paths with a spoiled boy in the drama Hold My Hand. The series “adopts both a romantic and a tragic main story,” says Aysegul Tuzun, the VP of sales and marketing at MISTCO. “The success it reached in Turkey will be reflected globally.” The Prisoner of Love is a modern drama that chronicles a contractual marriage between a rich man who has no trust in women and a poor girl who desperately needs money to pay for her father’s surgery. “We witness how their hatred [for each other] turns into real love as time goes by,” Tuzun says. There is also Resurrection: Ertugrul, for which “sales are going great globally.” Tuzun adds that in 2019, the company will unveil “a big surprise for fans of historical drama.”
“We have very exciting new shows and valuable library programs for partners who are searching for the best titles worldwide.” Hold My Hand
—Aysegul Tuzun
NTV Broadcasting Company Brass Sun / Beyond Death / The Crow The war drama Brass Sun centers on a small military orchestra caught in a guerilla conflict in Central Asia. “It’s a dramatic masterpiece, and it’s based on true events very few people know about, which makes it original,” says Timur Weinstein, general producer at NTV Broadcasting Company. The thriller Beyond Death sees an almost-retired detective and a young doctor investigating a case where a corpse mysteriously disappears from the morgue. “Intricate plot lines mix together three different stories that unfold the mysteries of hundreds of WWII soldiers’ deaths and even a terrorist plot,” says Weinstein. “After such a successful run, the series will return for season two very soon.” The thriller The Crow, meanwhile, follows a female in the law-enforcement system who is repeatedly met with discrimination.
Brass Sun
“A diversity of ideas, international appeal and spectacular production quality put NTV’s programs among the most popular in Russia.” —Timur Weinstein 344 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Onza Distribution Little Coincidences / The Gipsy Heiress / The Value of Life Billed as an atypical romantic comedy, Little Coincidences features a couple who are unaware that their lives constantly intertwine in search of one another. The series, which is being showcased by Onza Distribution, will launch on Amazon Prime Video as well as on free TV in Spain. Onza Distribution is also presenting to the international market The Gipsy Heiress, which centers on Luz, an exotic beauty raised by a gypsy family after she was kidnapped as a baby. Years later, she will inherit a vast fortune. In The Value of Life, Carolina and Artur may not know each other but they share a special bond, as they both wake up from an eight-year coma on the same day. “Onza Distribution continues growing and adding new productions every year,” says Jessica Ortiz, the company’s managing director.
Little Coincidences
“It’s a great time for Spanish fiction.” —Jessica Ortiz
Rai Com
The Ladies’ Paradise
My Brilliant Friend / The Name of the Rose /The Ladies’ Paradise My Brilliant Friend and The Name of the Rose are both based on best-selling novels. My Brilliant Friend is adapted from Elena Ferrante’s work, while Umberto Eco penned the novel The Name of the Rose. Italy’s Rai is a co-producer on both big-budget projects, and Rai Com distributes the titles for the CIS and CEE territories. Meanwhile, The Ladies’ Paradise is a costume drama that “highlights the colorful Italian excellence of fashion in the ’50s through ’70s,” says David Bogi, Rai Com’s head of international distribution and business development. The show is skewed for a female audience. The company also presents the family saga Escape from Mafia. Bogi emphasizes that it’s Rai Com’s mission to bring the best Rai programming and Italian content to buyers around the world.
“Successful brands, high quality and Italian storytelling will attract worldwide buyers.” —David Bogi
Red Arrow Studios International Death and Nightingales / Australian Gangster / Checkout!
Death and Nightingales
The period drama Death and Nightingales stars Emmy winner Matthew Rhys (The Americans) alongside Jamie Dornan (The Fall) and Ann Skelly (Red Rock). “Death and Nightingales is a riveting story of love and revenge, set in the beautiful countryside of Fermanagh, Ireland, in 1885; a world of spies, deception and betrayal, with simmering tensions of class, politics and religion that threaten to tear the country apart,” says Henrik Pabst, the president of Red Arrow Studios International. Australian Gangster, meanwhile, is described by Pabst as “a wild tale of ruthless ambition and revenge, set within the Sydney underworld, where gangsters and the Instagram generation collide with Sydney’s glamorous social elite.” Then there is Checkout!, a scripted show that follows the daily lives of the workers and customers at a dysfunctional supermarket.
“There is a need for high-end scripted series and films featuring A-list talent, with high production values and original content.” —Henrik Pabst
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Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport Godunov / Desperate Wives / Megapolis The big-budget historical drama Godunov is about one of the most mysterious figures in Russian history, Boris Godunov. “The uniqueness of the series can be seen in the historical authenticity, spectacular costumes and great cast,” says Julia Matyash, the director of Sovtelexport, which distributes programming from Russia Television and Radio. The company also has in its catalog Desperate Wives, a drama about strong women who would risk anything for the happiness of their families. “The zest of the series is the magnificent recreation of the atmosphere of Russia in the ’90s,” Matyash says. Further highlights include The Maze, a modern melodrama, and Anna Karenina, a classic drama based on Tolstoy’s famous novel. Complementing the slate of dramas is Megapolis, a doc special about Moscow.
“Our goal has always been to introduce top Russian products to the world.” —Julia Matyash
Godunov
Series Mania March 22-30, 2019; Lille, France Series Mania returns to Lille in 2019, after a successful relocation from Paris this year. “The key structure of the event will remain the same because the event was very successful and much appreciated by our participants,” says Laurence Herszberg, general director of Series Mania. “We will also work to improve the services for our attendees: more parties and networking events, a shuttle service to go from the Grand Palais to the city center, better catering and food services—everything that can make the Series Mania experience even more useful and productive for our attendees.” The Lille Transatlantic Dialogues, which gathers political decision-makers and top media executives, will be back for a second edition. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, was among those that took part as a speaker.
Series Mania
“The first edition in Lille was a huge success, beyond our best expectations.” —Laurence Herszberg
Star India
Kullfi Kumar, the Singing Star
Love Conquers All? / Kullfi Kumar, the Singing Star / The Wait for Love The romantic drama Love Conquers All? (Kasauti Zindagi Kay) features the story of two star-crossed lovers who meet and separate time and again as they get entwined in a web of love and revenge. Gurjeev Kapoor, the president of Star India, calls it “the most-awaited Indian show of 2018.” Kullfi Kumar, the Singing Star (Kullfi Kumar Bajewala) focuses on a musical prodigy on a journey to find her estranged father. The Wait for Love (Love Ka Hai Intezar) centers on an actress who falls in love with a prince. “Star India is the leading broadcast network in India, and any new show from Star India generates considerable interest in international markets as well,” says Kapoor. “Star India collaborates very closely with some of the biggest production houses in India, with a constant focus on stories that inspire.”
“Star India believes in harnessing the power of imagination, and this is reflected in our storytelling.” —Gurjeev Kapoor 348 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Star Media Detective Anna / Richard Sorge. Master Spy / Operation Muhabbat A female investigator with supernatural powers is at the heart of the series Detective Anna, which features sci-fi elements. “It’s dark, gothic, mysterious and thrilling,” says Vlad Ryashin, general producer at Star Media. Richard Sorge. Master Spy is about a Soviet secret agent, while Operation Muhabbat follows a last-year cadet at a prestigious military high school who is the son of an adviser to the general secretary of the Communist Party. “Moreover, Star Media is producing an adaptation of the award-winning BBC series Doctor Foster, a story that has become one of the most successful U.K. dramas of recent years,” says Ryashin. “We will add a new angle to the story that captures your attention from the first minutes, giving you a whole whirl of emotions when you see how the story is revealed.”
Viacom18/Indiacast
Richard Sorge. Master Spy
“Richard Sorge. Master Spy is a very dramatic story of a man who has been described by historians as one of the greatest spies of the 20th century.” —Vlad Ryashin Beyond Boundaries
The Serpent / Unfaithful / Beyond Boundaries A mythical tale of vengeance plays out after the wedding of a shape-shifting serpent and his lover is marred by a group of drunken youngsters in The Serpent (Naagin 3). The plot in Unfaithful (Silsila) centers on two best friends, one broken marriage and a dangerous affair. Beyond Boundaries (Bepannah) features the love story of two strangers brought together by destiny after losing their spouses in an accident. The highlights also include Love Saga: Salim & Anarkali (Dastaan-E-Mohabbat: Salim Anarkali), telling the epic love story of Emperor Salim and Anarkali. “While our content is symbolic of the core culture and diversity of India, our approach has always been global,” says Debkumar Dasgupta, the senior VP of international business and syndication at Viacom18/Indiacast.
“Viacom18/ Indiacast brings you unique stories of love, relationships, drama and mystery.” —Debkumar Dasgupta
ZDF Enterprises Over Water / Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem / JJ A man with a troubled past gets a second chance to do right by his family in Over Water, on offer from ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE). “Over Water tells the story of how a former addict can make the wrong choices with the right intentions,” says Robert Franke, the VP of ZDFE.drama. Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem is an adaptation of a best-selling trilogy of crime novels. Both of these shows are slated for screenings during MIPCOM. Another highlight from the company is JJ, a Netflix original series. “It is the story of John Jeiver, who was kidnapped by the FARC at 13 and trained as a one-man army,” says Franke. “After the signing of the Colombian peace agreements, he escapes the jungle to Bogotá, and infiltrates a dangerous and well-connected criminal organization.”
“Our topics work internationally, whether in breathtaking crime series, short-form dramas or TV movies.” JJ
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—Robert Franke
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Red Arrow’s Stella Blómkvist. 352 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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There is a wave of new series offering an innovative take on the traditional legal drama. By Kristin Brzoznowski he verdict is in: legal dramas are as hot as ever. The high stakes and suspense of courtroom proceedings have long provided fertile ground for storytelling, and TV audiences are guilty as charged when it comes to their innate interest in whodunits and seeing justice served. “There’s something about the legal process that allows for twists and turns in a story,” says Jane Featherstone, founder of Sister Pictures and executive producer of the divorce-law drama The Split, sold by BBC Studios. “It allows for complex storytelling, and audiences are very sophisticated now and love stories that have real detail to them.” And while the genre is anything but new to the TV landscape, there’s been a nice upswing in its popularity of late. “Everything has its time,” Featherstone continues. “We’ve had lots of serialized crime stories, and it feels like maybe there have been enough of those for a while—even though there is always room for another great one. Maybe it’s time for something else to evolve from it and take center stage. It’s a good time for legal drama.” The success of true-crime stories in the international marketplace has also helped to drive interest in shows exploring law and justice, says Jason Simms, director of drama and comedy at Sky Vision, whose catalog includes the twistladen four-parter The Victim. “The impact and resonance of series like Making a Murderer and The Jinx have influenced demand for drama to up its game and be more authentic and even more compelling,” he says. “You can see that being woven into interesting shows like the American Crime Story series or Netflix’s Mindhunter,
T
where you’ve got real-life criminals or real-life cases being reshaped into fantastic dramas. The demands for authenticity and really going there are now playing into fully fictional dramas as well.”
THE REAL DEAL One of the ways that producers are providing a fresh spin on this well-worn genre is by fusing true crime and scripted drama. Take, for example, The Interrogation and Unspeakable, both from U.K. indie Story Films and sold by all3media international. “Story Films’ USP is being inspired and motived by real events and turning that into authentic, great drama,” says Maartje Horchner, executive VP of content at all3media international. “In Unspeakable, they were inspired by real evidence of domestic violence. In The Interrogation, they use real police transcripts.” Channel 4 commissioned The Interrogation as a one-off that tells the story of Tony Martin, who was sentenced to life imprisonment after shooting and killing 16-year-old burglar Fred Barras. “It’s been really exciting to see how they have been able to use real people’s words, verbatim,” says Horchner. “The actors speak these words and yet still put in a dramatic performance, making it an entertaining and compelling show for the viewer. Forgetting that it is real and then being thrown back into that stark realization—that the words you hear have been literally used in the interrogation of a suspect—is quite chilling, especially in a case like Tony Martin’s.” The 25-year history of investigative journalism at Russia’s NTV has provided a natural springboard into legal drama. “NTV is perfectly positioned to develop this ever-popular genre,” says Timur Weinstein, general producer of NTV Broadcasting Company. “When prosecution and defense clash in a courtroom, it always makes the audience gasp, regardless of nationality.”
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Commissioned from STV Productions by BBC One, The Victim, on offer from Sky Vision, is set in the Scottish legal system.
The company has in its catalog The Win Cases, packed with lavish costumes and props that offer a glimpse into the Russian legal wars of the early 1900s, and Lawyers, which follows the stressful life of an attorney. “We don’t have many courtroom dramas on Russian TV, so for NTV this genre is of primary importance,” Weinstein says. NTV recently finished filming a remake of The Good Wife, localizing the hit U.S. drama for Russian audiences. “The American justice system is cinematic in itself,” says Weinstein. “There are spacious courtrooms where an attorney moves around freely, a defendant sits to the right of the judge—it resembles a theatrical show. In Russia, the courtroom’s inner layout is different: a defendant stands in front of the judge, attorneys and prosecutors sit or stand depending on the situation. Since we had to make a [series] of high quality that will be valuable to the rest of the world, we created a legal reality to aspire to. The project designer rethought existing realities and created authentic courtrooms that would attract viewers’ attention to what happens within their walls.” Weinstein also notes that the actual dealings of the Russian legal system aren’t generally presented to the public, so dramas that can give viewers a look inside are all the more alluring.
Because today’s TV landscape is much more open to nonEnglish-language drama, Iceland’s prowess in legal storytelling is getting its time to shine. “Iceland has increasingly proven to be an interesting creative hub,” Stehmeier says. “Given its small creative community, what is coming out of the country is very impressive. They are forging a Nordic style all their own.” He adds that the size of some Scandinavian economies often doesn’t allow for big production budgets, “so legal or courtroom-based shows are an ideal way to drive conflict and intrigue within a narrative while keeping to the constraints placed by limited budgets.” The Court and its spin-off series Case, both produced by Iceland’s Sagafilm and sold by Red Arrow Studios International, are “good examples of intelligent and challenging Icelandic legal dramas” that have garnered interest from markets around the world, Stehmeier says. STUDIOCANAL’s The Lawyer offers a fresh take on the genre, as it merges legal drama with crime and elements from Scandi thrillers. “This great combination broadens the target audience and makes the series more appealing and fast-paced to suit younger viewers as well,” says Beatriz Campos, the company’s head of international sales.
NORDIC AFFAIRS Red Arrow Studios International, meanwhile, has found strong legal stories coming from the Nordics, including Stella Blómkvist, a neo-noir crime drama that stars Heida Reed as the eponymous quick-witted lawyer. “Legal and crime dramas featuring strong, independent women as the lead character are nothing new, but we’ve recently seen a number of international hits originate from the Nordic countries, where society as a whole is quite emancipated,” says Bo Stehmeier, the company’s executive VP of global sales. The series resonated with audiences in Iceland, doubling Síminn TV’s average rating and scoring a second season, and it is also selling well internationally, according to Stehmeier.
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From Sister Pictures for BBC One, The Split focuses on a team of divorce lawyers.
While local flavor can certainly add to a show’s appeal, legal dramas need to exercise caution so that they aren’t weighed down by the country-specific nature of courtroom dealings and law. “It’s really important for legal dramas to be produced in broad strokes, as it is all about the protagonists, not the law books,” Campos says. “Few of us would want to sit down to enjoy an evening of debate over the intricacies of Swedish/Danish law. However, when there are some clear, salient legal points made to move the story forward, this is often interesting from an outsider’s point of view.” Horchner at all3media international says that for this type of show to travel widely, the legal system of the home country shouldn’t be a big part of the drama. “Each system is different the world over, and it can be hard to come to grips with a legal system if that is integral to a storyline. Justice and the emotions that it brings forth are universal. In the end, we want to know the characters; that will always be key. We want to feel their emotions and see the world through their eyes. Then it doesn’t matter where they are from.”
NO OBJECTIONS “Despite the fact that there may be differences in the technical elements or structure of the courts from country to country, everybody loves the premise of a trial: the idea of a defense, a prosecution and a jury,” adds Sky Vision’s Simms. “People love getting into stories like that because they want to work out whether or not somebody did the crime, whether someone will be found guilty or not. That’s a compelling and very basic human drive [that is factored into] the way that these stories are put together and why they’re so appealing.” And just because they’re scripted doesn’t necessarily mean that legal dramas can get away with being too loose with facts. “These days, audiences are a lot more demanding,” Simms says. “They respond to authenticity, and particularly so when the show is rooted in topical subject matter. That goes back to the fact that people are devouring true-crime
shows on all kinds of platforms. Viewers are very savvy about what goes into a case and the way that things are investigated.” Which is why many of the shows in this genre bring in legal consultants to help ensure accuracy.
KEEPING IT OFFICIAL The Victim, for example, had a macer—an official in the Scottish court system charged with keeping order and etiquette in the courtroom—on the set every day. “They were able to advise as to the details of the procedure,” Simms notes. “Given that a significant part of the narrative is set in and around a courtroom trial, it was important for the producers to get that right and be utterly convincing. Having somebody like a macer there helped them build a really strong sense of identity for the show.” NTV’s Weinstein agrees that it’s critical to consult experts when creating high-quality legal drama. “We have legal consultants, including practicing lawyers, working on every NTV legal drama series. They help us avoid mistakes” and ensure that shows are believable and relevant. NTV is currently producing Bailiffs and is putting an emphasis on accuracy within the dramatic storytelling, since Russian viewers only have a vague idea of how these officers of the court really work, Weinstein says. “It was important for us to make all the details in this TV series as realistic as possible, so we worked side by side with the Federal Bailiffs Service [the Russian government agency responsible for the orderly functioning of courts]. Many stories that the audience will see on screen were inspired by true events that the bailiffs had to deal with.” Sister Pictures’ The Split made use of several advisors in the family-law business, including barristers and solicitors, but Featherstone says that the producers have the final say on the level of accuracy for a drama. “No crime show is ever completely authentic; it can’t be, otherwise it’s a documentary. We tried to get as much advice as we could to make the details feel as authentic to law as
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The Win Cases from NTV is set in 1900s Russia.
possible. I don’t think we got everything perfectly accurate, but most of the time we knew we were deviating from the advice—we just felt that it was more interesting for the audience. Ultimately, it’s not a documentary, so we can deviate from the advice if we choose to.” The Split, which had a six-episode first season and has been commissioned for a second, has a strong focus on family and relationships even though it’s set against a legal backdrop. Featherstone says that in the beginning, viewers were a bit unsure of the format—if it was a legal drama or a relationship drama—but, ultimately, the fact that it’s a hybrid is what made viewers embrace it. “Ally McBeal is one of my absolute favorite legal dramas ever, and what I remember from that show is not the legal stories; I remember all the incredible relationship stories and the main character,” Featherstone explains. “So there has always been a history of exploring characters and relationships, but then it became quite procedural, which also has real merit. Given that so many series these days are serialized and the audience is trained to have relationships with characters over a long period of time, the legal drama has had to make sure that it kept up with that kind of storytelling.”
BY PROCEDURE “With stronger SVOD viewing habits, there is a definite appetite for serialized drama that can be binge-watched,” says STUDIOCANAL’s Campos. “There is a great opportunity for legal drama to adapt to this trend, in addition to the standard procedural series that may have dominated this genre in the past.” This doesn’t mean that legal procedurals are by any means passé; they’re still a prime-time mainstay on many channels in major markets around the world. “There is no shortage of love from audiences for that case-of-the-week format,” says Sky
Vision’s Simms. “But they’ve evolved over the years. They are less down the middle than they used to be because you now have these overarching serial arcs where you’ve got characters’ stories going across multiple seasons. It’s not always just about the case itself; it’s about the people around it.”
REPEAT OFFENDERS Legal procedurals are also commercially desirable, as they stand up well to repeat viewing. “People can watch procedurals over and over again,” says Simms. “They can be scheduled across multiple parts of the grid for linear broadcasters. “That said, there’s plenty of space and demand for serialized dramas,” he continues. “They tell the story in a different way and take more time to do it; perhaps they even go places that procedurals can’t.” Given the appeal of legal dramas to audiences and broadcasters, there’s room in the market for both formats— especially as viewing habits shift between platforms. Red Arrow’s Stehmeier sees the genre headed in two different directions: one where shows are “filled with complex characters and plotlines—more suited to the pay and SVOD markets—and on the other side of the spectrum, lighter, longrunning series with structured beats, varied locations and a sprinkling of comedy and romance.” Horchner at all3media says that these types of shows are “an everlasting win-win for buyers, but since the world has opened up to more international drama, the pool for buyers to choose from has grown, which makes competition much stronger. I think buyers like the serialized angle but do prefer the potential for returning drama, hence the increased need for anthologies to make this happen. As long as the producer and writer have a plan for the subsequent series anthology or are clear that it’s a one-off—but event TV nonetheless— buyers are keen to keep talking.”
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ZDF Enterprises’ Betty’s Call.
IN GOOD HEALTH Steve Clarke explores the latest developments in the always popular medical-drama genre. ince the dawn of TV, medical dramas have been a lynchpin of global TV schedules. Encounters between doctors and their patients offer scriptwriters rich pickings for stories and situations that embrace the struggle between life and death. Away from the tensions and stresses of the consulting room or the operating theater, there are abundant possibilities for multiple narratives concerning the protagonists’ often complicated private lives and troubled personalities. In common with crime scenes, the medical workplace is a gift to commissioners, producers, screenwriters and showrunners all seeking to make compulsive TV. Today, distributors’ libraries are full of medical shows as buyers seek series that have the potential to become long-running hits that can stand the test of time. These shows are thriving in most markets as the traditional and more hybrid forms—for example, Endemol Shine Group’s The Orpheus Project, which mixes medicine with the supernatural— compete for audiences. In South Korea, where ABC’s breakout hit The Good Doctor was originally created, there’s even a medical series that incorporates time travel: Live Up to Your Name.
S
So why is medical fiction still an essential component of broadcasters’ schedules? “These shows remain hugely popular,” says Gina Brogi, the president of global distribution at Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution— whose portfolio includes such classic medical shows as M*A*S*H, St. Elsewhere and Chicago Hope. “I think one reason why medical drama is in such demand right now is that we live in a difficult era. They offer an escape in these scary times. There are so many negative news cycles; I think people want to watch shows that provide hope. Often, they demonstrate the good in humanity. Significantly, they deal with universal themes.”
SEEKING A DIAGNOSIS Health care systems vary from country to country, but whether they focus on the U.K.’s National Health Service (which celebrated its 70th birthday this summer) or private insurance that funds health care in the U.S., medical dramas connect strongly to themes and topics that resonate across social classes and demographic categories. Don McGregor, executive VP, sales liaison, at NBCUniversal International Distribution, puts it like this: “Medical dramas are one of the key genres that truly translate in all markets.
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Endemol Shine’s The Good Karma Hospital, made for ITV, is shot in Sri Lanka.
I believe that everyone has either spent time in a hospital or had a loved one get sick. So no matter where you’re from, it’s something you can relate to. At the end of the day, medical dramas have themes of heroism, selfsacrifice, hope and passion. This makes them universally appealing and relevant.” Cathy Payne, the CEO of Endemol Shine International, agrees, noting, “Everyone can relate to the storylines, which cover the whole spectrum of day-to-day life in a hospital. We are in awe of medical practitioners who deal with life-and-death situations on a daily basis while maintaining compassion and empathy for their patients. These dramas are strongly character-driven, emotive and, hopefully in most cases, life-affirming.”
LIFE AND DEATH Robert Franke, the VP of drama at ZDF Enterprises, thinks the appeal of this schedule staple revolves around the raw material’s raw material. “All human life is there,” he says. “It might sound unduly pessimistic, but as human beings, we are people who like to learn from others’ miseries. We enjoy watching doctors struggle against the odds and seeing them make their patients well again.” Fredrik af Malmborg, the managing director of Eccho Rights, makes a similar point. “Medical issues provide the subject matter for very good TV because they deal with highly emotional situations. Both of our medical shows, Nurses and The Clinic, are not as glossy as American medical dramas. In fact, sometimes I wonder if American hospitals really look the way they are portrayed on TV. Our shows are based more on social realism. In the Finnish version of Nurses, one of the lead characters deals in narcotics and is a drug user because she is so stressed. Another character works as a call girl to make ends meet.” Giving principal characters an interesting backstory is one way to make a medical drama stand out in a crowded content space. It seems as if nothing is off limits in today’s über-competitive world. Thankfully, TV has moved on since the days when the lead character in a hospital series
had to fit the white, alpha-male stereotype. The clean-cut Doctor Kildare was usurped long ago. In Germany, Dr. Klein features a feisty female character who confounds expectations of what a TV medical professional should be. She suffers from dwarfism. “It’s a very brave show, very inclusive and extraordinary,” says ZDFE.drama’s Franke. Betty’s Call, meanwhile, focuses on nurses in a bigcity hospital.
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE To a degree, the tradition of the medical procedural has been subverted, influenced perhaps by streaming services’ addiction to serialized scripted shows. “It’s rare nowadays that we have a straight-down-themiddle exclusively procedural show,” says Fox’s Brogi. “Generally there tend to be serialized elements to all of these shows. We certainly have that with The Resident. But being able to conclude an aspect of a storyline in one episode resonates well with broadcast television audiences.” Endemol Shine’s Payne agrees that medical procedurals are here to stay. “Historically, most medical dramas have been largely procedurals, usually with an overriding story arc featuring the main characters. Audiences want to see a resolution to the case in the same episode, combined with the ongoing storylines of the lives and loves of those working in the medical practice or hospital.” The procedural also remains the norm in Scandinavia, Eccho Rights’ af Malmborg notes. “But there are some stories that run over many episodes, typically those concerning relationships, the affairs and divorces that happen to people who work in the hospitals.” “People like the fact that doctors have the same human problems as everybody else,” suggests ZDFE.drama’s Franke. “In the hospital, medical staff have the power of life and death over their patients, but away from the workplace, they are prone to the same problems as the rest of us. I think audiences find that reassuring.” Finding a point of difference is critical to launching a successful medical drama today. “The Good Karma Hospital sees a junior doctor travel to India to find herself, and she ends up in an under-resourced and overworked cottage
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Jully Kim, a business analyst at Korea’s CJ ENM, echoes the importance of having “a special element” that makes a medical show distinctive. One of her company’s programs that debuted earlier this year, A Poem a Day, avoided focusing on doctors and nurses. Instead, the action centered on rehabilitation therapists. Another CJ ENM program, Live Up to Your Name, introduced time travel as a crucial part of the story. Two doctors, one from the 17th century and the other from the 21st, meet and confer to help treat each other’s patients.
CROSSING GENRES
Fremantle has secured a raft of deals on the Australian drama The Heart Guy.
hospital,” says Endemol Shine’s Payne. “It mixes the heartbreaking with the humorous. The Good Karma Hospital is more than just a rundown medical outpost, it’s home. Israeli medical drama The Orpheus Project sees five of the brightest medical students take part in an elite training program where they discover that lifethreatening experiments are being carried out.”
TREATMENT OPTIONS
Hybrid period medical shows are nothing new—think Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Call the Midwife—and they continue to attract loyal followings. M*A*S*H, set during the Korean War, is still popular although it stopped being made in the early 1980s. At MIPCOM, Fremantle is showcasing a second season of the acclaimed German wartime drama Charité. In certain markets like the U.K., unscripted medical shows have long proved their value to commissioners and schedulers. Jimmy’s, one of the first docusoaps, ran successfully from 1987 to 1997 on ITV. It was filmed at a busy hospital in Leeds, one of the biggest cities in northern England. More recently, fixed-rigs shows such as 24 Hours in A&E and One Born Every Minute, filmed in a maternity unit, have been successful for Channel 4. Have unscripted hospital shows had an impact on medical drama? “We’ve endeavored to make the events portrayed in our medical dramas grounded in reality,” says NBCU’s McGregor. “The writers on our current shows Chicago Med and New Amsterdam work to make the cases and storylines feel authentic.”
NBCU’s McGregor insists that for a medical drama to make noise, it must possess a unique point of view. “For our new show New Amsterdam, the focus is on the patients—they are the priority for our lead Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) and the doctors of New Amsterdam. Max is the new medical director working in one of the largest hospitals in the world and needs to be a ‘disruptor’ in order to put the patients first.” If this sounds more traditional, McGregor highlights the diversity of the cast, which includes Anupam Kher (The Big Sick). The Australian series The Heart Guy (also known as Doctor Doctor), which is distributed by Fremantle, is set in a rural location. Most hospital shows are decidedly urban. “We decided to set it in the country town of Whyhope, which is where all the drama takes place,” explains Ian Collie, CEO and producer at Easy Tiger, which makes the series. Whyhope is also where the central character, Doctor Hugh Knight, was raised, and he resents having to return to his quiet small town. “He was a high-flying Sydney surgeon busted for bad behavior and his playboy lifestyle,” Collie says. “Doctor Knight is put on probation by the medical tribunal and moved to his hometown.” The Heart Guy is in its third season on Nine Network. It has been sold to the U.K. (UKTV), Germany (Sky Deutschland) and the U.S. (Acorn TV). Live Up to Your Name is a fantasy-medical hybrid from Korea’s CJ ENM. 364 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Eccho Rights is offering up Nurses, which originated in Finland, as a scripted format.
Endemol Shine’s Payne agrees that medical dramas have gotten more realistic recently, partly due to the success of their unscripted cousins. “When you watch these unscripted shows, it sometimes feels like you are watching a TV drama unfold. The reality of the emergency situation is something that you would rather believe could only happen in a TV drama.” Eccho Rights’ af Malmborg adds, “When you make unscripted shows set in a hospital it’s important not to make them look too glossy. The medical world is full of stories that are larger than life, so making a documentary in that environment can be very powerful. There is a lot of good material that doesn’t have to be too fictionalized.”
REAL INSPIRATION Fox’s Brogi says that screenwriters and showrunners are inspired by unscripted hospital series. “The idea that real life informs the storylines of scripted shows is a concept that resonates with creatives. On 9-1-1 all the storylines—the medical stories, the emergency stories—are inspired by real 911 calls.” Unscripted medical series are, of course, cheaper to produce than medical drama. Generally, however, in an era when drama budgets are ballooning, the genre remains inexpensive—another reason why it continues to be ubiquitous. “Medical dramas are relatively cost-efficient to produce,” af Malmborg points out. Consequently, co-productions are rare. “Medical dramas are commonly financed by their domestic market, and they will often have a local feel,” says Payne. Obviously, the very best of U.S. medical shows travel all over the world. Consider the international success of Grey’s Anatomy, Chicago Hope, ER and autismthemed The Good Doctor, a big seller for Sony Pictures Television with around 200 territories acquiring the series. Yet, the importance of medical drama reflecting local concerns is a priority, especially in Europe. “This is crucial in Scandinavia,” says af Malmborg. “Although there are lots of things to watch on Netflix and
other streaming services, drama that provides audiences with local settings and themes is something that broadcast TV does better than the SVOD providers. Shows like Nurses adapt very easily to different local markets in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Local drama is gaining ground and becoming more important, and medical drama can fill that need.”
BACK TO BASICS Ultimately, the basis of a hit medical drama is great characters and good storytelling. Fox’s Brogi cites The Resident as a good example. Despite mixed reviews, the program was renewed for a second season in May. “It’s connected with audiences wherever we launch it. 9-1-1 is another medical drama that is performing extraordinarily well for us.” While high-end, serialized crime drama like Scandinavia’s The Bridge has been formatted successfully internationally, adaptations of this kind are less common in medical drama—but they do occur. As already noted, Good Doctor originated in South Korea, where it won awards following its 2013 debut on KBS2. The Orpheus Project was created in Israel and has been adapted in the Netherlands. Doktor Martin is the German version of the British series Doc Martin, which has also been adapted in several other markets. So is medical drama faithfully reflecting modern society in all its diversity and complexity? “There is less stereotyping these days, but I think we still have some work to do,” says Fox’s Brogi. “I haven’t done a study, but I, for one, would like to see more female doctors and female medical professionals as lead characters.” Finally, is the prognosis for medical shows good, or is the genre facing a terminal diagnosis? All distributors agree that medical drama looks sure to remain in rude health. “Like crime drama, medical drama will always be popular on TV,” states ZDFE.drama’s Franke. “The genre appeals to the subconscious and our basic human urges, and it is very atavistic.”
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BERLANTI As a writer, producer, showrunner and director, Greg Berlanti has shepherded a wide range of TV series and films. Perhaps best known for bringing beloved DC Comics characters to life on the small screen in The Flash, Arrow and Supergirl, Berlanti is now extending his storytelling prowess to the streaming platform DC Universe. He is also behind the NBC drama Blindspot; the CBS pickups God Friended Me and The Red Line; The CW’s buzzy Riverdale; and, also from the Archie Comics universe, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for Netflix. Throughout his career he has championed diversity in characters and subject matter, wanting the fictional worlds of his shows to reflect the people and lifestyles that exist in real life. By Anna Carugati TV DRAMA: A lot of your shows are based on and incorporate DC Comics characters. What is it about those characters and stories that continue to resonate with today’s viewers? BERLANTI: So many people grew up with these characters and they are iconic in their eyes. Our job is always to find ways to humanize them and bring them to life but to honor what made them each individually so special. Speaking for myself, I have very fond memories of the characters and what they meant to me as a kid and what it felt like to read those books. That’s the obligation of anybody in any generation carrying those characters forth, whether in books or on screen. It’s a great honor to be able to escort them into a new generation and in doing that find new ways to modernize them and their world. TV DRAMA: Is casting a superhero or any of the characters on those shows more challenging than casting characters that do not already exist in the comic-book world? BERLANTI: In some ways it’s harder and in some ways it’s easier. The easier part is that you do have a very clear sense of the DNA of this character that everyone’s loved. It makes it harder in that you may search longer to find someone who lives up to that idea. You have a clearer idea of what that character is and should be. More than the look, more than the backstory of the character, we are really trying to align the heart and soul of the character with capturing the character’s essence. Inevitably, if an actor walks in and you have four or five producers and network executives in the room, when it’s very clear that it’s that actor, it becomes very, very clear to most people that it’s that actor. That part makes it a little bit, I wouldn’t say easier, but it makes it more apparent.
TV DRAMA: What are the challenges in keeping a longrunning show fresh? I’ve heard that the third or fourth seasons are particularly challenging. BERLANTI: That can be for many different reasons. By the time you are working with people in a creative endeavor in the third or fourth year, everyone is a little tired and they’ve all spent a great number of hours together. It’s a family in that regard. The first two years of the show you are discovering a lot of new things, especially in a character-based show. In years three and four and in the years after, you are finding new ways to go deeper and to surprise yourselves and surprise the audience. If you are not surprising yourself, you are not surprising the audience. In this day and age, too, probably a big challenge is that there are so many new shows. Every day somebody is telling me about a new TV show I should watch. Even though [by the third or fourth season] you have the length of time on your side and people’s connection with the characters on your side, you have to keep working to take risks and challenge yourselves. You have to see the show in a new way so that it does hold its own, not just against itself but against every new show coming down the pike. TV DRAMA: Long before people in the film and TV industry started talking about diversity—or the lack thereof—the casts and stories on your shows have always been diverse. Why has this been important to you? BERLANTI: I would say it is twofold. In part, as I got my start as an openly gay writer working on a show not in the mainstream, I found my own voice. It was something I felt very comfortable with and wanted to look for new ways to do that. The other thing is that I always wanted to be part of shows
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that I felt reflected the world we all live in and the world I was living in. It only takes a short walk to a coffee shop to see that not everybody looks or acts alike. In those differences, there are some really rich opportunities for storytelling, for conflict and resolution and connection with the audience. And for people to see themselves or their story or the story of someone that they know reflected on the screen is a powerful thing that can connect them to the show. TV DRAMA: Because your shows reach a young demographic, you’ve probably helped a lot of people by allowing them to see themselves in ways they hadn’t before on television. BERLANTI: That’s one of the more rewarding parts of the job when you do connect with a younger person. Even now that I’m much older, I actually meet people who are older themselves who say, I watched your show 15 years ago, it made me realize this about myself and that I wasn’t alone in this way or that way. You see the great person they have grown up into and it’s nice to have been there for them in some way when they felt a little more isolated. TV DRAMA: I so enjoyed the film you directed, Love, Simon. BERLANTI: Well, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger wrote the Love, Simon script. They run This Is Us, so we were all a bunch of TV folk working on that. We’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons about the audience. TV allows for great storytelling [and the film] allowed us to spread our wings even more. It was nice that we all had a shorthand because we all came out of television. TV DRAMA: I read that earlier in your career you had to fight to get certain storylines approved. Are there still topics or issues that you have to fight for? BERLANTI: It’s interesting; it’s not as overt. I do think people in executive suites—especially in television— are more excited by diverse storytelling and things that are different. They have recognized that that will help them stand out. That being said, they can have that appetite, but then you get into making the show, whether it’s in casting, the story itself, or the execution, and in this job you are always convincing people to take a leap. You are always convincing executives or actors or other writers or directors to trust you and jump with you and do something daring in some way or to try something that hasn’t been tried quite that way before. It can be challenging and if it works, it’s most rewarding. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s pretty rewarding because you feel like, well, at least you’ve learned more about yourself and you tried something.
From Warner Bros. Television and exec-produced by Berlanti, the array of DC Comics-based series on The CW include, from top, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash and Arrow.
TV DRAMA: Are streaming services offering different or more creative freedoms than networks? BERLANTI: You used the right word, different, not more. Each form has its restrictions that you may not realize when you are outside of them. And each form has what is cool and different about it. There is no doubt that when you are doing a streaming show, you are not worried about act breaks or some big plot explosion every 15 minutes, but you have a different muscle and responsibility to keep people engaged. Very often I’ll find myself still using the structure of a network show just because, even though it forces certain things, it also
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Riverdale, a millennial reboot of the Archie Comics characters, airs on The CW in the U.S. and has an international first window on Netflix.
makes you have to think about certain [elements] that make [the show] more narratively compelling. Obviously, the maturity of the content you are allowed when you are off broadcast feels freeing, but, by the same token, sometimes the restrictions on broadcast can encourage more inventiveness. I’m a big fan of both. [Producing for] network television is still exhausting because you are doing more of it and it can be overwhelming time-wise. There is no way around that. TV DRAMA: Tell us about the shows you are producing for the DC streaming service, DC Universe. BERLANTI: We have two new shows, Titans, which will premiere in the fall, and then Doom Patrol. Titans was created by Akiva Goldsman and Geoff Johns and I’m working alongside them and Greg Walker, who is running that show. A show for the DC streaming service is somewhere in between a premium cable show— it’s not a network show by a lot— and a movie, in terms of its look and the money we are putting into it. Titans is very mature; it has a lot of adult themes and I’d say is “edgier” than what we do on network television. Hopefully it will surprise a lot of people and isn’t something that people can go to the movies or turn on The CW and see and isn’t like one of our other shows on network. It’s very specifically its own thing and it’s been a challenging but very exciting process to figure out what it could be there, both in terms of
how we shape the stories and just what are the boundaries that we are pushing against. It’s got all of everyone’s favorite Titans characters in it. That will be exciting in the fall as people discover that. Doom Patrol, which Jeremy Carver created, in some ways is a spin-off and in some ways its own original thing. It’s also unlike anything else I’ve ever worked on for network television. Like the Grant Morrison run of the comic book, it’s very out there and trippy but also a superhero group you’ve never seen before. The DC service and platform is allowing us to find a new way of telling these stories and challenge ourselves regarding how much we can twist and turn both the storytelling and the audience’s expectations. In general, streaming shows can be much more novelistic in a way, whereas network shows are more episodic. They are great things to explore either way, but they are different.
Berlanti’s expanding slate includes Titans for the new SVOD service DC Universe.
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Change is in the DNA of Doctor Who. The popular sci-fi show has remained on screens for so long because of its central conceit: its time-traveling Doctor regenerates. As such, 12 actors have embodied the role over its history. This fall, Jodie Whittaker goes where no woman has gone before as the Thirteenth Doctor. The new season also sees Chris Chibnall, best known for his work on Broadchurch, assuming the mantle of showrunner. The acclaimed writer is a lifelong Whovian who penned several episodes under previous executive producers Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat. He tells TV Drama about what’s in store for the new Doctor and her companions on the TARDIS. By Mansha Daswani TV DRAMA: What is the key to maintaining continuity from one Doctor to the next, so you can keep returning fans happy but also bring in new viewers? CHIBNALL: That’s the balancing act, but Doctor Who has renewed itself every three or four years across its entire history. In 1969, at the end of Patrick Troughton’s reign, it went from black-and-white to color and Patrick Troughton to Jon Pertwee, and the two series feel drastically different from one another. If you put the final episode of Patrick Troughton and the first episode of Jon Pertwee next to each other, you would say this is not the same television series. And yet, it just carries on under this amazing umbrella. So change is built into Doctor Who. The history of the show allows you to make changes and sort of demands it. The biggest thing for us coming in this year was, how we make sure that Doctor Who is keeping pace with the changing nature of television: the increasing production standards, the quality of shows on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and everywhere. How does it keep pace in a global world and still make sure it’s as good as its peers, is leading the way and is still essentially and recognizably Doctor Who? Luckily, it’s the greatest and most versatile format in the world because you can go anywhere and you can do anything. The key to the change is to make sure you have a great Doctor and a great regular cast. And for me, what’s important is that the stories we’re telling connect to the world we are living in now—stories of hope that resonate with all our lives. TV DRAMA: We certainly need hope these days, if we watch the news.... CHIBNALL: We need hope right now, and I think you’ll find Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is a beacon of hope.
TV DRAMA: How did the decision to bring a female Doctor come about? Is this something you’ve wanted to do for a while? CHIBNALL: I never really thought about it until they asked me to do this job, and that coincided with Peter Capaldi deciding that he would be moving on. Once that situation was clear, it was something I wanted to do, so it just felt like the right thing to do. I felt that the audience was ready, the world was ready and the show was definitely ready, so it was very clear. We made a list of actresses and it was a very long list of brilliant women, so wherever we ended up it would be a really exciting process to go through. TV DRAMA: You wrote episodes for David Tennant and Matt Smith, two very different Doctors. How did you write for those unique personalities, and how is writing for Jodie’s Doctor different? CHIBNALL: The Doctors are always the same and always slightly different. [For] all of us who have written for the show and for the different Doctors, it’s quite hard to quantify, you just know when you are writing it. The thing about Jodie’s Doctor is, Jodie brought that Doctor along with her to her audition. The interesting thing about casting a Doctor from the single experience I had is, you know a Doctor when you see it. Jodie’s audition and her reading of the part are inherently Doctor-y and also new and fresh and funny and exciting. As much as anything, it’s a symbiosis between her and me. I wrote the audition scene; she brought lots of herself to it. The Doctor is a star part for a character actor. What you need is an actor who can do anything and is limitless; who is funny, who can make you cry, who can move you, who is brilliant at exposition and
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Jodie Whittaker stars in the new season of BBC Studios’ Doctor Who.
spaceships and diffusing bombs. My job is to challenge Jodie and make sure we are giving her enough so that she can play her whole range in all the colors and flavors of performance. In terms of writing for Jodie’s Doctor, it becomes a dialogue between the writing and the acting and fuses in the end, and that started right from her audition, to be honest. TV DRAMA: Is there an extra comfort zone because you worked with Jodie on Broadchurch? CHIBNALL: I don’t know that it’s a comfort zone; there definitely is a trust. The most exciting thing about it is that the parts that Jodie has been playing up until now were quite different from who Jodie is as a person. Jodie is incredibly funny. She’s got incredible energy. She’s very principled, she’s incredibly smart, she’s just a brilliant person, and she’s brought so much of herself to the Doctor and brought so much of the Doctor to herself. Where she and the Doctor meet is a really exciting place. TV DRAMA: The companions play such a significant role on the show. Why did you opt to have three, and what can you tell us about them? CHIBNALL: The reason for having three was that I [want] Doctor Who to be a big, inclusive, populist, mainstream show that is entertaining and accessible for everyone. I wanted to make sure that in the ensemble alongside the Doctor are characters that everyone can relate to, so that everybody has an access point, everybody can say [about one of the companions], Oh, that person feels like me. This is a story about humans who are taken on an incredible
journey with an incredible character through all of time and space. What you get with Ryan [played by Tosin Cole], Yasmin [Mandip Gill] and Graham [Bradley Walsh] are very different points of view, different ages, different backgrounds and [they are] obviously very different from the Doctor. What you get is a range of emotional dynamics; they’ve all got their character journeys across the series. But what I want more than anything is for the audience to feel like these are your new best friends. These are the people you want to hang out with more than anybody in the world. They are a little family unit among themselves and are just great fun to have adventures with. TV DRAMA: Because viewers are increasingly sophisticated, have you upped the level of special effects? CHIBNALL: We worked very hard this year to ensure that the show is as cinematic as it can possibly be. We’re shooting on anamorphic lenses for the first time. We changed the aspect ratio to 2:1. We’ve changed our special effects company. We’ve been very conscious that we have to keep up with the times, and I think all these things have made subtle qualitative differences. In the end, what audiences come back for are great characters and great actors. TV DRAMA: Will Doctor Who be your entire life for the next few years, or are there other projects you are working on? CHIBNALL: The project I’m working on most is having a holiday! Doctor Who has certainly been my life for the past 18 months. It’s very all-consuming but in a great way. There’s no story you can’t tell in this show, so it’s just a joy to be on it.
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In his 24-year career as an actor, Shemar Moore has been on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, guest-starred on several series, appeared in movies and played the beloved character Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds, where he popularized the term of endearment “Baby Girl,” Derek’s pet name for his FBI colleague Penelope Garcia. It spread like fire on the internet with millions of female fans calling themselves Baby Girls. Moore surprised the industry and shocked fans when he chose to leave Criminal Minds. He tells TV Drama why he took that step and joined S.W.A.T., the high-adrenaline series that imparts messages about the world we live in today. By Anna Carugati TV DRAMA: How did you hear about S.W.A.T. and what appealed to you about the role of Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson? MOORE: I knew the TV show from the ’70s and the movie. And I knew S.W.A.T. [Special Weapons and Tactics] teams are super cops running around doing some really cool, incredible stuff to save lives. I was going to play this cool dude, Hondo. I had the opportunity to be the lead of a show, working with Shawn Ryan, who’s known for The Shield, The Unit and Nash Bridges—a phenomenal writer, with a phenomenal mind for story and characters. That got my attention, and the script was great. Justin Lin directed the pilot and he’s Mr. Action, so I thought, Damn, it’s as if I got cast to do a high-budget action movie with some of the major players, but for television. Yes, I’m the lead of the show. [Last season I was] the only African American male lead in a non-black one-hour drama on network television. I’m proud of that accomplishment, but I also understand the responsibility that comes with that. I represent diversity and diversifying the landscape of television, the stories that are being told and who’s telling them. So if S.W.A.T. were to fail, they wouldn’t look at Shawn Ryan, they wouldn’t look at CBS, they would look at me first. I know that, and that’s why I put pressure on myself to do my best and give 150 percent, because, Oh, Shemar Moore can’t carry a show, or, Diversifying television may not be the direction that you want to go—who knows what dialogue would come from that. But now the show is in season two. It’s successful; people in over 200 countries around the world want to watch it. So I’m just a guy living my dream, taking risks and entertaining people for a living, and people actually want to watch me. I pinch myself that for 24 years my homies, fans and Baby Girls have been so loyal and people around the world watch [my] shows. If I can help broaden the horizon of diversifying television—not just for black actors and actresses, but for people of all colors, Asian, Latino—[that’s great]. TV DRAMA: What does being the lead actor entail? MOORE: You don’t get days off; it’s a grind. But you do what you’ve got to do—you sleep right, you work out. I’m not only the lead actor; I’m a producer. It doesn’t mean I get to say, Do it this way, or, Do it that way. But I’ve earned my place at the table to be a part of the discussions and the ideas. I love that creative side of it, where I can influence the type of stories and how we tell them. I’m corralling and maintaining the camaraderie with the cast and crew. I’m leading by example, working hard, delivering my performances and stressing the importance of team. As proud as I am of being the lead actor, I don’t take myself too seriously. I’m smart enough
and humble enough to know it can’t be The Shemar Moore Show. I might be the captain of the team, but I need a team. I know that I can’t do it by myself and I don’t want to do it by myself, because it’s more interesting for audiences to see the individual characters, understand their strengths and weaknesses, but then see them—especially in this scenario of being super cops—saving people who can’t save themselves. The teamwork is interesting and exciting. [I’m] part of a unique, original show that you really can’t compare to any other show on network television today. I get to be the leader of that and entertain people and thrill them with all the crazy action. But [the show is] also laced with messages of reality, real-life topics from Black Lives Matter to human trafficking to immigration to cyberbullying and so forth. That’s Shawn Ryan’s mind, and it’s great that we’re able to talk about the Trump years without talking about Trump. It’s not a political show, we’re not preaching to you, but we are giving you doses of things that are happening in real life. And we’re trying to give you a more optimistic perspective; maybe a TV show can broaden people’s mindsets, create a little more compromise, a little more patience and compassion, and maybe that can lead to a little more unity and togetherness, and a little less judgment and stereotyping. Those are heavy notions, so it sounds like S.W.A.T. is heavy—no, S.W.A.T. is fun, but it has depth and it has relevance to what’s going on in the world. TV DRAMA: Tell us about Hondo and the community he is serving. MOORE: Because Hondo is black and he’s from the streets of South L.A., he represents the underdog, the struggle, chasing the dream, but [in a way that] all people can relate to. He understands the black story because he’s black. You may not relate to the specifics of what Hondo’s been through, but you can relate to the mindset of what he’s done to overcome and succeed and make it bigger than himself. He comes from the streets; he’s seen a lot of injustices. His father [told him when he was a kid], If you want things to change, you can complain all day long, but it’s not going to fix anything; be a part of the change. That helped him choose his path and instead of staying in the streets, he said, What can I do to help people? So he got into the military; he’s an ex-Marine. He joined law enforcement because his dream was to be the best of the best, not only for the accolade of being the best but because he wanted to promote change. And that’s what you’re watching, Hondo, with his team, taking on the injustices that you see in the United States and around the world. With the stories that are being told, he’s a catalyst for 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 379
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Based on the 1975 series of the same name, Sony Pictures Television’s S.W.A.T. is in its second season on CBS.
humanity, understanding right from wrong and that we can do better. That’s the message of S.W.A.T. and that’s the message of what Hondo stands for—we, collectively, as human beings, can do better. TV DRAMA: It was a gutsy decision to leave Criminal Minds. What drove that? MOORE: My mother gave me a card when I left Criminal Minds; it sits on the mantel in my living room and it says, “Leap and the net will appear.” That’s the way she lived her life and that’s the way she raised me. My mother has a far more interesting story than I do. My father, with all his dysfunction, has a far more interesting story than I do. My story before Hollywood is more interesting than my Hollywood story. We, collectively, lived outside of the box. We broke boundaries. We created our own path. I’m the type of person who always wants to grow; I don’t want to get too comfortable. Comfort is good, money is good, but I always want to challenge myself. When I left The Young and the Restless, I knew that the next step was prime time. How do I grow? How do I get credibility? How do I broaden the scope of what I’m doing as an actor and try different types of roles? You have to take chances. Then I landed on Criminal Minds. I did that for 11 years, and [when I left] there was nothing on the horizon—S.W.A.T. was not there. I was unemployed, trying to figure out what the next move would be. But I believed in myself. I always say, I don’t wear a lot of hats, but if I choose to wear a hat, I’m going to make sure it fits. So the pieces fell into place, and it was not just about being the lead in a show. It was about working with Shawn Ryan and Justin Lin to play a character that represents humanity and that we can do better and still entertain. And to be an action hero—fly around in helicopters, propel
down buildings, fight, be in car and motorcycle chases, wear a cool cop suit and carry a big gun—everybody wants to do that. When you’re a kid, you want to be a fireman or a cop, and now, here I am on television, getting to live out that childhood dream. TV DRAMA: Do you have consultants on the show? MOORE: Yeah, we don’t want to just be cool actors carrying guns and doing cool stuff on TV. I don’t want it to just be fake and fun. I want it to be fun and real. For two-and-a-half months prior to the first episode of the first season, we trained with members of LAPD S.W.A.T., San Diego PD S.W.A.T., SEAL Team Six. We trained in weaponry, shooting ranges, tactics, how to move and flow as a team, how to communicate verbally, nonverbally. Physically we understood what the demands were, learning how to fight a certain type of hand-to-hand combat, and knowing what to do if you run out of bullets and you have to protect yourself. TV DRAMA: Did you already know a good amount of that because of Criminal Minds? MOORE: Not S.W.A.T. training, no. From Criminal Minds, I knew basic hand-to-hand combat, which is fighting, and I knew the basics of handling a pistol. We had consultants, so I went out to shooting ranges and understood how guns worked. But on Criminal Minds, I just had a pistol on my belt and a heavy foot kicking down doors. That’s why I say Hondo in S.W.A.T. is Derek Morgan on steroids because it’s just a whole different playing field. The stakes are so much higher and so is the skillset that you need to be these guys. That’s why it’s so hard to make S.W.A.T. You have to be highly trained to make the squad. These guys and gals are no joke.
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It’s been a hectic few years for Matthew Rhys. The Welsh-born actor’s hit FX series The Americans came to a close after six critically acclaimed seasons—and landed him an Emmy win for best actor in a drama series this year. Steven Spielberg’s The Post, in which he played whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, was nominated for a best picture Academy Award. He features in the upcoming blockbuster theatrical film Mowgli. And later this year he’ll star as Billy Winters in Death and Nightingales, a BBC Two and RTÉ commission that Red Arrow Studios International will be showcasing at MIPCOM. While in Pittsburgh filming You Are My Friend with Tom Hanks, Rhys spoke to TV Drama about what drew him to Death and Nightingales and the types of roles he is attracted to. By Mansha Daswani TV DRAMA: How did you come to be involved with Death and Nightingales? RHYS: I was going to say it came about in the usual way, but it didn’t actually! I was very lucky to have worked with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish of The Imaginarium on Mowgli, which is coming out this year. Death and Nightingales has been a passion project for Jonathan, the producer, for many, many years, almost a quarter of a century. He said, I have this project I’m doing, and I’d very much like you to play Billy Winters. Then he said, It’s written by Allan Cubitt, which certainly spiked my interest, just knowing him as a prominent television writer in the U.K. and now an emerging director. I thought, This is a great meeting of elements. So just reading the script was a done deal for me. Parts like this don’t come along very often. I begged them if I could do it in the end! TV DRAMA: Had you read the Eugene McCabe novel it’s based on? Did you read it as part of your preparation? RHYS: I wasn’t familiar with it and I didn’t read it. I spoke to Allan very early on [about that]. I’ve done a few adaptations now, and I’m not that good at differentiating between what is the script and what is the original work. On one of the last projects I did, I started playing stuff that wasn’t in the script, and the director kept saying, No, that’s in the novel, not in the script. So I said to Allan, I’d rather stick to the screenplay because then it’s a lot clearer, and it’s linear and purer for me. I said, If you want me to read it I will, but if not, I’d love to just use what you’ve written. And he said, Yes, absolutely fine. TV DRAMA: Your body of work includes inhabiting a character made just for television in The Americans, literary characters in Death Comes to Pemberley and Death and Nightingales, and a real person, Daniel Ellsberg, in The Post. Is the creative process to prepare for each type of role different? RHYS: It is really, and [I tend to make those choices] from quite a selfish point of view. I look at [a project] and go, Have I done this before? Is it similar to what I’ve just done? I’m basically just looking for something new and challenging, as most actors are. To be in a position where you’re
presented with a part that can do that is a great luxury. I was looking for something that was ultimately very different from Philip Jennings in The Americans. That was part of why I did Death and Nightingales, but not entirely the whole reason. The depth of the character and certainly the complexity of it and the story were equal pulls. TV DRAMA: Tell us about the character of Billy. What motivates him through the show’s story arc? RHYS: That’s what I was so interested in. [As an actor] you’re always interested in character motivation. There are a number of elements colliding for Billy, which makes his motivations very interesting. He’s been lumbered with the mantle of continuing a lineage and a heritage and a piece of land, [against the backdrop of the] complexity of the religious divide in Northern Ireland. He has all this emotional turmoil bubbling away and eating away at his core. He’s this man of the land, the doer, the stoic, hardworking, Protestant landowner. But at the same time, he’s a boiling cauldron of emotion because of a betrayal. There are familial scars from his past that align and confuse him. So you see him processing a number of things, not always up to speed—that’s what makes for great drama. TV DRAMA: I’ve seen some of the images and it looks stunning— and a far cry from where you are now in rainy Pittsburgh! What was it like filming against those gorgeous backdrops in Northern Ireland? RHYS: It was great! Wales is home for me, but there’s something very familiar about [Northern Ireland]. Working with that crew in that place, it felt a lot like home, which I enjoyed enormously. I found the accent to be like a beautiful T-bone steak to get your teeth into, equal parts enjoyable and challenging. TV DRAMA: You’ve done a lot of period drama. Do you think that by allowing audiences to look back at the past, these shows can help us better understand what’s going on around us today? RHYS: I find at times in certain period dramas, you look back and think, Oh God, we really haven’t learned anything! That makes for very depressing times. There are a number of
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TV DRAMA: How do you juggle your TV and film projects? RHYS: Not very well! It’s always a bit of a scramble. Lots of early-morning flights, late-night flights and muscling dates to work—and very patient agents and producers! TV DRAMA: You directed a couple of episodes on The Americans. Is that something you’d like to do more of? RHYS: Very much so. It’s in the same vein of what I said about looking for new challenges. I enjoy the challenge of directing and storytelling—and beating actors into submission!
Matthew Rhys stars alongside Jamie Dornan and Ann Skelly in Death and Nightingales, which Red Arrow is launching at MIPCOM.
elements in Death and Nightingales where you think, All of these things are still very present, sadly. TV DRAMA: The way the show came together is a bit like an indie film model. There are two producers in The Imaginarium and Soho Moon, two commissioning broadcasters in the BBC and RTÉ, and then Red Arrow Studios serves as the distributor. Does having multiple partners behind the scenes impact anything on set? RHYS: You are aware of it, but it doesn’t affect anything. What’s great is you have producers like Jonathan Cavendish who will say, Whatever it takes, we’ll get it made. If you get the right people to make it, it doesn’t matter where the money comes from. If it needs to get made, it will get made. I’m always in awe of that can-do attitude and that tenacity. How did you not just give up 20 years ago when you were trying to make it? They believe in these projects, so whatever it takes to get it made, they’ll do it. TV DRAMA: Are you more interested now in these limited series versus a long-running commitment like The Americans? RHYS: No, if another project like The Americans came along, I’d happily jump on it! I have no qualms about that. You know, I look back at The Americans and I think, What a luxury to have 75 hours of television for this incredible story.
TV DRAMA: Tell us about your working relationship with Allan Cubitt on Death and Nightingales. RHYS: Like Jonathan, Allan’s [wanted to do] this project for years. He shaped and molded it so much over time. He came to production with an incredible vision of exactly how he wanted it. And then, which is so rare, not just for directors but especially for writer-directors, he says, Billy is whatever you want to make him, or however you see him. And he literally lets you shape it in any way you want. He’ll guide and at times say, What about this? It’s almost to the point of you going to him and saying, This is what I’d like to do, and he’s like, Great, do it! It’s something I’ve almost never experienced, that freedom and trust he has in you as an actor to say, You’re playing the part, it’s your character, you do what you want. So to be able to do that and be trusted to do that was revelatory to me and incredibly liberating. TV DRAMA: Is there an intensity to your preparation, and even your performance, because you have such a limited amount of time to tell the character’s story? As opposed to having more of a slow burn over 10 or 12 episodes in a season? RHYS: That’s absolutely right. You hit the ground running. I don’t envy Allan from a writer’s standpoint, trying to elbow everything into three hours. But I think he did incredibly well. But yes, you’re up and running very quickly. In a shooting sense that is a little tough, because you don’t have the time. You’re hitting the punchy scenes early, so you have to come in prepared. TV DRAMA: Red Arrow will be busy selling this around the world at MIPCOM. What aspects of the story do you think will resonate with global audiences? RHYS: There’s so much. At its core, it’s a complex love story, which I think everyone can relate to, especially when it’s as complex and as unrequited from Billy’s point of view. You see the tumult that religion and land bring. I think those big issues are instantly accessible, given that they’re still going on and so present everywhere.
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TV DRAMA: Tell us about ITV Studios’ new drama slate for this MIPCOM. KYRIACOU: Headlining our MIPCOM slate is The War of the Worlds. It’s from Mammoth Screen, the company behind Victoria, Poldark and Vanity Fair. They are a super team, extremely good at these literary adaptations. With Peter Harness writing, I think it’s a great example of what the U.K. does very well. It’s a very bold interpretation of the original [H. G. Wells] novel, set in Edwardian England. I think people will be surprised at how the menace of the aliens is built up and how thrilling it becomes. We have a really good-looking slate of both Englishlanguage and non-English-language shows. What’s new for us this market is the number of shows that are coming out of Europe. I believe it’s a sign of the strength of creativity in France, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia. And it’s a sign of what ITV Studios has become—more of a balanced global business now than it was a few years ago. Alongside our British shows—Dark Heart, an ITV detective series from Chris Lang; Cleaning Up, from Sister Pictures, Jane Featherstone’s company, starring Sheridan Smith—we have several European dramas. West of Liberty is a six-part series set in Germany but predominantly in the English language. It’s from Anagram and Network Movie for SVT and ZDF, and tells the story of a retired Stasi agent and CIA informant, who is coaxed back into the field for one final investigation. We also have the crime procedural Balthazar from one of our French production labels, Beaubourg Stories, and Speakerine from another of our French labels, Macondo.
By Mansha Daswani
ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) is well known as one of the world’s preeminent suppliers of British drama, from classics like Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Prime Suspect to its latest wave of hits, among them Victoria, Poldark, The City and the City and Vanity Fair. As its parent company has expanded its reach, however, ITVS GE has been able to radically broaden its slate. ITV Studios’ enhanced global presence—with operations in the U.S., Australia, France, Germany and Scandinavia—has translated into a wider portfolio at ITVS GE, one that includes the upcoming, highly anticipated American drama Snowpiercer and a wave of foreign-language shows. Maria Kyriacou, the president of international at ITV Studios, tells TV Drama about the diverse slate at ITVS GE and weighs in on the latest developments in the global scripted landscape.
TV DRAMA: You have a slate that encompasses shows from ITV Studios-owned outlets as well as third parties. What are some of the models you’re using to pull these projects together? KYRIACOU: The models vary. Co-production is a big part of the conversation for us, bringing partners together. Sometimes it’s just as simple as joining forces in order to fund ambitious shows such as Vanity Fair (a co-production between Amazon and ITV), but we’re also starting to see a few more bottom-up co-developments happening organically across the business. Because we have production capabilities in France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany, as well as the U.K. and the U.S., that network of talented producers has begun working together on ideas that could bring in audiences in more than one territory. There’s nothing we
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The War of the Worlds, based on the H. G. Wells novel, leads ITVS GE’s MIPCOM drama slate.
can announce yet, but there are three or four projects that are live and working their way through the development cycle. It’s a heartening thing to know that we are becoming much more than the sum of our parts; our labels are really benefiting from being part of our creative-led business, and they are leveraging it. Additionally, we’re bringing in the knowledge of our local production teams to help presell and bring funding into projects that are relatively well-developed. TV DRAMA: What are you hearing from broadcasters about the demand for procedurals versus serialized? KYRIACOU: At the Edinburgh TV Festival in August, Kevin [Lygo, director of television at ITV] invited producers to pitch new procedurals. Some of our highest-rating, mostadored dramas are ones like Vera, which, while they don’t get the same sort of buzz in the media that an HBO drama does, do sustain very large, incredibly loyal audiences. There is still a strong market for them, which is why we like selling them internationally. Similarly, as we’ve seen with Bodyguard—from World Productions (a part of ITV Studios)—on BBC One, something highly serialized with many twists and turns was able to captivate an audience of more than 7.8 million average viewers throughout the series, peaking with 11 million live viewers during the finale. It’s become the highest-rated drama in the U.K. in over a decade. TV DRAMA: There is so much out there. What qualities do you look for in projects that can break through? KYRIACOU: The really exciting thing about our industry right now is that talent is allowed to explore some ideas that a few years ago would have been too tangential. There are more outlets for a wider set of genres than ever before. So we’re not shutting anything down. In fact, we’re doing the opposite. We’re opening it up.
TV DRAMA: What are some of the things your companies are doing to foster a new generation of talent? KYRIACOU: All of our creative labels have young producers and young writers coming through the ranks. It’s about giving people a chance and making sure they have access to training and hands-on experience. With all the wealth of production in our pipeline, the opportunities are there. TV DRAMA: You have a lot of co-productions on the slate. What are some of the approaches you’ve used to ensure the success of these collaborations? KYRIACOU: Number one is that everybody buys into a single creative vision, so you don’t get multiple voices at the table pulling a project in different directions. That is probably the most important thing. Whether it’s the writer or producer, you have to support what they want to make. TV DRAMA: What considerations do you take into account when determining a windowing strategy on a property to make sure you’re maximizing it on as many platforms as possible? KYRIACOU: It’s interesting. Distributors, five to ten years ago, were talking about the importance of pushing shows through multiple windows, and that was the way to create long-tail value. I think we’ve gone slightly in reverse now. I think buyers are now looking for ownership in the longterm—they want to attach themselves. For us, that means bringing them into a project much earlier. We are selling more shows at a script or treatment stage now than ever before. And buyers are asking us about what we have coming throughout the year. TV DRAMA: Does that early involvement cause any issues with producers in terms of dealing with more people giving notes and other editorial input?
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West of Liberty is a ZDF and SVT co-production on offer from ITVS GE.
KYRIACOU: They’ve got to buy into the initial vision of the creative. If you’re bringing on a partner, they have to be saying, “Yes, this is what I want and this is the person I trust to produce and write it for me.” TV DRAMA: What developments in scripted do you expect will be most transformative for your business in the 12 to 18 months ahead? KYRIACOU: Audience curiosity is opening up the possibilities for good shows from anywhere and everywhere to find success. Personally, I am using my access to global platforms to explore shows from India, Spain, Norway and more. That is what is driving the transformation of our portfolio. TV DRAMA: What are some of the other projects you have in the pipeline that you’re particularly excited about? KYRIACOU: If we fast-forward six months, our shows are becoming even bigger and bolder. We have Snowpiercer in production for TNT and Netflix, and we have World on Fire. World on Fire is our big, epic drama from Mammoth Screen that tells the story of the Second World War from multiple points of view. Every season will be a year of the war. It is amazing and the scripts are wonderfully compelling. I think it’s the perfect time for us to revisit the impact of the Second World War on ordinary people and how it devastated ordinary lives. We’ve also got Noughts & Crosses, an adaptation of the Malorie Blackman books, for the BBC. That’s really exciting; it reimagines the world
as run by a black ruling class—the Crosses—with a white underclass, the Noughts. TV DRAMA: There is so much book-based IP out there, I find myself envisioning what the TV adaptation will look like with everything I read these days! Is it becoming harder to secure the rights for new novels? KYRIACOU: I think it depends on who you talk to. If you’re talking to an independent producer who is trying to secure the best ideas, they might feel a little bit under pressure. But from where we sit, from our point of view, when we consider the production labels we now have across ITV, they have phenomenally strong development slates and they are busier than ever before. There are a lot of great ideas out there.
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SARAH DOOLE
FREMANTLE By Mansha Daswani
Boosting its position in the scripted business has been a key remit at Fremantle over the last few years. As the company’s director of global drama, Sarah Doole is involved with a broad array of projects across the globe, from German-language fare like Deutschland 86 and the Italian original My Brilliant Friend to the hit Australian project Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gurinder Chadha’s upcoming period epic Beecham House. Doole talks to TV Drama about the importance of fostering diverse voices and the need for projects to be authentic in order to break through in a cluttered landscape. TV DRAMA: What are some of the projects you’re working on that you’re particularly excited about? DOOLE: They are all fairly different and interestingly are across all the broadcasters in the U.K., but none are actually shot in Britain. They’re being shot around the world. I love that we’re opening windows on the world for the British audience through our storytelling, which fits in with what we hope we do at Fremantle with our dramas. We’re really busy with Beecham House, Gurinder Chadha’s big, epic family saga for ITV next spring. She is one of the leading
female directors in the U.K. and we love her because she has a diverse voice, a point of view, she’s inspirational—truly a renaissance woman. She writes, produces and directs. She’d probably be in it if she could! [Laughs] She’s created this story, all set in the India of the late 1700s, a period we’ve never seen before on British television. The British and the French have arrived in India with the East India Company and they’re fighting over what they believe the spoils of India are going to be. Gurinder is keen to tell the story because we’ve always seen India through a colonial or post-colonial prism. We’ve not seen the idea that India already existed for millennia in its beauty and glory, and the Europeans came to spoil the party! Gurinder has re-created most of India at Ealing Studios, and now she’s off in India shooting in the real locations like the Red Fort. It’s a story that is accessible, fun and emotional. We are filming Baghdad Central in Morocco for Channel 4. It’s a script by Stephen Butchard, and it’s the story of an Iraqi detective after the fall of Saddam. It shows Iraq of that time through an Iraqi perspective, which we’ve never seen before on television. It’s almost a standard detective story set against this fallen city. It’s really beautiful. We have The Dublin Murders, [based on] the Tana French books, shooting in Dublin and Belfast, for BBC One. And then Taken Down is shooting in Dublin, for RTÉ and ARTE, and it’s a poignant story about the death of a young Nigerian migrant during the refugee crisis in Ireland. Again, it’s a viewpoint on the world that is unique. And then our other big show for MIPCOM is My Brilliant Friend. We’re excited to actually have episodes to show. That’s our flagship, filmic, beautiful series, in Italian and Neopolitan. We’ve never seen 1950s Naples on an international stage. TV DRAMA: How are you finding new, diverse voices? DOOLE: That’s absolutely our driving force, and it comes from a pure creative ambition. We want to be the first to tell stories, not follow stories that have already been told. We particularly advocate for women’s voices behind, and in front of, the camera. Look at something like Picnic at Hanging Rock, which we did earlier in the year. We were determined that that would have a female director. It was nearly a wholly female production crew as well. And then we wanted a really strong actress in the lead role who also has a voice, and that was Natalie Dormer. We fought long and hard for that to happen. In the end, it was a beautiful piece, we sold it all around the world, and we were at the forefront of genuinely bringing women’s voices to the screen. You have to fight for it. I’m quite passionate about that; it’s really important to lead the way on it. And we’ve got brilliant men working with us as well! TV DRAMA: What qualities does a drama need to cut through in the current environment? DOOLE: The number one thing is authenticity. Viewers have a lot of choices. They want to experience a world that feels authentic and unique to them as they’re watching it. Gurinder’s show is filming in India, she’s from the Indian diaspora, it’s a story she wants to tell. My Brilliant Friend is authentic Naples of the ’50s. They scoured every antique and junk store in Naples! Everything on set is authentic to the period and the time. Same with Baghdad Central. We’re making it as authentic as we can. It’s difficult to shoot in Iraq, so we had to create downtown Baghdad in Morocco,
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Commissioned by RTÉ and ARTE, Taken Down, a crime thriller set in Ireland, is among the new dramas on offer from Fremantle.
but they speak Arabic in the show and there’s Arabic poetry in it. And the language doesn’t matter now. Audiences would rather it be authentic and watch it with subtitles than it feel manufactured and inauthentic. The fact that HBO is playing My Brilliant Friend in Italian and Neapolitan is a big milestone for us on our international journey. The other thing is, we just want to work with the best talent. Christian [Vesper, executive VP and creative director of global drama] and I spend a lot of time just meeting talent and saying, What’s the story you want to tell? Let’s help you tell it. You have to trust the talent and the creators and work with them to bring out their unique stories. TV DRAMA: How is Fremantle mentoring new creatives to help them get to the point where they can run their own shows? DOOLE: There are all sorts of ways of doing that. Noemi Spanos, creative director for Kate Harwood [at Euston Films], is exec producing her first show, Dublin Murders, under Kate’s mentorship. You have to believe in people and give them a go! I’m a believer in that. Usually they deliver and if they don’t, you help them along the way. People make mistakes. We all have. That’s part of the job and you learn from them. Laurence Bowen at Dancing Ledge runs a writer-inresidence program. He pays for a young writer to come in for three months to work with him and his development team and get a feel for how you put a pitch together and how you can take an idea and develop it so that it’s good enough and bold enough to take to the broadcasters. All of our companies and producers use different mechanisms, but they all are in search of the next great talent and they’re all focused on bringing on that next generation of talent. TV DRAMA: What are some of the trends in the scripted space that most excite you? DOOLE: I’m always excited about book IP. Penguin Random House is part of our family–we’re all owned by Bertelsmann—
and I’m excited about how we can work with some of their big talents. It’s about taking a big book author—and therefore they’re a brand—but not necessarily doing a straight adaptation. An example of that is we’re working with Paulo Coelho, one of the biggest selling authors in the world. We haven’t optioned his books. We’re working with him to develop a TV show that isn’t a straight adaptation. It would have characters from his books and some of his own personal story, developed uniquely for television. That’s a really interesting trend for some of those big literary authors who are the world’s best storytellers. Their books might be the straightforward way of telling those stories, but there are more interesting or creative collaborations to have with them. That takes time and patience, but I think the rewards could be immense. I think we’re ready for something breakout in sci-fi. For the last few years, genre has been a bit out of fashion and there’s room to do something really clever in that space. We’re working on that. Those genre pieces aren’t easy and they’re not quick to bring to market. But if you get it right, you’ve got a fan base. The skill here is how you keep a fan base of genre fans but extend to a broader audience. That’s an interesting creative challenge. And there’s room for some feel-good stories. Life is quite grim at the moment for a lot of people. We shouldn’t forget that TV should be entertainment and escapism. I’m fortunate; I have a brilliant job that I love that is kind of my hobby as well. But a lot of people do things that they don’t enjoy. TV is really important to how they live their lives and their escapism and joy. Sometimes we get a bit hooked into thrillers, the girl in the ditch. We have to look for lighter ways of telling stories as well. We’re spending some time on development on that. And I’m excited about telling stories in Africa. I think it’s completely underexposed and there are great writers and fantastic talent out there. That’s one of my passions, to see if we can tell the next big great entertaining story out of Africa.
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TV DRAMA: Tell us about anone. How did the idea come about? TSUGIYA: From the time we were planning Woman, I was already having discussions with our screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto on how Japanese society tends to worship money. It turned out that he had also been thinking of ways to illustrate how people give utmost importance to money and even go crazy over it. Then we started wondering how a story would unfold if the money was fake. A lot of things are fake in this world, and there are many lies. There are fake items that look authentic. But what if money, which is what we treasure the most, turns out to be fake? What would happen to Japanese society? This was how the concept of anone came about, and each brainstorming session turned out to be quite engaging. We would imagine interesting scenes, such as a lady who takes care of an orphan putting fake money every night into a vending machine and flashing a grin when the juice would come out. With that as a starting point, we dug into the meaning behind money, and because it is a Yuji Sakamoto drama, it was in the context of a family story. So at that moment, we were already talking about using this theme in a future drama series, but then we realized how difficult it was to actually show counterfeit currency on television and reached a point where we felt it was going to be impossible. We put it off to the side for a while and went on with Woman, and when [Yuji] and I met again for the next title, the fake money story sprang back up and anone was born.
By Mansha Daswani
Japanese drama will take center stage at MIPCOM with Nippon TV’s Way Too Kawaii! selected as the Asian World Premiere TV Screening. The country’s market-leading broadcaster has become well known among Asian platforms for its prolific drama output—and it’s now being recognized globally following the success of Mother and Woman as scripted formats. Mother, produced for Star TV by Turkey’s MF Yapim/Medyapim, has been rolled out to multiple markets by Global Agency. The Korean adaptation, produced by Studio Dragon (the drama production company owned by CJ ENM) for tvN, was selected as one of ten international dramas showcased at CANNESERIES this year. And now, a Ukrainian edition of Mother is in the works, courtesy of STB. The Turkish edition of Woman, meanwhile, is notching up strong sales for Calinos Entertainment. Hisashi Tsugiya, senior drama producer at Nippon TV, shares with TV Drama his aspirations for Japanese content and discusses his latest series, anone. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 397
TV DRAMA: Medyapim in Turkey has adapted both Woman and Mother. What advice have you given them and other producers about adapting your dramas? TSUGIYA: With [Fatih] Aksoy from Medyapim, for instance, I made sure to communicate the true essence of what I wanted the audience to feel. I left it completely up to the Turkish production team to decide on the details of the plot and how the story would unfold because I knew that he and I were completely aligned on what message to convey to the viewers. I did not discuss specifics, but instead got on the same page with regards to the theme, then put my full trust in them to take care of the rest. You can see that they truly grasped the theme and did a wonderful job with the story. In terms of specific advice, when the local Turkish producers of Woman wanted ideas on creating an episode that went deeper into a character or adding an extra dynamic in a family relationship, I was more than happy to throw in my two cents. Japanese culture tends to simplify, so I
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was asked what the true meaning is behind some scenes. Sometimes, the way we create allows for multiple interpretations, so I got questions on what is really going on [with the characters] and what actually happened afterward that was not shown in detail (but our audience understood). TV DRAMA: Do you prefer working on a series where the entire story is told in one season, or do you like to be able to tell stories about characters over many years? TSUGIYA: While the convention in Japan is to produce dramas series that conclude in one season, there have been times when we were asked to create a part two, so sometimes we produce the final episode in a way that leaves the door open for a sequel. The thing is, there is so much that I want to do and I am not all that young anymore, so I prefer to create many dramas instead of spending years on one project. I want to finish one title in one season and move on right away to the next. TV DRAMA: Tell us about the creative environment you have found at Nippon TV. TSUGIYA: Nippon TV dramas are now being distributed throughout the world, thanks to content markets like MIPCOM. In the past, however, the top priority of the drama production teams was to get high viewer ratings domestically. This continues to be important for us, but now we have a new wave of Nippon TV creators wanting to share their content globally. It is no longer just about capturing the highest viewer ratings in our country. There is this new desire to obtain reaction and acclaim from sources other than the traditional linear broadcast business, and they factor in the international market when they pitch projects.
Hisashi Tsugiya is behind some of Nippon TV’s biggest scripted successes, including, from the top, Mother, which has been adapted in Turkey and Korea; Woman, also formatted in Turkey; and anone. 398 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
TV DRAMA: We’ve seen Turkish dramas travel well across the globe, and Spanish series are starting to do the same. Do you envision Japanese dramas, in their original versions, being able to cross into Europe, Latin America or other markets? TSUGIYA: Let’s look at Mother, for example, because it has been localized in several countries, but a lot of people do not know that it is from Japan or only realize it later on. I hope that when viewers realize that it came from Japan, they will want to see the original. It would be great if those who saw the Turkish remake decide to see the Japanese version and become interested in Japanese dramas in general.
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told; there’s a lot more to it than was in the film. Also, having Umberto Eco behind the idea was a great reason. We have known the company that bought the rights from the publishing house and Umberto Eco’s estate, 11 Marzo Film, for a long time and have a personal relationship with them. My father [Herbert G. Kloiber, chairman of TMG] started producing films with Roberto Levi [of 11 Marzo] 40 years ago. In 2014 we got in touch with them about producing the series. Rai was always on board from the start, and when Palomar joined as well, we thought we had a winning partnership to get this epic project off the ground. TV DRAMA: How closely does the series follow the book? KLOIBER: It was developed together with Umberto Eco, who obviously was keen on having his book turned into a TV series as close as possible to his original vision. [Unlike] the book, there are new strong female roles, which make the series more interesting and appealing for a broad audience, more modern and more relevant. The set design and costume design are as authentic as possible. There was a lot of research done by the set designer, who was a student of Umberto Eco’s. We tried to transpose the atmosphere from the book onto the screen.
HERBERT L. KLOIBER TELE MÜNCHEN GROUP By Kristin Brzoznowski
Umberto Eco’s acclaimed 1980 novel The Name of the Rose is coming to life as a big-budget event series. Set in Italy in 1327, the eight-part crime thriller is being produced by 11 Marzo Film, Palomar and Tele München Group (TMG) in co-production with SundanceTV and in association with Rai Fiction. Set to launch in 2019, the production boasts a bevy of big-name international stars, and TM International has already signed a slew of presales around the globe. Herbert L. Kloiber, the managing director of TMG and TM International, shares details with TV Drama about how the event series came together and what viewers can expect. TV DRAMA: How did doing The Name of the Rose as an event series come about? KLOIBER: It has been 30 years since the original book, and the film came right after. The author, Umberto Eco, always felt that the film didn’t do full justice to his work. He felt that a TV series with eight parts would be much better suited to tell the whole story, which is complex and has a lot of characters and varied storylines. With the renaissance of the miniseries, and series in general, it became very exciting and justifiable to do something as major as The Name of the Rose in a different way. There were many compelling reasons, including that it has not been fully
TV DRAMA: How did the financing come together for a project of this scale and budget? KLOIBER: It was clear that a project like this had to have a big budget because of the scope of the story, the historic setting and our goal to achieve a cinematic look. But also because in today’s competitive environment in the television landscape, you almost have to have a big budget in order to compete on a worldwide scale. Rai was on board from the beginning. It helps in a big-budget production to have at least one big anchor broadcaster on board [from the start]. Tele München was convinced of the brand and the creatives involved, so we were happy to take the additional risk on the financing side. We also agreed to take the worldwide sales efforts into our own hands in order to be in control of that big investment. TV DRAMA: A slew of presales have already been secured. Why is it so essential to have broadcasters on board at an early stage for a project like this? KLOIBER: The show has been sold in many territories already. We consciously decided to try and sell to enthusiastic networks and platforms that share our vision on a territoryby-territory basis at an early stage. Because it’s such a big brand and because of the creative elements involved and the iconic cast, it has been possible to achieve this. But also because in today’s top-notch TV drama world, many big properties go directly to a worldwide streaming service, and national platforms or broadcasters have a harder time competing. For example, our partners from SundanceTV in the U.S. and Orange Studio in France have been extremely excited from a very early stage. It obviously helps to feel confident that the show will be seen by as many eyeballs as possible. Early, excited partners are much more motivated to promote a show because it’s important to them. Because early partners have a more meaningful stake and influence in the show, they can stand behind it much more strongly with their brand. That’s why we decided to go this route.
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IN CONVERSATION
ver the course of his 30-year career, Jon Feltheimer has had a front-row seat to significant changes in the media business. First at New World Entertainment, then at Sony Pictures Entertainment, and since 2000 as CEO of Lionsgate, he has witnessed the encroachment of basic- and premiumcable channels on broadcast networks, the development of the international TV market, the rise and then fall of the DVD market, the emergence of movie franchises and, most recently, the meteoric growth of streaming services. But Feltheimer views change as more of an opportunity than a disruption. Knowing that the media business will continue to evolve, he has positioned Lionsgate, which reported revenues of $4.13 billion for fiscal year 2018, as a content company that can serve all platforms and audiences. A 17,000-title library fuels many of the company’s businesses. Lionsgate’s motion picture group releases more than 40 feature films a year and has generated an average of $2 billion at the global box office each of the past five years. It’s the studio behind such movies as La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, The Hurt Lockerand theHunger Games franchise. Lionsgate also serves African American and Hispanic moviegoers with the labels Codeblack Films and Pantelion Films.
The television group supplies programming to streaming platforms and cable and broadcast networks, and has 90 series on 40 networks in the U.S. Current and upcoming shows include Dear White People and Orange Is the New Black for Netflix, The Kingkiller Chronicle for Showtime, American Lion for HBO and Get Christie Love for ABC. Lionsgate distributes shows it produces and third-party product to linear and nonlinear outlets around the world. In December 2016, Lionsgate acquired the premium pay service Starz, home to Power, Black Sails and soon The Rook and The Continental. Starz is part of a bouquet of channels, which includes partnerships in Pop and Celestial Tiger Entertainment. Like other media players, Lionsgate is reaching out directly to consumers, not only with streaming services—such as Starz’s OTT offerings, Laugh Out Loud! and Pantaya—but also with theme-park attractions and live events like the La La Land in Concert world tour. Feltheimer talks to World Screen about creating content with Starz and transforming the premium service into a global brand. He also discusses Lionsgate’s investments and partnerships with talent, and his strategies for the movie, television and direct-to-consumer businesses.
JON FELTHEIMER LIONSGATE
By Anna Carugati
WS: It’s been nearly two years since Lionsgate acquired Starz. In what ways has the merger benefited both Lionsgate and Starz? FELTHEIMER: We couldn’t be happier with everything we’ve accomplished together since the merger. First, the combination of our Lionsgate, Starz and library content makes us a great launch partner for the top distributors in nearly every major territory and for global streaming platforms expanding their services around the world. In the past year alone, we’ve generated tremendous momentum in rolling out Starz internationally. Our partnership with Bell Media to launch the Starz brand in Canada is off to a great start, with Starz programming already available on Bell Media’s TMN Encore platform and CraveTV over-the-top offering. Full rollouts are expected early next year. We launched on the Amazon Prime platform in the U.K. and Germany, where our mix of Lionsgate and Starz content is already resonating with consumers. And we’ve announced plans to bring the Starz brand to Italy, France and Spain, with additional territories and partners to follow in the coming months. Second, the combination of our two companies gives us broader shoulders in the creative community and allows us to offer unique opportunities to talent across all of our Lionsgate and Starz platforms. The creative community is responding enthusiastically to our “no silos,” cross-platform strategy that includes our first-of-its-kind partnership with the 3 Arts Entertainment talent management and production company. Third, our combined worldwide television and digital distribution operation under the leadership of Jim Packer has done a great job of monetizing rights to several of Starz’s biggest series. The syndication of Power, Black Sails and Ash vs. Evil Dead has generated well over $100 million in incremental high-margin revenue. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 403
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WS: Is Lionsgate a possible acquisition target? FELTHEIMER: That’s a question for other companies to answer and our shareholders to decide. We’re focused on continuing to grow our business with strategic and accretive acquisitions, deepening our content pipelines, rolling out Starz around the world and extending our properties into next-generation direct-to-consumer businesses. In the process, we’re creating a compelling value proposition for consumers, talent and partners alike—a nimble, entrepreneurial, content-rich digital-age company that is a unique and essential part of our media ecosystem.
Focused on two Mexican-American sisters, Vida has done well for Starz, which renewed it for a second season. And finally, one of the most exciting opportunities to come out of the merger is Lionsgate and Starz’s ability to create great content together. Working with our partners at Liberty Global, we’ve just finished shooting our first Lionsgate television series for Starz since the acquisition, The Rook. Following in its footsteps is the John Wick television spin-off The Continental, with more exciting properties in the works as Kevin Beggs [chairman of the television group] and his team ramp up our slate of series for Starz. WS: What do the Disney-Fox and AT&T-Time Warner mergers say about scale in the media business today? How big is big enough? FELTHEIMER: There’s no single right answer. Our industry is changing faster than ever before, and every company has to decide for itself how it wants to be positioned in today’s media landscape. Our goal will never be to add scale for the sake of adding scale but instead will be to make sure we have it in the right places. WS: Both deals are driven in part by the need to bulk up to compete with Netflix. What is Lionsgate’s relationship with Netflix? FELTHEIMER: Netflix is a formidable competitor in some areas and a terrific partner in others. We have great respect for Reed [Hastings, CEO], Ted [Sarandos, chief content officer], Cindy [Holland, VP of original programming] and the rest of the Netflix team, and we do a lot of business together. We continue to collaborate on longrunning scripted series like Orange Is the New Black and Dear White People while also adding new shows to their lineup of unscripted series. They’ve achieved incredible growth over the past few years, but they’ve remained an innovative, entrepreneurial and game-changing company at the same time. There are valuable lessons to be learned from that.
WS: What is Lionsgate’s acquisitions strategy, and what acquisitions or investments has it made recently? FELTHEIMER: Our criteria for acquisitions is that they be strategic and accretive, add a new strength or capability to our content platform and create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Over the past two years, our Starz, Pilgrim Media and 3 Arts deals have checked off all these boxes. Each of these deals makes both partners a little stronger and will create incremental value for Lionsgate as a whole. I would add that we apply these same criteria to every major film and television property that we add to our slate, not just to the companies we’re buying.
WS: Talent is a precious commodity in today’s media business. What first-look deals or investments in talent has Lionsgate made? FELTHEIMER: Let’s start with the value proposition we offer to talent. We not only provide them with the opportunity to create projects across our full palette of film, television, Starz, digital studio, interactive game and streaming platforms, but we take a uniquely integrated approach to operating these businesses. John Wick, Step Up, Dear White People and The Kingkiller Chronicle are just a few of the many multiplatform properties we’ve created. And talent is responding—in recent months we’ve continued to expand our multifaceted relationship with global superstar Kevin Hart, formed an exciting new partnership with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and announced new agreements with Eugenio Derbez, Salma Hayek, Dear White People’s Justin Simien and Yvette Lee Bowser, Common and the Erwin Brothers,
Liberty Global and Lionsgate teamed up for the supernatural spy thriller The Rook, which will air on Starz. 404 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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YouTube Premium, the online video giant’s subscription service, is on board for a second season of Step Up: High Water, based on the Lionsgate film franchise. producers of the faith-based hit I Can Only Imagine. These deals all followed specific projects on which we had recently collaborated. Our overall talent strategy also drives our partnership with 3 Arts, enabling us to offer their clients an opportunity to do something a little different. WS: How has Starz been increasing its international distribution? FELTHEIMER: We’ve taken a bespoke approach to each territory. In the Middle East and North Africa, we’re part of the Starz Play Arabia venture that has become the leading SVOD service in the region in terms of revenue and subscribers. In Canada, we’re partnered with the leading distributor in the territory. And in the U.K. and Germany, we’ve teamed with a global strategic partner rolling out its service around the world. As Starz continues to expand internationally, we’ll continue to employ all of these different strategies, but the common denominator will be the robust combination of Starz programming, Lionsgate films and television series and the 17,000-title library that we bring to each of our partnerships. WS: A central focus of Lionsgate has been to cater to underserved audiences. How is it continuing to do so in film, television and OTT services? FELTHEIMER: Latinx and African American consumers over-index in every part of our business— at the box office, as traditional television viewers and as next-generation consumers of streaming and mobile-first content. But they’ve been consistently underserved by Hollywood studios. Pantelion Films is the only major studio label to bring Latinx audiences a diverse slate of
Spanish-language movies every year. We’ve released nearly 50 Spanish-language and bilingual films over the past seven years, the overwhelming majority of them profitable. Last year we launched Pantaya with our partners at Hemisphere Media, and it’s already fulfilling its promise as the leading premium streaming movie service for Latinx consumers in the U.S. We’re similarly focused on super-serving African American audiences with Codeblack Films and critically acclaimed television series like Dear White People. And we launched the Laugh Out Loud! comedy platform with Kevin Hart last year with a growing slate of original series. This same emphasis on underserved audiences drives our programming strategy at Starz. The series Vida is generating tremendous buzz in the Latinx and LGBTQ communities and has already been picked up for a second season. Starz continues to build its leadership among women with hits like Outlander, the new series Sweetbitter and the upcoming The Spanish Princess. And Power has been the highest-rated premium cable series this year as it continues to grow into a major brand, not only for African American audiences but across all demos. The bottom line is that our strong Latinx and African American verticals are working company-wide. Pantelion is generating box office successes, Pantaya and Laugh Out Loud! are successfully engaging an increasingly diverse audience, and Starz had one of its best years ever. In fact, the combination of great programming and an expanding distribution footprint led to growth in both over-the-top and traditional Starz subscribers last quarter, with OTT subs recently breaking the 3-million mark. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 405
WS: What challenges has the film industry been facing? What is Lionsgate’s film strategy? FELTHEIMER: The pace of change in the film business has been incredible, and the domestic box office has never been more competitive. But demand for movies worldwide continues to grow, and a terrific summer at the box office has the industry headed toward a great year. Our new motion picture leadership team under Joe Drake is refining our strategy to adapt to a changing business, but the bold, original films that have always been our trademark continue to resonate. Our global blockbuster Wonder is a great example. We’ll continue to execute a film strategy that allows us to push the envelope creatively by de-risking the business financially. Over 90 percent of our theatrical releases last year were profitable on an ultimate basis. What many people don’t realize is how important movies have become for newer players like the SVOD platforms. SVOD customers have said that they spend as much time watching movies as original programming, and they recently cited “not enough movies” as one of the main reasons for canceling their subscriptions. We believe that this new source of demand is very healthy for our overall theatrical business. WS: What is Lionsgate’s television strategy? FELTHEIMER: We will continue executing a strategy that has turned our television group into a global IP machine with more than 50 television series currently in various stages of production in 12 territories around the world. This includes, first, selling to everyone. Without legacy constraints, we’ve become a leading supplier of premium series to streamers and cable and broadcast
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Keanu Reeves stars in Lionsgate’s popular John Wick franchise, with the third film due out in 2019. networks alike, with a unique ability to pivot quickly to follow our audience and adapt to our buyers. Second, we’ll continue to be a first mover: shows like Mad Men, Weeds, Nurse Jackie and Orange Is the New Black helped put their respective networks on the map, and we’ll continue to supply premium programming to streaming platforms like YouTube, Apple and Facebook, as well as more traditional platforms like Charter Spectrum who are launching original series for the first time. Third is supplying quality programming to Starz. One of the most exciting priorities for our television group is to contribute to Starz’s continued growth around the world, and the process of supplying them with exciting new series continues to gather momentum. And fourth is building on our partnership with 3 Arts, a leader in comedy programming with an incredible roster of worldclass talent. WS: What is the role of data and algorithms in the programming and television worlds? I’m hearing some producers say they are worried an over-reliance on data will overtake the importance of “gut instinct” in programming decisions. Do you agree? FELTHEIMER: The combination of art and science actually makes our business stronger. Finding great content will always be an art, but, as the world moves closer to the consumer and customer acquisition becomes as important as an audience, data needs to be added to the “art” of picking the right content. Understanding issues like customer segmentation and churn is critical to how we allocate our resources. One of the great things about transitioning our business into the direct-to-consumer world is how much we’re learning about our consumers, which allows us to be smarter and more efficient about how we operate. WS: Are streaming services representing a more significant threat and disruption to linear channels than previous changes? FELTHEIMER: Disruption has always been our friend, and it creates both challenges and opportunities. As a content supplier, we have a great
opportunity to supply platform-defining programming to new and emerging services. As a content distributor, streamers have become major buyers for our films and television series. We deliver content to more than 200 streaming and traditional platforms around the world. And at Starz we’re well positioned to be a launch partner of choice to global streaming services. WS: Does the future of the film and programming business lie in direct-to-consumer services? FELTHEIMER: Going directly to the consumer is an important part of everyone’s future, and we’re very pleased with the recent strong growth of our own direct-to-consumer businesses. I’ve already mentioned the success of our Starz OTT offering, the traction of our Lionsgate streaming services and the game-changing potential of our Atom Tickets app. One area that has stayed a little under the radar has been the growth of our Lionsgate-branded location-based entertainment business. With the opening of the Lionsgate Zone at the Motiongate theme park in Dubai and the debut of the Saw Escape Room in Las Vegas last year; the successful La La Land in Concert world tour; the kickoff
of the Now You See Me live magic show in Asia; this fall’s launch of the Hunger Games in Concert world tour in Switzerland; and the planned opening of Lionsgate-branded venues in the U.S., Spain, Germany and China, we’re quietly building a global direct-to-consumer business that has the potential to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of incremental high-margin revenue. By the end of fiscal 2020, we expect over 25 million consumers to have visited more than a dozen live and location-based entertainment experiences around the world featuring Lionsgate properties. WS: Where do you see the potential for growth for Lionsgate in the next 12 to 24 months? FELTHEIMER: All of our businesses are positioned for continued growth. But there are three newer growth opportunities about which we’re particularly excited. One is Starz’s ongoing transformation into a global brand. We already have over a million international subs not yet included in our subscriber counts, with huge opportunities for continued and accelerating growth. Our direct-to-consumer businesses, including location-based entertainment, interactive games, eSports and our own streaming services, are reaching critical mass and are poised to make meaningful contributions to our bottom line. Atom Tickets has the potential to be a game-changer for our theatrical exhibition partners and moviegoers alike. These are all areas in which we’re combining the content portfolio of a media company with the innovation and digital expertise of a tech company, and the results are exciting. Our collaboration with 3 Arts is already sending a message to the creative community about the varied and diverse opportunities we offer talent. We’re very excited about its potential for growth and see it as an integral part of our business.
Starz, which has been driving subscriptions with hits like Power, continues to expand internationally. 406 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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TVFORMATS
WWW.TVFORMATS.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
Mega Brands / Game Shows / Kid-Centric Formats Mike Fleiss /ABC’s Robert Mills / Endemol Shine’s Peter Salmon
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10 TV FORMATS
CONTENTS
Demanding Times
FEATURES 26 MEGA FORMATS A look at the art and science of format franchise management.
26
After shaking up the drama market in immeasurable ways, the FAANGs have started to sink their teeth into entertainment.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Formats © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvformats.ws
Project Runway power duo Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum recently announced they’re saying “Auf Wiedersehen” to the hit U.S. show after 16 seasons to do a global fashion reality series with Amazon. Facebook is reportedly working on a virtual singing talent competition. Among Netflix’s recent raft of commissions are The Final Table, a global culinary competition series that is being exec produced by MasterChef and MasterChef Junior alums, and Flinch, a comedy game show. Programming like high-tension game shows and shinyfloor talent competitions are so well-suited to live viewing— with their watercooler moments and emotion-packed finales—that the notion of watching them on-demand may take some getting used to on the part of the viewer. Perhaps that’s why some streaming platforms are testing the waters by licensing finished entertainment product first before going all in on a big-budget global format buy. Netflix, for one, scooped up the U.K. rights for America’s Got Talent, while Amazon has the U.K. rights for American Idol. As audiences become more accustomed to streaming the types of entertainment shows that have long been the domain of live TV, those in the format industry are starting to face a new set of questions. What types of formats work for an OTT platform? If it’s a global service, how does that impact the traditional market-by-market rollout for local versions? Are viewers ready to get their talent shows on-demand? It’s early days, and the verdict is still out as to whether or not the FAANGs stand to upend the entertainment market in the same way they have with scripted. For now, the majority of viewers are still flocking to their TV sets to catch the entertainment megahits live. Many of the classic juggernauts continue to pull in big numbers for live viewing as well. In this issue of TV Formats, we look at the keys to keeping a megaformat franchise fresh. We also explore what’s new in game shows and examine the popularity of formats that place kids at the center of the action. ABC’s Robert Mills tells us about how the U.S. network manages its successful entertainment shows, including American Idol and The Bachelor. Mike Fleiss, the mastermind behind The Bachelor and its spin-offs, is also featured in this issue. Peter Salmon talks to TV Formats about some of the biggest hits from the Endemol Shine Group portfolio. He tells us there’s “enormous potential” for entertainment shows on OTT services. Watch this space! —Kristin Brzoznowski
38 SPIN TO WIN Explores what it takes to make an impact in the crowded game-show sector.
46 KIDDING AROUND Formats featuring children are popular in family-oriented prime-time slots.
46
INTERVIEWS
50
Mike Fleiss
52 ABC’s Robert Mills
56
Endemol Shine’s Peter Salmon
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14 TV FORMATS
A+E Networks Voices from the Grave / Seatbelt Psychic / Snap Decision Terminally ill people who have a short time to live record hologram messages for their loved ones in Voices from the Grave. “After their deaths, these walking, talking versions of the departed are delivered at times and in places where families need them the most,” explains Ellen Lovejoy, A+E Networks’ VP/head of content sales for the Americas and formats. “Voices from the Grave is unprecedented, gripping and highly unique content. Using cutting-edge portable holograph technology, it creates a ‘first’ in TV.” Seatbelt Psychic, meanwhile, follows a medium who poses as a ride-share driver and surprises passengers with the ability to talk to their deceased loved ones. “We are very excited to take these two formats global,” Lovejoy says. The slate also includes the game show Snap Decision.
Seatbelt Psychic
“A+E Networks’ formats reflect the cultural zeitgeist, and most importantly, they garner success in the markets where they air.” —Ellen Lovejoy
Armoza Formats Singerella / Dance Revolution / Instababe An aspiring singer gets a fairytale surprise of having the chance to sing with a musical idol in the prime-time format Singerella. The series “uses music, which we know connects people worldwide, and protagonists that we can all relate to in order to bring strong emotional engagement in every episode,” says Sharon Levi, head of sales at Armoza Formats. The prime-time competition Dance Revolution uses state-of-the-art technology to take a 360-degree snapshot of dancers’ best “revolution” moment. “Dance competitions continue to be a strong and successful genre that entertains and appeals to a wide audience,” says Levi. “Dance Revolution offers a unique element in its use of 360-degree technology that you would usually only see in sports events.” She adds that Instababe, a short-form teen series, is “tailor-made for today’s Instagram generation.”
Singerella
“We are coming to MIPCOM with compelling formats that are very much on-trend.” —Sharon Levi
Banijay Rights The Duo / Taste for the Nation / LIVE Diverse singers are brought together in an audition with the aim of discovering a vocal partnership the nation will fall in love with in The Duo. “The wonderful unpredictability of human chemistry is the essence of this entertainment format,” says Andrew Sime, VP of formats at Banijay Rights. “The winner will be two individual voices brought together by fate to create one unique and magical sound.” The search for the next food sensation is on with Taste for the Nation. Meanwhile, LIVE looks for a musical artist who can wow a live audience. “From the very first show, viewers can enjoy the atmosphere and sensation of a live performance and vote in real time to decide who they think is the country’s next big live star,” says Sime.
“Thanks to our unrivaled network of production companies and strong relationships with the world’s best content creators, our catalog is bigger and better than ever before.” The Duo 420 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
—Andrew Sime
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One Day That Changed My Life
BBC Studios Dancing with the Stars: Juniors / One Day That Changed My Life / Different Like Me With the global success of Dancing with the Stars, BBC Studios has high expectations for Dancing with the Stars: Juniors in the international market. “It’s a feel-good, aspirational show and essential family viewing,” says Sumi Connock, BBC Studios’ creative director of formats. “We’ve really taken our time to ensure that Dancing with the Stars: Juniors will sit well on any network and uphold the high production values of the original format.” She adds that the show has “a really great energy and warmth to it.” One Day That Changed My Life shines a light on ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances, while Different Like Me brings together young people who share unusual conditions in order to help them gain confidence and overcome their insecurities.
“One Day That Changed My Life is a great format for daytime or prime time with a real human angle as we see ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances.” —Sumi Connock
CJ ENM
Love at First Song
Music Bites / Love at First Song / Love Catcher Music and food are brought together in the game show Music Bites, which CJ ENM is presenting to international buyers in Cannes. “We don’t see many game shows in CJ ENM’s lineup, but this recently launched format made a great landing in Korea,” says Diane Min, the company’s head of format sales. Love at First Song looks on as individuals search for their soul mates through music. Min describes the program as being a mix of American Idol and The Bachelor. Love Catcher, meanwhile, puts a new spin on the typical dating show, with some participants who are pretending to be interested in making a romantic connection in order to earn money. “We have seen lots of matching dating shows but never a trick of fake love in that genre,” Min says.
“These formats all have simple concepts that can be easily and cheaply reproduced anywhere in the world.”
—Diane Min
Fremantle
The Greatest Dancer
The Greatest Dancer / Match Fit / The Big Race Commissioned by BBC One in the U.K., The Greatest Dancer is a brand-new entertainment format in the Fremantle catalog. “The Greatest Dancer will feature a host of talent from every genre of dance as contestants give the performances of their lives in the search for the country’s best dancer,” says Rob Clark, the company’s director of global entertainment. “From ballet to jazz, hip-hop to Bollywood, this show is open to everyone.” In Match Fit, a group of sporting legends must try to get back into shape. The show “will shed light on how they’ve let themselves go and why it’s important to maintain a healthy lifestyle as you approach middle age,” says Clark. There is also The Big Race, in which four stock car racing families team up with celebrities.
“The Greatest Dancer will do for dance what Got Talent has done for variety, and we can’t wait to show our partners in Cannes.” —Rob Clark 422 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Global Agency Runaway Women / Tahiti Quest / Auction Queens Eleven women are taken away from their families and everyday lives for a luxury retreat, leaving their husbands to run the household, in the format Runaway Women. Umay Ayaz, the head of acquisitions at Global Agency, calls Runaway Women “one of the catchiest, most different and exciting formats in our catalog.” She adds, “It seeks to raise awareness about the roles that men and women have undertaken in today’s society, holding a mirror to practices that have been accepted as common in our everyday lives in relation to gender roles and questioning the balance in sharing the tasks.” Global Agency is also promoting Auction Queens. “It is a real auction experience with all the excitement of a bidding war,” says Ayaz. The company’s slate also includes the family adventure game show Tahiti Quest.
“Auction Queens is a very entertaining and unique format that will attract many buyers.” Auction Queens
—Umay Ayaz
GMA Worldwide Legally Blind / Until We Meet Again / The Clash Female lead characters overcome adversity despite the odds being stacked against them in GMA Worldwide’s Legally Blind and Until We Meet Again. In Legally Blind, a visually impaired lawyer seeks justice against the man who raped her, while in Until We Meet Again, a feral child looks for her real family. “Both series showcase the Filipino values of courage, perseverance and love of family,” says Roxanne J. Barcelona, the VP of GMA Worldwide. The slate also features the non-scripted format The Clash, “a unique take on a talent competition,” says Barcelona. “With little to no time to strategize, all the contestants can do is give their best performance every week.” She adds of her MIPCOM plans, “We would like to develop worldclass content with our clients and forge mutually beneficial partnerships through co-pros and shared licensing rights.”
“While GMA Worldwide continues to provide broadcasters and platforms with the best Filipino dramas for licensing, we will be actively promoting format rights for our scripted and non-scripted content.”
Legally Blind
—Roxanne J. Barcelona
Inter Medya
1 vs. 10 Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
The Perfect Couple / 19 / 1 vs. 10 Set on a private island, The Perfect Couple sees 11 women and 11 men compete in challenges in order to win keys to the rooms of the only house on the island. The catch is that there aren’t enough rooms for everyone, and the winners of the challenges get to choose a partner to share their room. “This fast and exciting format will definitely attract the crowd,” says Can Okan, the founder and CEO of Inter Medya. In the quiz show 1 vs. 10, “instead of answering the ten questions, the main contestant chooses one person among ten who he or she believes doesn’t know the answer,” Okan explains. Another quiz show is 19, which has “a simple and attractive concept, offering contestants grand prizes as long as they manage to answer more questions than their rivals,” Okan says.
“For this year’s MIPCOM, we are planning on revealing a number of surprises by presenting additional new projects.”
—Can Okan
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Media Ranch The Ex-pert / The Vault / The Judas The factual format The Ex-pert follows a high-profile divorce lawyer and a family psychologist as they work with couples who are separating. “The Ex-pert has authentic, strong emotions but is also positive as we try to solve issues and actually help the people involved,” says Sophie Ferron, CEO of Media Ranch. She describes The Vault as Ocean’s Twelve meets an escape room. “The Vault is a very strong reality game-show concept with so many elements that simply make it must-see TV,” says Ferron. The Judas is an interactive transmedia crime and investigation game show that invites players to immerse themselves in an alternative reality game. “It’s more and more difficult to really engage people nowadays, but Judas does just that,” says Ferron. “It’s a different way of producing and consuming content.”
The Judas
“We’re a boutique distribution company, but we act and work globally.” —Sophie Ferron
Passion Distribution The Class Next Door / Postcode Playdates / Paradise Hotel The factual-entertainment format The Class Next Door sees a group of parents being sent back to school for one half-term; the twist is that their kids are in the classroom next door. Also in the factual-entertainment arena, Postcode Playdates features families with children from the same neighborhood but across social divides. They will open up their doors for a playdate for the first time. “The Class Next Door and Postcode Playdates are a combination of entertainment and documentary-style quality, perfect for mixed family and generational audiences,” says Nick Tanner, the director of sales and co-productions at Passion Distribution. The company is also showcasing the classic prime-time dating and reality show Paradise Hotel, which has been produced in more than ten territories.
The Class Next Door
“The Class Next Door is a brilliantly funny and warm factual-entertainment format.” —Nick Tanner
Rabbit Films
conWEBsation
Don’t You Know Who I Am? / The Awards Show / conWEBsation The game show Don’t You Know Who I Am? sees contestants compete against each other by guessing a celebrity guest’s “life numbers”—such as their IQ level, amount of gold records they have or the year of their first kiss. “It’s a game show with a touch of talk show,” says Irini Kylkilahti, international sales executive at Rabbit Films. The Awards Show consists of pre-recorded sketches and a live gala, in which scripted characters such as “the most determined neighbor stalker” are awarded. “This live prime-time, shiny-floor comedy series is a hilarious entertainment blast for the whole family,” says Kylkilahti. Also looking for laughs, conWEBsation is a comedy panel show that tests celebrities on the degree to which they have mastered the rapidly evolving digital world.
“The target audience for all of these formats is broad, and they encourage people to get involved while having fun.” —Irini Kylkilahti
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Red Arrow Studios International Don’t Stop the Music / Heartbreak Island / How Dare You? The social experiment Don’t Stop the Music follows the progress of children from an underprivileged school that has introduced a new music program. “With the help of experts, the teachers are trained on how to teach music more effectively, and the results have a startling effect on the lives of the kids and their families,” says Henrik Pabst, the president of Red Arrow Studios International. “Don’t Stop the Music is an uplifting show that reveals how music has the power to move us, inspire us and even transform lives.” Heartbreak Island is a reality program that examines how modern ways of finding love stand up against realworld challenges. There is also How Dare You?, a game show in which celebrities judge strangers based solely on their appearances. Don’t Stop the Music
“We have an impressive range of new reality, entertainment and comedy formats that are fast-paced, fun and entertaining.” —Henrik Pabst
Talpa Global House of Talent / Dance as One / Lucky13 The daily reality show House of Talent looks into the lives of eight aspiring musical artists, who must work to build a large and engaged fanbase, perform throughout the country and release a new track every six weeks. During the live elimination show, which will be broadcast exclusively online, one artist must leave the house and will be replaced by a new musician. Talpa Global also has the new dance show Dance as One, which focuses on synchronized dancing, and the live mobile game show Lucky13. “For media companies, it is a big challenge to reach and engage the younger audiences,” says Annelies Noest, Talpa Global’s director of formats and global network. “We created Lucky13 and House of Talent as perfect solutions for consumers in today’s media landscape.” There’s also Golden Boys, a dating show for seniors.
Golden Boys
“We have always been a frontrunner in creating innovative content.” —Annelies Noest
The Story Lab
Ninja Warrior
Evil Monkeys / Game of Clones / Ninja Warrior The format Evil Monkeys follows unsuspecting celebrities, held captive on a remote island by a group of intelligent (costumed) apes, who face a series of “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil” challenges to secure their freedom and win loot for charity. The Story Lab is also presenting Game of Clones, a reality dating format that sees singletons selecting from eight identical suitors. The company is looking to continue sales momentum on the family entertainment show Ninja Warrior as well. The Story Lab, together with Dentsu, has sold Ninja Warrior in multiple European markets. “Our shows really cut through a very crowded marketplace because of their creative audacity, simplicity and marketable visual DNA, while also delivering pure entertainment,” says Michael Iskas, the company’s global president.
“We are continually looking for creatively daring entertainment ideas that can connect with family and millennial demographics across —Michael Iskas territories.” 428 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution This Is Us / Last Man Standing / How I Met Your Mother The hit drama This Is Us has been in “great demand” since its U.S. launch, “largely because of the show’s superb storytelling and compelling family themes that are presented in a unique and authentic manner,” says Dorothy Crompton, VP of format licensing at Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution. “These themes are universal and lend themselves to localization in any territory around the world.” The company is also offering format rights for Last Man Standing and How I Met Your Mother. “Last Man Standing is a reflection of the change in societies around the world where men are no longer making all of the rules,” says Crompton. How I Met Your Mother features storylines that are “evergreen and allow networks to reach large audiences, young and old.”
Last Man Standing
“All of these formats represent modern-day societies and topical life issues.” —Dorothy Crompton
Twofour Rights
Undercover Girlfriends
Take the Tower / Undercover Girlfriends / Weekender Boat Party Inspired by action movies, Take the Tower challenges members of the public to a combination of physical trials and quiz questions across a number of levels, culminating in a final duel. “This adrenaline-packed series will tap into classic movie tropes, requiring toughness, brains and stamina,” says Holly Hodges, head of sales operations and VP of sales for North America, Australia and New Zealand at Twofour Rights. Undercover Girlfriends sees five ladies going undercover to work out if their man is really the one. There’s also a new spin-off of the successful Weekender series: Weekender Boat Party. “This brand-new format has the same lighthearted tone but will see a group of fun-loving reps give their guests the time of their lives at sea,” says Hodges.
“Our formats are flexible enough to be adapted to our clients’ various diverse cultures, budgets and production preferences and always aim to leave a lasting impression on viewers.” —Holly Hodges
Warner Bros. International Television Production The Proposal / The Big Audition / Game of Games From the creators of The Bachelor comes The Proposal. The show “offers all of the excitement and tension of The Bachelor in one condensed hour in front of a live studio audience,” says Andrew Zein, the senior VP of creative, format development and sales at Warner Bros. International Television Production. Also being showcased is The Big Audition, which “offers broadcasters a unique entertainment format for prime-time slots,” says Zein. The show lifts the lid on the audition process behind real jobs, whether it’s casting for hand models, historical reenactments or musical theater leads. The rollout continues for the game-show format Game of Games as well. “Game of Games continues to push the boundaries on scale and production values, offering a monumental studio experience both on and off the camera,” Zein says.
The Big Audition
“We are immensely proud to introduce our MIPCOM slate, which is bursting with diverse, genre-spanning formats.” —Andrew Zein 430 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Talpa’sThe Voice on NBC.
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Joanna Stephens hears from leading format producers and distributors about managing megahit format franchises. verybody wants a mega-format—one of those game-changing super-brands that embeds itself in popular culture, invents (or reinvents) a genre and turbo-drives revenue season after season, territory after territory, iteration after iteration. But what happens once you’ve made it into the formats super league? How do you nurture the goose that lays your golden eggs? According to Lisa Perrin, the CEO of creative networks at Endemol Shine Group, keeping a heritage format fresh and appetizing is an art form in itself. “It’s not a given that these brands will bloom year on year,” she says, pointing to Endemol Shine’s two monster formats, MasterChef and Big Brother. “Their continued success comes with an extreme amount of effort and constant monitoring of their global health.”
E
CREATIVE EXCHANGES Central to this process are workshops—known as “exchanges” in Endemol Shine parlance—where a format’s global family of producers come together to share tips, tricks and experiences, both good and bad. Perrin observes that the creative team behind, say, MasterChef India is under the same pressures as the team behind MasterChef in the U.S. “Our exchanges give our [operating companies] a chance to offload and talk about what’s working and what’s not. It’s all done in a spirit of openness. As a group function, the idea is to share what we’ve learned and inspire new approaches. We want our local producers to go home thinking, ‘Blimey, I hadn’t thought about that. Let’s give it a go….’ ” But even with this creative safety net in place, there are never any givens in entertainment. Perrin cites a change in the casting format for MasterChef that worked brilliantly all over the world but went down like a failed soufflé with
U.K. viewers. Cultural “tonality” is also a major factor when it comes to fine-tuning local iterations. The big question, of course, is how to keep your superformat vibrant and relevant without losing the secret sauce that makes it unique. The trick is to tweak, not reinvent. Endemol Shine’s research into format longevity has shown that viewers will accept organic change, but they don’t like change for the sake of novelty, or changes they perceive as cynical, manipulative or inauthentic. They have, after all, tuned in to watch a show they know and enjoy, and that’s what they want to see. Ultimately, it’s a balancing act between staying true to the format’s DNA while refreshing its outer casing with, for example, new casting, locations or branding. One way of reenergizing a format is, of course, to introduce celebrities. “But we always say that once you go celebrity, you can never go back, so the timing of a celebrity version is crucial in terms of a format’s life cycle,” Perrin says. She also warns against “rinsing a format dry” with too many seasons. “People get bored. There has to be an element of a show feeling special. The BBC does that really well with Strictly Come Dancing, which has come to herald Christmas in the U.K. Every autumn, when it comes back on, you think, ‘Wow, it’s Strictly time again.’ ” Over at Fremantle, dancing is also on Rob Clark’s mind. The company’s director of global entertainment believes The Greatest Dancer, BBC One’s new Saturday-night talent format from Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment and Fremantle U.K.’s Thames, has the potential for “longevity, revenue base, global presence and scalability” that separates the super-formats from the merely successful. “For me, the ability to scale from the biggest territory to the smallest is what defines a mega-format,” Clark says. “I went to the Maldives earlier this year and was amused, knowing that American Idol was coming back, to see a big poster at the airport advertising Maldivian Idol. Now that’s what I call a super-format!”
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resources to precision engineer their concepts into a state of technical perfection. This may help to explain why, as Maarten Meijs, the COO of Talpa Media and managing director of Talpa Global, points out, “The big golden-oldie formats are stronger than ever.” They are, at heart, brilliantly constructed shows that provide viewers with great entertainment and broadcasters with that increasingly elusive phenomenon: a tentpole in the schedule.
LOUD AND CLEAR
BBC Studios holds the lucrative rights to Love Productions’ hit The Great Bake Off franchise.
Talpa’s The Voice most certainly qualifies as a tentpole. The show debuted in the Netherlands in 2010—making it the youngest mega-format on the market today. It has aired in more than 180 territories and picked up four Primetime Emmys for the NBC version. In addition to the flagship property, the show’s brand extensions include The Voice Kids (which now has close to 40 local iterations), The Voice of the Ocean on Princess Cruises and The Voice Senior. Other offshoots include an instant-win online game and a range of merchandise. But while it makes sense to exploit a super-format’s global recognition with satellite products, care must be taken not to tarnish the core IP. “Before we develop a brand extension, we do our due diligence to make sure we see only benefits to adding a spin-off to the original brand,” Meijs says. Talpa’s home territory serves as a reliable testing ground for any new concepts—the most recent example being The Voice Senior, which rolled out on RTL4 in late August. “From our experiences with the regular seasons of The Voice, we had a strong conviction that seniors are interesting characters with fascinating life stories,” Meijs says. Talpa, too, has a team of format consultants who travel the world to guide, advise and share learnings. For licensees, having access to this level of expert support is a crucial benefit of acquiring a Talpa format, Meijs suggests. And the advantages cut both ways: for Talpa, it’s also essential to be aware of what’s happening on the ground, so that local iterations can be finetuned to the needs of specific markets. “For example, our talent competition The Next Boy/Girl Band has great traction in Asia,” Meijs says. “Given the large
But, echoing Perrin, he says there are challenges involved in keeping a global franchise healthy as it matures—and with Idols, The X Factor, Got Talent and the venerable Family Feud (42 years old and counting) in his portfolio, Clark has had plenty of experience with format rejuvenation. “It’s no surprise that only big companies have superformats,” he reflects. “You need big resources in management to keep a big format on air.” Those include a centralized force of flying producers whose tasks are to monitor quality control—as Clark points out, a mega-format isn’t cheap and broadcasters expect to get their money’s worth—protect the core concept from ill-advised tinkering and roll out triedand-tested changes across licensees. Again, balance is the watchword. “You have to be quite strict in what you allow, but lenient enough to evolve the show and move it on,” Clark says. He gives the example of Got Talent’s Golden Buzzer, which judges can use once per series to send a stand-out act straight through to the finals. The idea emanated from Germany around six years ago and has since been introduced into every Got Talent iteration in every territory. “But it was quite controversial at the time,” Clark says. “There was a lot of discussion about how it changed the whole dynamic and democracy of the show. But then we saw how well it worked and thought, democracy be damned!” Formats also have to move with the times, Clark says. For example, back in 1976, when Family Feud debuted on ABC in the U.S., the world was a very different place. “So we’ve adapted Family Feud over the years to represent what America looks like today,” he adds. “We’ve recast hosts that are more appropriate for the era, and we’ve ‘modernized’ the families, as it were, because today’s families come in many different forms. But what we haven’t done is play around with the basic structure. It works perfectly as it is.” Clark touches on a salient point—that super-formats are flawless under the bonnet. Most of the classic franchises were conceived 10 or 20 years ago, in a gentler economic climate. Almost without exception, the first generation of mega-formats were allowed to grow very, very slowly, with producers given the time and all3media’s Gogglebox has rolled out to a raft of markets since its Channel 4 debut. 438 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Several big formats have recently returned to market after a sabbatical, among them the BBC’s iconic quiz The Weakest Link. The format debuted on BBC Two in 2000 under the stewardship of acerbic host Anne Robinson, whose mocking “You are the weakest link. Goodbye!” fast became a national catchphrase. It recently returned in Finland and Cyprus and performed well. It also had a successful reprise in the U.K. at the end of last year, when it returned for a celebrity version. Dancing with the Stars is also back on air on 1+1 in Ukraine after a ten-year hiatus, and going gangbusters.
I’M BACK! There have been more than 50 adaptations of Fremantle’s Idols format, including in the Czech Republic.
number of millennials and Generation Zs in the region, we adjusted the format in Asia to engage this target group.” This involved introducing an AI-powered Google Assistant feature to enable fans to engage in a two-way conversation with the hosts of the show. But introducing any change is “a team effort,” Meijs stresses. “We always work in close consultation with the local partner.” This resonates with Sumi Connock, BBC Studios’ creative director of formats. “We would never force a change. We work with our global production network to share local innovations, twists and challenges, but, ultimately, it’s down to the local producers and broadcasters to agree on what’s best for their market.”
STEP BY STEP Adjustments can vary from territory to territory, and from platform to platform, Connock adds. “Some want format twists, while others feel a great new cast each year will keep the audience engaged.” She references Dancing with the Stars—a true stepchanger in every sense—which has introduced a variety of innovations across its 55-plus international versions. “There are territories that want more than one episode per week, or perhaps a show of longer duration, so we work closely with local producers to help meet their demands while keeping the core DNA alive.” That said, the original version of the show, Strictly Come Dancing, has remained mostly untouched since it shimmied onto BBC One back in 2004. Given that it turned in its highest-rating season ever last year, it would clearly be a gamble to change more than the odd sequin. Another monster format distributed by BBC Studios is Love Productions’ The Great Bake Off, which continues to spread calorific joy around the world. The show has just launched in its 30th territory, Chile, following a triumphant debut in Argentina earlier this year, where it pulled in a 70-percent share for free-to-air giant Telefe. Bake Off Greece launched in September and The Great Kiwi Bake Off arrives later this year. Bake Off has also hit the sweet spot with carefully constructed spin-offs that “reflect the production and editorial values of the main show while fitting the needs of the local market,” Connock says. These include Bake Off: The Professionals, Junior Bake Off and An Extra Slice.
“It beat the audiences of its nearest rival by 65 percent and ranked first in its time slot against all competition to become the highest-rating show on the channel in 2017,” Connock reports. “The producers did a fantastic promo campaign that cleverly mixed the old with the new. They used the iconic theme tune as a marketing tool and they brought back a much-loved but unsuccessful contestant from series one. But they cast new professional dancers, a new judging panel and a new host to bring it up to date.” Nick Smith, the executive VP of formats at all3media international, believes the power of a mega-format’s name is generally enough to bring fans back to a pre-loved show. “That’s why reboots are so attractive to networks,” he adds. “They guarantee attention from viewers and the press.” But that same attention can turn sour, Smith says, if the relaunch fails to deliver. He cautions against “going too crazy” with variations on the original format theme, which run the risk of disappointing fans who are expecting to revisit a familiar experience. “But often small changes can be very effective,” he adds, citing Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, which has successfully changed networks in several territories since it launched in 2004. The reboots have simply recast the restaurant-saving chef at the center of the action. When reviving a classic format, changes may be needed to prevent the reboot from feeling dated. Smith uses the example of Cash Cab, which debuted on the U.K.’s ITV back in 2005, before Facebook went mainstream. In Discovery Channel’s recent celebrity reboot of the quiz, which is set in the back of a New York City taxi, Lion Television added a “social media shout-out” to the gameplay. Via Facebook Live technology, contestants could ask family and friends for help. “Not only is it a great way to make the format feel current, but it’s also great promotion for the show coming on air,” Smith adds. As for the risk of audience fatigue with long-running franchises, Smith’s advice is to avoid the obvious. “I think it’s important not to be lazy with brand extensions and just make the same show with kids of celebrities.” He illustrates his point with the successful Gogglebox spin-offs Gogglesprogs and Vlogglebox. The former, which features a cast of kids giving their uninhibited and hilarious opinions on a range of TV shows, is a very different proposition from Studio Lambert’s original format.
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Banijay Rights’ Temptation Island is making a comeback with new versions in the works in Germany and the U.S.
“It has a different production method—it’s not a fastturnaround review of the week’s TV,” Smith says. The same is true of Vlogglebox, in which young people review viral videos. Designed to reflect how 16- to 24-yearolds engage with content, Vlogglebox’s participants are filmed out and about, watching trending videos on their phones, laptops and tablets. However successful a format, there will “always come a time when it begins to wane,” Smith believes. He observes that most of the mega-formats are no longer at their peak and no longer on air in all the territories they once dominated.
STORY OF SURVIVAL Andrew Sime, the VP of formats at Banijay Rights, has a different take. “A good format can run and run,” he insists, pointing to Banijay’s trove of mega-brands, which include Survivor, Temptation Island, Fort Boyard and Wife Swap. “All of these have been adapted in numerous territories over the years, but continue to find new audiences. However, it takes hard work and a collaborative approach between the distributor, producer and broadcaster to make sure formats aren’t over-exploited, and to manage and maximize their life span.” For Sime, refreshing a format is, in essence, no different from localizing a format in the first place. “You need to work with a reliable partner who understands the cultural subtleties of their own market to ensure that any evolution in the look and feel of the show works for their audiences.” And with production companies in 16 countries, plus a globe-spanning network of external collaborators, “wherever we’re selling a format, we can be confident we’ve got a good understanding of local audiences and their tastes and can adjust shows according to these requirements,” Sime adds. When it comes to drawing viewers back to a new incarnation of a legacy format, Sime admits there are challenges. “It’s never an easy process,” he says, “but the results can be extraordinary.” In Sime’s view, the key is to find the right combination of local producer and broadcaster—“a partnership
that delivers both a passion for the original format and the skill and instinct needed to update it.” A prime example is RDF Television’s revival of the game show The Crystal Maze, which made a triumphant return to the U.K.’s Channel 4 last year after a 22-year break. Other Banijay formats set to make a comeback include Temptation Island and Wife Swap, which are being remade for USA Network and CMT, respectively, by Banijay Studios North America.
MAKING A COMEBACK “When developing classic formats for a new audience, hosts provide a great opportunity to keep the brand feeling fresh,” Sime says. “You can tweak the target demo, you can tweak the tone and you can tweak the scale by securing the right local host.” But tinkering with a much-loved format is always a gamble. “Any changes need to be properly justified and fully thought through,” Sime adds. “We’re very protective of the integrity of our format brands, but if we trust the producer and believe in their vision, we’re always willing to take a calculated risk in order to reward existing viewers or attract new ones.” In the end, it’s clear that the guardianship of a mega-format is a mega-task in itself. How do you keep your super-brand shiny and appealing as it grows older and, inevitably, wearier? How do you determine whether adjustments made in one market should be rolled out into others? How do you avoid burning your brand, tarnishing your IP and boring fans by not moving with the times—or outraging them and turning a much-loved old friend into a stranger? For Fremantle’s Clark, it comes down to balance, patience and respect. “Always remember that it’s a long game and you’re not playing for quick fixes,” he concludes. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Something that gives you £100 for the next 50 years is worth a lot more than something that gives you £200 for the next two years. These are hugely valuable brands and, if you look after them with care and consideration, they’ll look after you.”
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Global Agency’s In and Out.
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Kristin Brzoznowski investigates what it takes for a game-show format to stand out in today’s marketplace. n a TV landscape awash with dark and complex dramas, and increasingly shocking and stressful news bulletins, the need for shows that can provide heavy doses of hopefulness and fun is supersized. If this escapism also provides an opportunity to get the whole family together, even better! Game shows have long been a draw for broadcasters looking for cost-effective solutions to fill their schedules. And with audiences nowadays clamoring for an entertaining distraction from the hectic world around them, the genre is a veritable jackpot for format distributors. While game shows are particularly hot at the moment, some in the industry would argue that these programs have never really gone out of style. “Game shows is one of the genres that will always be in demand,” says Amos Neumann, COO of Armoza Formats. “Sometimes it varies between more demand for prime-time shows and more demand for access-prime-time or stripped daytime shows, but the demand is always there.” Global Agency’s founder and CEO, Izzet Pinto, agrees that game shows are perennially popular, unlike some of the
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other format genres. “In the past, we have seen declines in [the appetite for] talent shows, but for game shows it’s always quite stable,” he says, adding that budgets are a key factor for broadcasters at present. “If it’s a big game show with a big set that may require a production hub, buyers are staying away from that. Instead, they are mostly looking for cost-effective game shows.” Peppering in some comedy helps add to the allure, Pinto says. Such is the case with Global Agency’s new game show Keep It or Lose It, which features contestants competing for prizes selected from a shopping mall. “There’s a good amount of humor in the show,” he points out. “The questions are usually silly and easy to answer, but the contestants make mistakes. At the end of the show, you see the products they get to keep and the ones they lost. Sometimes we will see the contestants upset and sometimes they’re so cheerful—it’s a great combination.” Maintaining suspense throughout the episode holds the audience’s interest up to the finale as well, Pinto adds. “Some game shows are based on luck and for some, it’s more about knowledge or ability. Either way, up until the last minute, you don’t really know who is going to win, and
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Armoza Formats’ The People’s Choice gets the audience involved by having viewers play at home during the live-TV event.
that creates a lot of excitement, which is a key element for game shows.” Nostalgia is another factor playing into buyers’ wish lists these days, according to Jonathan Tuovinen, COO and head of international at Rabbit Films, which produces a slew of game shows in Finland in addition to distributing its own format and ready-mades catalog. “Relaunching old game shows is still quite a big trend,” he says. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? continues to do super well in Finland. Wheel of Fortune has been brought back, and that’s doing really well. There’s also a local favorite, What’s the Word?, which ran for about 30 years in Finland; Rabbit brought it back this year and relaunched it to great success.”
LOOKING BACK
Another important element of a game show is interaction, Tong adds. “Audiences want something they can get involved in and play along with at home. There is also a real need for something different rather than another lineup of derivative formats with just a slight change of an element or two.” At MIPCOM, Hat Trick is launching Football Genius, which Tong describes as “a physical and visually inspiring game show aimed at a sports-mad audience. It is completely fresh and innovative,” she says.
NEWLY ENGAGED Inter Medya, which recently diversified its catalog with formats alongside its stable of hit Turkish dramas, also has an eye on innovation. “More than ever, we see a tendency toward game shows with an interactive spin as well as a technological twist,” says Can Okan, the company’s founder and CEO. “In this age of technology, interactivity is inevitable for all businesses,” he adds. “It becomes ‘a must’ rather than a preference, since audiences feel more involved when they have the chance to interact. Rather than watching the show as passive viewers, they want to be more active.” This activity can be provided in different ways, suggests Okan, such as answering trivia questions alongside the in-studio contestant or making guesses as to who the winner will be. In addition to interactivity, innovation in the gameshow arena has come in the form of hybrids—combining quiz elements with other genres, such as food, travel and more. Inter Medya, for example, is seeing traction build for The Perfect Couple, a dating reality show that features physical challenges. At MIPCOM, Rabbit is launching the format Don’t You Know Who I Am?, a studio-based game show with a talk-show
Tuovinen continues, “For us, the trend has been to go retro. Relaunches of old favorites are popular with audiences who seem to crave familiar things, things that they saw in their childhood or know from the past. In addition to the people who are big fans of knowledge-based series and want to play along, there is a huge demographic of viewers who want to watch game shows to relax, have a good time and not stress. For that type of viewing, these [classic] formats do a really good job.” He says that when bringing back a classic game show, it’s important for the series to be refreshed or updated a bit. “It could be as simple as changing the host,” he says. “It could be something like changing the set, making it a bit more modern, or maybe slightly changing parts of the format to be more fast-paced and exciting. You can also add in an interactive element; it might be an app that you can play with at home or a website that correlates with the gameplay.” Sarah Tong, director of sales at Hat Trick International, has also taken note of this trend. “There continues to be a lot of demand for remakes of tried-and-tested formats, and there are a lot of older shows still on air,” she says. “Any new game shows need to be truly entertaining, which often means that they are humorous…. It’s humor, plus a lot of fun and silliness that we’re delivering in our new game show The Time It Takes.” The quiz show 19, which Inter Medya sells as a format, is positioned for prime time. 446 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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element and a celebrity spin. The show is set for a weekly run in prime time on Nelonen in Finland. “In most territories, if you want to do a weekly, prime-time game show, it needs to be huge,” says Tuovinen. “You need to have a big studio and a big visual element. There’s no room for mediumsized game shows. If you want to be on in prime time and compete against drama series or hit reality franchises, then either go big or go home.” Tuovinen adds that from a distribution perspective, there’s an entirely different market for access-prime-time game shows that can be stripped daily. “They are still very much [in demand] in France, Spain, southern Europe, Turkey and a lot of other territories,” he says. “For most broadcasters, these are staples of their grid. They fill a huge amount of time in the schedule, and broadcasters know for sure that they’ll get an audience. Coming from a place of risk aversion, you need that in your catalog.”
PLAYING THE SLOTS
The game show What ’s the Word? has been a hit in Finland, and Rabbit Films is bringing the format to MIPCOM.
“Prime time is definitely the focus for game shows,” says Hat Trick’s Tong. “Although, to a lesser degree, there’s certainly a market for daytime or teatime shows, as well as shows for niche channels. Often a format will launch in prime time but needs to be repeatable in daytime, or it may be originally trialed in daytime before moving to prime time.” The key, she adds, is adaptability. “Most of our game shows are designed for prime time,” says Inter Medya’s Okan, pointing to the quizbased formats 19 and 1 vs. 10. “Our catalog also consists of reality shows that cover both daily and weekly strips such as The Perfect Couple and Oasis. We strongly believe that it’s advantageous to have a variety of genres that are adaptable to different time slots.” Global Agency is also a proponent of formats having scheduling flexibility. Keep It or Lose It, for example, has played in prime time in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Brazil. “But if it was produced in France or Germany, I can see it as an access-prime daily show,” says Pinto. He also believes that for a game show to travel widely, there should be flexibility within the budget. Tweaking the set is one way this can be achieved. “Using the same games, you can make a set with an audience of a thousand people for a bigger show or make it with a very small set, or even have it take place outdoors, to have a less expensive project,” says Pinto. “Most of the cost comes with the set; if you play with that, the budget can become bigger or smaller.” Armoza Formats’ Neumann agrees that scalability in game shows is largely related to the set. “You can make it bigger or smaller without changing the essence of the gameplay,” he says. “Look at Who’s Asking?: in India, it was a huge production, with Bollywood stars and a massive studio. Meanwhile, in Thailand it was a relatively small production, and the Swiss adaptation took a middle road. The show is at almost 500 episodes now.” However, in some cases, the grand scale of the set is what makes a game show unique. This is where creating a centralized production hub can be particularly useful to help with the costs, Neumann says. “If the set is something that you’re saying to the clients is ‘a must, you have to do it big,’ you should provide a hub. But if you allow your broadcasters to scale it up or down according to their needs, then the hub is less necessary.” Armoza Formats had a hub in Belgium for Still Standing that served as the home for the Belgian version as well as a French version and a pilot for Africa. Neumann says that a big part of the attraction with game shows is that these series have the potential to become long-running hits. “Especially 448 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Hat Trick’s Football Genius is a game show that features sportsrelated questions.
in these days of fragmentation, broadcasters are looking for loyalty,” he says. “If you can get a franchise that works for a long time, rather than just a one-off, you can achieve a strong following and viewer loyalty.”
MONEY TALKS And the longer a show is on the air, the better it can amortize costs. “With a game show, the main cost is the set and the décor; this is an expense that is spent only once,” explains Global Agency’s Pinto. “When you produce more episodes, you will divide the cost into that number, so it will shrink. For a well-run show, as long as it’s a success, the cost keeps getting smaller.” Along with being a cost-effective proposition, game shows have the ability to create noise for a network and make for watercooler fodder. Pinto recalls how a silly answer on the Turkish version of Keep It or Lose It became a national sensation. “Millions of people watched [the clip] and were laughing at it,” he says. “You’re able to get these viral moments, and it really helps the show to be watched by more people.” “For the big prime-time shows, they can be something that defines a channel or a brand,” adds Rabbit’s Tuovinen. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in Finland was the highest-rated show of all time on Nelonen, which is the second-biggest commercial channel in the country. It’s the most important show that they produce on the whole channel. Shows like that can definitely take your channel to new heights.” To have that strong hook, though, a game show needs a special element to stand out from the competition, he says. “Whether it’s a very strong visual component or a really, really big cash prize, you need something that will grab people’s attention. In the last couple of years, we’ve been seeing more shows with an interactive element.” Tuovinen believes the marketplace will be seeing more and more of that in the future. “There have been several attempts at interactive game shows that have reached various levels of success,” he says. “I applaud those; they’re not easy to make. The technology doesn’t always
catch up with the production, but it’s only a matter of time before one of the interactive formats really breaks through.” In Tuovinen’s opinion, “interactivity is great, but I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. Sometimes part of the fun of watching a game show is shouting at the screen and thinking that you know the answers, instead of actually having to play the game,” he says. “Especially in shows where the tempo is very fast, it can be stressful for a viewer to try to play along or to answer the questions at the same time as the contestants in the studio. In some cases, they just prefer to enjoy the viewing experience. Part of the fun of watching a game show is to learn something by having other people answer the questions.”
PLACING BETS Armoza Formats’ Neumann believes that the next wave of game shows will allow the audience to feel like they can change the course of the show while it’s still airing. “It’s not just about voting or playing along; I’m talking about real interactivity,” he says. “This is a huge challenge for creatives. Game shows are highly edited. It’s very hard to do them live, but it’s not impossible and is very rewarding when it’s done right.” The People’s Choice, part of the Armoza Formats catalog, provides an opportunity for the viewers watching at home to insert their points of view and their answers live while the game is being played, and this determines the trajectory of the episode itself. “We’ll begin to see this type of engagement more often, and it will also be taken even further in the future,” Neumann says. He also sees prospects for OTT and digital players to up their game when it comes to these types of shows. “At the moment, it’s not their first choice of content, but it can work,” says Neumann. “When the content is compelling enough, the platforms will want it. Just like with traditional broadcasters, the benefits of game shows [for OTT platforms] are the same: the cost-effectiveness and the potential for many episodes—it’s a win-win situation. You can get great production value and great audience loyalty, all for a reasonable expense.”
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Twofour Rights’ What Would Your Kid Do?
Formats featuring children are popular in familyoriented prime-time slots. By Joanna Padovano Tong hows demonstrating the comedic wisdom of children—from variety series to sitcoms to home-video compilations—have been ratings winners for decades. As of late, a new subset of formats has emerged with kids placed front and center—dancing, singing, cooking and endearing themselves to prime-time viewers across the globe. “Viewers like the honest, upfront reactions that you get from kids,” says Harry Gamsu, the VP of non-scripted at Red Arrow Studios International. “In shows like Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, kids are incredibly loving, caring and also really funny. It’s difficult to get honest reactions on television and children do that.” Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds is a social experiment that first aired on Channel 4 in the U.K. The show, which recently won an Edinburgh TV Award in the category of best popular factual series, sends youngsters into care homes for senior citizens. “There are loads of positive effects on the older people, who become more mobile, sociable and their happiness levels increase,” says Gamsu. Other prime-time formats in the Red Arrow catalog involving kids include Don’t Stop the Music, which addresses the diminishing presence of music education in schools, and A Star Is Born, spotlighting talented youngsters. “There is always an interest in formats featuring kids for prime-time slots,” says Nick Tanner, the director of sales
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and co-productions at Passion Distribution, which launched The Class Next Door (also known as Class of Mum and Dad) during MIPCOM 2017 and will be introducing Postcode Playdates this year. The Class Next Door looks on as a group of parents are sent back to school, with their children in the classroom adjacent to them. Postcode Playdates sees neighbors from different social statuses invite each other’s children into their homes. Both hail from Firecracker for Channel 4 in the U.K.
CHILD’S PLAY “These shows take the format out of the studios and into real life,” Tanner says. “They provide entertaining, thoughtful and at times moving viewing for the family. With humor as well as relatable scenarios, they appeal to audiences of all ages.” Twofour Rights distributes What Would Your Kid Do?, an entertainment format in which parents attempt to predict how their little ones will respond to a range of psychological tests. What Would Your Kid Do? originated on ITV earlier this year and is being adapted in Turkey and Hungary, with a second installment in the works for the U.K. It also has a significant digital presence via the What Would Your Kid Do? YouTube channel. “Children make formats all-inclusive for viewers,” says Holly Hodges, the head of sales operations and a VP of sales at Twofour Rights. “Family-based shows with children at the core deliver value and ratings for broadcasters globally.”
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Passion is shopping the format rights to Class of Mum and Dad, which originated on Channel 4.
Indeed, in a television landscape that’s overpopulated with dark dramas and nonstop disheartening news coverage, it’s refreshing for families to still be able to sit down together to watch feel-good programming. Even competition formats featuring children are much more lighthearted than their harsher adult counterparts.
LET THERE BE LIGHT “The days of very negative shows, especially around talent and judging people, are numbered,” says Red Arrow’s Gamsu. “We’ve seen the growth of much more positive shows.” The musical talent contest Master Class, which is part of Keshet International’s catalog, boasts the tagline: “A show full of heart, and no heartbreak!” Keren Shahar, the company’s COO and president of distribution, notes, “There is no ruthlessness, desperation or despair, only the excitement and delight of seeing brilliant, fresh, young talent offering new interpretations of songs that are a heritage of that country.” Originating in Israel, Master Class has been licensed for local versions in China, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Uruguay, among other countries. The show not only resonates around the world, it can also be enjoyed by viewers of all ages, according to Shahar. “It crosses generations—kids love it, their parents love it and their grandparents love it. Even teenagers and young adults who don’t have kids love this show.” However, in order for the same concept to work well in various territories, there are many factors to take into consideration. For Master Class, “all local adaptations remain true to the essence of the format,” says Shahar. “The whole set-up of the format is designed to allow a positive experience for the kids. We will not see a child crying on this show unless it’s from excitement—never from rejection. There are only positive scores, from good to excellent. And there are no eliminations. The drama comes from the performances themselves and the experiences the children go through.”
But adaptations don’t have to keep every detail exactly the same. “There are adjustments in order to adapt the format to the local culture or to diversify in advanced seasons,” adds Shahar. “In China, for example, Beijing Satellite TV wanted [Master Class] to be a class competition rather than one featuring individuals, and in Uruguay, Teledoce opted for families.” The amount of leeway for changes depends on the type of show that is being remade. “Easier formats can be adapted to fit the local market while still staying true to their core structure,” says Red Arrow’s Gamsu. “Old People’s Home is a social experiment, so most of those versions will have the same starting point. But as with all social experiments, we don’t really know where it’s going to go; what makes it so engaging is that the results will vary country by country.” Gamsu continues: “On the other hand, the more formatted studio talent shows like A Star Is Born are a little bit more rigid in how they’re structured. What we’re selling there is essentially the know-how to produce it and the track record of producing these kinds of shows, which is important not just to ensure a really great show, but also, with kids involved, to ensure their care and safety.” Other important factors for successful adaptations of formats featuring kids are easy-to-explain concepts that don’t cost an exorbitant amount of money for local producers to execute. “It’s the simple, universal ideas that travel,” says Twofour’s Hodges. She notes that broadcasters come to her company for mid-priced entertainment and that What Would Your Kid Do? “has the value of being much more affordable” when compared to bigger-budget prime-time entertainment formats.
KID GLOVES So how do kids affect the filming process? “When it comes to children, you always have to be extra cautious and expect the unexpected,” says Shahar. “A lot of thought went into developing [Master Class] by the team at Tedy Productions as well as Keshet in order to make sure the kids featured in it are nurtured and protected throughout production and beyond. This took time, and only when everyone agreed that this goal had been achieved was the show actually greenlit.” “Local production practices vary territory by territory, so you’ve got to be aware of that,” notes Gamsu. “You have to give a certain amount of leeway to local producers, who know the rules best in their territories.” While kids may make production slightly more complicated, it’s usually worth the reward. “Children are special to film with,” says Hodges. “How can you not be laughing at some of the things they say, their inquisitive minds and their understanding of right and wrong?”
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and then meeting the families and then overnight dates and then the finale. When I sold the show at first, it was only six one-hours. So the beats were: [introductions on] night one, group dates and single dates in episode two, mostly oneon-one dates in episode three, episode four was the hometowns and episode five was the overnight date and then episode six was the finale. So when I was treating it as a sixepisode arc, those beats were just natural. The first night is the first date, the finale is the finale, two and three had random dating stuff and the rest was much more structured. Now that we do 22 hours, there’s a lot more of everything. TV FORMATS: It seems like such a simple, clever idea—why do you think it was so hard to sell at first? FLEISS: You say people look at this as something that has the natural structure as a format, but people fought me on that initially. They thought, How the hell are you going to get one guy to go through all those dates? Is it speed dating? No one wants to watch that. I said, No, no, no! It’s going to be marathon dating. You’re going to go on one date and then another one. People talk about good formats being simple and repeatable. Even my own studio, Warner Bros., didn’t see this as simple and repeatable. They liked formats like Love Connection in this space. I thought ultimately this would become very repeatable. TV FORMATS: Has the casting approach changed over the years? FLEISS: I don’t think it’s changed too much. We still want sexy and sincere. That’s my Aaron Spelling-derived mantra,
By Mansha Daswani
Dating shows have been a television staple since the 1960s, but none have redefined and reinvigorated the genre more than The Bachelor. Created by Mike Fleiss, the show has been a mainstay of the ABC schedule since 2002 and has spawned a number of hit spin-offs, among them The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise and The Bachelor Winter Games. And the concept has not only taken hold in the U.S.; Warner Bros. International Television Production has rolled the format out to a slew of international markets, among them the U.K.— where The Bachelor is returning to Channel 5 after a seven-year hiatus—Australia, Canada, France, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam and more. Fleiss tells TV Formats about how the show has evolved and weighs in on why it’s become a pop-culture phenomenon. TV FORMATS: How did you craft the pillars of The Bachelor that ultimately made it such a compelling and adaptable format for broadcasters across the globe? FLEISS: [In the U.S.] it didn’t sell right away. I took it everywhere, everybody passed. It took a year and a half to get someone to agree to do it and then that network passed. So in round two, I took it back [to ABC]. I wanted to mirror the stages of an actual relationship: first impression, first date, more romance down the road, then some physical connection
first sexy, then sincere, or sincere, then sexy. Do we always get that? No, but we’re always looking for it, not just in the lead but in the 25 [love interests] as well. It’s not the casting that has changed; it’s the cast. The advent of social media and its dominance in culture today has changed the way young people—I can say that now, I’ve been doing it for so long!— approach the show. They’re so much more comfortable in front of the camera and exposing their potentially vulnerable side. From a sociological standpoint that’s been the most fascinating thing to watch. In season one it felt impossible. Nobody understood what we were doing. “Why would I do [a show like this]? It’s so humiliating.” It was really, really hard to find the right kind of people to be on the show the first time. Now we have 600 people show up to an open casting in Illinois! So the casting is different in that we’re sifting through a lot more applicants than we did before. TV FORMATS: Talk about the evolution of the franchise, from The Bachelorette onwards. FLEISS: The Bachelorette was a back-channel promise to ABC so we could mitigate some of the cries of misogyny in The Bachelor format. It was always part of the plan if the
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show worked. Then we were thinking, we create all these celebrities on the show and then once they’re off the show we just say goodbye to them, yet the tabloids are still following them. We kept seeing former cast members show up in articles in In Touch Weekly, Us Weekly and People. So there was still an interest in these people who are part of our Bachelor family. We had to figure out some way of keeping them in our universe. So Rob Mills [senior VP of alternative series, specials and late night at ABC] and I wanted to create a show for those supporting cast members who were still interesting to the general public. We knew we wanted to keep it in the love area. So we created Bachelor Pad, which had a game element. Ultimately, I felt like the game element was overwhelming the love element, the relationship element. I had always argued that money corrupted the concept with Bachelor Pad. So I wanted to think of another show, without the prize money, another way to spin it—that’s what became Bachelor in Paradise. The key to Bachelor in Paradise was the tonal shift. We made it much more comedic. The way that happened was, we had that crazy incident with a cast member who was having an affair with one of the audio guys. We snuck up on him and he jumped out of the window [to avoid being caught] and broke both his ankles. Chris Harrison [the host] and I were at dinner and were getting reports of this crazy stuff as an emergency production issue. We have an injured crew member, a troubled cast member—pre-production headaches. Chris joked, Hey, we should reenact that. I said, That’s exactly what we’re going to do! The director came to me and said, How do you want this to look? I gave him a one-word answer: terrible. That’s what it was! We did the worst, cheesiest reenactment. It was terrible, by design. It had everyone laughing on the set. Most of the time [The Bachelor] is emotional. There are more tears than laughter, even among the crew. But that night everyone was laughing. So we said, This is the tone for the show. Let’s make sure the romance is romantic and deep, but the rest of the show should have a comedic feel to it. That was very liberating to the cast, and certainly to the production [crew], which deals in melodrama and romance nine months of the year. Bachelor in Paradise offered us a chance to break out of the tonal prison and do something different. And the audience loved it. They loved the cheeky approach to the material. And then we did Winter Games because the network needed something crazy to go up against the Winter Olympics on NBC. We were talking about doing a winter version of Bachelor in Paradise, but I didn’t feel good about that. I didn’t want to overuse the Bachelor in Paradise brand. But I said I would do an Olympics parody with the international cast members from all the territories that do The Bachelor. We didn’t get all of them, for different reasons—visa reasons, Trump reasons—but it was still a fun show to make.
FLEISS: Every year or year and a half we have these international symposiums. It sounds very prestigious, but it’s just a bunch of us Bachelor producers getting together to talk about casting and storylines and format devices. We share our secrets; they share their secrets. It mostly comes down to the differences in each culture. In Germany or Switzerland or Sweden [audiences] couldn’t care less if there’s an engagement at the end. In the U.S., the engagement is key. People will say, It’s bullshit that they didn’t get married! It makes everyone angry. And some of the territories have more risqué standards and practices, so they can get away with more sensuality. That’s been fun to watch. The show does really well in a lot of different countries. TV FORMATS: Is there an adaptation that you’ve particularly enjoyed or that surprised you in terms of how different it was from the American version? FLEISS: They all do certain things differently. One of the territories did a worst impression rose. I didn’t really understand that. There was another with a white rose, which meant you had immunity for two episodes. A lot of the territories don’t use a host. We have the great Chris Harrison. And a lot of them do their OTFs [on-the-fly interviews] in more of an on-the-go fashion, while they are walking or leaning against a wall or eating a sandwich. Everybody has their little differences, but it’s mostly the same show. It’s 95 percent exactly the same. TV FORMATS: My sisters are obsessed with The Bachelor! FLEISS: I live in Hawaii, the northernmost island, Kauai. There’s a beach that you can only hike to; it’s six miles of hiking in and six miles of hiking out. There are viewing parties on Kauai called Marry Me Mondays, and people get together and watch The Bachelor. Some women will leave their campgrounds [on the beach] and hike out six miles to watch The Bachelor and hike back in the next day. It’s really treacherous! That’s my favorite story [about Bachelor fans].
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Warner Bros. has inked format deals for The Bachelor in markets across the globe, including in Australia.
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Some of the biggest, best-known entertainment formats in the world have long had a place on ABC in the U.S. The Disney-owned network launched The Bachelor, now a global staple and significant reality franchise with multiple spin-offs, in 2002. It was among the first networks to adapt the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, launching Dancing with the Stars in 2005. Shark Tank, based on a Japanese format, is in its tenth season this fall. And since the beginning of this year, ABC has been home to American Idol, rebooted on the network after a long stint on FOX. Robert Mills, ABC’s senior VP of alternative series, specials and late-night programming, speaks to TV Formats about franchise management, global trends and keeping an eye on what’s new and innovative in the genre. By Mansha Daswani TV FORMATS: Why did you feel American Idol was a good fit for ABC? MILLS: Not only is it a good fit for ABC, but it’s also a good fit for Disney. At the heart of everything that Disney and, by extension, ABC do are great storytelling, people you care about fulfilling their dreams and great music. American Idol felt like it fit us like a glove. And if you look at our brand of alternative programming with Shark Tank and Dancing with the Stars and even The Bachelor—although that’s less four-quadrant—these are stories about great journeys. It’s kind of a roller coaster, but at the end, the heroes have overcome adversity and there’s a lot of celebration. When we first started talking to Fremantle, it was fascinating how excited they were at the prospect. They really felt Idol, in its bones, felt like an ABC show. TV FORMATS: I know it’s a large-scale production to stage. What were some of the significant lessons from ABC’s first season that you can bring to next year’s edition? MILLS: The advantage we had was we had partners in Fremantle who knew this show inside and out, especially Cecile [Frot-Coutaz, former CEO], who was really close to it and always offered advice and counsel. They knew what worked, and that was helpful. We all went in with this mindset: it’s really about the contestants. When you care about these contestants, you care about the show. And when you don’t, it’s hard to get people to go on this journey. We’re talking about 38 hours of television [per season]. The biggest thing we want to do now for season two is look at how to make those stories even more emotionally resonant. What’s great about it is we have a truly magical judging panel. I’ve done enough of these shows to know that sometimes it just doesn’t work. It’s like making a cocktail, you have to get all the ingredients right. And these three [Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan] absolutely believe in this show. They’ve all been offered every other music show under the sun, and they truly believe in Idol because they know it’s about the process and it’s not them in competition with each other but instead working together. Now that they are comfortable in their roles, they’re going to be taking it to the next level. I said to Lionel that if season one is Lionel Richie, which was a big hit album, season two is going to be Can’t Slow Down, which was a huge hit album. That’s
what this feels like. We all know what we’re doing, we know it works, and we’re going to make it even bigger and better. TV FORMATS: The Bachelor has become such a pop-culture phenomenon. Why do you think it’s been able to build in popularity season after season? MILLS: We thought these things have life cycles the way comedies and dramas do. But we’ve seen from the really good, rock-solid reality formats, whether it’s Survivor, The Bachelor, Idol or Dancing with the Stars, that they can last forever if you take care of them. You have the familiarity of the format and then you’re basically rebooting it every season with a new cast. So if you do it right, you can have these things last for as long as you want them to. When The Bachelor started, it was this novel idea of a person who nobody would have a chance to date in real life, somebody who was very wealthy and unattainable, dating these women. That worked because it was so different. And then it wore off; we were airing it twice a year, so it felt like it was always on. Two things helped [turn the ratings around]. One was we started airing it once a year, so it felt more special, and the other thing was using people from prior seasons. So it was like a soap opera, where you see a character who maybe was back burner go front burner. It was somebody you already liked and somebody who the people on the show, whether the women on The Bachelor or the men on The Bachelorette, knew and were interested in getting to know better. They already have an investment in this person. And you’re now able to have somebody be the Bachelor who is just a regular person; it doesn’t have to be somebody who is the heir to a vast fortune or a Harvard-educated businessman. Also, the rise of social media has made the audience the silent producer. We’re all in it together. When somebody says on Twitter, “I want X to be the next Bachelor,” they feel like their voice is being heard. That’s unique to any broadcast TV show. TV FORMATS: I’m curious about the management of that particular franchise. Once you started extending with The Bachelorette and Winter Games and other shows, were you ever concerned about taking away from the popularity of the original?
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anywhere and those seats are theirs as long as they want them. But Shark Tank is a little bit like Saturday Night Live, where the core of the show is fantastic, and it’s about making sure that if for some reason somebody wants to leave, you can still do it. So we’re always putting in new people and it makes the show fresh as well. And it’s interesting to see them interact with different people. As long as you have a Shark that is complementary and isn’t filling the same bucket [as another one], then it’s made for great TV. This is our tenth season and it’s some of the best episodes we’ve ever done. One of the Sharks [in the new season] was an entrepreneur who pitched [a product] that ended up becoming Ring [a security system]. He’s now a Shark himself. He sat in and was fantastic. To me, that is the essence of Shark Tank. That’s the dream. We never would have thought when we started this show ten years ago that this would happen.
Fremantle’s American Idol returns for a second season on ABC in 2019.
MILLS: No, because we’ve taken such care with it. It’s a 24hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year job. We talk with Mike Fleiss [creator of The Bachelor] several times a day about every single one of these franchises. There’s so much care taken in making them different, that’s why it works. You can apply The Bachelor to almost anything and make it work. Bachelor Winter Games was a title, and then we somehow figured out how to retrofit it into something that feels like The Bachelor franchise, and many say it was one of the best things we’d ever done. I think as long as we’re careful with it, there’s no end to how long it will go and what we can do with it. TV FORMATS: We have to talk about Shark Tank. It’s one of the very few shows that my sister watches with her kids every week. MILLS: I’m on a call every day telling somebody it’s our most coviewed show, along with America’s Funniest Home Videos. And we get more requests from people asking for their kids to go for on-set visits. It is such a point of pride that this is something that kids are watching, enjoying and learning from. We’re somehow getting them to eat their vegetables without them knowing it. They know all these business terms now! It’s great, and it makes you hopeful—we’ve got these kids who are growing up to be budding entrepreneurs. TV FORMATS: You’ve got some new guest Sharks coming up this season. How do you determine how much you can experiment with the lineup of investors? MILLS: We love our core Sharks. Hopefully, they’re not going
TV FORMATS: Your other big returning juggernaut is Dancing with the Stars. How have you kept that format fresh, and what’s been the approach to casting each season? MILLS: It such a hard show to cast. There are only so many celebrities—although we now live in a world where we make celebrities every day. But it is difficult. We have enough collective muscle mass over 27 seasons that we know it’s about the mix. I talked about it with Idol’s judges and making that cocktail. There are so many great stories—redemption stories, discovery stories, all these things you need. The important thing is making sure you’ve got all those buckets filled for a successful season of Dancing. If you watched an episode from the first season, it wouldn’t look anything like this season. The Bachelor is like that too. And Shark Tank as well. You’ve always got to continue to evolve these shows. They can’t live in vacuums. Dancing is another one too that we’ve found little ways to keep making it feel more current and different, but still holding on to those core philosophies that you had from the beginning of the show.
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TV FORMATS: ABC has renewed its Sunday night lineup of classic game shows for summer 2019. How did that deal with Fremantle come about? MILLS: It was a happy accident! Steve Harvey had been doing Family Feud in syndication. And I watched it and these episodes were electric, you saw [clips] going viral. I just knew there was something there. When I started heading up this group, literally the first call I made was to Steve’s agent, and said, I want to figure out how we do this in prime time. He was immediately receptive. It took a little bit of doing for Fremantle. They didn’t want to water down how successful it had been in syndication. I totally respected that. I can’t say enough about what great partners Fremantle have been. They listened to me and took a chance on it. We did one season of Celebrity Family Feud and it worked out better than we could have dreamed. And then, ironically, Michael Strahan expressed interest in doing a new version of Pyramid (which is from Sony, not Fremantle). And we thought, this is the perfect pairing for Family Feud and Michael is the perfect host for it. And then a light bulb went off and we said, What if we did a three-hour [game-show] block? That’s when Match Game, the quintessential 10 p.m. show, came about. And Fremantle really worked with us and we all agreed we weren’t going to do it unless we found the right host. That old saying, Luck is when preparation meets inspiration? The fact that we got Alec Baldwin to say yes was such a coup. He’s been great. That’s how the ball got rolling on this. I’ve been so lucky. I’m as proud of these shows as anything I’ve done here. They make people happy. A lot of us grew up watching these shows. The fact that people say we’ve done right by them is the biggest compliment I could possibly get. TV FORMATS: How much do you track what’s happening in the non-scripted space internationally? Are you looking at new imported format concepts? MILLS: Absolutely. That’s the lifeblood of this business. That’s how these all started. The one format that is domestic
that has been a juggernaut is The Bachelor; everything else comes from international. I’ve been around this business—I was at CAA in 2000 and then came here—and the world has gotten so much smaller because we can all communicate with each other. It’s so much easier to find these things now. It’s fascinating to see what’s working and what isn’t. The biggest thing is finding things that are new. You have formats that are not going anywhere. What is the newest thing? What is the evolution of these shows? You have to look to see what’s working abroad. TV FORMATS: How do you see the health of the unscripted landscape at present? And what innovations are you excited about? MILLS: I think the state of reality TV is as strong as it’s ever been. Certainly broadcast is the one place where it’s thriving. For scripted it’s difficult because you’re competing with streamers and cable. It truly is the golden age of TV. When shows like Survivor and Idol and Bachelor started with massive, Super Bowl-type numbers, it led everyone to think that this was going to happen forever. Nothing lasts that long. And it’s the attrition rate of TV in general. The pie has gotten so big. But these are still among the biggest hits on TV. If I went on the street and asked ten people about The Bachelor, seven of them would be able to have a conversation with me about it. There are some exciting things [to come]—I don’t know what they are exactly—in live TV. One of the things that we did with Idol that I loved was a simulcast nationwide on our live shows. Everyone can vote at the same time, and to me, that was exciting, and that was a boundary that had never been [crossed]. No one thought it could be in broadcast TV. You’ve seen what the HQ app has done as a live game that everyone plays. Is there an interactive alternative show that can be done? People have been trying to crack it for years. I don’t know if they can, but that’s exciting to think about, that there’s undiscovered territory there.
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The Bachelorette is an extension of Warner Bros.’s wildly successful The Bachelor dating reality format.
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By Mansha Daswani
The number of registered formats in the Endemol Shine Group portfolio stands at more than 4,300, many of which hail from its network of 120 companies in 20-plus markets. They run the gamut from mega-brands like MasterChef and Big Brother to emerging formats like All Together Now. Peter Salmon, as the chief creative officer at Endemol Shine, has been championing All Together Now since its inception; a bet that has paid off with a series of high-profile deals on the format since its launch earlier this year. A veteran of the British broadcasting and production sectors, Salmon has been with Endemol Shine for the last two years, fostering creativity across its global footprint of producers. He tells TV Formats about managing global hits and taking bets on new ideas. TV FORMATS: Tell us about your role across the broad network of Endemol Shine Group companies. SALMON: I try to conduct the Endemol Shine orchestra. I don’t play any instruments myself, as we’ve got great people who do that all over the world. We have 120 companies in over 20 countries, [making] 800 productions which air in 70plus territories. We are all doing the same thing—making shows. We try to help teams work in the best possible environment. They do what they do and we try to connect the dots. The beauty of our business, the simplicity of it, is that 98 percent of everything we do is about telling great stories on video. So, the scripted network of producers all have the same challenges finding great writers and original storylines
and ideas and figuring out the new global platforms they’re increasingly working for. The same goes for non-scripted— the teams are looking at new format trends, cultural changes and social-policy issues and then how they can respond quickly to what may be in the zeitgeist. That’s a common thread right across the piece, from Brazil to Australia, from Stockholm to Los Angeles—our producers are talented people doing much the same thing and some are even working on the same shows. It could be MasterChef, it could be Big Brother, it could be All Together Now, it could be Pointless, it could be Bron. The wonderful thing is that we’re all involved in the same enterprise, which is inventing, developing, selling and distributing great programs. When you strip it back, though it can seem quite big, global and overwhelming on the surface, it’s a very simple idea. TV FORMATS: What do you keep an eye on when determining which shows have the greatest opportunity to be formatted in multiple markets? SALMON: The brilliant thing about operating in over 20 countries is that we have lots of on-the-ground R&D. Our teams offer a stunning feedback loop for us in the group as to how broadcasters are changing, how newer platforms are developing and what commissioning teams are looking for. We piece that intelligence together, we absorb the trades and we try to spot trends. We have a sense of what the world feels like at any
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one time and we have a series of global conversations about programs, from crime to dating, music to makeovers. When I started here two years ago I said, We’re this extraordinary global powerhouse, but we don’t have a new talent music-entertainment show. When we put out the call, Remarkable in the U.K. emerged with All Together Now. That show is now in eight territories and rising; we have new deals about to be signed. The Endemol Shine creative machine responded to the call brilliantly. We’re really good at food and have at least 100 food titles in our archive. We’re also the MasterChef people. People always ask us about making MasterChef, but we can only sell it to one platform in each territory. So what else are we going to do? The remarkable Fennessys [Mark and Carl] in Australia came up with Family Food Fight. The group got behind their new food format and it’s now away in America and Argentina, plus other territories are close to commissions. So, we look at areas where we feel we’re not up to scratch. And then we also look at areas where we think we’re rather good, because you shouldn’t overlook what you’re good at as well and double down [on it]. In the search for a global hit, let’s not overlook local proof of concept. Can you make something a hit in its own territory? All Together Now had to become a hit on the BBC in the U.K. before it could become a hit somewhere else. That’s delivering proof of concept with a demanding audience, and is important to us and to the markets that then want to buy it. TV FORMATS: Why do you think it was able to cut through in such a crowded space so quickly? SALMON: It works because it’s a joyful, euphoric experience wrapped in a fun concept—the 100 vote with their feet! It’s a big party show. If you look outside the U.K. at the series we’ve made in Brazil, it looks like Carnival every night in that studio. It forces you to interact, join in, get up and sing along, shout at the TV. It’s got those key elements and music is a beautiful, universal thing. The songs too are often ones that we all know—they are part of the global jukebox. And it’s not cynical in any way; we’re not trying to put anybody down. Just the reverse, it feels uplifting. The world has some amazing music-entertainment brands, from The X Factor to The Voice, but we also felt that they were all getting on a little bit, and at some point, one of them might falter. We needed to have a piece in the marketplace that could at least be a challenger. So, to be in eight markets in eight months is amazing. It promises a lot and we have some promising deals to come. The Talent Project is another music-entertainment piece that we loved and spotted way back. It’s coming to fruition now in the Netherlands. It’s going to be sitting in the same bit of the schedule that The Voice occupied previously, but it’s got a different approach to music and entertainment.
producers get together to showcase the good things and discuss the challenging things. But equally, we began the All Together Now process with brand management in place. We said, right from the outset, we’re going to attempt to create a global brand. With The Talent Project, we did something similar. More and more we are saying, Let’s begin the process as if this show is going to be on air for ten years. Let’s get communications, marketing, digital, the production teams themselves, all the key stakeholders [in front of] the key broadcasters in a unified fashion so we can all support what we’re launching. MasterChef is a perfect example of a well-managed global brand, but we are also super aware of local sensitivities. We love the fact that anywhere around the world, it’s most definitely MasterChef—wearing the same suit of clothes. But how it operates inside that suit of clothes is often very different [from market to market]. I was at our Copenhagen MasterChef summit recently. All of the MasterChef producers from around the group came to talk about what they are doing, what their key challenges are, what they’re most proud of and the different cultural tonalities [between markets]. In the U.S., [audiences] love strong, edgy competition and the judges are superstars. It’s the judges slugging it out, and it’s less about the actual food per se. The cooking remains important, but there is conflict or chemistry between the characters on that show and the warfare between the judges is what appeals to viewers. In Spain or Australia or Sweden, it’s much more about the emotion they invest in the cooking, about the local quirks. Each of these local formats has to have its own voice and speaks in a vernacular, in its own idiom, to stress things the producers on the ground feel are important for the conversation with their own audience. So it’s a balance, all over the world. In the case of MasterChef, one of the best-managed brands in the world and the best-traveling food format, I think we get it just right.
TV FORMATS: How do you maintain the momentum on your big returning brands? SALMON: We have strong managers of our key formats and, crucially, we have them for emerging formats as well. So, Big Brother and MasterChef have support [at the] group level and 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 463
Shine TV in the U.K. is producing Heist, a new factualentertainment format, for Sky.
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Since its launch on BBC One in the U.K., All Together Now has secured deals in Brazil and Australia, among other territories.
TV FORMATS: What role do you see entertainment shows playing on the OTT services? SALMON: There’s enormous potential. I don’t think it’s been fully realized yet. The OTTs are on the hunt. They’ve launched and been successful with some smart reboots like Queer Eye and originals like Nailed It! [both on Netflix]. We’re having lots of conversations now about our back catalog too. We have some gorgeous shows in the archive, from Wipeout to Beauty and the Geek, that have huge brand recognition. People know them, so they’re easy to launch and you can rethink them for a new era. And then we’re learning things ourselves on the job. We rebooted Operación Triunfo [Star Academy], the big entertainment show, in Spain. It was a multiplatform reboot, working with the public-service broadcaster RTVE, who wanted to reach a millennial audience. We put together a platform for YouTube highlights, a 14-hour live stream, and we worked with an OTT player. [We wanted to deliver] easy mobile access for that younger generation. We also wanted live interaction with the [contestants]. We’ve started to think more about that OTT model and how we can offer it to those FAANG services as well as linear broadcasters who are desperate to retain and attract younger audiences. There are a lot of great things happening in the entertainment space. We’ve always been strong in this space and we aim to build. TV FORMATS: What are some of your entertainment highlights for MIPCOM? SALMON: We’re certainly bringing our big three recent priority launches, which, remarkably, are all recommissioned and all traveling. Big Bounce Battle is the big physical entertainment show on trampolines in that Wipeout mold. We launched it in Germany, based on a Dutch piece of IP. We now also have it placed in France and there will be more announcements before the market. It’s a fun new entertainment format. All Together Now will be back at the market, of course. And Family Food Fight, which is
moving into a bunch of new markets too. Our triple-header! We have newer pieces too, like The Talent Project, coming through. But also another fact-ent stunner. Shine in the U.K. is really good at crafting beautiful factualentertainment formats like Hunted and The Island. We have a new one that Sky loves in the U.K. called Heist. That’s another innovative entertainment format—being made with groundbreaking tech, which is very important to us too. We’ve been introducing a lot of new tech around the group. We’ve got at least one additional territory that is already going to make Heist and it’s not even aired yet. TV FORMATS: We have to talk about scripted as well. SALMON: Yes, please! Non-scripted is the workhorse of the group—it’s probably 70 percent of our business—but in the last two years scripted has become mega for us, whether it’s Broadchurch or Bron or Black Mirror or Peaky Blinders. We’re thrilled that some of our biggest brands are now enjoyed on global platforms or are being remade for them, like Utopia for Amazon. We’re also remaking The Fall in France, which will air this autumn as Insoupçonnable. A lot of people can’t pull off the remaking of scripted formats, but we’ve become quite adept at it, alongside making new and original scripted for the world. Bron from Sweden taught us a lot about that and we’ve now adapted it in five territories, our first in Asia too. So we have some very good models in the group. We’re very, very proud of scripted, so look out for a new season of Peaky Blinders, now in preproduction. There’s more Black Mirror—again, look out, world! We’re also making The Good Karma Hospital out in Sri Lanka at the moment. Finally, Kudos is back, making Deep Water in the U.K., for ITV. The scripted phenomenon shows no sign of abating, which we’re grateful for on a daily basis. Long may it last!
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EXECUTIVE BRIEFING
espite its modest beginnings in 1983 as a company with only two cable channels in the U.S., A+E Networks has evolved through the decades into a global content creator. It is home to some of the best-known brands in the U.S. and around the world, including A&E, HISTORY and Lifetime. It offers scripted and unscripted programming on linear and digital platforms, which cumulatively reach 335 million people worldwide. Telling compelling stories, whether factual or fictional, has been the lifeblood of A+E Networks. Consequently, owning IP and working with A-list creators have been top priorities for the company. Paul Buccieri, who first joined the company in 2015 to head up A&E and HISTORY and then took charge of A+E Studios and management of the entire portfolio of brands, was named the president of A+E Networks in July of this year. He now oversees all of the company’s divisions, including ad sales, distribution, digital media, consumer products, A+E Ventures, A+E Studios, the unscripted label A+E Originals and A+E Networks International, which sells finished programs and formats around the world and operates 80 channel feeds in 200-plus territories, including A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime,
H2, Crime+Investigation, FYI and the new entertainment channel BLAZE. Among the many successful shows across the company’s brands are the critically acclaimed Intervention, this year’s hit Live PD—which takes viewers inside police departments and patrol cars in real time—The Curse of Oak Island and the drama Knightfall. A+E Networks has also updated and redefined the TV movie. Recent acclaimed movies were Flint, about the toxic water crisis in Michigan, and Cocaine Godmother, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. Buccieri and his teams have also forged relationships with a varied group of creatives who offer different voices and perspectives on storytelling. Director Robert Zemeckis is executive producer of the upcoming series Project Blue Book, which looks at investigations into UFO phenomena. Robin Roberts, an anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, is working on a series of TV movies and documentaries. Dick Wolf, of Law & Order fame, is collaborating on the nonfiction series Nightwatch Nation. Greg Berlanti is behind the suspense thriller YOU, and Jenji Kohan is working on the drama American Princess. As Buccieri tells World Screen, super-serving viewers with innovative shows and growing the international and digital businesses are the keys to A+E Networks’ future success.
PAUL BUCCIERI A+E NETWORKS
By Anna Carugati
WS: What is A+E Networks’ strategy for keeping its brands relevant and fresh for viewers? BUCCIERI: First, I’d like to say that I am very honored to have taken the helm of A+E Networks and to lead such an incredibly talented team of creatives. Through their efforts, they have built A+E Networks into one of the most powerful global media companies. Also, A+E Networks has long been home to pioneering brands that invent and redefine genres. We constantly evolve the viewing experience across all our brands and platforms. A+E Networks has never shied away from trailblazing storytelling. As you noted, it’s critical to continually evolve and break new ground, as demonstrated by recent successes such as the factual hit Live PD, scripted series such as Knightfall, successful TV movies such as Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance and our U.S. hit The Rap Game, now in its fifth season, which BBC [Three] just announced as a format. We are concentrating on bringing quality content to our viewers and the market— content that spans multiple genres: factual, scripted, movies and formats. Above all, it’s extremely important to me, as I take the reins of A+E Networks, to ensure that our brands continue to lead in the media landscape; that we continue to develop groundbreaking, sometimes forward-leaning series and experiences; and that we focus on international and digital growth. All of this will ensure that we continue to deeply engage viewers and satisfy our clients. WS: Which shows best represent the A&E brand? BUCCIERI: A&E has led the cultural conversation with Emmy-winning documentary programming that shines a light on the most pressing issues facing the world today, yielding global hits like Born This Way, 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 467
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Productions, came to us with a great idea to supersize the franchise. In Nightwatch Nation, we expanded on the most engaging element of Nightwatch—our EMT first responders. In this evolved format, we are embedded with EMTs in four cities across America during the most dangerous and harrowing hours of 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. We also have access to 9-1-1 call centers in each city, which creates faster-paced and more comprehensive storytelling. We are extremely pleased with the results. The recent U.S. premiere of the new series is among our best launches across all key demos, achieving 40-percent growth over the final season of the original A&E series.
Lifetime’s Flint received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding television movie this year. Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath and Intervention. Those shows, along with Live PD and the recently relaunched Biography franchise, are great examples of the type of brave storytelling viewers have come to expect from us. WS: How do you explain the runaway success of Live PD? BUCCIERI: As the debate over the policing of America continues to be a part of the daily conversation, Live PD offers viewers unfettered and unfiltered live access to the country’s busiest police forces and the communities they patrol. It answers the call on all sides for transparency in policing. But I feel that Live PD truly succeeds because it allows viewers to see exceptional people and exceptional stories that are hidden in plain sight as they are unfolding in real time, and it gives viewers context from experts in the field. It also bears mentioning that with Live PD, A+E Networks has led a resurgence of live TV and revolutionized the genre. The result is a weekly technical and production achievement of which we are very proud. WS: How do you decide to extend a program like Live PD to Live PD Presents: Women on Patrol? BUCCIERI: Live PD has been very successful in giving communities an inside look at police departments and sheriff’s offices across the nation. With Women on Patrol we saw an opportunity to do the same, but with a focus on female officers on the front lines. In addition, Women on Patrol is the centerpiece of our unscripted “Justice for Women” night in the U.S. and fits perfectly into our larger Lifetime strategy of showcasing strong women in all our genres: movies, scripted series or, in this case, an unscripted docu-follow series.
WS: Tell us about the Dick Wolf nonfiction series Nightwatch Nation. BUCCIERI: We had great success with Nightwatch, which follows the heroic work being done at night by the fearless first responders with the police, fire and EMT [emergency medical technicians] teams in a single city. Dick Wolf and his team, along with our partners at 44 Blue
WS: Which shows best represent the HISTORY brand? BUCCIERI: The HISTORY brand is a ubiquitous, always-on, multidimensional and, of course, cross-platform experience. We look at history past and present and endeavor to do so through a contemporary lens. Our signature slate of nonfiction series resonates around the world. We share stories of those who are inspired by history or intent on making history themselves—series like The Curse of Civil War Gold, Forged in Fire, The Men Who Built America, Alone, In Search Of and cable’s number one nonfiction series, The Curse of Oak Island. This spring, we were also proud to bring History of Football to over 160 global HISTORY
A+E Networks International made a raft of sales on the TV movie Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance. 468 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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channels as a two-week roadblock of wall-towall football-themed programming leading into the FIFA World Cup. Finally, we’ve had tremendous success with our scripted series such as Vikings and Knightfall; we are highly anticipating the upcoming Project Blue Book. WS: Tell us about Project Blue Book. BUCCIERI: We are thrilled to work with one of the world’s most talented and prolific filmmakers, Robert Zemeckis, who made Forrest Gump, Back to the Future and Contact, among many others. We love the vision he is bringing to Project Blue Book. The scripted series chronicles the true top-secret United States Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFOrelated phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s. The series follows Dr. Allen Hynek—played by Aidan Gillen of Game of Thrones—a brilliant college professor recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead this clandestine operation that researched thousands of cases, many of which were never solved. Each episode will draw from the actual files, blending UFO theories with authentic historical events from one of the most mysterious eras in United States history. The ten-episode first season of Project Blue Book comes to us from our own A+E Studios and will premiere this winter. Of course, we are very excited to roll out this series to the global market this MIPCOM. WS: Which are the signature shows of the Lifetime brand? BUCCIERI: With Lifetime, we’re focused on high-quality movies and scripted and factual series. We’ve had great success with our recent slate, such as the Emmy-nominated movie Flint, as well as Cocaine Godmother, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Faith Under Fire and Harry & Meghan. In 2019, we will premiere 75 original movies, some of which will be based on beloved book series from Jane Green, Victoria Christopher Murray and V.C. Andrews, among others, and will feature such renowned talent as Alyssa Milano and Kim Raver. New scripted series include YOU from Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, and we are currently in production on a Jenji Kohan and Jamie Denbo series, American Princess. Brand-definitional unscripted hits include Married at First Sight, Seven Year Switch and Married at First Sight: Honeymoon Island, which anchor a Real Love Tuesdays block in the U.S. Our big-character, big-talent wheelhouse is headlined by franchises including Dance Moms, The Rap Game and Little Women. WS: How is Lifetime evolving the made-fortelevision movie?
From Robert Zemeckis, Project Blue Book is a new A+E Studios drama series set to air on HISTORY. BUCCIERI: We have evolved this valuable genre over the last few years to reflect even more what’s happening with women today. We are at such an important time in our history as it relates to women, and we want to make sure we are the ones to tell these powerful stories as only Lifetime can. WS: Why do movies remain such an important staple for the network? BUCCIERI: We have found that our movies resonate all over the world. Our movies reflect pop culture—real stories, real women, no holds barred. It’s important for us to tell these stories with great care and quality. We are among the top producers of TV movies, with nearly 35 years of making them, and we do not take this for granted. A+E has created an iconic space with which very few companies can compare. Above all, we know our audiences love them and are fully engaged. At the end of the day, we aim to continue to super-serve our audience. WS: Tell us about the deal with Robin Roberts. BUCCIERI: Robin is such an inspiring person with an incredible story of her own. We have partnered with her on a series of movies and documentaries centered on women who have made a significant impact in the world, and whose stories inspire and educate audiences. One project will center on Mahalia Jackson, a civil rights activist and gospel singer, and another on Kamiyah Mobley, a young girl who discovered she was kidnapped as a baby from a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. 10/18 WORLD SCREEN 469
WS: Which other A+E Networks brands would you like to highlight? BUCCIERI: We are excited about the great things happening at BLAZE, a new non-U.S. global media brand, which we have thus far launched in the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Italy and Africa. BLAZE reaches an upscale, primarily male audience with factual-entertainment programs. We aim to provide content that explores the extraordinary every day, elevating and celebrating real people and their stories— often big characters living remarkable lives on their terms. With BLAZE, we took a big swing. In a short time, we have seen solid growth in every market. BLAZE has been quick to cut through with a unique, strong brand, a clear programming proposition and a dedicated audience. WS: How is A+E Networks reaching consumers directly, either with its digital services or through third-party skinny bundles? BUCCIERI: We have been pleased with the progress of our OTT products and digital auspices overall. Through our strong digital team, we currently have two OTT products: Lifetime Movie Club, which super-serves our passionate fan base of Lifetime Movie enthusiasts; and HISTORY Vault, which opens our library of content to our fans, teachers, students, parents and history lovers overall. We have seen promising adoption of these offerings and are looking at different ways to grow them. Not as a replacement for the core linear and carriage business, but as a way to diversify and grow our reach while experimenting with addressing our fans differently.
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From 44 Blue Productions and Dick Wolf, the A&E nonfiction series Nightwatch Nation follows EMTs in several U.S. cities during their overnight shifts. WS: A+E Networks was among the first media companies to understand the value and growth potential of owning its IP. How does A+E Studios further that commitment to owning and controlling IP? BUCCIERI: Owning our own destiny is part of A+E’s DNA. Since our inception, we have been resolute in owning our factual IP. In 2014, we launched A+E Studios to take ownership of scripted programming. We’ve had strong global success with our scripted projects out of the gate, from the epic retelling of Roots to the critically acclaimed UnREAL and the recent launch of Knightfall—greenlit for season two with the award-winning actor Jeremy Renner as an executive producer—as well as the upcoming Project Blue Book and American Princess. There will be many more great projects on the way. We have been so pleased by the results at A+E Studios that we recently launched a similar studio to focus on unscripted content production. A+E Originals will develop and produce premium unscripted long-form content—series, specials and documentaries. WS: Who are some of the creators and writers who have come to work with A+E? What creative freedom do you offer them? BUCCIERI: We are proud to be in business with top-tier talent, such as Jenji Kohan, Robert Zemeckis, Jon Favreau, David E. Kelley, Warren Littlefield, Queen Latifah, Mark Hamill, Aidan Gillen, Michael Malarkey, Neal McDonough, Alyssa Milano, Kim Raver, Christina Ricci and Judith Light, among many, many others. A+E Networks emphasizes a talent-friendly,
entrepreneurial spirit, which enables great collaboration, creativity and flexibility to filmmakers. We offer creative freedom to work on unique projects where content entertains, enthralls, connects with audiences on an emotional level, transports them to new worlds and makes them feel and think. WS: What message does the studio want to send the creative community? BUCCIERI: A+E Studios is in the premiumscripted business. We are highly selective in the projects we choose to develop and greenlight. We are in the business of establishing long-term relationships with top creative talent in front of and behind the camera by building consistency and trust with them and paying relentless attention to detailed execution. We work with our partners to deliver content for our A+E brands, as well as for outside networks and streaming services. We are extremely flexible; every deal is different and is structured to optimize the value of the project for all partners. WS: Are you casting the studio’s net beyond English-language territories? BUCCIERI: Opportunity is everywhere, and as a global company, we consider every option. There are wonderful, talented storytellers from all over the world whom we want to be in business with. There are so many places that are exciting to work with. We are currently in the thick of season two of Knightfall, a series with a multinational cast now filming in Prague. We are always looking to mine great stories from all over the world, and we are proud to consistently produce the 470 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
type of quality television that contributes to the global prominence of A+E Networks. WS: And speaking of international, how important are program sales and channel distribution to the financial health and growth of A+E Networks? BUCCIERI: Every part of the portfolio is bringing something different, but, as one of the key growth areas for our business, international is critically important to the success of our company. In addition to our ever-expanding slate of quality content, we have also been pushing toward more wholly owned and operated channels so that we can invest in our brands globally and make those critical business decisions for our brands. In the last few years, we have taken full or majority ownership and/or launched whollyowned entities in Italy, Germany, South Korea and Japan. HISTORY is in every country around the world where local law allows and is one of the strongest global brands in the media landscape. Additionally, we launched a whole new brand to super-serve our male viewers, BLAZE. We are constantly looking at viewing and technology trends. We are increasing our local productions, rolling out formats across the globe with a wide array of third-party channel partners and growing our digital footprint. All will help us accelerate growth. Of course, our ties back to A+E Studios and A+E Originals remain strong as an integral part of our mission to own our content and control our destiny; one of the biggest manifestations for that is frankly to drive international growth.
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TVREAL
WWW.TVREAL.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
Wildlife Docs / Biographies & Celebrity Reality Steve Backshall / Discovery’s Kathleen Finch
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CONTENTS
Past Post-Truth
FEATURES 26 NATURAL WONDERS New perspectives and innovations are driving the demand for natural-history shows.
26
In these (increasingly) strange times we’re living in, it’s harder and harder to tell fact from fiction.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Real © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvreal.ws
The U.S. President paying off a porn star for an alleged affair. A former Russian double agent and his daughter being poisoned on U.K. soil. The powerful dictator of a reclusive country befriending a one-time NBA star with a penchant for cross-dressing. These stories of intrigue may sound like the plots of new limited series, but alas, they are actual events that have made recent headlines—and are but a few examples of the stranger-than-fiction news we’re faced with on a near-daily basis. In today’s weird world, even the word “fact” has come under scrutiny as having a muddled meaning. Donald Trump’s presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway famously brought the term “alternative facts” into the cultural and political lexicon when defending (false) claims made by a former White House press secretary. Attorney Rudy Giuliani told a CNN correspondent that, nowadays, facts are “in the eye of the beholder,” and the former mayor of New York City again raised eyebrows in declaring that “truth isn’t truth” during a Sunday morning news program. With all the misnomers about facts in the news these days, the quest for truth has become even more important. And this is being reflected in the programming audiences are seeking out on television. Whereas viewers at one time were relishing reality TV’s over-the-top characters in semi-scripted situations, many of the shows that are popular today harken back to the traditional documentary style, with “authenticity” being a buzzword. Programs that follow brave expeditions into the unknown have had quite the draw, and in this issue, we hear from adventurer Steve Backshall about his series that follows as he boldly treks around the globe. Also, Discovery’s Kathleen Finch talks about the importance of having experts who are real people in real-life situations fronting the lifestyle shows featured in the company’s bouquet. Viewers are also enjoying true-life stories about everyone from the famous to the infamous, the ordinary to the extraordinary. This issue of TV Real shines a light on the demand for one-off biographies, docuseries and celebreality shows. We also look at the immense popularity of natural-history documentaries. What better way is there to escape the confusion of this post-truth age than to be immersed in uplifting and awe-inspiring explorations of the world around us? —Kristin Brzoznowski
34 FAME GAME One-off biographies, docuseries and celeb-reality shows are filling schedules around the world.
34
INTERVIEWS
38 Expedition’s Steve Backshall
42 Discovery’s Kathleen Finch
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A+E Networks Nightwatch Nation / I Knew Jesus / Forged in Fire: Knife or Death A spin-off of the reality hit Nightwatch, Nightwatch Nation takes viewers along for the ride as first responders across the U.S. attempt to save as many lives as possible on the overnight shift. Cameras capture them administering Narcan to individuals who have overdosed, treating active stroke victims and more. A+E Networks is also presenting the eightparter I Knew Jesus. The program is “thoughtful and compelling, an amazing and timely docuseries,” says Glen Hansen, the company’s VP/head of content sales for the Asia Pacific. Each hour-long episode is dedicated to presenting interpretations of Jesus. In Forged in Fire: Knife or Death, America’s most experienced bladesmiths, martial artists and knife experts slice, stab and chop their way through everything from flying watermelons to huge ice blocks for the opportunity to take home the $20,000 grand prize. “We are super excited to bring these forward-leaning titles to MIPCOM,” Hansen says. Other highlights include Live PD, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath and The Curse of Civil War Gold. Hansen adds, “A+E Networks’ factual series resonate greatly with viewers and garner success— not just in ratings out of the gate, but in the repeatability factor. A+E Networks has led the cultural conversation with awardwinning factual programming that shines a light on the most pressing issues of the day and resonates around the world.”
Nightwatch Nation
“We have a reputation for defining new factual genres and setting trends.” —Glen Hansen
Autentic Distribution
Raising Wildlife
The Wild Andes / 24H Europe: We Are the Future / Raising Wildlife Unique animal behaviors are captured in 4K in The Wild Andes, which Autentic Distribution is presenting to international buyers. “Either as a three-part series or as a feature film, this is a stunning nature documentary,” says Anne Hufnagel, the general manager of sales at Autentic Distribution. The program features “fantastic 4K footage of rare animals in their natural habitat as you’ve never seen before.” The company is also introducing 24H Europe: We Are the Future, which Hufnagel describes as a “24-hour, real-time project that hopefully will be aired all across Europe in May 2019, just before the European Parliament elections.” The program follows 66 individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 who hail from 25 countries. They will share their everyday lives, realities and dreams. “Especially in times like these, when there is a noticeable shift to the right all over Europe, such a program is a great opportunity to bring back the European spirit,” says Hufnagel. The bond between humans and animals is explored in Raising Wildlife, a family-friendly show that follows people who have dedicated their lives to caring for creatures in need. “In this series, you’ll get an intimate look at the exhilarating friendships between man and beast,” Hufnagel says. She adds, “We are a young and flexible team with a broad thematic base in different genres, so we can easily adapt to the needs and wishes of our clients.”
“With our diverse portfolio, we can easily adapt to any client’s demands.” —Anne Hufnagel
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Beyond Distribution Storm of Suspicion / Merchants of the Wild / Built to Last Six Indigenous individuals learn what it takes to complete fur trade missions similar to those of their Northern Canadian ancestors in Merchants of the Wild. “They must survive for 25 days, using their collective knowledge and courage to find food, make shelter, endure freezing nights and battle an emotional journey to reconnect with the land of their forefathers,” says Munia Kanna-Konsek, the head of sales at Beyond Distribution. Another factual highlight from the company is Storm of Suspicion, a true-crime series that is on The Weather Channel. “Each episode, featuring experts and forensic meteorologists, is structured as a real-life whodunit, with weather ultimately playing the pivotal role in how the crime was resolved,” says Kanna-Konsek. Then there is Built to Last, investigating the resilience of today’s homes.
Merchants of the Wild
“Merchants of the Wild mixes survival, nature and adventure.” —Munia Kanna-Konsek
Distribution360 It’s How You Get There/Tomorrow’s World Today/Jack of All Tastes Viewers go along on some of the most scenic rides across America with the hosts of It’s How You Get There. “Sometimes the journey is just as important (and fun!) as the destination,” says Diane Rankin, the senior VP of international sales and acquisitions at Distribution360. “The series is both a moto enthusiast’s dream as well as a gorgeous travelogue.” Tomorrow’s World Today is a “forward-looking series that presents a cutting-edge approach to exploring concepts in science and technology that are changing lives today and making a difference tomorrow,” Rankin says. Meanwhile, Jack of All Tastes is a food series hosted by Jackie Long, the wife of a former National Football League (NFL) player. Long takes viewers with her as she dines with NFL players at their favorite restaurants.
It’s How You Get There
“We have a robust selection of new unscripted male-skewing titles that we are looking forward to sharing with buyers at MIPCOM.” —Diane Rankin
Escapade Media Slice / Walking Points / Charged & Disbarred Adam Richman travels the world on an eating adventure in Slice. “This will be an incredible journey of food, culture and travel that will also deliver a number of digital assets to allow the audience to immerse themselves” in the series, says Natalie Lawley, the managing director of Escapade Media. The company also has the documentary Walking Points, which illustrates the strong bond between humans and dogs while exploring the idea that canines may be able to detect cancer. Charged & Disbarred explores reallife crimes perpetrated by those trusted to uphold the law. “This series offers the viewer a unique twist on crime programming by exposing those [individuals] who we turn to in times of trouble who abuse their position of power and trust,” says Lawley. Slice 484 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
“We are very interested in hearing about titles that feature out-of-theordinary and obscure stories.” —Natalie Lawley
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Fremantle Expedition with Steve Backshall / Manson: The Lost Tapes / In Search Of Made by True to Nature, Expedition with Steve Backshall looks on as the titular adventurer visits uncharted corners of the globe. “Commissioned by BBC, UKTV and Fremantle, this groundbreaking collaboration for an ambitious, primetime adventure series is filled with world firsts,” says Angela Neillis, Fremantle’s director of non-scripted acquisitions, International. “These include the first descent of a white-water river in the Himalayas, trekking through an unexplored jungle in South America and climbing mountains in the deserts of the Middle East.” Also on offer from the company is Manson: The Lost Tapes, featuring access to more than 100 hours of previously unseen footage of the infamous cult. “The Lost Tapes provides exclusive, new and unique insight into how Charles Manson assembled a group of young followers in a commune that would go on to commit the most infamous series of murders in U.S. history, which came to be seen across the world as the dark side of the hippie movement,” says Neillis. There is also In Search Of, in which host Zachary Quinto examines unexplained phenomena from around the globe. “From the mythical to the scientific, each episode will follow Quinto as he investigates a different subject—such as alien encounters, mysterious creatures, UFO sightings, time travel and artificial intelligence—and searches for the truth to some of the world’s greatest mysteries,” adds Neillis.
In Search Of
“This year, we’ve been working with the best international producers to acquire the highest-quality factual programming.” —Angela Neillis
Gusto Worldwide Media DNA Dinners / Bonacini’s Italy / Flour Power In each episode of DNA Dinners, host Tyrone Edwards surprises one person with the results of his or her DNA test. The individual then celebrates this newfound heritage by preparing a meal for their family. Gusto Worldwide Media is selling DNA Dinners both as a finished tape and as a format. Celebrity chef Michael Bonacini cooks his way through 15 Italian regions in new episodes of Bonacini’s Italy, exploring the flavors and textures that make each area unique. “Shot in 4K UHD, this series is accompanied by recipes, digital artwork and webisodes that inspire viewers to perfect some of Chef Bonacini’s signature dishes,” says Corey Caplan, Gusto Worldwide Media’s senior director of international sales. The company is also presenting 13 new episodes of the baking series Flour Power, which is set in a retro-style kitchen. “The vivacious host, Jessica McGovern, inspires with simple to extravagant baked treats for all occasions,” Caplan says. “From the colorful, high-fashion set to the decadent recipes, this program is a feast for the eyes.” Caplan notes, “Our concepts are innovative, and we approach food with a global sensibility. DNA Dinners, Bonacini’s Italy and Flour Power are accompanied by turnkey, multiplatform packages that include high-resolution talent and food photography, as well as original webisodes.” He adds, “Following the success of our recent launches, we’re looking for partners in new territories.”
Flour Power
“We have a catalog of over 500 hours of content that comes with a marketing package that enables us to launch almost immediately anywhere in the world.” —Corey Caplan 486 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Anna’s 12 Steps to Love
TV REAL
Keshet International Showdown: Aviv/Eyal / Personal Dater / Anna’s 12 Steps to Love Two of Israel’s most popular performers face off in Showdown: Aviv/Eyal to discover the country’s next great singing talent. “Talent shows have always been and will continue to be staples in broadcasters’ schedules because of their broad appeal and Cinderella element,” says Keren Shahar, COO and president of distribution at Keshet International. “Showdown is no exception, but we believe that with this format you get a built-in audience and viewer engagement by having two well-known local artists headline the show.” There’s also Personal Dater, a dating format featuring best friends and social media, and Anna’s 12 Steps to Love, which has a “fly-on-the-wall, observational-documentary feel to it,” says Shahar. “This is a style and tone that viewers have grown to appreciate and expect in the past couple of years.”
“Our recent acquisition of Greenbird Media means we have lots of brand-new factual English-language finished tape.” —Keren Shahar
Kew Media Distribution
The Brigade: Race to the Hudson
Killer in Plain Sight / Haunted Hospitals / The Brigade: Race to the Hudson Detectives look at every suspect involved in murder cases and try to filter out the lies from the truth to crack the mystery in the true-crime show Killer in Plain Sight. Another program on offer from Kew Media Distribution is Haunted Hospitals, which tells stories of paranormal activity inside hospitals, nursing homes, morgues and medical institutions. “It is known that more than two-thirds of society have paranormal beliefs, making Haunted Hospitals fascinating to many viewers around the world,” says Jonathan Ford, the company’s executive VP of sales. The Brigade: Race to the Hudson, meanwhile, offers an “epic survival-genre experience,” Ford says. With a large sum of cash at stake, ten strangers must work together to conquer a grueling cross-country wilderness race that pushes their bodies and minds to extremes.
“We are bringing one of our strongest nonfiction lineups to the market, offering compelling subject matter, pedigree in production, high volume and one-off specials.” —Jonathan Ford
NHK Enterprises Antarctica: The Frozen Time Capsule / Crew 191: A Cameraman’s Records of “Life on Mars” / Wild Yellowstone The mysteries of the ancient natural world are uncovered using 8K cameras in Antarctica: The Frozen Time Capsule. “Under 3.5-meter-thick ice at the bottom of an Antarctic lake is a strange undulating landscape, unchanged from 1 billion years ago when oxygen first began appearing on Earth,” says Akira Ichikawa, the general manager of the program sales department at NHK Enterprises. “The image of microorganisms producing oxygen is captured in extraordinary detail.” The documentary Crew 191: A Cameraman’s Records of “Life on Mars” allows viewers to experience what life would be like on the red planet. Another highlight is Wild Yellowstone. Shot in 8K, it immerses audiences in the “natural beauty and grandeur” of the landscape and offers an idea of what life is like for the animals that live there.
Wild Yellowstone
“NHK’s natural-history programs are known for their excellence.” —Akira Ichikawa 488 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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PBS International The Facebook Dilemma / Native America / World’s Greatest The Facebook Dilemma examines warnings about Facebook’s impact on privacy and democracy, as well as its response to claims that it is promoting “fake news” on the platform. “It may make you rethink your social media habits,” says Tom Koch, PBS International’s VP. The four-hour series Native America, made with the participation of Native American communities, uses animations from Academy Award-nominated artists and 3D computer modeling to bring the pre-Columbus world to life. It was filmed in “some of the most spectacular locations in the hemisphere,” Koch notes. World’s Greatest is another highlight from PBS International. The 36-episode series “takes viewers on a timeless journey around the planet, revealing the world’s greatest cities, natural wonders, animal encounters, journeys, man-made wonders and islands.”
“PBS International offers broadcast and digital platforms around the globe 3,000 hours of the highest-quality factual, lifestyle and children’s programming.” —Tom Koch
Rive Gauche Television My Misdiagnosis / Trace of Evil / Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files Each episode of My Misdiagnosis, on offer from Rive Gauche Television, features two medical cases told by misdiagnosed individuals and their friends, family and doctors. The company is also presenting the crime shows Trace of Evil and Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files. “In a world in which crime programming is in high demand, our goal as a company is to always bring the highest-quality factual crime programming to the marketplace; Trace of Evil and Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files [are] just that,” says Jon Kramer, the CEO of Rive Gauche Television. “Both are proven, long-running series that give audiences their ‘crime fix’ with captivating storytelling.” He adds, “Rive Gauche will be broadening out its slate going forward by adding scripted series. We expect to announce some projects prior to MIPTV next year.”
Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files
TCB Media Rights
—Jon Kramer
Egypt’s Unexplained Files
Borderforce USA: The Bridges / Massive Engineering Mistakes / Egypt’s Unexplained Files Large-scale building blunders are showcased in Massive Engineering Mistakes. “Visually, it tells a stunning story, so it is certainly something that buyers can see cutting through crowded schedules,” says Paul Heaney, TCB Media Rights’ CEO. Borderforce USA: The Bridges touches on a timely topic as it offers access to the land border between Mexico and the U.S. TCB’s slate also features Egypt’s Unexplained Files. “With this series, we’ve tried to highlight many mysteries associated with one of history’s richest eras and tell its story in a very contemporary way,” Heaney says. He adds, “We’d like to use MIPCOM to demonstrate the broader appeal of our catalog. We are also launching Extreme Love Stories and World’s Most Extraordinary Families, which skew more toward a female demographic.”
“Our goal, as always, is to provide highquality, tailored content to our buyers and listen to their current programming needs.”
“We’re launching in the area of 400 hours and 50 to 60 titles; it’s our biggest lineup ever.” —Paul Heaney 490 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Terra Mater Factual Studios Earth: The Nature of Our Planet / Cantabria: Spain’s Magical Mountains / Mystery of the Celtic Tomb Natural elements such as air, land and water are explored in the three-part blue-chip series Earth: The Nature of Our Planet. Terra Mater Factual Studios puts the Cantabrian region into the spotlight in Cantabria: Spain’s Magical Mountains. “With a grand selection of animals such as brown bears, wolves, wildcats, snow grouse and solicitous ants in one spot, rest assured that the time you spend watching will be filled with awe and wonder,” says Sabine Holzer, the head of specialist factual at Terra Mater Factual Studios. Another highlight, Mystery of the Celtic Tomb, examines the Celts through evidence discovered in a 2,400-year-old tomb. “It’s science at its finest, following archaeologists as they solve thousand-year-old puzzles and connect threads to shed light on questions of humanity’s past,” Holzer says.
“We’ll bring nearly a dozen hours of new releases and freshly available projects to the table.”
Cantabria: Spain’s Magical Mountains
—Sabine Holzer
TVF International Empires of Silver / Dog’s Best Friend / Vogue Williams Investigates TVF International’s slate includes Empires of Silver, which “tells the fascinating story of the birth of the modern world in South American silver mines and the chain of events that has led us to where we are today,” says Harriet Armston-Clarke, division head. The 4K doc features reconstructions and interviews with experts. Season two of the 4K entertainment series Dog’s Best Friend is a “viral pop-culture phenomenon packed with fun facts and bite-size human and animal psychology takeaways,” Armston-Clarke adds. TVF International is also showcasing Vogue Williams Investigates. Armston-Clarke notes, “Buyers’ reception of Vogue Williams Investigates has been phenomenal. Williams is making waves all around the globe for her unique ability to get to the heart of the biggest issues facing young people today.”
Dog’s Best Friend
“We will launch 350 hours of brand-new programming at MIPCOM, alongside separate slates for shortform, 4K content and formats.” —Harriet Armston-Clarke
ZDF Enterprises History of Weapons / The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War / The Truth About Franco: Spain’s Forgotten Dictatorship The documentary series History of Weapons uncovers the connection between the development of a new military device and the aftermath of its use. “The series tells a story about weaponry that took leading roles in the major battles in history,” says Ralf Rückauer, the VP of ZDFE.unscripted. “Further, it investigates man’s desperate attempts to tame the destructive power of new instruments of war.” The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War takes a close look at the era of rising tensions between the East and West. The Truth About Franco: Spain’s Forgotten Dictatorship, meanwhile, reflects on the regime of Francisco Franco, who is regarded as one of Europe’s most brutal leaders. “Spain is marked by traces of his tyranny,” says Rückauer. “This series casts new light on ‘Spain’s forgotten dictatorship.’”
History of Weapons
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“ZDFE.unscripted’s aim is to enhance the genre and deliver the bestquality factual programs.” —Ralf Rückauer
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BBC Studios’ Blue Planet II.
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New perspectives and innovations are driving increased demand for natural-history programming. By Neil Crossley hen it comes to instilling a sense of awe and wonder in audiences, few genres deliver quite so dramatically as natural history. The opportunity to glimpse rare and spectacular natural sights in remote locations holds increasing appeal. According to a study published in January 2018 by Parrot Analytics, natural-history documentaries experienced a surge in global demand in 2017, fueled by “high-profile and high-demand” productions. The study concluded that natural history is now second only to biography in terms of documentary sub-genre, with Ireland experiencing the highest demand per capita for natural-history documentaries, followed by New Zealand, the U.S., Canada, Israel, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Malta and the U.K. In the last year, there has been a resurgence in the number of productions offering unique contexts and perspectives. Limited event blue-chip productions, in particular, have dominated, with producers and distributors reporting strong sales. “The one-off or two-parter blue-chip or the four- to sixpart landmark series are the formats that do best for us,” says Ralf Rückauer, the VP of unscripted at ZDF Enterprises, who cites the recent success of Big Pacific. “It’s one of those massive international program events that only appear on the market once every couple of years,” he says of the project, a co-pro involving NHNZ, PBS, ARTE, CCTV, Discovery, Nine Network, ZDF and ZDF Enterprises. Rückauer says that limited, well-crafted portraits of a region and natural habitats—such as The Greater Caucasus, The
W
Lesser Caucasus: Between Ararat and the Caspian Sea and Wild Italy: Mountains, Coasts and Deserts—have also been hugely successful for ZDF Enterprises, unlike the longerrunning productions. “Long-running monothematic wildlife series have proven hard to program for most of our international clients,” he says.
BLUE-CHIP STOCK Blue-chip productions have also yielded brisk business for BBC Studios. “Without a doubt, our blue-chip landmarks have been our strongest sellers,” says Patricia Fearnley, the head of natural history, factual content, at BBC Studios. “This is always the case, but the success has been even more dramatic over the last couple of years.” In February of this year, BBC Studios launched the series Dynasties to international buyers. Presented by Sir David Attenborough, shot in Ultra HD and filmed over four years, Dynasties examines the power dynamics among lions, hunting dogs, chimpanzees, tigers and emperor penguins. It followed on from the colossal success of Blue Planet II, which galvanized audiences on the state of the oceans and pushed the issue of plastic waste up the global political agenda. Fearnley believes that conservation will remain a core element of natural-history programming. “The most significant change in natural-history programming is in audiences embracing content that doesn’t just touch on conservation issues but deals with them in a very direct way,” Fearnley says. “The Blue Planet II team couldn’t possibly make a series about the oceans without tackling it head-on. Nobody anticipated quite what an impact it would have. I think moving forward we will
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ZDF Enterprises’ portfolio of successful wildlife properties includes the two-part Wild Italy: Mountains, Coasts and Deserts.
see a lot more development of programming around conservation issues throughout the world.” It’s a view shared by Sabine Holzer, the head of specialist factual at Terra Mater Factual Studios. “Only a few years ago escapism dominated the genre and the ‘C’ word was guaranteed to put audiences as well as commissioners off. But in the last year, ecology, conservation and environmental topics seem to have reconquered the linear and nonlinear platforms. Conservation is making its way back into prime time.”
RAISING THE BAR One of the most significant challenges for producers and distributors is matching and surpassing the high expectations of audiences who yearn for ever more spectacular experiences. “I think the biggest [development] in the last six months is that the bar of editorial storytelling is so much higher,” says Solange Attwood, executive VP of international at Blue Ant Media. “Producers, storytellers and creators are coming up with compelling, thoughtful, smart, emotional and connective stories. Especially in the natural-history world, it’s so important to get all of your senses involved as you go through the journey of watching these stories.” ZDFE.unscripted’s Rückauer stresses that broadcasters, DVD publishers and VOD services still look for time-tested topics, species and habitats within the catalog that work well with audiences, such as lions, zebras, elephants, sharks, penguins, the African savanna and the Amazon rainforest. “But, on the other hand, it can’t only be ‘more of the same’ as audiences become more and more demanding,” he says. One production that is breaking new ground, says Rückauer, is Equator: The Line of Life, made by Spiegel TV and Primitive Entertainment for ZDF, ARTE, NHK and Discovery Canada. The virtual one-day journey around the equator shows how many extraordinary wildlife and people stories take place simultaneously in Ecuador, Brazil, Gabon, Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia, Kiribati and numerous other countries. “We are constantly looking for new perspectives, new contexts to give a different insight into these spectacular wildlife worlds,” he says. The importance of new perspectives is reinforced by Natalie Lawley, the managing director of Escapade Media, which represents productions such as Australia: Kingdom
of the Quokka. A new title that is attracting much interest, she says, is Walking Points, a cross-genre natural history and science 4K special that examines how the keen olfactory senses of dogs can be used to detect cancer in human beings. It succeeds, says Lawley, because it offers the audience “brand-new information against the backdrop of a bread-and-butter genre.” It also reflects a trend across the natural-history genre for innovative approaches to programming. Innovation is critical, she says, and increasingly the most important element is the storytelling. “The storytelling aspect of each wildlife project is the essence of the [show] because the audience needs to be advised about what they are seeing.” On what clients are looking for, Blue Ant’s Attwood observes, “You have to have everything these days. The market is demanding premium content that requires strong narrative, unique settings, compelling access and innovation in approach to production. Our natural-history offering is a genuinely global opportunity. We have stories that come from every part of the world, whether that’s in Borneo through Orangutan Jungle School, or Africa’s Hunters, set in Zambia. Audiences want to be drawn in, they want to feel an emotional connection to the wildlife stories that are being told, and have a deeper understanding of the world around them.”
NATURAL NARRATIVE Terra Mater’s Holzer agrees that storytelling development has become key to natural-history productions in the last year. “Storytelling becomes more and more important,” says Holzer. “It’s not enough to string together sequences, even if they are beautifully and lavishly shot. You need to develop a storyline throughout. Moreover, wildlife programs more often need a single or several main characters that the audience can follow, just as they do in the fiction genre.” The use of scripted storytelling techniques is increasingly prevalent in the wildlife space. BBC Studios’ Dynasties was conceived as an “intimate animal drama,” with a clear beginning, middle and end, a hero or heroine with a problem, a twist, a peak of drama and hopefully a pay-off for the main character. “Dynasties sees many of the tools used in drama applied to natural history,” says Fearnley. “This series takes real-life animal stories, shot across approximately 600 days in the field per [episode], allowing the audience to get to know and care for the individual
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Terra Mater arrives at MIPCOM with the holiday-themed special It ’s A Wild Christmas.
characters they are watching in a way they never have before. As a viewer, you will absolutely be invested in that character. You’ll get to know the relationships they have with those closest to them and appreciate the challenges they face in an effort to stay alive.”
SCREEN INNOVATION As storytelling gains in importance, so too does the technology driving it. In recent years the visual “wow” factor for audiences has been enhanced by advances in screen resolution, such as HD, 3D, UHD and 4K. Escapade Media made the decision back in 2016 to future-proof content by offering all genres in 4K and it now also provides some titles in HDR. At Blue Ant, which has been rolling out 4K docs for the last few years, HDR is a significant new opportunity. “The addition of HDR makes for a compelling and beautiful story,” Attwood says. Likewise, Terra Mater began originating all its programs in 4K. “Everything else doesn’t make much sense when you think long term,” says Holzer. BBC Studios is now taking delivery of its landmark series in UHD and HDR, says Fearnley, and Rückauer at ZDFE.unscripted acknowledges the benefits of UHD across its natural-history titles. “Wildlife is always the early adopter genre for technical innovation,” says Rückauer. “More than any other factual genre, wildlife lives on the stunning beauty of the images, so the advantage of a higher resolution and truer colors is obvious here. While we do not have a strict UHD-only policy yet, we can proudly say that a very large share of our new wildlife and nature output is now UHD.” In an age of rapid technological advancement, numerous innovations have been utilized that are transforming the wildlife space, offering audiences never-before-seen opportunities and access. Drones and submersibles predominate, enabling filmmakers to push creative boundaries, accessing locations such as the deep sea, volcanic craters and previously inaccessible footage of animal behavior. Indeed, multi-camera and multi-format shoots are also changing the wildlife space. BBC Studios’ new natural-history title Earth’s Great Rivers, which launches at MIPCOM, utilizes split under water and water-level filming. Drones as aerials, cranes and
GPS lock-off posts enable time-lapse transformations across its natural-history programming. “Innovation in technologies allows for more intimate storytelling,” says Escapade’s Lawley. “The more innovative the visual is, the more interesting the story arc becomes because the audience is presented with new discoveries and experiences.”
DEMANDING VIEWERS Rückauer stresses the importance of ensuring that images captured via drones and submersibles are shot in the best possible UHD quality. As audiences become more and more demanding, he says, showing inaccessible locations “as if these things were shot in a controllable environment in front of your own doorstep” is paramount. “For example, we are the European distributor of the NHK and ZDF co-production Deep Ocean: Lights in the Abyss, where the specialized Japanese UHD high-tech underwater cameras show the bioluminescent wildlife of Monterey Bay in all its stunning bright colors. And with our friends from True to Nature in Bristol we are in the middle of production of the big Volcano 24 special [a ZDF, ARTE and WNET co-production] that will include amazing drone shots from volcano craters.” One technology that is injecting real excitement and value into natural history is virtual reality. The immersive experience that it offers puts audiences right at the center of natural history, enabling them to become active participants in the story. “VR allows us to provide our audiences a level of immersion unparalleled by other mediums and to tell stories of the natural world in new and exhilarating ways,” says BBC Studios’ Fearnley. The value add-on of VR has strong potential, says Lawley. “These VR journeys can provide entertainment, education, allow a direct voice in terms of conservation, expand demographic appeals and so on. The value-added elements are provided as web experiences or VR goggle experiences.” Lawley highlights the potential of 360-degree cameras that allow the audience to experience the location “just how the host is seeing the environment” and can be planted to gain insight into habitats on land and underwater.
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ZDFE.unscripted’s Rückauer believes VR is “great for producers who want to tell a different kind of story, for broadcasters commissioning 360-degree clips as add-ons to attract an additional audience and for users experiencing this in museums, specialized festivals or downloaded to their own devices.” For distributors such as ZDF Enterprises, however, it is not the top commodity right now, he says. “A B2B distribution market in the classical sense, with reasonable license fees paid for VR productions, has not been established yet,” he says.
ADDED VALUE
Orangutan Jungle School is a docusoap that has been a strong seller for Blue Ant.
While innovations in technology and storytelling are driving the genre forward, the value of presenters in natural history is in serious doubt. With the clear exception of an icon such as Sir David Attenborough, selling presenter-led programs globally is an ongoing challenge. “As an international distributor we prefer presenter-free programs, as they are much easier to sell,” says Rückauer. “As soon as you have a presenter you will always have the language problem.” It’s a view shared by Lawley, who says most of Escapade Media’s programs are presenter-free. Audiences need to identify with the host on a global scale, she says, and when a project is hosted, it minimizes the interest across global markets. But she does not rule the possibility out. “Our position is always led by what is best for the project and how we are able to maximize sales. While a project that is steered by a presenter can create challenges for global sales, if a presenter can genuinely provide introductions and summaries, this can work very well, and if needed, even illustrate the interaction of human and animal.”
BBC Studios’ Fearnley acknowledges that presenter-free wildlife programming is much easier to exploit commercially. But she says BBC Studios will always be interested in trying to find presenters that work for a U.K. and international audience. The challenge, of course, is finding a presenter who will engage audiences across the globe.
PRESENTED BY... “We have quite a few presenter-led series, such as Guardians of the Wild, that have been incredibly successful,” Blue Ant’s Attwood says. “And we have a strong blue-chip slate that excludes humans within the context of the editorial. I think it’s important to have both. As a distributor, you want to have a compelling offering that can tell stories in ways that will have broad appeal to people around the world. We want to make sure we have stories that are compelling for all viewers. We won’t shy away from presenter-led stories, even though you often hear that some [buyers] prefer the ease of naturalhistory stories that don’t necessarily include people, that are evergreen, that are easily versioned. There are pros and cons for each. As a distributor that wants to have a compelling offering, you need to have a diversified approach.” Terra Mater Factual Studios also produces both presenterled and presenter-free wildlife programs. When recruiting presenters, the company sets out to find the perfect match between the topic of the film and the expertise of the presenter. “Ideally the host is a key scientist, conservationist or ranger who is closely involved in the topic,” says Holzer. “We believe strongly that audiences feel and notice when you add a celebrity presenter to a program just to boost up the show. Credibility and authenticity are key.”
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Kew Media’s Broken: The Incredible Story of Brangelina.
Distributors share insights about why one-off biographies, docuseries and celeb-reality shows are filling broadcast schedules around the world. By Sara Alessi 504 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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iopics are everywhere in the scripted space these days. From noteworthy politicians to legendary singers, serial killers to members of scandal-ridden family dynasties, real lives are proving to be excellent fodder for drama producers. Of course, factual producers have known for a long time about the allure of stories on the rich or infamous. Whether it’s a high-brow documentary about the Pope or a tongue-incheek celeb-reality series, viewers are hungry for an inside look at stories of people who became famous—by destiny, design or accident. “It’s such a chaotic time in our world that people gravitate to this kind of factual storytelling and true stories about icons,” says Elaine Frontain Bryant, the executive VP and head of programming for A&E at A+E Networks. “Biographies offer an unbiased and unfiltered way to tell a story, and they don’t say anything about the world we’re in now. Viewers can draw their own conclusions if they want, but it’s just a true story about these people and their lives.” “There’s a demand for biography programming because the people covered in these shows are very much in the news all the time,” states Jonathan Ford, the executive VP of sales at Kew Media Distribution, which has a catalog that boasts documentary programming on music legends such as James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Janis Joplin, The Doors and The Go-Go’s. “Audiences want to understand, get behind and get into their lives.” Paul Heaney, the CEO of TCB Media Rights, puts it bluntly: “Viewers are obsessed with the minutiae of famous people’s lives. People are looking for the scandal, the controversy. They want to know what these figures’ human weaknesses are and what their humanity is.
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don’t have, and with biographies and celebrity-reality programs, we get to escape into it for about an hour.” Two strong sellers from the GRB slate are Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal and Remembering Whitney, about the life of the late singer.
What we call a ‘biography’ is a very boring word for quite an interesting show.” “It’s an appetite as old as time,” muses Harriet ArmstonClarke, division head at TVF International. “I don’t see that our interest in celebrities is going to wane.” “There’s a fascination with the celeb life, the grand life,” maintains Melanie Torres, a sales consultant at GRB Studios. “We always want to know a little bit more about that lifestyle we
her children, so it’s not all based around the anniversary of her death; it has a bit more life to it.” There was, of course, a slew of docs marking the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. Producers must be careful not to fall into the trap of telling the same old story. “There tends to be quite a lot of competition in this space, so it’s important to have a title that has a different and interesting perspective,” advises Ford.
FAMILIAR FACES Fremantle has seen success with a strand that began as a one-off documentary titled I Am Bruce Lee. It has since covered other well-known figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Paul Walker. The latter, I Am Paul Walker, is one of the titles that the company is introducing at MIPCOM, alongside Manson: The Lost Tapes. Angela Neillis, the company’s director of non-scripted acquisitions, International, believes this Charles Manson-focused doc will be a big seller, as it features rarely-seen footage and because “famous individuals bring their own audiences with them.” And yet, not all shows about famous faces travel well, no matter how glamorous. GRB sells the celebrity-reality series Braxton Family Values and its spin-off, Tamar & Vince. “Celeb-reality programming does well on certain channels, but not everyone is looking for this type of programming because some celebrities don’t translate internationally,” Torres cautions. Plus, TVF International’s Armston-Clarke notes, “Some celebrities might be in the spotlight today and not tomorrow.” Though she adds, “Our catalog features more timely [stars] like Madonna, so the programs continue to sell year on year.” Kew Media also has timeless personalities in its biography slate, including Princess Diana. “With Princess Diana: A Life After Death, we took a different perspective on the 20th anniversary of her death,” Kew’s Ford says. “Our documentary looks at Diana’s life and the legacy she has had on
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GRB has a number of celeb-reality shows in its slate, including Braxton Family Values.
“The world is just too saturated; there is too much competition these days,” notes A+E’s Frontain Bryant. “You have to be able to say ‘We have something you haven’t seen before.’ There’s no reason to do another show that somebody’s seen.” Frontain Bryant stresses that this is particularly relevant today, when a quick Google search can deliver an individual’s life story, replete with images, videos, tributes and more.
GETTING PERSONAL
harder, and a producer does, too, to deliver something that has some thought behind it, rather than just a collection of archives.” TVF International’s Armston-Clarke agrees that viewers “don’t want to see the same talking heads in every single show. We’re always trying to find some fresh angle so that programming feels new in some way.” “If it’s well made, can relate to now, and is something that’s fascinating and offers a bit of an insight, then it will work,” Heaney adds. And generally, these biography docs will work in more than one market. “We live in the age of celebrity, where people know celebrities from other countries,” states ArmstonClarke. “If they’re shiny and glossy and they live an aspirational
“Times have changed since the Biography franchise, which A+E Networks revived about a year ago, was first on the air,” says Frontain Bryant of the strand. “You can pretty much get all the information you want about a figure online nowadays, so what we’re looking for from our filmmakers is a unique angle, unique access and something new to tell.” She explains that if the focus of the documentary is a deceased individual, the new element can come in the form of a family member offering interesting insight or an audio recording that hasn’t been shared before. “It has to be something that is revelatory about that person’s story that can be shared with the world.” Frontain Bryant points to David Cassidy: The Last Session as a biography that brings something new to the table because the musician revealed information about his life that had never been made public before. “We can’t give buyers something too simplistic or too derivative,” echoes TCB’s Heaney. “They appreciate if there’s something with a bit more guile and a bit more knowing. Otherwise, it’s just a rehash of old archives, and buyers get a lot of that. You TCB’s six-part Private Lives series, launching at MIPCOM, explores controversial have to think a bit harder and work a bit figures in world history. 506 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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life, then we find that the appeal is pretty broad across territories.” Torres says that there is a market for biographies in all territories and adds that GRB is now doing co-pros, “so one of the angles we can take is to work with partners on biographies of well-known artists or celebrities in their territories.” TCB’s Heaney has found that there are some figures who are universal—such as the British royal family, Hollywood stars or big TV celebrities. Elizabeth sold very well for TCB last year. Other big sellers include The Private Lives of the Tudors and The Private Lives of the Monarchs. There’s an upcoming Private Lives series that will take a broader look at historical figures like Al Capone and Napoleon Bonaparte. As for whether buyers are more interested in one-offs or docuseries, Fremantle’s Neillis says, “One-offs are easier to sell, particularly if you are targeting public-service broadcasters; it needs to be something mainstream, often a documentary strand. But series are popular as well. It depends on the subject matter.” GRB’s Torres agrees: “One-offs on big celebrities sell better than series.” “What’s versatile and flexible about biographies is that you can tie them together with a theme—for example, music-related docs can go together—and you can create packages for buyers,” Neillis points out. “In our experience, it’s one-offs, such as Diana: 20 Years On, and miniseries, including Inside Windsor Castle and Inside Buckingham Palace, that sell best,” explains TVF International’s Armston-Clarke. “Biographies and celebrity programming are among the most evergreen titles in our catalog, to be honest,” she acknowledges. “Particularly those about the British royal family. Programming about royals continues to sell. It’s quite astounding the number of times that we are windowing, re-windowing and relicensing shows about them.”
LONG LIVES Kew’s Ford also notes that documentaries on the royal family tend to have a longer shelf life. For instance, Kew sold Harry & Meghan: A Very Modern Romance around their wedding this year and also saw renewed traction on Kate: The Making of a Modern Queen—a 2017 documentary about Prince William’s wife—as channels were relicensing the title or licensing it for the first time because they were scheduling programming blocks showcasing the royals. “Biographies can easily be evergreen and they do have a long shelf life, provided that they are updated,” GRB’s Torres says. Ford warns that often with more topical documentaries— such as one from Kew’s catalog about former couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie—“you have a specific window of time to sell in because people are only going to be interested in the Brangelina story for a period of time after they split up.” “These types of films can have very short life spans in terms of really maximizing the revenues because of the
time period and the slot in which people want these films, but demand is still heavy,” Ford adds. Torres also cautions that celebrity-reality series tend to have a shorter shelf life and replay value because “if you’re keeping up with these people in the age of social media, something in the show might become a little outdated.” That’s why Ford says it is essential to ensure that “there’s something in a program that has replay value, because the channels buying the programs don’t want a scenario in which a show plays once or twice and then goes out of play.” Replay value is also a factor for digital platforms, which have self-curating audiences that may peruse their offerings to find a biography on a favorite celebrity or wellknown figure.
DIGITAL DEMANDS “There are OTT platforms cropping up that are focusing on celebrity and royal-related content, including True Royalty,” says Armston-Clarke. However, “The majority of the deals we close are with linear channels, but that’s because celebrities and royals have a mass appeal. It’s not specialist, it’s not niche content.” “There was a real hunger from the OTT platforms before because this type of programming wasn’t really on the linear channels,” says TCB’s Heaney. “So it established a point of difference. The SVODs went into the royals and went into biography in a big way, and that helped establish it a bit more.” “Historically, we’ve always [sold to] linear, that was our model,” says GRB’s Torres. “But a lot of OTT players are trying to get content for younger audiences that are making use of these services, and OTTs are interested in biographies and celebrity-focused content.” The key is knowing who is watching. “Netflix used to buy a lot more music documentaries than they do now,” Kew’s Ford says. “They learned about their audience, which is younger. There’s not a market for a documentary on a star from the ’60s or ’70s on Netflix.” Ford notes that to be successful, “It’s all about understanding the subject matter and who the audience is.”
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After being outed on Instagram, Angelina King—formerly known as Ian—and her wife, TV personality Joey Mead, shared their story in Our Transgender Love Story, from TVF International.
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Steve Backshall has built a career in television by being boldly unafraid to experience the natural wonders of the world. He parlayed his innate curiosity and penchant for traveling into a gig as an Adventurer in Residence for National Geographic Channel before doing a raft of natural-history series for the BBC—including the hit kids’ title Deadly 60—Discovery, Sky and Channel 5. His latest is Expedition with Steve Backshall, which sets out to document a series of firsts, including the descent of a white-water river in the Himalayas and a trek through unexplored jungle in South America. Produced by True to Nature for BBC and UKTV, the show is being distributed by Fremantle. On a short trip home in between expeditions, Backshall spoke to TV Real about his long-awaited dream project and what he hopes audiences will take from it. By Mansha Daswani TV REAL: How did your new series Expedition come about? BACKSHALL: It’s a concept I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a very, very long time. I’ve been pitching it in its present condition since 2006 and finally managed to get moving on it a couple of years ago. I’ve been making expedition television programs for 20 years now, and just doing expeditions for 25 years. [The series] stems from the fact I’ve managed to get together a little black book of people who are capable of extraordinary things and of places that are still very much waiting to be explored. I’ve been convinced that this was an epic series in the making—convincing commissioners of that was a whole different ball game! [Laughs] TV REAL: What was it that finally moved BBC and UKTV to come on board? BACKSHALL: We did two other expedition programs with the BBC. One was a mountain climb in Venezuela [Extreme Mountain Challenge] and the other was [a journey along] the Baliem River in New Guinea [Down the Mighty River]. They both worked well and were very well received. To say in 2018 that we could go out and do ten expeditions that no one has ever done or seen before, and we’re going to bring you back extraordinary things, is a pretty bold claim. And I imagine a lot of people would look at you and say, “Yeah right, whatever!” [Laughs] They’d take you with a real pinch of salt. The only way I was ever going to get this going was to prove that we could do what we were saying. It went well. I mean sometimes it went really, really badly! [Laughs] It’s all been caught on camera, all there for people to see. And there is a refreshing quality to the authenticity of these expeditions. Everybody knows that what they’re watching is as close to reality as you can ever get with television. And there are moments where we are
genuinely in very real threat for our lives, and there are moments where we’re experiencing highs and a level of euphoria that normal life doesn’t ever give you a chance to achieve. People can see that and have taken to it. TV REAL: Tell us about the research you and the team at True to Nature did to come up with the expeditions. BACKSHALL: Most of them are locations that I have had in my little black book for a long time now. There are others that [emerged from conversations with the production team]. The team is really special. It is very much dominated by women. They’re all very strong-willed and very capable. We have a team that feels more like a family of people who are all very good friends, with a lot of respect for each other. We sat down in endless coffee shops and thrashed out ideas and have come up with a compendium of expeditions that works. It was tricky. We’re filming this entire thing in a year. We wanted to make sure that we had a full diversity of locations—the Arctic, mountains, deserts, seas. Trying to slot all of those together so that they work [in terms of] timing and calendar and schedule is hard enough. If I didn’t have a team of this quality behind me, it would be impossible. TV REAL: How did you get into television? BACKSHALL: I started in 1998. I was working as a writer and I had an idea for a program and went out and made it myself. I went to the jungles of Colombia for about six weeks and filmed myself living rough in the jungle, catching snakes and spiders and scorpions, and I sold it to the National Geographic Channel and they took me on as an Adventurer in Residence, which is the coolest job title I’ve ever had! And I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s been a crazy,
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Fremantle picked up the global rights to distribute Expedition with Steve Backshall, a BBC and UKTV commission.
crazy ride and amazing fun. I’m so chuffed that it’s still going, 20 years on. Every single new project is a thrill. And this is the one that I’ve been working toward for 20 years. TV REAL: I interviewed Bear Grylls and Anthony Bourdain in the past and they both mentioned cringing somewhat at their early television work. Do you ever go back and watch some of your initial productions and think, I wish I had done that differently? BACKSHALL: I don’t really, because all of those experiences were formative. Yes, they’re very raw and they lack much of the storytelling and the finesse that I have managed to accrue over 20 years of work. But in those early programs where I was making all my mistakes, I was editing the programs and I was filming the programs. I was learning what it is to put together a short story in television. I feel like I’ve cured a lot of the mistakes I made. There’s something satisfying about that. And there’s something quite endearing about seeing the early me trying to make it work, and quite often utterly failing in television. [Laughs] All of those experiences have got me to where I am today, making my dream [project]. TV REAL: Is there a particular message you want Expedition to convey to audiences about conservation or about encouraging them to go out and experience the world? BACKSHALL: I think if you have one simple message, you’re likely to lose or alienate an enormous number of the viewing public. The public can take from this what they want. If they simply spend an hour watching me nearly die and are all excited over how I’m going to injure myself next, that’s fine! If they’re inspired to get out and explore themselves, that’s amazing. A lot of work I’ve done in the past has been about getting kids outside into nature. The next [message] is conservation. There is a conservation angle in every one of these programs. All of the environments that we are experiencing for the first time are under threat. If the audience
listens to that and has any kind of take home from it at all, even if they merely hear it and recognize it, then I will be very happy. If there’s a call to action from that, if people see what we’re talking about in conservation and think they might want to do something positive to make the world a better place, that would be the gold at the end of the rainbow. TV REAL: Have you now gone through all the expeditions on your wish list, or are there still more in your little black book? BACKSHALL: I certainly have enough to do this all over again, to do another ten. But it is getting harder and harder. The world is a much smaller place than it was in the golden era of exploration 200 years ago. And an awful lot of modern exploration is done through a microscope and genetics, breaking apart the genomes of animals and bacteria and viruses. Old-fashioned exploration is harder to find now, but it is that much more exciting when you do manage to find somewhere [that hasn’t been explored]. There are a couple of expeditions that we have on the hit list for this series that I’ve been trying to do since the late 1990s! Every year I come back to them and ask, Has anyone managed to do this yet? No? Amazing! Eventually, all of these things will get done. I want to do all I can to try to make sure we do them first. TV REAL: Being a new dad, how did you manage the filming schedule? BACKSHALL: It’s hard. I have a [newborn] son. You’re just about to hear him break into full voice now! This is a time when I want to be at home with my wife and my son. I go off this Sunday and I’ll pretty much be away for two months. That’s a long time to be away from them and to miss big parts of his development and his growing up. But this whole year has been an adventure for me in many ways, a plunge into new frontiers, be that in my personal life or in exploration.
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As chief lifestyle brands officer at Discovery, Inc., Kathleen Finch oversees some of the biggest, most well-known channels in the pay-TV universe, including Food Network, Travel Channel, TLC and ID. She assumed the post earlier this year after driving the strong performance of HGTV and Food Network, among other services, in her long tenure at Scripps Networks Interactive. With the integration of the Discovery and Scripps portfolios now complete, Finch talks to TV Real about the importance of brands, the art of finding compelling lifestyle personalities and the keys to driving viewer engagement. TV REAL: How did you go about integrating the Discovery and Scripps channels under the lifestyle group? And how did you get to know the DNA of the Discovery channels you added to your remit? FINCH: The integration has been going great. So many of us across the aisles at Scripps and Discovery knew each other long before [the merger], and it’s been fun to have everybody working together. The DNA between the two is similar. The channels are very brand-focused and very consumer-focused—we don’t make a move without thinking about what our consumer is going to want. On a practical level, in the months we’ve been together I’ve had two big cross-network brainstorming meetings. Even though we all liked each other, we were frenemies before this! So it was fun to get all the creative people in a room, spending the whole day together spit-balling ideas. A lot came out of those. [Drew Scott from] Property Brothers on HGTV was getting married, so we did a wedding special on TLC. We have some TLC talent that are coming over to Food Network to be guest judges on Chopped. We’ve had a lot of fun. When you hear Travel, Food Network and HGTV, you know they’re about traveling, eating and homes! Equally, ID, the number one [cable] network for women, has this passionate audience of women who are interested in crime investigation and mysteries unfolding. The length of tune is among the top in the industry. And on TLC, one of the things we love to do is celebrate people and relationships and circumstances that don’t generally get celebrated. The through-line there is really about sharing lives with people and everyone is accepted. We tell intimate stories about people, with a lot of drama and emotion. They’re different from a Food Network brand, but they all have passionate audiences that are pretty consistent night by night.
TV REAL: The portfolio has such a wealth of on-screen talent. How are you managing relationships with these personalities? FINCH: Talking about our talent is our most favorite thing! Our talent is the best in the business; they are what make our brands unique. They’re not actors—they are real people in real-life situations, and they are experts who viewers invite into their homes every night via the television because they want to learn from them. So our viewers have a relationship with our talent that is completely different than typical TV talent. They’re always interesting, are at the top of their fields and are engaging to watch. It’s hard sometimes to find them—that’s probably our hardest job. They’re not handed to us on a reel with ten other talents from an agent. We go out and find these people. That’s a job the programming teams do exceptionally well. At our big Upfront in New York, we had about 50 or 60 talents across all of Discovery, and the most amazing thing was watching them offstage fangirling over each other! It was fun to see how many HGTV stars love stars on Velocity [which is rebranding as Motor Trend Network] and how many TLC stars love Food Network. It was cool to see all of them come together. TV REAL: Where are you looking for new talent? FINCH: We find quite a lot on social media. We recently had a show on Food Network called Girl Meets Farm featuring Molly Yeh. She’s huge on social media. On HGTV we have Ben and Erin Napier from Home Town. All of our programming teams comb social media to find interesting people. We also have these great producing partners that we work with—our TLC producers know we want interesting families, our ID producers know we want great detectives and investigative journalists. We’ve empowered a lot of our partners to go out and find talent because we can’t sit and wait for it, we have to be out aggressively looking for it. We also have Digital Lifestyle Experts, about 40 talents who we’ve put on retainer. We work with them in social and digital to get them to a place where they can come up with a show we think might work. We use it to train our next generation of stars. TV REAL: What are the best ways to build a schedule that promotes stickiness and watch time? Once a viewer arrives on the channel, how do you keep him or her there through multiple shows? FINCH: We suck people in. Our goal is to not let viewers leave! We’ve got this incredible length of tune across our brands. ID and HGTV are among the top. We super-serve
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them twice as hard! Brother Vs. Brother is a spin-off of Property Brothers where each brother buys a house and renovates it and whoever can sell it for the most wins, and the winnings go to charity. So we find different ways to take something that people love and give them a new reason to tune in.
Holiday-related content is key to Food Network with properties like Ultimate Thanksgiving Showdown.
audiences what they like. We hold them through the commercial breaks with short-form content. We create a lot of compelling interstitial content. And we also spin off a lot of shows. Something like 90 Day Fiancé on TLC works well, and we’ve announced our fourth spin-off of that show. The behemoth of them all is House Hunters on HGTV, and we have a hundred spin-offs of that title! If we find content that holds a viewer, we might do a three-hour stack, but then we’ll also make spin-offs because we know the audience is there. Unlike a lot of cable networks that only do premieres one or two nights a week, we have a premiere every single night of the week all year long, particularly on ID and HGTV. Our viewers keep coming back because they know that we’ll give them new content. That’s something we work very hard to do. We make sure our viewers know that if they tune in on a Tuesday, they’re going to get something new, just like if they tune in on a Wednesday. It keeps people coming back on a very consistent basis. TV REAL: You have a lot of franchises that have been on the air for a long time. How do you maintain their momentum season after season? FINCH: We’ll do a lot of things to juice it up a little bit. For instance, one of the longest-running shows on Food Network is Chopped, where we just introduced Martha Stewart as a judge. So even though the show has been doing well, suddenly we got this influx of curiosity seekers— “Martha Stewart, that’ll be interesting to watch!” We’ll find something and spin it off to give it a new twist. We came up with the 90 Day spinoffs. We have a lot of titles with [Jonathan and Drew Scott from] Property Brothers. We’re fortunate in that they are twins so we can work
TV REAL: Do lifestyle and factual channels fare better in a linear channel environment than perhaps a scripted-content service where viewers could instead search out those shows to binge online? FINCH: It is true that our networks have much more live viewing than typical networks. That’s because we stay true to our brand. When people tune in and get sucked in, they’re probably not going for a specific show. That’s our secret. You’re in the mood to watch a mystery get solved, you’re in the mood to learn about food, you’re in the mood to learn about home renovation, so you turn our networks on and you stay for a long time because we consistently give you that experience over and over. It might be with different titles and different talent, but the reason you turned it on is always satisfied. That’s what makes us sticky and very relevant in a more fractured world, as opposed to a network that is all full of off-net or scripted programming. You can get that in other places. You can’t get a 24/7 home-renovation show someplace else. You come to HGTV because you know you will get satisfied every night, you come to ID because you know you will get satisfied every night. It’s really about being loyal to our brand and our audience. TV REAL: You mentioned the cross-network brainstorming sessions. Will there be more of that kind of collaboration between the different programming teams? If one team gets a pitch that isn’t suitable, can they share it with another channel?
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FINCH: One of the things we’re all seeing is a very talent-forward focus. It used to be there were a lot of formats out there that were plug-and-play—you put a person in as host and have everybody compete. We’re now seeing more talent-led ideas, which is great. That’s what we excel at. And other people are trying to do things like that, trying to find the next Ina Garten or Joe Kenda. That’s not easy to do, but we know how to do it and we’re good at it. That’s replacing the big, shiny, overly formatted shows.
Jonathan and Drew Scott are the hosts of the popular series Property Brothers on HGTV.
FINCH: Now we’re one family, we’re absolutely doing that. If a food pitch comes in that isn’t quite right for Food Network, it might go to Travel Channel, or if a wedding pitch comes in that’s not quite right for TLC, then maybe we can put a spin on it to make it about wedding cakes for Food Network. We’re doing a lot of sharing. TLC made the really smart decision to bring back Trading Spaces and it did great. It was the highest rated Saturday night on TLC in I don’t know how many years. So we’re doing a second season. We’re going to find a way to incorporate some of the HGTV talent and the HGTV audience to make Trading Spaces even bigger. We’re leaning across the aisle to find ways to work together. On any given night, over 20 percent of the female audience is watching one of our nets. So our goal is to build a big moat around them and keep them within the portfolio. We’re finding ways to cross-promote, to co-produce big events, we’re cross-pollinating talent when it makes sense. The idea is, we have this 20-plus percent of women [watching our channels] and we’re going to hang on to them by super-serving them on all of our networks. You’re in the mood for weddings, go to TLC, you’re tired of that, try Food Network. We’re being very strategic about cross-promoting big events on our networks to keep the core audience from leaving.
TV REAL: What programming highlights are you particularly excited about? FINCH: I’m super excited about rolling out 90 Day Fiancé’s fourth franchise. That show is insane in its popularity. We are number one on Sunday nights, repeatedly. I’m also really excited about a huge slate of holiday programming that’s coming up on Food Network. Holidays are huge at Food Network. And we’ve got some really good documentaries on ID. The team has done a great job of working with skilled documentarians and filmmakers and we have some important stories that are coming to light. TV REAL: I saw 90 Day Fiancé trending on Twitter over the weekend. What does that social media engagement mean for you and your programming teams? FINCH: We love it! It says that young people are paying attention, which is what everyone wants. And it means we have watercooler television, which is every programmer’s goal. The fact that on a Sunday night, millions of fans are not only watching it but are engaging in social media about it, it’s great. We do look at that very carefully because it gives us a lot of good insights. It’s trended for a few Sundays in a row. That says that people care about the characters, about the outcome, and they like the idea of, I might be sitting alone in my living room watching, but there are millions of other fans on Twitter enjoying it with me.
TV REAL: Are you collaborating with your international counterparts on programming initiatives or sourcing talent? FINCH: We have regular meetings with them. They’ll show us talent, we’ll show them talent. Because we own so many of our formats, we’ve produced [versions of] some of the U.S. shows internationally. Now that the legacy Scripps brands are part of Discovery, we see a huge amount of opportunity. Just imagine House Hunters all over the world, in different languages, shot in different places. There are so many opportunities with all the formats we own. TV REAL: What innovations are you excited to see in the factual space?
Food blogger Molly Yeh fronts Food Network’s new series Girl Meets Farm.
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WWW.TVASIA.WS
OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM & ASIA VIDEO SUMMIT EDITION
Co-Productions /Viacom18’s Sudhanshu Vats Amazon’s James Farrell / HOOQ’s Peter Bithos
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CONTENTS FEATURE
Expensive Games
10 CROSSING BORDERS Channels and distributors across Asia are looking to up their co-production activities in a bid to deliver content that will resonate in multiple markets.
I vividly recall reading Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra’s epic tale set in the Bombay criminal underworld, when it came out in 2006 and thinking, I’d love to see this as a TV show. A big Bollywood musical just wasn’t going to do it justice. Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Nathalia Lopez Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager
Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Asia © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvasia.ws
I figured, back then, that it would never happen; what Indian broadcaster would risk something so broad, so controversial, so expensive? These are channels, after all, that have found millions of viewers with a steady staple of daily serials focused on family strife—where everything is black or white and never shades of gray—romance and God; not violence, prostitution or conflicted antiheroes. Indian channels today have evolved somewhat, but Sacred Games really could have only been made by a deep-pocketed OTT player like Netflix—and it points to the creation of an entirely new battleground in the Asian media sector. Will free- and pay-TV broadcasters cede the premium, sophisticated storytelling space to the OTTs? Unlikely; in fact, more and more these outlets are finding creative, smart ways to deliver high-end shows, notably by entering into coproductions. In this edition of TV Asia you’ll hear from payTV channels and powerhouse Asian distributors about how collaborations are key to raising the quality and profile of content from the region across all genres. This issue also includes interviews with three executives whose companies are, in different ways, reshaping the Asian content ecosystem. In India, Sudhanshu Vats is driving growth at Viacom18 across its television, film, digital and licensing businesses. Colors, which marks its tenth anniversary this year, has retained its disruptor mentality, Vats says; it’s an attitude that has carried over to Voot, the company’s popular digital platform. James Farrell weighs in on how Amazon is working with producers in India and Japan to deliver compelling, distinctive originals that will make the service a must-have, and must-keep, subscription for consumers in the region. And Peter Bithos talks us through the thinking behind HOOQ’s brand-new skinny bundle, which is delivering premium pay-TV brands like HISTORY and Discovery to consumers in such countries as Indonesia, most of whom don’t have—and have never had—pay TV. HOOQ is also investing in OTT originals, bringing a new form of limited-run, premium scripted content to its footprint. —Mansha Daswani
INTERVIEWS
18 Viacom18’s Sudhanshu Vats
24 Amazon’s James Farrell
28 HOOQ’s Peter Bithos
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Asia TV Forum & Market December 4-7, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore The Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) returns to Marina Bay Sands for its 19th edition and is again co-located with ScreenSingapore, Southeast Asia’s marketplace for the film industry. More than 5,000 content buyers and sellers from Asia and beyond are expected to attend, as they look to gain knowledge, network, buy, sell, finance, distribute and co-produce across all platforms. “In 2017, ATF facilitated $289 million in deals,” says Hui Leng Yeow, group project director of ATF and ScreenSingapore at Reed Exhibitions. “We anticipate that the market will be equally vibrant this year, with sellers— [offering] the latest content for multiple platforms—and buyers from over 60 countries. Additionally, networking activities on the market floor will provide opportunities for buyers and sellers to meet their desired counterparts.”
Asia TV Forum & Market
“ATF is a must-attend event where the global entertainment industry’s top players will congregate.”
—Hui Leng Yeow
Bomanbridge Media Paul Goes to Hollywood / Human Nature / Into the Heart of China: Walking the Yangtze The series Paul Goes to Hollywood takes viewers on a road trip across the U.S. with Paul Hollywood as he visits culinary locations inspired by some of the most iconic films. “Paul Hollywood is hugely popular, and this approach of incorporating cult films gives a nice twist for film fans and foodies,” says Sonia Fleck, CEO of Bomanbridge Media. Human Nature is an educational show for children that sees representatives of the animal kingdom convey values and lessons to kids. Ash Dykes fronts the action in Into the Heart of China: Walking the Yangtze, in which he attempts to walk the entire length of the Yangtze river by foot. “We are open to both deficit-financing and co-production roles, as was the case with Paul Goes to Hollywood and Walking the Yangtze,” says Fleck.
“We urge producers to reach out to us as the further investment from Bomanbridge is there and we are ready to put it into solid project ideas.” —Sonia Fleck
FOX Networks Group Asia
Into the Heart of China: Walking the Yangtze
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
FOX Movies / Star Chinese Channel / FOX FOX Movies, Star Chinese Channel and FOX are among the channels in the bouquet of FOX Networks Group Asia. “Across these and every channel in our portfolio, we are dedicated to igniting imaginations with the most dramatic, the most emotional and the most thrilling stories,” says Keertan Adyanthaya, executive VP of content and communications for FOX Networks Group Asia. FOX is home to hit series from the U.S. covering a variety of genres. FOX Movies is dedicated to providing first-run and exclusive content “through an unmatched entertainment experience,” Adyanthaya says. Star Chinese Channel features a range of general-entertainment programming, including talk shows, game shows, and contemporary and costume dramas, all in Mandarin. FOX+, meanwhile, delivers content to watch anytime, anywhere and on any device.
Magnum P.I. on FOX
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Fremantle The Greatest Dancer / Beecham House / America’s Got Talent: The Champions The new drama Beecham House takes place in Delhi before the British ruled. The six-part series centers on the residents of a mansion. “Beecham House beautifully re-creates a pivotal time in Indian history, with a script and characters that buyers and their audiences will love,” says Ganesh Rajaram, Fremantle’s general manager and executive VP of sales for Asia, International. “This will be one of the biggest epic British dramas next year.” Another highlight for the Asia Pacific is America’s Got Talent: The Champions, which brings together former contestants from previous seasons of the popular show. “It’s bound to be a global hit that will excite the region and even get buyers cheering,” says Rajaram. There is also The Greatest Dancer, a brand-new entertainment format spotlighting the world of dance.
“Beecham House is going to be one of our most beautiful and ambitious dramas yet.” —Ganesh Rajaram
HBO Asia
Beecham House
The World Behind the Teenage Psychic on HBO Asia
HBO Asia originals / HBO original series The programming on HBO Asia is a mix of HBO originals like The Deuce, blockbuster movies such as Justice League and the network’s own original programming. “The Asian stories told through our HBO Asia originals have been enjoyed regionally but have also traveled successfully across the globe,” says Magdalene Ew, the head of marketing, creative and content at HBO Asia. “Our HBO Asia originals are currently available to North American audiences on HBO GO and HBO NOW and will soon be available on more platforms worldwide.” The roster of HBO Asia originals includes the horror anthology Folklore, period drama Grisse and original documentary The World Behind the Teenage Psychic. The streaming service HBO GO was recently launched in Indonesia and will be available in more countries soon.
“HBO Asia has steadily increased the number of originals we are producing.” —Magdalene Ew
Infocomm Media Development Authority Dangerous Jobs / First Man Out / Folklore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will lead a delegation of Singaporean companies to MIPCOM that boast a wide variety of content, from documentaries and dramas to animation, lifestyle and more. “International buyers can look forward to new content formats in the form of the VR series Dangerous Jobs and the 4K series First Man Out, both supported under a partnership between IMDA and Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific,” says Howie Lau, chief industry development officer for IMDA. Dangerous Jobs is about men who earn a living in Asia’s most hostile environments, while First Man Out follows Ed Stafford in a race to reach a predetermined point in some of Asia’s deadliest places. Another series that showcases Asian culture is the drama Folklore, supported under a partnership between IMDA and HBO Asia.
Folklore
“IMDA continues to bring the best of Asian stories to the global stage.” —Howie Lau
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The Terminator on HITS Movies
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Rewind Networks HITS / HITS Movies Rewind Networks’ HITS channel will celebrate its fifth anniversary at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the basic channel HITS Movies is new to the market. Rewind Networks’ VP and channel head, Sandie Lee, handpicked the titles for HITS Movies based on two key factors: a film’s emotional appeal to loyal, older audiences and its ability to attract younger viewers. “It is important for us that the titles we pick for the channel resonate strongly with viewers who would love to watch them again fondly, or in the case of younger viewers, may have heard of these movies through remakes and adaptations but never had the chance to watch the original,” says Lee. Highlights include The Terminator, The Italian Job and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
“In addition to MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures, we will be acquiring movies from other leading studios in the coming months.” —Sandie Lee
Turner Asia Pacific
My Secret, Terrius on Oh!K
Warner TV / Oh!K Warner TV will receive a refresh later this year under the banner “Home of the Superfans.” “In Southeast Asia, Warner TV continues to have more day-and-date series than any of its competitors,” says Marianne Lee, VP of content for general entertainment at Turner Asia Pacific. Programming highlights include Blindspot, Lethal Weapon and the midseason action comedy Whiskey Cavalier, starring The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan. The Korean entertainment channel Oh!K, meanwhile, is celebrating its fourth birthday with an “Oh!K 4ever” campaign. “The drama Return of Fortunate Bok and our variety shows have been real ratings drivers for the channel, but there are some big new additions to the lineup on their way,” says Lee. This includes My Secret, Terrius, starring So Ji-sub, known for his role in the 2013 series Master’s Sun.
“We are looking forward to two big brand campaigns starting in the last quarter of the year.” —Marianne Lee
TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific
Ligue 1 Conforama on TV5MONDE
TV5MONDE Asie / TV5MONDE Pacifique / TV5MONDE Style HD TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific’s channels are currently available in more than 100 million households in the AsiaPac region. There are two HD feeds, TV5MONDE Asie and TV5MONDE Pacifique, and one SD feed of TV5MONDE Asie. “TV5MONDE Style HD was launched in 2015 to answer the increasing demand for exclusive premium content,” explains Alexandre Muller, managing director of TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific. “Excluding China and India, which are very specific markets needing a different strategic approach, there are over 300 million pay-TV households in the region where TV5MONDE’s channels could be aired,” he adds. “A strong push for TV5MONDE Style to be reviewed and taken on board by cable operators is one way to gain additional subscribers and exposure.”
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Channels and distributors across Asia are looking to up their co-production activities in a bid to deliver content that will resonate in multiple markets. By Mansha Daswani nline video platforms are giving incumbent free- and pay-TV brands a run for their money when it comes to content investments. Netflix has boarded the big-budget Mandarin-language drama The Rise of Phoenixes alongside Chinese OTT heavyweight iQiyi and made waves with the Indian original Sacred Games. Amazon has been generating headlines with its big-ticket content investments in India and Japan. And then there are all the other local and regional players—Viu, iflix, HOOQ, Tencent and more—eager to raise their profile with signature original productions, while also competing with pay TV for the best imports on the market. Media Partners Asia (MPA) forecasts that online video content costs will hit $31.5 billion by 2023—much of that in China. Outside of China, online video platforms are set to spend some $5.9 billion on content in Asia in 2023, up from $2.7 billion this year. Against that backdrop, broadcasters and pay-TV channels are well aware they need to up their ambitions. But making highquality, defining, signature shows isn’t cheap, so more and more outlets are looking to partnerships as a way to share the risks, and rewards, of original content across a range of genres. HBO Asia, for one, began its originals strategy a few years ago by partnering with ABC in Australia on Serangoon Road. More recently it has aligned with Astro in Malaysia and Hulu Japan, among others. “We’re fully supportive of co-productions,” states CEO Jonathan Spink. “They work for interesting stories we may not be doing ourselves, and filming in countries we may not be filming in ourselves. You’re sharing costs and everything else, so you all benefit.” Cora Yim, senior VP and head of Chinese entertainment at FOX Networks Group (FNG) Asia, reports that co-pros “play a significant role in our overall original programming business, and as our volume of original content increases, we expect co-productions will continue as a core part of FOX’s original Chinese content strategy.”
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Over at Turner Asia Pacific, Warner TV and Oh!K have long relied on a steady stream of acquired product and as such, “a lot of times we feel like we are just renters,” says Marianne Lee, VP of content for general entertainment. “It’s not a very secure [pipeline] for us as channel providers. That’s why we need to go and source really good IP that we can own and monetize and at the same time bring great variety to the viewers.” It’s a slightly different story for Lee’s colleague Mark Eyers, chief content officer and senior VP for kids’ networks. His portfolio, which includes Cartoon Network, has a U.S. pipeline of originals to tap into, but partnerships within the region are still important. “Even though we have owning and controlling original content and creating IP as primary strategies, we are great believers in having more ideas than money,” Eyers quips. “So co-production and codevelopment remain very important. It’s a stepping stone to getting to 100 percent original productions.”
FREE SPIRITS It’s not just the pan-regional channels that are entering into creative alliances—terrestrial channels are doing it too. NHK in Japan, for instance, has long been a go-to collaborator in the documentary space. “The three main genres in which NHK is traditionally known for co-pros are science, natural history and ancient civilizations,” notes Yuri Sudo, senior producer for international co-production at the Japanese pubcaster. In the Philippines, Macie Imperial, head of acquisitions and international distribution at ABS-CBN Corporation, says she’s noticed “increased interest from our Asian counterparts in discussing co-production partnerships.” Likewise at GMA Worldwide, where VP Roxanne Barcelona notes, “at the moment, we are in negotiations with an ASEAN member broadcaster to co-produce a drama.” Distributors are also getting in on the co-pro action. “In the past year, we have experienced an unprecedented level of interest in global collaborations,” reports Sonia Fleck, CEO of Bomanbridge Media. “We have been contacted more this year than ever by U.S., European and Asian networks,
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GMA Worldwide, with a portfolio that includes Contessa, is looking at alliances to expand its global reach.
looking for fresh format ideas as well as co-productions with international storylines. We are now getting involved early on in productions, offering deficit financing and searching for IP co-pro opportunities.” Nippon TV, Japan’s leading media group, is also using copro and co-development partnerships in a bid to expand its international business. “We are seeking alliances that will allow us to be more strategic in the global format market,” notes Shigeko “Cindy” Chino, the senior director of international business development at Nippon TV. Co-productions, she says, can “help boost Japanese content” by offering up a “gateway to the global stage.” At Zee Entertainment Enterprises, meanwhile, the recent co-production The Life of Earth from Space, with awardwinning production outfit Talesmith Productions and Smithsonian Networks, has helped the Indian company diversify the portfolio of content it can offer the global market. The documentary is among Zee’s top properties for MIPCOM. “We have a lot of drama—that’s what we excel at,” says Sunita Uchil, the chief business officer for global syndication, production and international ad sales at the company. “Co-productions give us the opportunity to partner with other big networks to produce something slightly different than what is typically on our own generalentertainment channels.”
time. We were keen on projects that have an impact across geographies, across cultures. This was a theme that fit perfectly.” At HBO Asia, Spink says his programming team is staying open-minded about potential collaboration opportunities. “If it’s a good idea and we think it makes sense and we have the money for it, then we’ll look at it.” One of HBO Asia’s current high-profile co-pros is The Garden of Evening Mists with Astro. “Astro is a very important partner of ours in Malaysia,” says Spink. “We liked the idea and we knew the personnel involved with it, so we had an early-ish conversation and went in. It’s mainly an Astro project—we are a smaller part of it— but we’ve been very involved in every element, from scripts to casting and everything else.” It’s been a different level of involvement on The Bridge, which was commissioned by OTT service Viu based on the acclaimed scripted format from Endemol Shine Group. “We came into it very late,” Spink notes. “We know the companies involved well. Now TV [sister company to Viu] has been a great partner of ours for many years. We know the production company. They were looking for a little bit extra [of financing] at the end, so we thought, Why not? It’s a story we all know. It’s traveled. It’s an interesting topic for us. And it’s very local.” Going forward, Spink says there are quite a few territories that he is keen to source projects from. “We have a couple of things going in Taiwan. We’ve done one in Indonesia. We’re talking [to producers] in Malaysia and the Philippines. We’re spreading the net fairly wide. We’ve concluded that language is not crucial. We used to agonize about whether things should be in English or not. We did a couple of Chinese films and they rated incredibly well. So we got over that hurdle. The Teenage Psychic ran everywhere in its original language and it worked incredibly well. People are watching big Chinese dramas and Korean dramas, subtitled. That makes the opportunity that much greater. Working with local talent in the local language is going to be far easier than finding talent who needs to act in English.” For Astro, “Nusantara” content that can resonate in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia is the primary
UNIQUE HOOK Uchil says that she and her team weren’t necessarily actively seeking co-pro opportunities, but Talesmith’s pitch was a compelling one. The project, she says, “was of huge interest because it was using satellites to give a completely new, unique perspective into how the Earth was formed and how mankind is what we see today. And Smithsonian was going to be a part of it. The timing for co-productions is always very important. It has to be at the right time, with the right theme and the right talent coming on board. We were looking at doing a global project at that
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ABS-CBN, which makes Wildflower, is exploring both film and TV co-pros.
focus for its co-pro activities. “Growing our reach takes us from Malaysia’s 30 million [viewers] to the 600 million ASEAN population,” says Agnes Rozario, VP of content. “To do this, we need to broaden our network of alliances with renowned local and regional content producers and filmmakers.” Astro has a raft of co-pros happening across the region covering both films and television series. Working with HBO Asia on the adaptation of Tan Twan Eng’s book The Garden of Evening Mists, Rozario says, “enables us to feature a stellar local and international cast and crew and signals our commitment to push Asian content for international exposure.”
MADE IN MANDARIN At FNG, meanwhile, “China is a key market for co-productions,” says Yim. The channels group recently entered a multiyear pact with Endeavor China. “We are joining forces to create quality, original, local-language Asian content,” she says. That includes Go Princess Go, a 20-episode Korean remake of a viral Chinese internet comedy, made in association with YG Studio Plex and LYD Networks. “By combining FNG Asia’s production experience with Endeavor’s access to talent, financing and infrastructure, we can establish an all-round cooperation partnership.” Turner’s scripted co-pro efforts so far have primarily been with Singapore-headquartered mm2 Entertainment, Lee says. “We have a five-movie deal with them over a stretch of four to five years. The first movie that came out of the deal was Wonder Boy by Dick Lee, a famous songwriter and singer from the ’60s and ’70s. That was a biopic on his life, in English. The second movie that I’m quite excited about is an action pic, Killer Not Stupid, from the multimillion-dollar box-office director Jack Neo. It’s in Mandarin, shot in Taiwan, the stars are from Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. So you get a very pan-regional collaboration between different countries. As it’s pan-regional, it makes it easier to market the content in different countries.”
Turner is also looking at scripted drama series, with discussions underway with a Taiwanese producer. On the kids’ side, meanwhile, collaborations are progressing in a number of markets. “We just did a co-production with Synergy Media and Studio Goindol in Korea, together with Turner in Europe, to launch Beat Monsters,” Eyers says. “We continue to do a lot of co-productions in India. A recent one that we’re really happy with is Andy Pirki, created by AUM Animation Studios. We’re also doing some co-development deals. We’re looking at co-production and development deals in China and Malaysia.” ABS-CBN is also casting a wide net, Imperial says, across series and feature films. “We have deals in place where we will be producing movies specifically for an OTT platform,” Imperial explains. “While it has been easier to do movie deals, we are also now in the process of creating pitches for television series as well. There are several discussions currently on the table.” Imperial adds, “We are looking for stories that have universal impact and appeal. For example, the Philippines has a vast treasure chest of ghost stories and folklore that are uniquely Filipino but can be told so that their appeal is universal.”
DOC BLOCKS Science and natural history remain core to NHK’s coproduction remit, Sudo says. “Outside of these genres, NHK is proactively seeking co-production opportunities that involve 8K-UHD technologies. We believe 8K filming technology will open up new possibilities and bring new ideas to documentary making.” He adds that while factual is the company’s strong suit when it comes to international collaboration, “We are keen to work on new genres. One good example is Bodipedia, a brand-new educational series created along with our flagship science doc The Body. Developing educational projects is different from that of factual, as educational projects have to reflect specific cultural needs and must also meet the local educational curricula. We have been closely communicating with our co-producers at the early stage of development and during the production, incorporating their creative input to make sure the content works for the audience in the respective territories.” Bomanbridge is also working on collaboration opportunities in the factual space, Fleck says. One example of her company having taken on a more significant partnership position in a project is Paul Goes to Hollywood, being produced with Denham Productions for UKTV. “This was a great opportunity where some additional financing on our part helped cover the budgets, and the production is now
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Turner aligned with AUM Animation Studios in India for Andy Pirki.
underway,” Fleck says. “We will be managing the global rights for this, and we expect it to be a great success.” She is also currently looking for partners on Into the Heart of China: Walking the Yangtze, fronted by British adventurer Ash Dykes. “It’s a series that offers riveting editorial and the chance to be part of a historical first. Mandarin Film is putting a lot of creative work into the filming of this complex project. Access to the Chinese landscape is always tricky and having a partner like Mandarin Film is fantastic.” Finding the right partners to collaborate with can be a challenge, Fleck notes, “as it requires the perfect balance of talent and contribution.” Indeed, managing multiple relationships on a show is always a balancing act. “It’s important for each partner to leverage their strengths,” says FNG’s Yim. For Spink at HBO Asia, it helps to “go in with a relaxed attitude. You’re not going to be able to dictate everything, so there’s no point even trying to. That’s where you believe in your partners, you trust your partners. If the content is something you’re interested in, you may want things done slightly differently, but you can’t be too precious if you’re coming into it later. You have to go in with your eyes open.”
CREATIVE UNIONS Turner’s Eyers stresses the hands-on approach his team takes with co-productions. “The level of attention to detail” is the same as it would be for an original. “We’d still go through a pilot stage, and that remains critical. It’s how you work out how we’re going to work together. We attach a development executive, we do reviews and notes. We calibrate to the experience of the partner and the IP in question. But the key point is, we don’t skip the pilot stage. This is where you test the partner’s capabilities.” NHK is also heavily involved in the creative aspects of its co-productions, “from script development to actual filming and post-production,” Sudo says. “We keep our production process open to partners because we believe that the more we welcome creative input, the stronger the content becomes and the more appealing to the audience in each territory.” Also key in the co-pro process is a balanced sharing of expertise. “We are excited to partner with players with whom we can share our storytelling abilities and who can help us with input on how we can make these stories relevant to the
international markets as well,” ABS-CBN’s Imperial says. “A perfect partnership is one where both are invested in the creative as well as the business sides of the partnership.” Nippon TV is eager to share its expertise gleaned from being Japan’s market-leading broadcaster. “We produce 90 percent of our content in-house, [so we] can constantly offer innovative ideas that are key to format creation,” Chino says.
BETTER TOGETHER Dragons’ Den was born at Nippon TV and has since been successfully licensed as a format in multiple markets by Sony Pictures Television. “We have learned that creating fresh new ideas that work in the global market requires not just an innovative spirit but also considerable inspection from a marketing point of view,” Chino adds. “Working together with international partners allows us to widen our perspectives and scrutinize our products from a global standpoint.” Zee’s Uchil, on the heels of the successful collaboration on The Life of Earth from Space, is also keen to share the company’s extensive expertise in content creation. “We have 22 offices around the world and an infrastructure of 3,000-plus people. We own production studios in India and abroad. We have an active talent pool we continuously add to. So we can bring out the best that is required in this business— commercially, creatively and technically. We’re in discussions with certain European channels on a kind of lifestyle program. We’re trying to figure out what they can bring to the table in terms of production ability, the anchor or the creative. And what can we bring? It is an amalgamation. We have the bandwidth. We have the history, the facilities and the people.” GMA’s Barcelona is optimistic that collaborations will help to elevate the profile of Asian content globally. “The distribution of more co-pros from Asia will raise awareness and interest worldwide,” she says. “Viewers in other non-Asian countries will be entertained by the myriad of interesting stories and will learn much about Asian culture.” Bomanbridge’s Fleck stresses the importance of bringing Asian creativity to the global stage—and the opportunities that presents. “We see now the impact of Asia’s dramas globally, most recently with the film Crazy Rich Asians drawing wide interest. That film shows that Asia can take the stage in an impactful way. It’s exciting and we are urging producers to reach out to us with co-production opportunities; we are actively searching for the right stories.”
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TV ASIA: Colors launched as a bit of a disruptor brand. A decade later, it seems to have maintained that spirit. How have you kept that momentum? VATS: It’s always had the mindset of a challenger brand, despite being number one. That’s a very good place to be. Associated with that is the ability to continuously innovate, and being willing to tear apart what you have built. That is related to innovation, but I would call it disruption. One of the things we’ve been doing is social messaging. One of our early successes was Balika Vadhu. Most channels will tend to go for more tested and safe content. We’ve always been challenging the status quo. We’ve done issues such as bonded labor in a series called Udaan. More recently we did a show on the status of transgender people in society [Shakti—Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki]. It’s pretty bold, for India particularly and maybe anywhere. We’re continuously bringing in the best of international formats. Fear Factor, Big Brother as Bigg Boss, India’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars [Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa]. More recently, we did the first-ever live reality show with Rising Star, the Keshet International format. And in our choice of stories, we’ve been upfront in trying to change the rules of the game. In India, conventional wisdom says that [limited] series don’t work. There is some truth to that. It’s a large country, so by the time there’s awareness of a particular show it’s close to 60 to 100 episodes, two to three months, and then it continues on and on to 1,000, 1,500 episodes. We’ve done three or four limited series. One is an international format, 24, which we adapted for India. Another one is our own paranormal series, Naagin. And finally, among all channels, there are two things we continue to do differently. We yank shows when others would say they are running quite well. That’s the reason we launch more shows [than our competitors]. And our success rate is pretty decent. We get about a 60 percent success rate. And we have the widest spread of production houses on our channels. There are shows from some of the better-known names—Ekta Kapoor, Rashmi Sharma— as well as first-time producers. And we’ve never shied away from mounting things at a scale that is new to the Indian market. We’ve done social mythological and historical mythological, like Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat and Mahakaali—those are expensive shows by Indian standards.
By Mansha Daswani
More than ten years ago, Viacom bet big on India by aligning with local operator TV18 Group to roll out a portfolio of services in the booming market, beginning with the general-entertainment channel Colors. Today, the venture—majority owned by TV18—runs a slew of linear channels locally and internationally, a motionpicture business and a thriving digital platform, and it is active in the licensing, merchandising and live-events spheres. Sudhanshu Vats, the group CEO of Viacom18, tells TV Asia about what’s driving his business at home and abroad.
TV ASIA: Tell us about the broader Viacom18 portfolio. VATS: At the beginning, we had a TV business with four channels. Now we have five businesses: television, film, digital, live experiential and merchandising. Within television we’ve gone from 4 channels to 44 channels, 30 in India and 14 outside India catering to the diaspora (including in the U.K., U.S., Middle East and Singapore). In the 30 there are 18 brands or channels and 12 HD versions. Going from 4 to 44 is a fantastic journey. We have Hindi mass entertainment with Colors; a free-to-air brand called Rishtey and a movie channel called Rishtey Cineplex. In kids, we used to have one brand, Nickelodeon, in Hindi. We now have five feeds of Nickelodeon in different languages. Plus we’ve added Sonic and have introduced Nick Jr. We also added Nick HD+; it’s not an HD version of Nick, it’s the best of Nick in HD. Nick has been number one for four years. We own about a 33-percent
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Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. We pioneered biopics with Bhaag Milkha Bhaag [about Olympian Milkha Singh] and Mary Kom. We’ve done a lot more mid-segment content-led films like Queen. We’ve done small but beautiful films like Margarita with a Straw and Manto, which premiered in Cannes. Now we’re going regional as well. We’ve done some good Marathi films already. We’re going to venture into South Indian, Bangla and Kannada. Over the last four years, we’ve been breakeven to marginally profitable and last year very profitable with the studio.
In its third season, the supernatural thriller Naagin is one of Colors’ most successful series.
share in the kids’ market. We have MTV, which is all local programming; MTV HD+, with some international content; and MTV Beats, which is a 24/7 music channel. It’s in the top three or four in the music space. That’s the youth and music portfolio. In English, we have VH1, which is music and lifestyle; Comedy Central, which is doing very well; and Colors Infinity. In English entertainment, numbers one, two and three are all Viacom18 brands, every week. The only thing that changes is the pecking order between these brands. And then, through an acquisition, we built a regional portfolio. We acquired ETV, which was present in five states already—Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bangla and Oriya. They were all number four, number five channels; we’ve moved them up. Colors Kannada is a solid number one channel, Colors Marathi is a strong two, Colors Gujarati is number one in its space. We’ve introduced HD versions for all of them. In the Kannada market, which is the largest, we’ve put in Colors Super. Between [Colors Kannada and Colors Super] we have close to a 50-percent share. Recently, we entered Tamil Nadu with Colors Tamil. The journey has just begun. It’s a very tough market, as there are some powerful competitors there. So that’s the television portfolio. TV ASIA: How’s the feature-film part of your business performing? VATS: In film, it’s easy to get carried away and lose a lot of money. We’ve approached it in a reasonably disciplined fashion. Films don’t fail, budgets do. Each of these stories needs to be told. Depending on the budget, people say it’s successful or unsuccessful. Our success rate over a period of four or five years would be about 57 percent. This past year was a stellar one for film. We did Padmaavat and
TV ASIA: How are you positioning Voot and your other digital initiatives? VATS: On the whole, the digital piece has done very well. We launched Voot as a digital-only brand, advertiser-led video on demand. We are the secondlargest premium OTT advertising-led VOD platform in India, Hotstar being the number one. We’ve done close to 80 million downloads and have about 30 million to 40 million monthly active users. And watch time is close to 45 minutes. We’re doing more and more originals for Voot. We’re going to bring in digital to the regional business as well. My belief is, 59 percent of India communicates in regional languages, about 40 percent in Hindi, and the balance 1 percent in English. English—because of the correlation to affluence—and Hindi are over-indexed from the point of view of monetization. The growth is going to come more and more in languages, which are considerably under-indexed. They were not that well measured before. Interestingly, the money is there. Some of the prominent languages are South Indian—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, even Marathi. These are very affluent states. In fact, it’s the Hindi-speaking states that are relatively poorer. But Hindi cable started, and the measurement agency came in and measured what was popular at that point, and it was Hindi. All of that is changing now. Regional is becoming more popular. So the AVOD piece has done well, and now, we’re going to look at a freemium offering in India. And we’re looking at a sharply focused and segmented kids’ offering, Voot Kids. TV ASIA: And then you also operate in the live entertainment and merchandising segments? VATS: Experiential entertainment is a smaller business, but I think it’s one [that will expand in the] future. VH1 Supersonic is our popular EDM festival. We do a lot of college and club gigs associated with Supersonic, and similar things for Bollywood. We’ve dabbled a bit in comedy with the Comedy Central Chuckle Festival. And for kids, we’ve done a Dora the Explorer [stage show]. Merchandising is also small in India, but we are the second-largest merchandising company in the country after Disney. We do licensing and merchandising outside our own portfolio as
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scaled up to a $60 million [international] business. Now we need to do more television as well as digital. TV ASIA: In terms of the film business, what’s the window between theatrical release and broadcast, and what other monetization opportunities are there? VATS: The window tends to be 60 to 90 days, usually 60 from the release in theaters. In India, the windows are short. Most of our movies come onto Colors or on our movie channel. At the moment, we don’t have an SVOD platform, so we keep a carve-out for us and our partners at [telco operator] Jio, but we will also do a digital deal with a global major, a Netflix or an Amazon. They get it for the rest of the world and we keep it for India.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures released the lavish historical feature film Padmaavat earlier this year.
well. We rep Peppa Pig in India—we do television, digital and merchandising, and maybe we will do live experiential—Winx Club, FC Barcelona. We’ve launched MTV-themed cafés, called Flyp@MTV, in Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh. TV ASIA: What’s driving your operations outside of India? VATS: There are a few things we’re doing in international. We want to build a portfolio of channel brands rather than just remaining with one, Colors, in general entertainment. The U.K. is a classic example of this. We have Colors, Colors HD, Rishtey, MTV Beats, which is doing quite well, and our movie channel, Cineplex. We’ve done something similar in the U.S., where we have three already and plan to have more. So we’re building a portfolio of brands that goes well beyond general entertainment— there will also be movies and music, maybe kids. We’ve got a lot of Indian IP [for kids] now, so we’ll see how we package that. The second important piece in international is Voot. Voot International will allow us to package some of our content under one [platform]. And it will open up more markets for us. When you’re television-dependent, you need some amount of heft. The good thing about digital is you can reach two people in a market—as long as they can download it and pay you for it. I’m exaggerating, but you can go wide. That’s what you will see toward the end of this year. And to do all of this, we’re augmenting our teams—we’re going to get more aggressive on the sales piece and on syndication in markets where we’re not present. Some of the content resonates beautifully, particularly on the African continent, and in some parts of Europe as well. We’ve
TV ASIA: How is the original programming strategy progressing for Voot? VATS: We have about 40 million active users on Voot. About 60 percent of the content is what is on television. About 15 to 20 percent is what we call “content around content.” These are Voot exclusives. So Bigg Boss is on television, and there are 70 cameras in the house, filming for 24 hours, so you have 840 hours of raw footage every day. Our television team uses 45 minutes [for each episode]. There is so much more you can do through different cameras, and all of that is done on Voot. Similarly, for Fear Factor and Rising Star, voting is done on Voot. Also for [scripted] series, we do behind-the-scenes clips. We’ve done 11 originals up till now only for digital. Some of them have done quite well. There’s one called It’s Not That Simple, with Swara Bhaskar. We’re doing season two of that. We’ve done Untag, Time Out, Shaadi Boys, Chinese Bhasad. We’re having a lot of fun in this space. The journey has just begun. We will do a lot more. TV ASIA: And are you using Voot to incubate ideas that could eventually come to television? VATS: We want to build a very strong analytical backbone. We’ve been a very strong content company, and we want to retain that edge because we’re in the business of storytelling, but the future stories have to be told with the help of analytics. It can’t just be stories alone; they won’t travel otherwise, they won’t be big enough, the probability of success won’t be as high. So now we have a central analytical engine. We have 4 million to 5 million daily active users on Voot. We know exactly what people are watching. The audience is pretty similar [to television]. Mobile data is affordable and ubiquitous. We’ve also begun testing some pilots. We’re doing that in a limited way, but we’re doing a lot more analytics. TV ASIA: What are some of your other priorities going forward? VATS: We’ve launched two initiatives. One is Big Belly, an intranet that will soon be available to outsiders as well, where you can share any idea you have. And then we go social on the idea. It’s not necessarily just content. It could be how to market or how to cut waste in the organization. And we’ve launched our first startup engagement program, VStEP. We invite ideas from start-ups and then we shortlist ten. These ten companies work very closely with different parts of our business. We provide business incubation, mentoring, and in some cases, cohabitation. Depending on this, we determine if we should invest in them or not.
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Over the last few years, Amazon Prime Video has been making waves in two of Asia’s most significant and prolific contentcreation markets: India and Japan. From twisty, serialized thrillers in India to boundary-pushing variety in Japan, Amazon has had a clear message to local creatives—bring us your best ideas, and if we love them, we’ll back them and roll them out within the region and across our global footprint. As head of content and international expansion at Amazon Studios and Prime Video, James Farrell has been leading original content initiatives in Asia as well as crafting an acquisitions strategy for the region. He tells TV Asia about the developments so far and what’s still to come for the digital behemoth across the Asia Pacific. TV ASIA: Tell us about the journey you’ve been on to find talent in Asia. FARRELL: It’s been a busy few years! You can start with some broad research: these are the top ten production companies, these are the top 50 directors. There’s no shortcut, unfortunately—you’ve got to meet everybody and tell them what you’re interested in doing. We’re interested in making high-quality television. If you already have it, we’re interested in licensing it. And we’re interested in licensing movies. And then you see who’s receptive. Some people say, No thank you, we already have great partnerships with other people. And you say, OK, if you change your mind, here’s my card. So 100 people get whittled down to 50 who express some interest, and then to those 50, you say, I’ll come back in a couple of weeks, and we’ll chat again. And then you come back in a few weeks, and some of them are ready. They say, Since our last discussion, we thought about it and here’s a list of the shows we’ve been thinking about making and here’s the list of movies we’re interested in licensing to you. Some of those ideas are good; some are not. So that 50 becomes 20, and you say, OK, those 20 are really good, let’s get the partnership started. You put those shows into development, and you get those movies licensed and up on the service. When they turn out really well, like the ones with Excel Entertainment in India and Yoshimoto Kogyo in Japan, we very quickly go back and say, Let’s ramp up, let’s do more now that we know that you can deliver. You’re not going to bat 1,000. It takes a lot of time, but it’s always time well spent. TV ASIA: The storytelling in most of the scripted shows on Indian television is quite slow, and there’s a lot of recapping in each episode, as these series have to get stripped throughout the week. Has there been a steep learning curve
for the Indian producers you’ve been working with to deliver long-form storytelling with more limited episode counts? FARRELL: [On television] they need to say things ten times to make sure you get it because you’re probably not paying attention. Whereas in this medium, people are pretty immersed. It’s a very personal viewing experience. So you don’t need to say something ten times. And if you did, people would tune out, they’d say, this is boring. You need to keep it moving; [the storytelling] needs to be faster, you need to take more care with the writing, you have to make sure you have the proper hooks in the season and at the ends of the episodes. It’s not easy. But for the most part, people are global customers of content now. It’s not like you’re telling them something they’re not aware of. The good partners are the ones who are patient and willing to learn. They know more than I will ever know about Indian consumers and what people want to see. But at the same time, when I say, I’m going to bring in a showrunner from the U.S. for a couple of weeks to work with you on the hooks at the ends of the episodes, the good partners say, That’s great! That’s been nice. TV ASIA: You’re now making multiple series with Excel in India after Inside Edge. What did you learn from the first show that you could bring to subsequent series? FARRELL: In hindsight we can say, I wish we had set this up better for season two. So now, as we’re starting new shows, we’re doing a much better job of saying, this is so good, we know it’s going to go many seasons, let’s drop a lot more hooks in season one for seasons two and three. With the first one it was, let’s be more linear about it, we don’t have to be so long-term in our thinking. Now that we all know it works, everybody is thinking much more long-term. TV ASIA: So the focus has been on scripted in India and variety in Japan? FARRELL: In Japan, there are so many great variety shows on television and not a lot of multiseason dramas. [We wondered if] people were going to like great variety on Amazon in Japan or if they were going to want us to provide the drama. It turns out they want more variety—crazier and better than what they’ve got on TV, like Hitoshi Matsumoto Presents Documental. Whereas in India it started with scripted— people said, there’s nothing like this on TV. But we have moved ahead and announced the launch of unscripted originals, and over the past few months have launched shows like The Remix, Comicstaan and there are a few more in the pipeline that we’re set to launch this year.
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FARRELL: That story [about the driver] is true. That guy wouldn’t pay 500 rupees ($7) a month, it’s not going to happen, but he will pay 999 rupees ($15) a year. And he gets the shipping benefit and Prime Music. We want a lot of people all talking and watching and debating about what’s going to happen on Inside Edge next season, not a small subset.
Inside Edge, Amazon’s first original drama in India, has been renewed for a second season.
TV ASIA: What’s the approach to acquisitions? FARRELL: We’ve been very fortunate on the movie side in India. Our partners are incredible. Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, Excel Entertainment, T-Series, they all have great slates for the next few years. We’ve signed multiyear deals with them. Customers are starting to get used to [watching Bollywood movies on Amazon]. The last time I was in India, I got into my car at the airport and I asked my driver, Who’s your favorite star? He says, Salman Khan. I ask, Have you seen Tiger Zinda Hai? He says, No, I missed it [when it was in its theatrical release]. I said, That’s too bad, how are you going to watch it? And he said, I’ll watch it on Amazon! This is not an insider; it’s not a guy at a conference, it’s my driver at the airport. Padmaavat did huge numbers for us. Now [viewers in India] know we’ve got these great original series coming. And we buy U.S. movies and TV shows. It’s starting to look like a pretty comprehensive offering. People come in and not too many leave anymore; they stick around once they see what we have. TV ASIA: Are you securing global rights to these Indian features? FARRELL: [We did on] Padmaavat, Tiger Zinda Hai, Lipstick Under My Burkha and a lot of other cinema—Newton did well globally. Of course, everything is not for everybody, but for the most part, those first-release Bollywood movies that we have licensed globally have done well. TV ASIA: There’s always a lot of debate about appropriate price points in emerging markets. Amazon appears to be positioning itself as a mass-market play in India, rather than as a service that is only affordable to the top end of the market.
TV ASIA: Do you have a target number of Asian originals you want to get to? FARRELL: It’s very fluid. I mentioned that pie of 100 down to 50 down to 20. You put 20 into development; if all 20 came out amazing, we’d make all 20! If only five come out amazing, we’re only going to make five; we’re not going to make seven more just to say, hey, we have 12! And if we find people are loving [the originals] more than they’re loving the U.S. movies, then over time, we’ll do more of one over the other. You keep iterating based on what’s working. But so far, we haven’t hit anywhere near our ceiling. What’s amazing is how far you have to plan ahead. Our shows for 2019 [including The Forgotten Army directed by Kabir Khan and Made in Heaven produced by Zoya Akhtar], most of them have finished shooting already. There’s so much work that goes into editing them and getting them ready for these massive releases. The 2019 shows are ridiculously good. That’s super exciting. And the team is already in panic mode on what we’re doing for 2020! TV ASIA: I started watching Breathe—just that opening minute was shocking; it grabs you immediately. FARRELL: We did a screening two days before it launched, where we showed the first four episodes to the press and some members of the film community in Mumbai. By the fourth one, there was a gasp in the audience. You don’t know which way it’s going to go. Most of the time when you go to a Bollywood movie, you’re pretty sure how it’s going to end. But at the end of the fourth episode [of Breathe], you don’t know. You’re following two main characters. And [at first], you’re pretty sure what’s going to happen, but then you don’t know, and of course, you have to finish watching it. TV ASIA: How are you working with Sharon Tal Yguado and Jennifer Salke and the rest of the team at Amazon Studios? FARRELL: Both of those ladies are fantastic. I mentioned bringing in showrunners to help the India team. Their [connections] in the U.S. are much better than mine. So when we’re trying to find people to come in and collaborate here, they are the ones who help put that together.
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There’s no straight path to success for OTT platforms in Asia’s emerging markets. Indeed, for the key players in the region, constant reevaluation has been critical to determine the best content lineup at the right price, optimized for the right devices, and with a business model that is sustainable. HOOQ, which launched in 2015 as a partnership between Singtel, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Entertainment, started off solely as an SVOD operator and has since evolved, introducing sachet pricing, free linear channels and, most recently, a skinny bundle of pay-TV brands. Peter Bithos, the CEO of HOOQ, discusses how the service—which operates in Southeast Asia and India—is responding to changes in the landscape, investing in originals and cultivating talent through the HOOQ Filmmakers Guild. TV ASIA: How has your strategy evolved since launch? BITHOS: We were the first regional service to get started. I remember very clearly knowing that the way things were being set up was going to have to change, but not knowing 100 percent how. By the end of the first year, we realized that the monthly recurring subscription model that you see in North America or Europe, not only was that not going to get to scale, it was not going to work in Southeast Asia. So 2015 was setup and rollout, 2016 was rethinking the business model. What does it need to look like? How does it work? What does the customer experience need to be? What content value proposition sits where? Building it internally was the easy part; convincing the ecosystem was a whole different kettle of fish. Take one thing that we’ve announced: HOOQ for a day. I was passionate about this from the beginning. To do it, you have to convince every single one of your [content partners] to agree to it. If you have one content provider holdout, it doesn’t make sense to the consumer. What are you going to tell the customer? Here’s HOOQ for a day, except for these users or for these titles. So we had to spend most of 2017 working through all our partners, rebuilding our tech stack and building new partners. And then relaunching HOOQ for what we think scales to 50 million to 100 million users as opposed to 5 million. TV ASIA: Tell us about the new skinny bundle you’ve just introduced in Indonesia. BITHOS: Except for Singapore, the Southeast Asian market never got to scale for premium content. Pay-TV penetration is very, very low in almost every country in Southeast Asia. As a result of that, great brands that most people would be familiar with aren’t accessible to the everyday person. In a place like Indonesia, with 260 million people, 90 million to
100 million households, only 10 percent have pay TV. And we have noted across multiple geographies, including India, that the mix of a linear experience with an on-demand experience is still a very relevant engagement vehicle. We’ve seen data from other platforms that have blended linear and ondemand and the linear experience plays a significant role. And then monthly pricing and accessibility is a hindrance. People do not commit to subscription at scale for almost anything in their lives. They don’t do it for packs of cigarettes— they buy one cigarette. They don’t buy bottles of shampoo— they buy little sachets. The average cost of a pay-TV package in Indonesia can be up to $20 to $30. That’s not affordable for everyone with a smartphone. [With the skinny bundle] we’re bringing an entire platform of premium content, linear and on-demand, to everybody with a smartphone, priced at a level everyone can afford. It’s taken a lot of effort pulling together a lot of different companies, breaking a bunch of rules that have never been broken before to create a skinny bundle inside an OTT service. And it’s not only for a monthly subscription—we’re doing it by the week or the day. So in Indonesia, when you buy HOOQ for a day, a week or a month, it will not only come with all the on-demand content, but with 20 to 25 premium channels from brands you know and love, with both the linear and catch-up experiences. That gives smartphone users in Indonesia the ability to get pay TV for the very first time. And to do that on their phone or their PC or even if they have a TV that is capable of it. It is taking the pay-TV world in emerging markets into the OTT world. TV ASIA: And there’s the free layer of terrestrial channels as well. BITHOS: That’s right. The free-to-air channels are in a free layer. We’ve announced four more Indonesian channels for the free bundle, bringing our total free channel offering to 13. TV ASIA: Are you looking to expand this throughout the HOOQ footprint? BITHOS: HOOQ today is in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and India. Southeast Asia is the focus for this particular play, and we’re starting with Indonesia. In Southeast Asia, you see us positioning ourselves and moving boldly to be the platform of choice for consumers and the ecosystem. In India, it’s the opposite. In India, there are platforms that are already doing fantastic jobs. We are positioning ourselves as the Hollywood
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part of the world are still understanding what it means to write edgy, ten-episode series. They’re used to 100 episodes or a twohour movie, and there’s very little in between. The screenwriters are trying to learn how to deal with it; the directors are learning how to deal with it. It’s great that the ecosystem is pushing hard to develop that over time. I wish it were easy.
HOOQ invested in the Indonesian feature film Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts as part of its original-content strategy.
channel of choice on multiple platforms. So we’re on Airtel and Vodafone as an OTT “channel.” TV ASIA: We first spoke just as HOOQ was launching. I’m curious if, back then, you had an inkling that live, linear channels would end up being part of your business model? BITHOS: I didn’t anticipate that there would be the flexibility in the industry for us to be able to do it. The industry has changed to the point that people are willing to do new things. You can get access to an amazing premium video platform that includes the best local and Hollywood on-demand content, together with a skinny bundle, for 25 cents, for one day. That’s unheard of. I don’t know if anyone else in the world has done that. It’s a sign that people recognize that innovation is critical right now in the ecosystem. TV ASIA: Tell us about the importance of the Indonesian market for HOOQ. BITHOS: Indonesia is by far the largest market in Southeast Asia. There is no such thing as winning in Southeast Asia and losing Indonesia. So we are in it to win it. We see a lot of people coming to Indonesia and are thinking about this space very aggressively. And we decided to move first. We’re investing on the content side and the people side. We have almost as many people in Indonesia as we have in our headquarters. We have a development center in Bandung; we have a large office at scale in Jakarta. And we’re investing on the partner side. We have more partners in Indonesia than any other country. So it’s a full-on sprint. And we believe there’s an open opportunity to be a really good platform, going deep into the customer base. TV ASIA: What have been the key lessons you have learned from the first edition of the HOOQ Filmmakers Guild? BITHOS: Everyone in the ecosystem—young talent and experienced screenwriters—is learning how to produce quality episodic for OTT. In North America and Europe, this golden age of television is unbelievable. But people in this
TV ASIA: You’ve gone big on original movies in Indonesia. What was the thinking behind that? BITHOS: As an OTT provider, our preference is great episodic. But in Southeast Asia, great episodic doesn’t exist at scale. It’s very thin on the ground. So you get tons of telenovelas that are well suited to the free layer of the service, and you’re going to see that on HOOQ, but for premium content that people want to pay for, [there isn’t much being produced in the region]. I would love to put up 50 box sets of great, edgy, Indonesian episodic—it doesn’t exist. So we have to make it, and that takes time. Movies keep a pipeline of hot and fresh stuff coming in for a period of time, and it is premium. The other thing about Indonesia, in particular, is that it is way underpenetrated for movie cinemas per person. There are only 1,500 screens or so for the entire country of 260 million people. Some towns don’t have a movie cinema. Often in Indonesia, the very first time people can see a movie is on HOOQ. So it was a no-brainer that for this year and the next few years, movies are going to be a big part of what we offer. TV ASIA: Given that a lot of these markets are heavily mobile, and people are mainly watching on smaller screens, how does that impact your content strategy? BITHOS: From the premium side, not much. If you’re paying for something, you want good-quality premium content, and that tends to be long-form. Now with the freemium layer, we’re going to be experimenting with all different types—short-form, snackable, mobile-focused. Having a free layer opens up the horizon of innovation on the content programming side. And the great thing about that part of the ecosystem is there’s much more of a win-win attitude on the content-supply side of the equation. On the premium side, it’s sometimes a bit one-way. TV ASIA: Does local or regional content travel well within the HOOQ footprint? BITHOS: I don’t think that part has happened well yet. Korea is an amazing factory for that—you have to give the creative community in Korea an immense amount of credit. It’s not easy. You see some movies, like Bad Genius from Thailand, build an audience around the region. But they tend to be one-off and genre-based. It’s something we’re toying around with and we’re trying to promote. But it’s early days, and no one has proven it yet.
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OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
African & Arabic Content / OSN’s Martin Stewart
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CONTENTS
Paying the Cost
FEATURE 6 GOING GLOBAL Spotlighting the increasingly global aspirations of producers and distributors across the region.
This year’s World Cup was more than just a battle for goals—it also became a political minefield in the Middle East as the strained relationship between Qatar and the rest of the region had a very direct effect on footy fans.
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor Sara Alessi Associate Editor 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 MEA © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvmea.ws
Saudi Arabians were jubilant that their nation had qualified for one of the world’s most-watched sports tournaments. The problem was, the rights for the World Cup were held by Qatar-based beIN, which has been blocked in Saudi Arabia since last year as part of a broader diplomatic crisis in the region. (The UAE and Egypt, among other countries, have cut ties with Qatar, claiming it supports extremist groups.) Without access to beIN, Saudis turned to beoutQ, a pirate channel that has become known for delivering topflight sports rights—without paying for them. In recent months, some of the world’s biggest sports organizations, including FIFA, the Premier League and La Liga, have been trying to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to shut the channel down. As of press time, it’s still available. The kingdom denies that it is supporting the illegal destination, but beIN claims to have proof of the Saudi government’s involvement. “The evidence is irrefutable,” Sophie Jordan, beIN Media Group’s legal counsel, told The New York Times. “On a daily basis it is carrying out—in broad daylight—a mass-scale theft of highly valuable intellectual property rights.” BeoutQ is not the only platform enabling rampant piracy in the Middle East, creating a challenging environment for companies like OSN, the region’s dominant pay-TV provider. In this edition of TV MEA, OSN CEO Martin Stewart discusses how his organization and others are working to address the issue. He also reveals how OSN is meeting consumer expectations with its authenticated OSN Play service, its standalone OTT platform and new pricing tiers to make sure that the platform is accessible to a broad range of socioeconomic groups. Not being adequately compensated for content is also a pressing issue for producers across the region. As economic challenges put a squeeze on broadcaster budgets, producers are eager for new funding models, and many are pursuing opportunities in the global market. This edition features a report on the international ambitions of several Middle Eastern and African producers and distributors as they look to export their storytelling to the rest of the world. —Mansha Daswani
INTERVIEW
10 OSN’s Martin Stewart The CEO of MENA’s leading pay-TV service discusses the platform’s approach to servicing its customers across all the devices they are using with flexibile subscription packages and a focus on top-flight content.
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DISCOP Johannesburg November 14-16, Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg, South Africa DISCOP Johannesburg has been working to keep pace with the rapidly changing audiovisual landscape in Africa. “The biggest change is the growth of intra-regional content trade and the co-production business across sub-Saharan Africa,” says Patrick Zuchowicki, CEO of DISCOP. He adds that another important change is the rising number of pay-TV subscribers. Also top of mind, according to Zuchowicki, is the emergence of a mobile-based content distribution B2C marketplace, “which will fast impact Africa’s media and entertainment industries, more so than anywhere else in the world, given the penetration of smartphones and the current number of mobile subscribers.” There’s going to be a focus on international co-productions, as well as on regional production and distribution partnerships between neighboring countries.
DISCOP Johannesburg
“There are more and more local production companies creating homegrown content that resonates better with local audiences and advertisers.” —Patrick Zuchowicki
Fremantle
My Brilliant Friend
The Greatest Dancer / My Brilliant Friend / The Yard A co-production with Syco Entertainment, The Greatest Dancer aims to find the best dancer in a country. The format was originally commissioned by BBC One in the U.K. “Considering the resounding success of shiny-floor prime-time shows across the Middle East and Africa, the resurgence of the dance genre and the fact that Syco/Fremantle co-productions have all been global hits, The Greatest Dancer will resonate with buyers across the region,” says Anahita Kheder, Fremantle’s senior VP of distribution for the Middle East, Africa and Southeastern Europe, International. “It is a format that is full of warmth, heart and great surprise challenges.” Also being highlighted for the MEA region are My Brilliant Friend, a drama based on the best-selling book of the same name, and The Yard, which explores female friendships in prison.
“Some promising developments in the media sector in the Middle East mean we can look to further grow our commissioning success.” —Anahita Kheder
SPI International
Board Stories on Fast&FunBox HD Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
FilmBox / FightBox / DocuBox SPI International operates a slew of channels across the Middle East and Africa, its flagship being FilmBox. The channel offers movies and TV shows in multiple languages, either dubbed in regional languages or subtitled. “Our martial arts channel FightBox and documentary channel DocuBox are quite popular in the region,” says Berk Uziyel, CEO of SPI International. The sports channel FightBox features several live matches each week, while DocuBox boasts a wide range of documentaries. Further channel highlights from across the bouquet in the MEA region include Fast&FunBox HD, dedicated to extreme sports. “SPI works actively with digital partners in order to reach its audiences via all available mediums,” Uziyel says. “Viewers will be able to see SPI/FilmBox content on new digital platforms in the coming months.”
“We operate tons of channels across the Middle East and Africa.”
—Berk Uziyel
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Mansha Daswani spotlights the increasingly global aspirations of content distributors in the Middle East and Africa. his September, filming kicked off in Morocco on a new six-part crime series for Channel 4. Baghdad Central, from Fremantle’s Euston Films, is tapping into Moroccan production facilities to create Baghdad circa 2003, as the Iraqi capital faces chaos following the U.S. occupation and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. The much-anticipated drama is one of many series and films benefiting from production incentives and unique locations across the Middle East and Africa. But in all the headlines about American and European producers opting to film in the region, the vibrant local content-creation sector often gets overlooked. For Arabic-language and African content producers and distributors, there has perhaps never been a better time to make an impact on the global stage. Of note, Image Nation Abu Dhabi worked with U.S. producers Walter Parkes and William Finkelstein on the Arabic-language legal drama Justice. Amazon is said to be in talks with Anonymous Content and pan-Arab broadcaster MBC Group’s O3 Productions for a series about Muammar Gaddafi. MBC, meanwhile, has just enlisted NBCUniversal veteran Peter Smith to lead the brand-new MBC Studios, focused on creating premium content in the region. And Sony Pictures Television has entered into a development deal with pan-African network EbonyLife that kicks off with a series inspired by the Dahomey female warriors of West Africa. “Ever since our launch in June 2013, our vision has been to change the narrative about Africa and to tell our stories from our perspective,” says Eunice Omole, chief strategy officer at EbonyLife Media. “We were tired of being portrayed in perpetual crisis—war, famine and corruption. Since deciding to change that narrative, we have created more than 5,000 hours of programming and currently have several projects in development. We have invested in the creation of quality programming and the development of our people and their ideas. It is this ethos that has given us the opportunity to
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partner with an organization like Sony Pictures Television. Now we have the opportunity to bring the fascinating story of the Dahomey warriors, and many others like it, to audiences around the world. It has been hard work getting here, but that’s what we are known for at EbonyLife.”
OUT OF AFRICA An organization with pan-regional reach, EbonyLife is headquartered in Nigeria, a country that is widely seen as Africa’s most prolific content producer, with a movie business that has earned the nickname Nollywood. “Nollywood films, especially made-for-TV movies, are churned out largely for local pay-TV channels and also distributed outside of Nigeria,” says Ijeoma Onah, the founder of the Nigerian International TV Summit (NITV), which aims to put the country’s content sector in the spotlight. “Content produced by Nigeria is consistently sustaining [the African] television business because there is a huge demand and appetite for it—despite the quality flaws, which, of course, are being tackled,” Onah continues. “Nigerian stories resonate with Africans everywhere. In Francophone Africa, in South Africa, in East Africa where in some cases English is not the dominant language or even well understood by locals, Nigerian content in the original English version is consumed by viewers who understand only French, Zulu and Swahili. We have seen the dubbing business soar because Nigerian content is being dubbed into French and now Swahili in increasing volumes. One Nigerian telenovela, Taste of Love, has been sold in over 20 countries within and outside of Africa.” International expansion for Nigerian content is crucial, Onah explains, with shrinking ad expenditures and an increasingly competitive environment putting a squeeze on production budgets. “The way forward for TV producers is international collaborations,” Onah notes. “Nigerian content is the most commercial, exportable and acceptable content by Africans and the diaspora.”
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EbonyLife’s Fifty: The Series is a follow-up to a hit Nollywood film.
Onah adds, “Right now we are at a point where we need international partners to produce locally and tap into the huge international commercial value of Nigerian content wherever Africans are found and want to be catered to in terms of their programming needs.” That view is backed by Shileola Ibironke, managing director and CEO of Micromedia Marketing, which produces and sells a range of African drama series. Its catalog includes the aforementioned Taste of Love, which Ibironke executive produced. “Nigeria [is home to] prolific content producers that tell relatable stories that are Africa-focused, and these resonate deeply in the continent,” she notes. “The global content landscape has opened a network of distribution channels across Africa and other continents,” Ibironke says of new opportunities for her company. “We are pursuing co-productions as we have the vision to distribute Micromedia content globally and not just within a specific geographical area.” On the heels of the Sony pact, EbonyLife is also pursuing further international collaborations, Omole says. “We have invested hugely in the development of scripted and unscripted formats with an African twist. We see this as a great opportunity to pursue co-pro alliances internationally for titles with an African perspective and a global outlook. The world craves freshness, newness and the alternative. We believe this is what sets us apart. We have been very successful in Nollywood and are now looking to produce features with a broader appeal that resonate with the black diaspora and beyond.”
OVER THE TOP In addition to operating a channel on the continent, EbonyLife has rolled out a global VOD platform, EbonyLife ON. “This service has expanded our reach dramatically beyond satellite TV platforms,” Omole notes. “Now, anyone with an internet-connected mobile device can watch our content, no longer constrained by TV schedules or expensive monthly subscriptions.” Indeed, the emergence of OTT has created a wealth of opportunities for niche Africa-focused platforms outside of the continent. That’s an area that AfricaXP has specialized in, creating and distributing branded channels, including Trigger on DSTV and a portfolio of services on MTN Ghana, among other platforms.
“OTT obviously presents great new opportunities to reach small minorities worldwide, bypassing traditional barriers to entry like licenses and infrastructure—so international digital platforms are a big focus for the distribution of African content worldwide,” observes Craig Kelly, the company’s founder and CEO. “If the content is of sufficiently high standards, then selling to mainstream African American channels and platforms is a growing opportunity,” Kelly notes. “But content must be made with this audience in mind. It is also important to differentiate between African content and international content made in Africa that can be marketed and sold into the mainstream. There are increasing opportunities for this.” Kelly concedes that there are challenges in globalizing African programming. “In Africa, broadcasters have low budgets because the GDP is smaller than the U.K. or France and the market is highly fragmented with 54 countries and thousands of different languages. Outside Africa, the challenge historically has been the niche nature of the content. Opportunities have been limited and budgets small. OTT has made more space.” EbonyLife has been focused on delivering made-inAfrica stories with high production values and distinctive storytelling, including The Governor, Fifty: The Series—a follow-up to the Nigerian blockbuster hit movie—and the continent’s first procedural legal drama, Castle & Castle. It also adapted Desperate Housewives for the region.
FORMAT FLAVOR While producers are indeed creating and developing their own content, format adaptations, especially in the unscripted space, remain a vibrant business in Africa and the Middle East. Adapting international ideas has become a core specialty of Lebanon-based Imagic, which has made versions of MasterChef and Got Talent, among other formats, for regional broadcasters. “Dealing with pan-Arab broadcasters, participants and audiences, we needed to understand and cater to all sorts of cultures, languages, sensitivities, budgets—and constantly cross borders for casting, production, post-production, etc.,” says Imane Mezher Gibran, senior project manager at the company, which has a regional production pact with Endemol Shine Group. “This has given us experience in different territories, and our productions benefited from that. So today we can move easily
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from one territory to another, and we can also be extremely reactive to different challenges. We have faced economic challenges, war challenges, time challenges, responded to really crazy deadlines. We can pretty confidently say we have been through almost every imaginable (and sometimes unimaginable) issue one can think of!” With the expertise Imagic has built regionally working with global format owners, Gibran says she is keen to encourage “international broadcasters to Fremantle’s new Channel 4 series Baghdad Central is filming in Morocco. consider production in our part of the products, as they match almost any international high proworld. Lebanon, Egypt and the Gulf countries are multilinduction value. So my advice would be for international progual and can cater to different productions very easily.” ducers to try producing here, with our local studios and She is also open to discussing international collaborations, means of production. They would be very happily surprised, mainly in the form of production hubs for large-scale formats. production-wise and budget-wise.” “These would generally allow us to share production costs and therefore optimize the production budgets for everyone. But Middle Eastern budgets, in general, are lower than the ones in Europe and much, much lower than ones in the U.S. For many involved in the African and Middle Eastern conSo when we are discussing hubs abroad, even through cost tent business, the key opportunity is in convincing producsharing, the budgets often end up too expensive for broaders and platforms around the world that they should be casters. We also sometimes consider the option of moving our looking to the region for compelling ideas. productions to other parts of the world, but in the end, it turns NITV’s Onah is bullish about the prospects for that out we have very competitive rates and great production country’s production sector. “Very soon we will begin to values here in the Middle East, making the productions locally see international commissioning for Nigerian drama easier and more cost-efficient. We are very proud of our end series and local production in Nigeria by key global TV players. The conversations have already commenced and we are quite positive that such collaborations will definitely have an impact on production quality, which has limited the commercial value of Nigerian content.” She is also optimistic about the prospect of pan-African colFormats remain a large part of the laborations. “Nigerian stars are very popular outside Nigeria as production sector in the stories continue to travel across territories. We are now Africa with looking forward to a fusion of Nigerian and East African and adaptations of South African casts in local and cross-cultural productions.” shows such as “Research indicates that viewers want to see stories that My Kitchen Rules reflect their everyday lives; content that is relevant to South Africa for MNet. them,” EbonyLife’s Omole says. “We do this in the most stylish way possible, with our bouquet of drama, talk, reality and lifestyle programming. Viewers know quality and we have seen rising demand for our products in the United States, U.K., Canada, Guinea, France, Australia, Ireland and Italy. We have a treasure trove full of stories; it’s our passion, vision and purpose to take these stories to a global audience with the highest quality and the best entertainment value possible. Our dream is to continue to create premium content and to give audiences around the globe the opportunity to join our world and share our story.” Still on the horizon is what impact the global OTT players will have on the local content sector. Regional players like icflix are already investing in originals, and Netflix’s first Arabic-language scripted investment, Jinn, which is set to film in Jordan, premieres in 2019.
NEW VIEWS
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OSN has been moving quickly to stay ahead of the trends in media markets across the Middle East and North Africa. The pay-TV giant is bolstering its authenticated TV Everywhere service, OSN Play; upgrading its standalone OTT offer, WAVO; investing heavily in Arabic-language content; and delivering a steady stream of top-end Hollywood shows, within days of their U.S. premieres. It has also restructured its subscription packages to offer greater flexibility to consumers of all economic backgrounds. Focusing intently on the end user and delivering the best customer proposition have been the mandates of CEO Martin Stewart since he arrived at the platform in 2016. Stewart, who previously worked at Sky in the U.K., tells TV MEA By Mansha Daswani about how OSN is reinventing itself for the future. TV MEA: When you took on the post of CEO at OSN, what were some of the key strategies you felt you needed to put in place to better position the company in a changing media environment? STEWART: From a big-picture perspective, I didn’t think we were obsessing enough about the customer. The media industry globally, and in the Middle East especially, is a fastchanging one. We needed to be much more in tune with what our customers were thinking and feeling and experiencing. So that was the first big mindset change. The second one was around the need to be obsessed from a digitization point of view—not just in terms of how we serve our customers with product, but also how we interact with them, how we communicate with them and within our own organization how we can be much more joined up and agile and data-centric in how we make decisions. The third thing was the need for partnerships, especially in our region. It’s still quite a fragmented industry, and that fragmentation has meant that we haven’t managed to fulfill the potential that the region has as a whole to deliver a big, successful, profitable media economy. We needed to find ways to work better with people in order to service clients’ everchanging needs. TV MEA: Tell us about how you’re positioning WAVO. How has the platform been received so far? STEWART: If you join us as a DTH subscriber you’ll get access to OSN Play, which is our on-the-move companion subscription. We recently added more live-streaming channels, taking the total number of live-TV channels up to 60. WAVO is our standalone OTT offering for $9.99 [a month]. We launched WAVO last summer. What happened in the first year was very pleasing to us, but we decided we needed to do a big technical overhaul if we were going to be able to fulfill the potential of the great content we have. So we took the decision to pause while we did that, which was a difficult decision to make. It was the right thing for us to have done. That’s what we’re focusing on at the moment. TV MEA: You’ve partnered with Netflix. Why was that alliance important, and how is it progressing? STEWART: We have relationships with many great content suppliers and I don’t want to be disrespectful to any of them,
but there’s no doubt that Netflix is a hugely successful studio. It’s redefined the meaning of scale, it’s redefined the approach that people have to creating content by being incredibly local, it’s taken the HBO model and globalized it. And I think the content they produce is incredibly interesting and attractive. They partner that with a very good technical service, but their focus is not on their platform, it’s on their content. That makes us natural partners because we want to bring great content to our customers. If you want to get the best in global entertainment and local entertainment, you should be able to come to OSN and fulfill that aim. So partnering with Netflix helps us toward that target. We know that a lot of our customers are going to like Netflix content, so we’re just making it easier for them to access it as part of their subscription with us. And it gives Netflix access to our customer base, which is a benefit to them. I think it’s a win-win. TV MEA: Is Netflix integrated into your set-top box? And how does billing for the service work? STEWART: At the moment, because we’re still rolling out our new set-top boxes, it’s just a simple add-on for our customers. With our new box coming out shortly, it will be an app on the box and you will be paying us as part of your subscription, and then we’ll pay the money to Netflix. Ultimately we hope to develop the relationship so that through one EPG and one remote control, you’ll be able to search for Luke Cage or Jessica Jones or The Rain or whatever, and then you’ll go to the part of our box that has that and you’ll enter the Netflix interface to consume it. We’re very excited about the relationship with them because they are investing in making some globally attractive content. It’s an important partnership for us. TV MEA: Shortly after your arrival at OSN, I recall you unveiling new pricing and packages. Can you tell us about the thinking behind your offerings to subscribers and how you’re giving them flexibility in their choices? STEWART: Our legacy is our strength, but it’s also something that has held us back from fulfilling our full potential. Over the history of OSN it’s been a very high-priced premium product, appealing to the higher end of potential customers. And that was great for its time. But the world has moved to a point now where people have access to content online in
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OSN has a long-term output deal with NBCUniversal that covers series such as New Amsterdam.
a way that they never did five years ago. And that means that people’s perception of value changes, so you need to be able to offer a great service with great content at a great price. We had to recognize that our pricing only suited the pockets of a relatively small portion of our region’s potential customers. We’re trying to find ways to evolve our pricing and maintain our premium base and our premium positioning. We are the home of entertainment in the region, and that means we should be able to attract a good price for a good service with good content. But we also need to be able to sell subsets of that content at different prices. We have to recognize that everybody loves what we’re trying to sell, but they can’t all necessarily afford it. In a world with very strong free to air and very high levels of availability of pirate product, you’ve got to take that into account when you’re pricing for the broader market. And salaries in the GCC countries are not reflective of the salaries in the rest of the region. We’ve been trying to make our content as accessible as possible, and we’ve still got a ways to go. We haven’t finished how we’re evolving our offering. TV MEA: How important is local Arabic-language content investment for OSN? And content for the Indian and Filipino demographics in the region? STEWART: We’ve been extremely successful by having multi-decade relationships with international content providers—whether they are Western or Filipino or South Asian companies—and local Arabic production companies. So we have four sets of relationships. Two realities have been important to us. One is that the market is dominated by, frankly, some irrational legal competition where people are distorting the market by the prices they’re paying. They’re not making a profit; they’ll never make a profit. And that hurts the broader economy in the medium and long term because it doesn’t create sustainable businesses. And then, of course, you have the astonishing levels of piracy that you see in this region that you don’t see anywhere else in the world. With that type of a market situation, it’s important for us to have something that is ours, that is unique to us, and that means original Arabic-language content. The content we’ve funded
and financed goes onto our Yahala channel group—those channels get 40 percent of all of our viewing, despite being only 15 percent of the total content. So Arabic language is unsurprisingly hugely important in a market that is dominated by Arabic speakers! We’re also working with South Asian content providers, particularly Star India. We’re doing exciting things with them that will be along the lines of exclusive original content. We hope to build on that. It’s really the pattern that almost all incumbent broadcasters around the world are following. You can’t just rent things anymore and expect to be successful. You’ve got to have something that gives you a differentiator, and original content is an important part of that, along with great service, great pricing and the ability to have great partnerships. TV MEA: I know Ramadan tends to be a key viewing period. Do you focus your originals around that time of year? STEWART: We had a pretty good Ramadan lineup—between the things that we bought or financed and our partners, we had more than 25 shows for Ramadan this year. But that is a bit of a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of shows that go out [during that period]. We make sure that we have something, but we’re not expecting to try and win the Ramadan battle; that’s a losing proposition. Anything we put out, we look to broaden the viewing windows throughout the year. Our Ramadan shows will go onto box set, binge-watch, catch-up services through the summer. I know viewership during Ramadan is extraordinarily high, but it’s impossible for everybody to watch all the content that’s been produced. It deserves to be watched, so we immediately put it into rotation on our other on-demand or catch-up services and our OSN Play service. A lot of socalled Ramadan content will actually be properly enjoyed outside of Ramadan anyway. TV MEA: You mentioned box sets and catch-up—how do you approach windowing titles so they reach as wide an audience as possible? STEWART: We are at the mercy of the content owners. We have to negotiate as many of these rights as we possibly can.
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TV MEA: Sports is the main reason for the high cable subscription fees in the U.S., so the skinny bundle is becoming more popular. Do you offer the ability for consumers to pick and choose what services they want? STEWART: Effectively, the pricing we put in place last year provided people with the ability to buy subsets: the general entertainment pack, the movies pack, the sports pack or buy them all. That was a break from the past when you had to buy everything.
Turkish series, such as Inter Medya’s Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters (Fadila Khanum Wa Banatha), are very successful for OSN.
Ideally, I’d like to have completely unfettered rights so we can test different ways of promoting shows. You can run it on a weekly basis or a daily basis and get different results. It depends on the popularity of the show and whether people are prepared to wait and stick with it. TV MEA: How are you battling the piracy problem? STEWART: OSN and MBC jointly set up the MENA Broadcast Satellite Anti-Piracy Coalition, which has expanded its remit beyond just satellite to all forms of piracy. Most of the industry has now come together in a pretty coordinated action. The thing that is lacking is a proper regulatory framework to grow the media market to its full potential. That’s not just to the benefit of the region’s only privately owned media company— that’s us—it’s for the general betterment of the whole economy. [The industry is] losing hundreds of millions of dollars through having a very subpar media economy. The reason for that is the lack of a proper regulatory framework that governs both the protection of IP throughout the region and rigorous enforcement of any such framework. And [the industry needs] an appropriate competitive framework that defines and governs the behavior of anybody who wishes to play in the market. Unless we have a properly regulated, competitive framework, the media economy will not reach its full potential.
TV MEA: What are your key growth initiatives over the next 12 to 18 months? STEWART: We’re very excited about the reboot of the technical side of WAVO. We’re excited about the partnership with Netflix. We’re looking very closely at the possibility of increasing our Arabic-language content. I hope that the situation in the region, economically and geopolitically, begins to ease a bit, but those are matters beyond our control. All we can do is keep trying to focus on providing the best content that we possibly can, either through acquisition, creation or partnering; make sure our service is the best it can be; and make sure the pricing is as appropriate as we can get it for the pockets of the people who live here. And we’ll keep lobbying governments and content providers about the need for a sustainable business model for the economy as a whole if it’s going to prosper in the long run. Whether it’s legal overbidding or pirate theft, neither of those two things is going to create a long-term and sustainable economy.
TV MEA: You mentioned market distortion earlier, with some companies paying inflated prices for content. I know that has been the case particularly in the sports space. Are government-backed incumbents still driving up costs or has there been some modulation? STEWART: No, it’s gotten worse, by a multiple. It’s not just sports; it’s all forms of content. If you’re a content owner, you’re having a great time, but it certainly doesn’t help the region. And it doesn’t help consumers because it isn’t sustainable. TV MEA: How do you approach the acquisition of sports rights? STEWART: Sports is a niche business. We have a very good lineup of cricket, golf, rugby, fight sports, motorsports, cycling and American college sports, all of which appeal to certain audiences, fanatically so in some cases. It’s not the main driver of our business. And to be honest, we are very simple about how we make decisions. We endeavor to be a datadriven business; we work out what rights are worth based on what we can see in the market, and what that opportunity is. They are straightforward decisions. If I’m paying $100 and the bid is $300, you can make that decision pretty easily.
The Arabic-language production Layali Awjini aired during Ramadan.
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WWW.TVLATINA.TV
OCTUBRE/NOVIEMBRE 2018
EDICIÓN MIPCOM/CHILE MEDIA SHOW
Principales distribuidores de series en Europa / Celebrando 50 años de Caracol Televisión Gina Brogi de Twentieth Century Fox / Alexander Marin de SPT / Patricia Jasin de TV Azteca
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Ricardo Seguin Guise Director general Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Editora Rafael Blanco Editor asociado Jessica Ávila Asistente editorial Simon Weaver Director online Victor L. Cuevas Director de producción y diseño Dana Mattison Gerente sénior de ventas y mercadeo Nathalia Lopez Coordinadora de ventas y mercadeo
REPORTAJE 24 EXPLOSIÓN DE SERIES Con una creciente competencia y plataformas que ofrecen contenido en Europa, los principales distribuidores de series de América latina afirman su presencia con destacadas producciones.
ANIVERSARIO 34 CELEBRANDO 50 AÑOS DE CARACOL TELEVISIÓN A menos de un año de su medio siglo de existencia, conmemoramos los hitos televisivos más importantes de Caracol Televisión desde su fundación, incluyendo sus 20 años como televisora privada.
Andrea Moreno Gerente de asuntos de negocios
ENTREVISTAS Ricardo Seguin Guise Presidente Anna Carugati VP ejecutiva y directora editorial del grupo Mansha Daswani Publisher asociada y VP de desarrollo estratégico TV Latina Marca registrada de WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010 Estados Unidos Oficina: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 E-mail: noticias@tvlatina.tv www.tvlatina.tv Para una suscripción gratis, visite suscribase.tv
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PANORAMA /POR ELIZABETH BOWEN-TOMBARI
Con miras a un futuro promisorio En términos macro y considerando elementos como la rápida evolución de la tecnología, proyecciones en términos de inversiones nos hacen pensar que más temprano que tarde, la industria de medios global seguirá creciendo a un ritmo sostenido. La edición reciente de Global Entertainment & Media Outlook de PwC proyecta que la inversión en el sector crecerá a US$ 2,4 billones en 2022, un aumento sobre los US$ 1,9 billones en 2017, mientras que el segmento digital continúa transformando la industria y se entra a una fase que la compañía ha denominado ‘Convergencia 3.0’. “En medio de un crecimiento amplio y consistente, pero no equitativamente distribuido, hay tres elementos imperativos que afectan a cada compañía en la industria: Convergencia, conectarse con los consumidores y la necesidad de establecer confianza”, señala PwC en la edición 2018-2022 del Outlook. La nueva ola de convergencia, explica PwC, está creando un grupo de ‘súper competidores’ y marcas de nicho que apuntan a conquistar el tiempo y poder adquisitivo de los consumidores. “Para el observador casual, parecería como si estos súper competidores estuvieran conquistando al mundo y absorbiendo todo el crecimiento incremental”, agrega el reporte. “Pero aquellos que hacen un análisis más profundo podrán ver claramente el espacio debajo de los gigantes globales en el cual compañías más pequeñas y enfocadas podrían explotar una rica fuente de ingresos”. Destaca PwC: “Los límites que una vez separaban a las industrias de entretenimiento y medios, tecnología y telecomunicaciones están desapareciendo. En el proceso, se están reinventando los modelos de negocio para que todas las empresas puedan aprovechar nuevas fuentes de ingresos y crear relevancia con escala. Algunas capacidades que se requieren incluyen orientarse a los fanáticos y conectarse más efectivamente con los consumidores para desarrollar una mentalidad de membresía. En medio de estos cambios y avances en la tecnología, el reto para forjar y sostener la confianza del consumidor y el público es cada vez más crítico y el ritmo del cambio sólo acelerará”. Las industrias digitales liderarán en términos de crecimiento en ingresos, señala PwC, con la realidad virtual liderando con una tasa de crecimiento anual compuesta (CAGR por sus siglas en inglés) de 40,4 por ciento durante cinco años. El gasto en medios y entretenimiento sólo tendrá CAGR de 4,4 por ciento, mientras que la televisión tradicional crecerá en menos de 2 por ciento. El gasto en OTT crecerá con un CAGR de 10,1 por ciento al 2022. La publicidad televisiva global crecerá con CAGR de 2,7 por
"De acuerdo a PwC, las industrias digitales encabezarán en términos de
crecimiento de ingresos, con la realidad virtual liderando
con una tasa de crecimiento anual compuesta de 40,4 por ciento durante cinco años".
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ciento. La televisión abierta sigue liderando globalmente con 70 por ciento de los US$ 168,2 mil millones en el mercado publicitarios el año pasado. Su participación caerá a 67 por ciento de torta publicitaria de US$ 192,1 mil millones en 2022. PwC resalta que establecer nuevas fuentes de ingresos es crítico, a medida que modelos de negocios antiguos continúan registrando disrupción. Estrategias clave incluyen maximizar la explotación de propiedad intelectual a través de nuevos canales, desarrollo de nuevos productos publicitarios, extensiones de marca tales como licencias y mercancías, promoción de mentalidad de suscripción y expansión global. A nivel geográfico, los mercados de más rápido crecimiento al 2022 serán Nigeria (21,1 por ciento CAGR) y Egipto (17,2 por ciento CAGR), impulsados por gastos en acceso a Internet. Excluyendo este gasto, India es el territorio de más rápido crecimiento con un 10,4 por ciento CAGR, seguido por Indonesia con 8,4 por ciento. El crecimiento en Europa Occidental y Norteamérica no superará el 3 por ciento CAGR. En nuestra edición de TV Latina, les presentamos el reportaje titulado Explosión de series, sobre la venta de producciones latinoamericanas en los mercados internacionales. Los principales distribuidores de series de América latina enfrentan una competencia cada vez más aguerrida en Europa, particularmente con la explosión de plataformas OTT que han saturado la región con programación de diversos géneros que compiten por el tiempo y sintonía de los televidentes. En este sentido, los ejecutivos de estas compañías argumentan que las OTT abren una ventana de oportunidades de crecimiento, pero que es importante realizar un análisis cuidadoso antes de lanzar sus productos en dichas plataformas. Las series provenientes de los catálogos de los distribuidores de América latina continúan generando interés por parte de los programadores europeos, que buscan producciones en una variedad de géneros, incluyendo drama, comedia, acción, suspenso y biográficas, entre otros. Los distribuidores señalan que apuntan a cerrar el año con crecimiento en Europa, sellando ventas y concretando acuerdos en esta edición de MIPCOM. Además, presentamos entrevistas con algunos de los ejecutivos más destacados de la industria televisiva, entre ellos, Gina Brogi, presidenta de distribución global de Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution; Alexander Marin, VP ejecutivo de distribución y Networks, América latina de Sony Pictures Television; y Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca Internacional. John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce y Dina Shihabi, los protagonistas de Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, junto con el cocreador Carlton Cuse, hablan sobre darle vida al amado personaje en la pantalla chica.
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A+E Networks Project Blue Book / Jane Green / I Knew Jesus Del escritor y director Robert Zemeckis, A+E Networks ofrece en MIPCOM, Project Blue Book, una serie de la vida real inspirada en el proyecto del mismo nombre, se centra en investigaciones de la Fuerza Área de Estados Unidos sobre los ovnis. En Voices from the Grave, la tecnología de vanguardia ofrece a las personas que enfrentan sus últimos días de vida la oportunidad de mostrar a sus seres queridos que la muerte no es el final de su historia. La compañía también ofrece tres películas basadas en las novelas bestseller de Jane Green. El docudrama épico de ocho episodios, I Knew Jesus, es otro de los destacados que hace parte de la oferta de A+E Networks. Esta serie revela a Jesucristo como nunca antes: A través de los ojos de los hombres y mujeres más cercanos a él. Jane Green
A+E Networks Latin America Desafío sobre fuego / NCIS: New Orleans / Jane the Virgin Los canales de A+E Networks Latin America presentan una variedad de contenidos que apuntan a satisfacer todos los gustos. NCIS: New Orleans muestra a una oficina especializada local que investiga casos criminales que involucran a personal militar en The Big Easy, una ciudad conocida por su música, entretenimiento y decadencia. Por su parte, HISTORY emite Desafío sobre fuego Latinoamérica, donde ocho herreros provenientes de diferentes lugares de la región tendrán que demostrar sus habilidades forjando y replicando armas tradicionales y exóticas en una competencia que requerirá de fuerza, destreza e imaginación para consagrar al mejor forjador del continente. Por su parte, Lifetime presenta Project Runway y Jane the Virgin. NCIS: New Orleans
A2 Filmes
Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
Antboy 3 / Master Z: Ip Man Legacy / On Wings of Eagles A2 Filmes cuenta con más de 20 años de experiencia en la distribución de películas, documentales, animación infantil y para adultos, además de producciones familiares y musicales. La compañía presenta a los compradores internacionales en MIPCOM Antboy 3, donde la empresa Exofarm tiene una nueva CEO, quien quiere controlar al mundo. Antboy trata de detener a la ejecutiva con la ayuda de un nuevo héroe anónimo. “Es la primera vez que estamos ofreciendo nuestros títulos brasileños en Europa”, comenta Salete Stefanelli, representante de ventas de A2 Filmes. Entre tanto en Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, después de ser derrotado por Ip Man, Cheung Tin Chi vive una vida tranquila. El drama On Wings of Eagles sigue los pasos de Eric Liddell, el primer medallista de oro de China.
“MIPCOM es la mejor forma de conocer lo que están buscando nuestros clientes”. —Salete Stefanelli
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AMC Networks Humans / Stan Against Evil / Eli Roth’s History of Horror Con una escalofriante mirada sobre la evolución de la tecnología y su efecto sobre la sociedad, Humans es una de las producciones destacadas de AMC, canal que forma parte de la oferta de AMC Networks International - Latin America. La trama de la tercera temporada de ocho episodios, creada por Sam Vincent y Jonathan Brackley, se sitúa en un presente paralelo y explora qué ocurre cuando se confunde el límite entre lo humano y lo tecnológico. Entre tanto, la comedia de terror creada por Dana Gould, Stan Against Evil, muestra la lucha de Stanley Miller y Evie Barret, para combatir las fuerzas sobrenaturales en un pequeño pueblo. Mientras Evie combate los demonios, Stan hace un pacto secreto para traer a su esposa de regreso de la muerte. AMC suma a su oferta Eli Roth’s History of Horror. Eli Roth’s History of Horror
Disney Media Distribution El secreto de Selena / Monzón Monzón, uno de los destacados de Disney Media Distribution Latin America en MIPCOM, está basada en la vida de Carlos Monzón, ex campeón mundial de boxeo de los pesos medios y uno de los mitos deportivos argentinos más aclamados a lo largo de toda la historia del deporte latinoamericano. En el declive de su carrera, Monzón fue condenado a 11 años de prisión por el homicidio de su segunda esposa, la modelo uruguaya Alicia Muñíz, quien fue golpeada y arrojada desde el balcón del primer piso, en la ciudad balnearia de Mar del Plata. Por ello, el tribunal condenó a Monzón a permanecer en la cárcel. Entre tanto, El secreto de Selena, muestra la historia de la trágica muerte de la reconocida cantante Selena Quintanilla, basada en el bestseller de la periodista María Celeste Arrarás. El secreto de Selena
Fox Networks Group Content Distribution
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Valley of the Boom / Talento FOX / In Another Life Con un nuevo y competitivo reality show de alto perfil en busca de la próxima gran estrella del canto, Talento FOX, es una de las ofertas que Fox Networks Group Content Distribution ofrece en MIPCOM. Talento FOX es una serie para el horario estelar que combina los mejores elementos de shows de talento. “Asistimos a MIPCOM con una nueva oferta de contenido con guión y sin guión, y un sin número de nuevos formatos”, dice Prentiss Fraser, VP ejecutiva y directora general de Fox Networks Group Content Distribution. Entre tanto, In Another Life, Zehra intenta fugarse para escapar de su crianza estricta, pero después de deshonrar a su familia es perseguida, golpeada y pierde al bebé que lleva. La compañía complementa su oferta con Valley of the Boom.
Talento FOX
“Tenemos una nueva oferta de producción local que se adapta al mercado internacional”. —Prentiss Fraser 576 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Fox Networks Group
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The Walking Dead / Pose / Raros en peligro FOX Premium, parte de la oferta televisiva de FOX Networks Group Latin America, presenta el drama musical Pose, que cuenta con un elenco LGBTQ. Por su parte, el canal National Geographic ofrece Raros en peligro, donde el reconocido fotógrafo, conservacionista y colaborador de National Geographic, Joel Sartore, viaja por el mundo para documentar algunas de las especies animales que están en peligro de extinción. La nueva producción original Explorer Investigation, analiza en América latina algunas de las problemáticas o conflictos sociales más relevantes y urgentes de la región a través del recurso del periodismo de investigación y la presentación de historias personales contadas por sus protagonistas. FOX Premium también emite The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead
FoxTelecolombia “MIPCOM es la reunión de los principales representantes de la industria del entretenimiento donde se comparten y conocen las tendencias del mercado”, dice Ana Barreto, VP ejecutiva y country manager, Colombia de FoxTelecolombia. “Durante los últimos meses, la compañía comenzó a operar nuestro nuevo estudio. Además, las oficinas de Fox Networks Group Colombia se mudaron a nuestros estudios”. La empresa está próxima a terminar de producir una importante serie premium para FOX. “Recién finalizamos el rodaje de una película para Estados Unidos y estamos próximos a comenzar las grabaciones de un piloto para una nueva serie para Telemundo”, señala Barreto. “Daremos inicio a la tercera temporada de Sin senos sí hay paraíso, la saga escrita por Gustavo Bolívar”.
Instalaciones de FoxTelecolombia
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“Para FoxTelecolombia y Estudios TeleMéxico participar en MIPCOM es de gran importancia”. —Ana Barreto
Fremantle Beecham House / The Greatest Dancer / The Yard “Estamos emocionados de ver que The Yard regrese a Star TV con su segunda temporada”, dice Sheila Aguirre, VP ejecutiva de distribución de contenido, ventas de formatos, América latina y el mercado hispano de Estados Unidos e internacional de Fremantle. “La primera serie fue un gran éxito de calificación en Turquía y se convirtió en uno de los dramas más comentados en la región. Con sus fuertes protagonistas femeninas y sus tramas innovadoras, se convertirá en la próxima tendencia turca que sorprenderá en América latina”. De la escritora y directora Gurinder Chadha, proviene Beecham House, un drama épico que narra la historia del dueño y los empleados de una espléndida mansión. Fremantle también destaca en Cannes la producción The Greatest Dancer.
The Yard
“Estamos increíblemente orgullosos del éxito de The Yard ”. —Sheila Aguirre 578 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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HBO Sr. Ávila / El jardín de bronce / Magnífica 70 “MIPCOM es uno de los eventos más importantes del año, al que vamos a construir y reforzar relaciones con socios de distribución y producción para llevar nuestras producciones locales al mundo”, dice Xavier Aristimuño, VP de licencias de HBO Latin America. “Estamos festejando 15 años de producir contenido en Latinoamérica y tendremos una pequeña celebración en la que mostraremos nuestro catálogo de producciones”. Sr. Ávila es uno de los títulos que la compañía presenta en MIPCOM, que muestra la vida de un hombre atormentado que se involucra en una red clandestina de asesinos y termina siendo nombrado jefe de la organización. Otro destacado es El jardín de bronce, que sigue la lucha de Fabián por recuperar a su hija, quien ha desaparecido. HBO Latin America también presenta Magnífica 70.
“Estamos festejando 15 años de producir contenido en Latinoamerica”. —Xavier Aristimuño
Inter Medya The Pit / The Perfect Couple / 19 The Pit es uno de los títulos que Inter Medya ofrece a sus compradores en MIPCOM y que muestra a Çukur, uno de los barrios más peligrosos de Estambul, gobernado por los Koçova. Aunque estén vinculados con el crimen, la familia tiene sus propias reglas, una de ellas es que las drogas no pueden ser producidas, usadas o vendidas en Çukur. También se suma al catálogo de la compañía The Perfect Couple. Este formato presenta una lujosa casa en el Caribe con nueve habitaciones dobles y una suite, y 11 hombres y 11 mujeres listos para elegir a sus parejas y finalmente poder disfrutar de la casa. Pero en este lugar, no hay espacio para todos. Sólo los ganadores del desafío clave podrán elegir un compañero y una habitación. La producción 19, es otra de las ofertas de Inter Medya. The Pit
Kanal D Drama
Kuzey Güney Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
La familia / Mi último deseo / Kuzey Güney Kanal D Drama, uno de los canales que integran el portafolio de THEMA, presenta a sus espectadores Hulya, donde Bayram y su mejor amigo Salih, deciden casar a sus hijos en un esfuerzo por salvar su amistad. Sin embargo, los jóvenes ya tienen otros planes, Hulya ha puesto en marcha un plan en el que nadie pensó. Entre tanto, Mi último deseo, cuenta la historia de Lale, una madre de familia que tras enterarse que tiene un tumor cerebral decide encontrar una mujer que la reemplace con su esposo y sus hijas. Por otra parte, en La familia, la honorable familia Kerim decide ajustar su vida y reinstalarse en Estambul, luego de que el prometido de Secret, la hija mayor, se viera involucrado en escándalos de corrupción. Kanal D Drama ofrece también Kuzey Güney, ¿Qué culpa tiene Fatmagül? y Guerra de las rosas.
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La heredera gitana
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Onza Distribution Pequeñas coincidencias / El valor de la vida / La heredera gitana “Estamos muy contentos de presentar en MIPCOM nuestra nueva serie Pequeñas coincidencias, que consta de ocho episodios de 50 minutos”, dice Jessica Ortiz, directora general de Onza Distribution. “Es una comedia romántica realizada en colaboración con Atresmedia Studios y Medio Limón que será emitida en primicia en Amazon Prime Video, y posteriormente en Atresmedia en televisión abierta”. La ejecutiva destaca que este año han cerrado importantes acuerdos en América latina, África y Europa del Este. Ortiz también habla sobre el panorama de cambio en las formas de consumo de contenidos: “Las plataformas OTT son cada vez más importantes y seguirán en auge en los próximos años”. El valor de la vida y La heredera gitana, son otros títulos de la oferta de Onza Distribution.
Record TV
“Onza continúa creciendo y sumando producciones año tras año”. —Jessica Ortiz
Belaventura
Jesús / Lea / Belaventura A la edad de ocho años, después de la muerte de su madre durante el nacimiento de Raquel, Lea es forzada a hacerse responsable por el cuidado de su hermana recién nacida, teniendo que madurar abruptamente. Esta es la trama de Lea, una de las producciones que Record TV presenta a los compradores en MIPCOM. “La telenovela Jesús se lanza en Cannes”, dice Delmar Andrade, director de ventas internacionales de Record TV. “El mercado consumidor ya busca esa producción con excepcional interés, razón por la cual hemos cerrado acuerdos con dos territorios importantes”. Por su parte, Apocalipsis es una historia de amor, espiritualidad y redención narrada a partir de uno de los temas más controversiales de la Biblia: El fin de los tiempos. La compañía complementa su oferta con Belaventura.
“Record TV tiene varias operaciones en todo el mundo y, sin duda, Europa es un mercado de contenidos muy importante para la compañía”. —Delmar Andrade
Sabbatical Entertainment
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
Naturaleza humana / Planeta de niños / El mundo es tuyo “En MIPCOM presentamos nuestros documentales: Oh, Dior!, Yves Saint Laurent, Locos por Madonna, Andy Warhol fluorescente y Puntapié, que ya han sido emitidos con éxito en Estados Unidos y América latina, a través de CNN en Español”, dice Miguel Somoza, CEO de Sabbatical Entertainment. “Estamos desarrollando series de entretenimiento: Amados odiados, trata sobre personajes que despiertan críticas severas y gran admiración, y (L)over, acerca de los amores y separaciones de los famosos”. Por su parte, la nueva serie infantil, ¡Qué Cool!, explora curiosidades y hechos increíbles; mientras que en Naturaleza humana, las fortalezas de los niños se estimulan de manera positiva. Sabbatical Entertainment también incluye en su oferta Planeta de niños y El mundo es tuyo.
El mundo es tuyo
“En MIPCOM presentamos contenido factual emitido por CNN en Español”. —Miguel Somoza 582 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Sony Pictures Television María Magdalena / Rosario Tijeras 2 / The Good Doctor En Cannes, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) destaca entre sus producciones originales El rey del valle, la cual es “una narcoserie, pero es comedia”, explica Alexander Marin, VP ejecutivo de distribución y Networks, América latina de la compañía. “Está escrita por Juan Camilo Ferrand, quien escribió Pablo Escobar, el patrón del mal, pero es una sátira, burla y comedia a los programas de narcotraficantes. Es muy divertida”. SPT también presenta María Magdalena, una coproducción con Dopamine que narra la historia de este personaje bíblico. “Es extraordinaria”, comenta Marin. “No hemos hecho ningún cambio histórico, pero hemos tomado libertades creativas de la historia que se cuenta en la Biblia”. Otros destacados que ofrece SPT en MIPCOM son Rosario Tijeras 2, La Guzmán y The Good Doctor.
“La calidad y forma de contar historias transcienden fronteras”. —Alexander Marin The Good Doctor
Telefilms Adrift / Hereditary / Peppermint Con las actuaciones de Jennifer Garner y Tyson Ritter, Peppermint es una de las producciones destacadas que Telefilms presenta a los compradores internacionales en MIPCOM. La cinta es una historia de venganza que se centra en una joven madre que, sin nada que perder, está decidida a arrebatarle a sus rivales la misma vida que le fue robada. Además, la compañía ofrece la película de terror Hereditary, donde hechos extraños comienzan a suceder en casa de los Graham tras la muerte de la abuela y matriarca, quien le deja a su hija Annie su casa como herencia. Telefilms completa su portafolio con los títulos Adrift, The Happytime Murders y Mile 22, con las actuaciones de Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan y Ronda Rousey, bajo la dirección de Peter Berg. Peppermint
TV Azteca Internacional
Patrimonio mundial - Herencia de la humanidad
La academia / Indomable x naturaleza / María Magdalena “En MIPCOM, ofrecemos un nuevo docu-reality que se titula Mundo metro”, comenta Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca Internacional. “Lo hemos desarrollado a través de nuestra unidad de producción de televisión paga”. Mundo metro hace un recorrido por el servicio subterráneo de trenes en Ciudad de México. La situación se puede complicar cuando se deben transportar a 5 millones de personas al día. La compañía también presenta La academia, un formato musical que ha atraído audiencias en México, Singapur, Malasia, Indonesia y Centroamérica. Además, “tenemos en MIPCOM dos series muy fuertes: María Magdalena y Rosario Tijeras 2, que son los dos grandes lanzamientos de ficción para este mercado”, dice Jasin. Títulos adicionales son Indomable x naturaleza, Dementia y Fut Azteca.
La academia
“Estamos trabajando mucho en ampliar nuestro catálogo con otros conceptos más universales”.
—Patricia Jasin
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Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution Proven Innocent / The Cool Kids / The Orville
Proven Innocent
Del escritor y productor Danny Strong, en asociación con David Elliot, Proven Innocent es uno de los destacados que Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution ofrece a sus compradores internacionales en MIPCOM. La producción narra la historia emocional de la lucha de una mujer por su inocencia y la de otros. Entre tanto, la comedia The Cool Kids, sigue los pasos de un grupo rebelde de amigos en una comunidad de retiro que hace todo lo posible para divertirse. La compañía también presenta The Orville, un show de aventuras ambientado 400 años en el futuro, que sigue los viajes del Orville, una nave no tan extraordinaria de la flota interestelar de la Tierra. En The Gifted, una familia suburbana huye para buscar ayuda por parte de una red clandestina de mutantes luego de descubrir que su hija adolescente posee poderes mutantes. Entre tanto, la trilogía homónima best-seller de Justin Cronin, y escrita por Liz Heldens, The Passage, es otra de las ofertas de la compañía. Por su parte, en el drama 9-11, muestra el procedimiento sobre las vidas y carreras de socorristas que arriesgan sus vidas para salvar a otros. La empresa complementa su oferta con The Resident, protagonizada por Emily VanCamp, Matt Czuchry y Manish Dayal. La serie revela la verdad de lo que ocurre detrás de bastidores en un hospital.
Universal Cinergía Dubbing En MIPCOM, la compañía Universal Cinergía Dubbing consolida su posición como uno de los principales estudios de doblaje y subtitulado en español, portugués, inglés, francés y castellano para distribuidores, plataformas digitales, canales, agregadores de contenido y productores independiente, entre otros. “Nuestra pasión por el trabajo es lo que nos impulsa para estar cerca de los clientes”, dice Liliam Hernández, presidenta y CEO de Universal Cinergía Dubbing. La ejecutiva agrega: “Conocer sus necesidades y demandas es la clave para brindar una buena calidad y mantener una relación comercial duradera. Continuamos a la vanguardia con producciones turcas, trabajando con la mayoría de los distribuidores, entre los que se encuentran Eccho Rights, Kanal D, Calinos Entertainment, Rayas, TRT y ATV Global Agency”. Como parte de una estrategia de mercadeo, la compañía patrocina por primera vez el Premio Emmy Internacional. “Ser un patrocinador de estos premios nos coloca en una posición única para llegar y conectarnos con las principales compañías de producción y distribución a nivel mundial”, resalta Hernández. Universal Cinergía Dubbing asiste a MIPCOM y planea estar presente en MIP Cancun y ATF con el fin de conectarse con los clientes, conocer a potenciales clientes, encontrar nuevos proyectos y ahondar en las tendencias de la industria y los escenarios de cambios constantes.
Instalaciones de Universal Cinergía Dubbing
“La participación en los mercados es una forma muy efectiva de establecer nuevos contactos y encontrar nuestros clientes”. —Liliam Hernández 586 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Viacom International Media Networks 100 Días para enamorarse / N00bees / Morir de amor N00bees es una serie de acción en vivo integrada por 60 capítulos de una hora de duración cada uno. La producción, que integra el catálogo de Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) - Américas para MIPCOM, sigue la historia de Silvia, su hermano Erick y sus amigos Tania, Pablo y Niko. Silvia nunca ha tenido interés por los videojuegos, pero siempre ha preferido el aire libre y su deporte favorito, es el baloncesto. Ella es lo opuesto a su padre, Héctor y su hermano, para quienes los videojuegos son todo. Cuando Erick tiene la oportunidad de cumplir su mayor sueño, participar en el eSports Championship, Silvia hará todo lo posible para ayudarlo a que lo logre, aunque ella también tenga que convertirse en un gamer profesional. Entre tanto, la compañía ofrece Morir de amor, donde un joven viudo se convierte en asesino en serie piadoso para redimir su culpa por no haber acompañado a su esposa en sus últimos días de vida. Además, VIMN - Américas ofrece en Cannes la comedia con guión 100 Días para enamorarse, donde tras 18 años de casadas, dos amigas intentan mejorar sus relaciones proponiéndole a sus esposos tomar un descanso de sus matrimonios por 100 días. Durante este tiempo, pueden hacer lo que quieran, siempre y cuando sigan 10 reglas estrictas. Pasados estos 100 días, deberán elegir si quieren permanecer juntos o no.
N00bees
ZDF Enterprises
The Worst Witch
The Athena / Find me in Paris / The Worst Witch Dentro de los destacados de ZDF Enterprises para MIPCOM, se encuentra The Athena, que sigue las aventuras de Nyela Malik, una joven modelo cuya carrera se desmorona cuando se atreve a quejarse sobre un famoso diseñador, quien la trata como un objeto. “Somos reconocidos por nuestras series de drama europeo de alta calidad”, dice Robert Franke, VP de ZDFE.drama. En Find Me in Paris, Lena Grisky, una princesa rusa y estudiante de la escuela de ballet de París, accidentalmente viaja en el tiempo al presente. La compañía presenta JJ, donde John Jeiver es secuestrado por las FARC a los 13 años de edad y entrena como soldado élite. Luego de la firma de acuerdos de paz, Jeiver se fugó a Bogotá, donde cuida a su madre e hijo adolescente, a quien no ha visto desde que era bebé. Por su parte, Kristina Ohlsson's STHLM Requiem, sigue los pasos de la recluta de la policía Fredrika Bergman, quien acepta una posición con la unidad especial de investigaciones de Estocolmo. Otro de los destacados de ZDF Enterprises, es Anthropocene-The Rise of Humans, que explora el impacto que ha tenido el ser humano en el desarrollo de los sistemas naturales de la Tierra. ZFD también ofrece The Worst Witch, una serie de acción en vivo, que muestra la historia de Mildred Hubble, uno de los personajes más icónicos y venerados de la literatura infantil.
“Somos reconocidos por nuestras series de dramas europeos de alta calidad”. —Robert Franke 588 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Zumba - despierta tu pasiรณn, distribuida por RCN Televisiรณn. 590 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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Con una proliferación de plataformas que ofrecen contenido en Europa, los principales distribuidores de series de América latina reafirman su presencia. Por Rafael Blanco ada año, la oferta de series a nivel mundial crece y trasciende fronteras para llegar a todo tipo de plataformas. Basta acceder a gigantes de streaming como Netflix para encontrar producciones provenientes de países tan diferentes como Alemania e India, sin dejar de mencionar la proliferación de series turcas que desde hace algún tiempo, han acaparado la atención de las audiencias alrededor del mundo. El gran ganador en medio de este volumen de ofertas sigue siendo el televidente. En Europa, los principales distribuidores de series de América latina enfrentan una competencia cada vez más aguerrida, particularmente con la explosión de plataformas lo lineales que han saturado la región con programación de diversos géneros que compiten por el tiempo y sintonía de los televidentes. Sin embargo, “no todas las OTT en Europa son líderes”, comenta Patricia Jasin, VP de TV Azteca Internacional, compañía que en MIPCOM ofrece títulos como Dementia y María Magdalena. “Estamos evaluando nuevas oportunidades de negocio y somos bastante selectivos al incorporar nuestro contenido en estos servicios”. La ejecutiva agrega: “Preferimos trabajar con las OTT líderes que consideramos tienen algo más que ofrecer al usuario. Finalmente, una plataforma no lineal sin contenido no [funciona] y no sería un modelo de negocio sustentable. De esta forma, le estamos dando valor a nuestra oferta”. En términos de series en plataformas no lineales, Alexander Marin, VP ejecutivo de distribución y Networks, América latina de Sony Pictures Television (SPT), señala que “producimos grandes series para Netflix y Amazon, así como para nuestra propia plataforma [Crackle]. Al final del día, la idea es que
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mucha gente se suscriba a la plataforma por el producto que ofrece. Es parecido al cine. El público va porque es cómodo, pero no va si no se presenta una película [atractiva]. La comodidad que la plataforma brinda al usuario es importante, pero la calidad del producto es más relevante aún”. En Cannes, la compañía destaca de su portafolio El rey del valle, una sátira sobre el narcotráfico; Rosario Tijeras 2, protagonizada por Bárbara de Regil, y La Guzmán, que se enfoca en la reconocida artista mexicana Alejandra Guzmán.
ANALIZANDO TENDENCIAS Guillermo Borensztein, VP de venta de contenidos y coproducciones de Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) – Américas, destaca que actualmente en Europa Central, en lo que respecta a las plataformas digitales y canales de televisión paga premium, “hay un interés marcado por las series, de la misma forma en que las comedias románticas y dramas [se distinguen] por la innovación en el relato. Por otro lado, se mantiene una creciente demanda por telenovelas juveniles que atraviesa toda la región”. Con relación a Europa del Este, los programadores “están más orientados a la búsqueda de telenovelas tradicionales con volumen de capítulos para las audiencias femeninas”, dice el ejecutivo. “En el marco de este auge de producciones locales, existe un apetito cada vez mayor por los formatos de ficción, principalmente comedias familiares”. Uno de los puntos comunes y destacados en la conversación, es que las OTT presentan una oportunidad de crecimiento, pero es necesario analizar dónde se lanzarán contenidos. “La nuevas plataformas en el territorio europeo han incrementado las ventanas de exposición de [nuestro] producto, que ofrece una variedad de contenido frente a las necesidades del mercado”, explica Lisette Osorio, VP de ventas internacionales de Caracol Televisión. “Cada acuerdo de venta parte de las
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Lea es una de las recientes series bíblicas de Record TV.
necesidades de contenido del cliente y cada operación se adapta a las dinámicas del mercado local, a sus necesidades y a la trayectoria comercial de producción en el territorio”. Entre los destacados de la compañía en MIPCOM se encuentran la súper serie Bolívar, La reina del flow, Las muñecas de la mafia 2 y Loquito por ti. Francisco Villanueva, VP y COO de SOMOS Distribution, coincide con Osorio acerca de las oportunidades en Europa a través de las OTT. “Es un beneficio común porque aumenta los [espacios] de ventas”, dice el ejecutivo. “Además, el formato de series [se adapta] a los hábitos de consumo de la audiencia en el marco de este tipo de distribución”. Sin embargo, Villanueva destaca que “en muchos territorios europeos, los canales de televisión paga mantienen una fuerza considerable frente a las nuevas plataformas y eso tiene influencia en el manejo de prioridades en las ventanas”. SOMOS Distribution llega a MIPCOM con un portafolio que incluye series como Hasta que te conocí, Súbete a mi moto la historia de Menudo contada por su creador y Camelia la texana, entre otras. En RCN Televisión, la estrategia de negocios en OTT es clara: “Estamos abiertos a explorar este medio de distribución siempre que las condiciones comerciales sean atractivas”, dice María Lucía Hernández, directora de ventas internacionales de la compañía. “De igual manera como ha sucedido en Latinoamérica, la explosión de las OTT en Europa abre nuevas posibilidades de distribución de contenido. Este modelo de negocio aún está en desarrollo dadas las condiciones comerciales locales”. La ejecutiva señala que las series La ley del corazón, Yo soy Betty, la fea, Ecomoda y Chica vampiro, que la empresa ofrece en Cannes, siguen generando interés por parte de los principales compradores en la región.
GUSTO EUROPEO Según Delmar Andrade, director de ventas internacionales de Record TV, los compradores de programación en Europa, “buscan contenido creíble que aporte valores a las audiencias”. La empresa se ha destacado por su oferta internacional de series bíblicas, incluyendo Moisés y los diez mandamientos, El rico y Lázaro, La Tierra prometida y sus recientes producciones Jesús y Lea.
“Las telenovelas basadas en los textos bíblicos, pero sin religiosidad, aportan para poder comprender una visión del mundo en que vivimos”, explica Andrade. “Seguimos por este camino con historias bíblicas que además incluyen todos los ingredientes que debe tener una telenovela: Pasión, odio, envidia y solidaridad”. Jasin de TV Azteca Internacional indica que la compañía tiene un catálogo amplio que apunta a satisfacer todos los gustos. “Tenemos desde las novelas más clásicas hasta las series más modernas y contemporáneas como las súper series, por ejemplo. Vemos que hay demanda para todo [tipo de contenido]”. La ejecutiva resalta que la estrategia de distribución radica en identificar “los nichos de mercado y según el producto que tenemos, comenzamos a llegar a esos nichos con nuestro portafolio. Nuestro catálogo no sólo cuenta con ficción, sino también, con documentales, películas y docu-realities, entre otros”.
TOMANDO VENTAJA Aunque para Marin de SPT todos los mercados son importantes, “diría que Europa es el territorio de donde provienen los ingresos más importantes para todas las empresas. Europa tiene características muy diferentes a las de América latina. Cada país en Europa tiene su propia cultura. Entonces no tienen la ventaja de poder desarrollar un producto en un sólo idioma y distribuirlo en múltiples países simultáneamente. Esto representa un reto. La [industria europea] está atravesando por el mismo proceso que la compañía, es decir, una reestructuración a nuestra organización para ser más competitivos y flexibles”. Marin explica que lo difícil “de nuestro negocio es desarrollar contenidos que tengan relevancia, la cual proviene de una sola fuente: Buenas historias contadas correctamente”. El ejecutivo resalta que una buena historia tiene el potencial de venderse en cualquier parte del mundo, agregando que “la calidad y forma de contarlas transcienden fronteras”. Con respecto a la participación de la compañía en MIPCOM, Borensztein de VIMN – Américas destaca que la empresa cuenta con un diferencial que radica en “un catálogo que cubre todas las demografías, con volumen y diversidad por género y con producciones desarrolladas en diferentes países de Latinoamérica. Uno de nuestros mayores diferenciales se basa en la oferta sostenida de telenovelas juveniles de Nickelodeon”.
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TV Azteca Internacional ofrece Indomable x naturaleza, con Arturo Islas.
El ejecutivo subraya: “Es un producto altamente demandado en toda Europa y que además permite una gama de negocios 360. Tener la capacidad de producir entre dos y tres telenovelas juveniles por año, incluso algunas con cuota europea, nos da un diferencial absoluto y es una de nuestras ventajas competitivas en MIPCOM”. Para Osorio de Caracol Televisión, la clave del éxito en Europa es ofrecer series innovadoras que sobresalgan entre el mar de contenidos disponibles. “Los compradores eligen series que ofrecen elementos innovadores y diferenciadores que los destaquen de su competencia. Las producciones de ficción de Caracol se caracterizan por un sello de calidad e innovación que las hacen atractivas en todos los mercados, tratando dramas humanos con un contexto universal”. En este sentido, lo importante, explica la ejecutiva, es que la búsqueda de contenido por parte de los compradores no radica en encontrar un solo género. “Caracol ha sido pionera en géneros como las súper series, bioseries y los dramas musicales, convirtiéndose en un referente de la industria”, dice Osorio. “Estas características están siempre respaldadas con una minuciosa investigación de audiencias, haciendo que los productos de Caracol no sean sólo una apuesta, sino una decisión basada en datos reales”.
tura de nuevos mercados, integrando nuestra capacidad de distribución en regiones como las Américas, África y otras partes del mundo”. Hernández de RCN Televisión sostiene que el mayor desafío para los distribuidores latinos es “reposicionar sus contenidos en el mercado europeo. Hemos visto que a lo largo de los últimos años, los programadores han optado por adquirir series y telenovelas turcas ocupando las franjas limitadas que están asignadas al género. Debemos competir con historias originales, novedosas y universales para llegar con éxito a estas pantallas”. Al igual que Villanueva, Jasin de TV Azteca Internacional señala que el reto principal radica en las diferencias culturales en Europa. “Al presentarnos en mercados internacionales, [este tipo de diversidades] han sido el desafío de cualquier [actividad] de distribución, canal o productor”, señala la ejecutiva. Sin embargo, Jasin comenta que la globalización ha jugado un papel importante que ha homogenizado los gustos televisivos de la audiencia. “Lo que hemos visto a través de los últimos años es que la globalización está cerrando más diferencias culturales”, dice la ejecutiva. “Actualmente, encontramos que nuestros productos están [entrando] en territorios donde antes quizás no teníamos la capacidad. Hoy en día, las audiencias se están pareciendo cada vez más y la globalización está minimizando las diferencias. Es necesario abrirnos a la idea de que nuestros productos pueden llegar a cualquier territorio y no tenemos que frenar nuestros esfuerzos por entrar en las regiones donde antes no teníamos presencia”. En SPT, la innovación también es un factor a considerar a la hora de realizar producciones y ofrecerlas al mercado europeo. “La innovación también tiene que ver con cómo contar una historia de forma distinta, pero lo más importante es tener una historia de calidad”, expresa Marin. “En ese sentido, nos hemos caracterizado por hacer bien las cosas”. Hace aproximadamente un año, la compañía se asoció con Dopamine, la empresa de contenidos de Grupo Salinas, para coproducir una serie épica sobre la vida de María Magdalena.
SERIE DE DESAFÍOS “No hay una sola fórmula [de contenidos] que funcione en todos los mercados”, afirma Villanueva de SOMOS Distribution. El ejecutivo señala que las series de acción, crimen y suspenso, y románticas son atractivas en los mercados europeos. “Pero hay que tener en cuenta que estos mercados son diversos en idioma, gustos y cultura, si comparamos Turquía con España o Francia, por ejemplo”, puntualiza el ejecutivo. “Nuestra estrategia como distribuidora global es la de buscar contenidos de mercados no tradicionales, de alta calidad y a la vez establecer alianzas con productores en la aper-
Camelia la texana es una de las producciones destacadas de SOMOS Distribution en Cannes. 596 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
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N00bees, de VIMN - Américas, se ambienta en el mundo de los eSports.
Con relación a esta producción, Marin comenta: “Estamos muy entusiasmados con la serie por la forma en que contamos esta historia bíblica, que es liderada por una protagonista. No hemos hecho ningún cambio histórico, pero hemos tomado libertades creativas de la historia que se cuenta en la Biblia”. Borensztein de VIMN – Américas argumenta que Europa presenta una variedad de desafíos, particularmente por presupuestos y legislaciones que promueven cuotas de producción local, a la vez de la saturación de contenidos en los diferentes mercados. “El contenido latinoamericano busca reposicionarse luego del auge de las producciones turcas, y la pérdida de varios horarios que en el pasado nos garantizaban volumen y continuidad de negocios”, dice el ejecutivo. “A la hora de producir y contar historias para nuestras audiencias hemos cambiado, y ante la limitación de espacios en las grillas europeas, hoy sentimos que volvemos a recuperar terreno”.
ACTIVIDADES PROLÍFICAS En este marco, Borensztein agrega: “Cuando se definen estrategias de distribución para Europa ya no se piensa sólo en clientes de televisión abierta como hace 10 años, sino también en las señales de televisión paga con canales temáticos y el creciente espacio de plataformas [no lineales], que empiezan a jugar un papel cada vez más importante para posicionar nuestros contenidos. Hay una competencia directa en relación al consumo y el reparto de inversión en producción y de ingresos [publicitarios]. Parte del desafío de los distribuidores pasa por ver cómo llegamos a cubrir la mayor cantidad de territorios con esquema de ventaneo que nos permita cruzar la mayor cantidad posible de plataformas en un mismo territorio”. En medio de este panorama, Osorio de Caracol sostiene que aunque los contenidos se desarrollan a partir de historias propias de cada región, “cuentan narrativas universales capaces de aterrizar en cualquier territorio. Caracol ha sabido armonizar la esencia de una producción propia de Colombia con una visión internacional. El reto es afianzar esa perspectiva”. Por su parte, Villanueva de SOMOS Distribution resalta que el catálogo de producciones de la compañía ha tenido buen desempeño en Europa, pero las actividades de la empresa en la región no están libre de retos.
“Nuestro portafolio es bien recibido en países como España, Italia y Francia, donde hay más similitudes y oportunidades”, señala el ejecutivo. “Por supuesto, desarrollar negocios en territorios fuera de esta orbita es más complicado, pero siempre está asociado a las características del contenido”. Hernández de RCN Televisión también apunta a las historias universales que los compradores internacionales pueden identificar fácilmente con la audiencia local y que “se pueden adaptar fácilmente. La estrategia para ser exitosos y continuar siendo competitivos está en seguir ofreciendo una variedad de productos de calidad, apoyando y asesorando a nuestros clientes con todo el material de apoyo y el mejor soporte post venta”. Andrade de Record TV señala que Europa es un mercado importante para la compañía. “Tenemos una presencia fuerte en Europa del Este, principalmente en Polonia, con acuerdos realizados con dos grandes grupos en el país”, destaca el ejecutivo. “Además, estamos en negociación con algunos grupos en Inglaterra, España y Portugal. Europa tiene un gran potencial y es parte de nuestra estrategia de expansión”. El ejecutivo agrega: “Record TV tiene como objetivo satisfacer la demanda en el mercado de contenido para todos los distribuidores, independientemente del país, territorio e idioma”. Andrade resalta para MIPCOM el lanzamiento de la producción Jesús, que según el ejecutivo, “el mercado ha estado buscando con gran interés, razón por la cual hemos cerrado acuerdos con los dos territorios más grandes del mundo”. Visualizando lo que serán las actividades de crecimiento de cara al futuro, Borensztein de VIMN – Américas explica que el foco está en “seguir creciendo en escala, posicionándonos como un estudio diferente, que innova a la hora de crear contenidos, pero también lo hace a la hora de asociarse con otros jugadores”. Respecto de las iniciativas de la compañía en Europa en 2019, Osorio de Caracol Televisión afirma que, “será un gran año para la súper serie Bolívar, la más ambiciosa producción realizada por Caracol Televisión hasta el momento. El objetivo prioritario será el aumento de la penetración para nuestras series en los diferentes países del continente”.
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EXPLOSIVE SERIES With growing competition from an ever-expanding offering of OTT platforms vying for European viewers, the main Latin American distributors are fortifying their presence in the region with high-quality series. Executives from these companies are keen to note that digital services are providing them with new ways of windowing their content, but that not all platforms are equal in terms of quality, so careful selection is key. At MIPCOM, LatAm distributors have ramped up their slates with series that feature dynamic narratives covering comedy, drama, romance and adventure as they look to appeal to viewers across Europe. These executives agree that, regardless of a production’s origin, a good story can travel anywhere, and they are looking to expand the reach for their series in Europe in the coming months.
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BolÃvar, distribuida por Caracol Internacional.
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CELEBRANDO 50 AÑOS DE CARACOL TELEVISIÓN A menos de un año de su medio siglo de existencia, conmemoramos los hitos televisivos más importantes de Caracol Televisión desde su fundación, incluyendo sus 20 años como televisora privada. Por Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari a marca Caracol Televisión ha cruzado las fronteras colombianas gracias al éxito de sus títulos originales que han marcado hitos y han generado tendencias en lo que a historias y nivel de producción se refiere. No en vano, la compañía está celebrando por partida doble: Está próxima a cumplir 50 años desde su fundación y 20 años desde sus inicios como televisora privada. Los cimientos del canal se remontan a casi medio siglo en el tiempo, cuando en agosto de 1969, la división de televisión de Caracol Radio en Colombia que funcionaba desde 1967, se separó formalmente para constituirse en la programadora Caracol Televisión. Fue así como la oferta se inició con 11,5 horas en el canal nacional (Cadena 7) y 15 horas en el canal local (Cadena 9).
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HITOS AL POR MAYOR A inicios de los años ’70, nació el programa Campeones de la risa, hoy conocido como Sábados felices, que también está de camino a celebrar su propio medio siglo de vida y que hace dos años fue reconocido con el Guinness World Record como el programa de sketches de humor al aire más antiguo de la televisión. No sería sino hasta una década más tarde, cuando Caracol Televisión robusteció su grilla de producciones con títulos como Las Ibáñez, además de telenovelas como Pero sigo siendo el rey, Quieta Margarita, Gallito Ramírez y San Tropel, entre otras. Al mismo tiempo, la empresa decidió compartir dichos títulos con las audiencias internacionales, exportándolos a casi 20 países. A fines de los ’80, más específicamente en 1987, las compañías del Grupo Santo Domingo adquirieron una
participación accionaria en Caracol Televisión, dando inicio a una modernización a nivel técnico y administrativo. En el marco de una nueva legislación en el país, que otorgó la concesión a operadores privados del servicio de televisión, el 24 de noviembre de 1997, la Comisión Nacional de Televisión (CNTV) le otorgó tanto a Caracol Televisión como a RCN Televisión, una licencia para operar como canal nacional privado durante 10 años. Durante la primera década del 2000, la compañía inició sus planes de expansión internacional, periodo en el que también desarrolló contenidos como realities, series y concursos. En esta etapa, también se lanzó la señal internacional y se inauguró la sede unificada y centro de producción. Títulos destacados fueron Pedro el escamoso, Nuevo rico, nuevo pobre y La saga, negocio de familia, entre otros.
UNA NUEVA ETAPA En 2009, se inició el segundo periodo de 10 años de concesión otorgado por la CNTV y comenzó la implantación de un nuevo modelo de negocio. Por su parte, el brazo de distribución de la compañía, Caracol Internacional, se enfoca en llevar las telenovelas, series y los formatos de entretenimiento de la empresa a las pantallas de las audiencias globales. En el transcurso de la última década y gracias a títulos como Sin tetas no hay paraíso, El cartel, Las muñecas de la mafia, El cartel 2, Sobreviviendo a Escobar, Alias JJ y Las muñecas de la mafia 2, Caracol Televisión fue parte gestacional en la ola de producciones llamadas narconovelas. A través de ellas, la compañía expandió su alcance global y fortaleció su presencia en los mercados internacionales. En este marco, uno de los títulos más destacados a la fecha sigue siendo Pablo Escobar, el patrón del mal, que llevó al actor Andrés Parra a ser reconocido más allá de
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Las muñecas de la mafia 2 es protagonizada, entre otras, por la reconocida actriz internacional Amparo Grisales.
las fronteras colombianas, gracias a su personificación del fundador del cartel de Medellín. La producción debutó por Canal Caracol a fines de mayo de 2012 y pese a la polémica que generó en la sociedad colombiana, logró acaparar la atención de la audiencia local. En una entrevista exclusiva con TV Latina, previo al lanzamiento de la producción, Parra habló sobre su experiencia al trabajar con Caracol Televisión en este y otros proyectos. “Toda mi carrera televisiva ha sido con Caracol”, comentó el actor. “Empecé a trabajar con el canal a partir de Por amor a Gloria. En Pablo Escobar, particularmente, la compañía fue muy generosa porque me permitió [trabajar] en los textos, confiando en mi investigación. Me sentí muy bien y estoy muy agradecido porque me dieron [la oportunidad] de interpretar a personajes complejos y eso ha sido una bendición”.
FIJANDO TENDENCIAS En esta misma línea, uno de los recientes estrenos de Caracol Televisión ha sido Las muñecas de la mafia 2, protagonizada por la reconocida actriz Amparo Grisales, quien en una entrevista con TV Latina entregó su percepción acerca de la producción y sus efectos en las audiencias: “Mucha gente en Colombia critica la realidad [que se presenta] en Las muñecas de la mafia y en el hecho de que produzcamos muchas series de este tipo. Para quienes hacemos entretenimiento es importante mostrar la realidad y no tapar el sol con un dedo. Películas como El padri-
no, incluso La guerra de las galaxias, tienen algo de violencia. [La realidad que se presenta en este tipo de series] puede ser cruda y dolorosa, sin embargo, no se extiende solamente a Colombia sino al mundo entero. [Lo que hacemos] es entretenimiento con buenos personajes, escritores y guiones. De hecho, actores como Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz y Catherine Zeta-Jones nos están copiando, trabajando en personajes colombianos que son tan arraigados y nuestros”. Luego de casi medio siglo a partir de su fundación y dos décadas como televisora privada, y encabezada por Gonzalo Córdoba como su presidente, Caracol Televisión se ha consolidado como una empresa de medios y entretenimiento, que produce y emite contenidos multiplataforma para los mercados internacionales, pero que también distribuye a través de su canal internacional (Caracol TV Internacional) y de terceros. Asimismo, la compañía comercializa diferentes medios de comunicación tales como periódicos, revistas, radio y medios electrónicos. Así fue como en 2013, Caracol Televisión lanzó Caracol Play, su propia plataforma digital OTT y tres años más tarde inauguró Caracol Next, unidad de negocios digitales cuyas características son los contenidos y la innovación digital. De forma adicional, Caracol Televisión ha llevado sus servicios de producción en Colombia a aliados internacionales para realizar coproducciones o producciones por encargo, desarrollando negocios conjuntos con compañías como Telemundo y RTI, TV Azteca y Sony Pictures Television.
CON MIRAS AL FUTURO Actualmente, algunos de los títulos destacados dentro de la oferta de Caracol Televisión, tanto en Colombia como internacionalmente, han sido el formato El desafío y los títulos La ronca de oro, La esclava blanca, La niña y La reina del flow. Durante sus años de existencia, la compañía también ha dado un espacio destacado dentro de su programación a los dramas turcos, además de realizar la adaptación de exitosos formatos internacionales como Gran hermano, El precio es correcto, Un minuto para ganar, Yo me llamo, La voz, Colombia’s Next Top Model y The Wall, entre otras producciones. “En nuestro portafolio de servicios, tanto la calidad de los contenidos como la innovación y tecnología de punta, juegan un papel preponderante”, destaca Caracol Televisión dentro de su información corporativa. “Nuestras producciones son el reflejo de la realidad socio-política, los valores y la idiosincrasia de la sociedad colombiana, además de su interés por ser reconocida e identificada con el resto de latinoamericanos”.
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cambiante y complejo. Eso podría significar lanzar un nuevo modelo a un mercado, ofrecer todas las ventanas a un operador multiplataforma o adaptar una estrategia de mercadeo existente tal como comenzar con el cable básico y luego ir a un comprador de televisión abierta. TV LATINA: De sus shows más recientes, ¿cuáles se destacan en los mercados internacionales? BROGI: Diría que 9-1-1 es el que mejor está funcionando. Es probablemente nuestra nueva serie con mayor y más amplia distribución a nivel mundial. Es el show de procedimiento que todo el mundo quiere y nuestros clientes están muy entusiasmados. Le ha ido muy bien en Estados Unidos, fue el nuevo drama número uno de la temporada en FOX y estamos muy orgullosos de eso. También tenemos The Resident, transmitiéndose internacionalmente como otra serie de procedimiento destacada. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story [se ha lanzado] en varios territorios y también le va muy bien. Es una serie emocionante, aterradora e impactante que está bellamente filmada y es muy especial. TV LATINA: En Estados Unidos, los críticos se mostraron escépticos sobre The Orville, porque es un show de una hora, al cual el creador Seth MacFarlan le incorporó humor y a la audiencia le encantó. ¿Cómo se ha recibido globalmente? BROGI: Como seres humanos, existe el deseo de categorizar todo. Si se trata de un show de una hora, es un drama y por lo tanto, son de procedimiento o serializados. Si es de media hora, entonces es una comedia. Cuando empiezas a mezclar todo, desconciertas a la gente. En lugar de abordar algo que desafía las normas, es mucho más fácil cuestionarlo. En este caso, The Orville, simplemente funciona y no podemos ponerle reglas. Lo mismo sucede con nuestras medias horas en FX porque no hay chistes cada dos minutos. Estos shows rompen el molde de lo que tradicionalmente consideramos una comedia de media hora.
Por Anna Carugati
Gina Brogi ha trabajado para Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution por casi dos décadas, desde su primer cargo como directora de finanzas para la división de distribución de televisión, hasta su posición actual como presidenta de distribución global. La ejecutiva supervisa a un equipo de ejecutivos en 11 oficinas alrededor del mundo, encargado de vender miles de horas de series de televisión y películas en todas las plataformas lineales y no lineales. Esto incluye una amplia variedad de productos, desde las series de televisión This Is Us y 9-1-1 y animación como The Simpsons, hasta la franquicia de cable American Crime Story y contenido premium como Homelandy cintas como Logan, Hidden Figuresy Alien: Covenant. Brogi habla sobre las crecientes complejidades y oportunidades en el negocio de distribución internacional, entre otros temas. TV LATINA: ¿Qué factores consideran cuando buscan maximizar la exposición e ingresos de un show en particular? BROGI: Depende de la serie y mercado. Nuestra meta es asociarnos con las televisoras que respalden nuestros shows y trabajen con nosotros para comercializarlos de la mejor manera. Siempre buscamos obtener la mayor exposición posible para nuestras series y que así se lancen correctamente en cada mercado. Tradicionalmente, tratamos de empezar con la televisión abierta cuando es apropiado, pero no funciona para cada uno de los shows. Así es que nuestro equipo de ventas ha encontrado formas creativas de alcanzar la exposición correcta para nuestras series e incrementar los ingresos en este ambiente
TV LATINA: Las comedias tienden a viajar menos que los dramas porque el humor está vinculado a una cultura o un idioma. ¿Cree que eso esté cambiando? BROGI: Es muy difícil traducir la comedia, especialmente para territorios que no hablan inglés. Sí, hay comedias que tienen éxito, pero tradicionalmente es más difícil que lleguen a audiencias más grandes. Tenemos más éxito con nuestras comedias en canales digitales y en servicios SVOD. Pero también continuamos viendo un enorme éxito con nuestros shows animados de media hora: The Simpsons, por supuesto, y luego Family Guy y Bob’s Burgers. TV LATINA: A todo el mundo le gustan los personajes complejos y dramas oscuros. Pero debido al clima político y malas noticias, ¿los compradores están buscando contenido más ligero? BROGI: Lo que hemos visto, tanto en Estados Unidos como a nivel internacional, es que algunos de los shows que más se destacan, son aquellos donde existe el escapismo o el bien triunfa sobre el mal. Por ejemplo, series como The Gifted, The Resident o 9-1-1, donde personas son rescatadas al final de la historia. O incluso The Orville, donde hay una moraleja. Entonces sí, las audiencias están buscando este tipo de contenido menos complejo y oscuro. Eso no quiere decir que a los shows oscuros no les vaya bien, pero el contenido ligero y alegre, donde el bueno gana, es ahora más atractivo que nunca.
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The Resident es uno de los programas destacados de FOX en América latina.
TV LATINA: This Is Us se ha desempeñado muy bien en Estados Unidos. ¿El éxito de un show en el país tiene importancia para los compradores internacionales? BROGI: Sí. Estamos observando cada vez más que los compradores están esperando ver cómo se desempeñan los shows en Estados Unidos antes de comprometerse [a adquirirlos]. Ayuda mucho y es en gran medida necesario que a un show le vaya bien en Estados Unidos para que atraiga a algunos de nuestros compradores internacionales. TV LATINA: ¿Cuáles son los principales problemas con los derechos para emitir temporadas completas?, ¿pasa por el tema de si los compradores pagan lo suficiente, obtienen los derechos que quieran, o hay más factores a considerar? BROGI: Hay muchas consideraciones. La responsabilidad fiscal es un factor muy importante y también impacta nuestros planes en un territorio en particular. Cada caso y mercado es diferente. Actualmente, hay más canales que ofrecen contenido on-demand y sus audiencias se están acostumbrando cada vez más a ver series de esa forma. Sin embargo, estamos viendo que para series de procedimiento, estos derechos son menos importantes, lo que tiene sentido dada la naturaleza de estas producciones. Estamos viendo que los clientes están más dispuestos a pagar por este tipo de derechos para la programación serializada con el fin de aumentar sus audiencias a través de una temporada. Ellos entienden que si los espectadores sintonizan desde el sexto episodio y no han visto los primeros cinco capítulos, probablemente no verán el show. Me gusta y estoy de acuerdo con lo que Hulu ha hecho en Estados Unidos con The Handmaid’s Tale cuando lanzan una nueva temporada. No ofrecen todos los episodios al mismo tiempo. Si presentas todos los capítulos a la vez, el programa no generará conversación. Mientras que si lo lanzas para que todos estén en el mismo episodio al mismo tiempo, habrá más de qué hablar. Como amantes y creadores de contenido, queremos que la gente disfrute el episodio y tenga una conversación al respecto antes de pasar al siguiente. Cuando una temporada completa se ofrece a través de un servicio, la
gente conversa sobre eso, pero en realidad no lo analizan y hablan de la manera que lo harían con This Is Us. Es interesante ver que los programadores de SVOD están siguiendo la pauta de la programación de televisión tradicional. TV LATINA: ¿El software que manejan se está volviendo más sofisticado para el seguimiento a todas las ventanas? BROGI: Nuestros sistemas están en constante evolución. Es una parte de nuestra división de la que estoy muy orgullosa. Tenemos sistemas increíbles que son complejos, pero tenemos la experiencia para ejecutarlos y administrarlos. Antes, simplemente se seguía la venta de un show en un territorio determinado. Sabías cuándo comenzaba y terminaba, y luego trabajabas en el siguiente. Actualmente, se considera el factor on-demand que está vigente y cuándo deja de tener exclusividad. De modo que puedes comenzar a licenciar inmediatamente a un comprador de SVOD, aunque el contenido en lineal todavía continúe emitiéndose. Solíamos administrar una temporada completa a la vez, y ahora, estamos analizando diferentes episodios, distintas combinaciones de territorios, idiomas y regiones con los compradores de SVOD. Es muy complejo y creo que mucha gente no aprecia esta parte del negocio. TV LATINA: ¿Considera que las negociaciones toman más tiempo que antes por diferentes factores a considerar? BROGI: Toman más tiempo porque son más complicadas. Solían ser más simple. Sólo se hablaba sobre el costo y periodo de licencias. Ahora ya no sólo se habla de costos, períodos de licencia, exclusividad y territorios. También se habla de términos de protección del contenido, reglas de uso, utilidad, el número de transmisiones simultáneas que puedan haber, cuáles son los derechos de descarga, las consecuencias, y los requisitos de datos y reportes. Se ha vuelto bastante complejo, pero también ha sido un aprendizaje para nuestra división. Me complace decir que nuestros ejecutivos de licencias han asumido el reto. Tenemos una estrategia de ventas en equipo para poder maximizar nuestros recursos y cerrar los negocios lo más rápido posible.
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TV LATINA: ¿Cuál es el balance de la compañía durante el último año? MARIN: El proceso ha sido muy importante considerando el impulso que estamos realizando a partir del contenido que anunciamos en los L.A. Screenings. Esto incluye a las producciones originales desarrolladas en América latina como El rey del valle, La Guzmán y Rosario Tijeras 2. Además, contamos con series americanas como Deadly Class y L.A.’s Finest, a las cuales apoyamos [en términos de] promoción, y nuestros largometrajes Alpha, Venom, Ghostbusters 2, Holmes and Watson y The Girl in the Spider’s Web protagonizada por Claire Foy. Esto es [una parte importante] de lo que estaremos trabajando durante el resto del año y enero. El lanzamiento de las películas por su parte, tiene un efecto secundario ya que dicta mucho cómo será el desempeño de esas producciones en ventanas posteriores, ya sea en [plataformas] transaccionales, cable o televisión abierta. Entre más podamos ayudar para que a la película le vaya bien [en su estreno], mejores serán los resultados que obtendremos con la cinta a través de las distintas fuentes de ingresos. TV LATINA: ¿Qué importancia ocupa Europa para la compañía y por qué? MARIN: Para SPT, todos los continentes son importantes. Sin embargo, diría que Europa es el territorio desde donde provienen los ingresos más importantes para todas las empresas. Europa tiene características muy diferentes a las de América latina, cada país en Europa tiene su propia cultura. Entonces no tienen la ventaja de poder desarrollar un producto en un solo idioma y distribuirlo en múltiples países simultáneamente. Esto representa un reto. La [industria europea] está atravesando por el mismo proceso que la compañía, es decir, una reestructuración a nuestra organización para ser más competitivos y flexibles con todos los cambios que se están presentando actualmente en la industria.
Por Rafael Blanco
En el último año, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) ha fomentado su oferta de películas taquilleras, reconocidas series y producciones originales para América latina y el mundo entero. Hace un año, la compañía se asoció con Dopamine, la empresa de contenidos de Grupo Salinas, para coproducir una serie épica sobre la vida de María Magdalena. La serie de 60 capítulos cuenta con las actuaciones protagónicas de María Fernanda Yepes, Manolo Cardona y Andrés Parra, y da una mirada al misterioso y emblemático personaje de la Biblia. En la oferta de SPT también se destacan las producciones originales en América latina tales como El rey del valle, una comedia satírica sobre el narcotráfico; La Guzmán, que se enfoca en la vida de la reconocida artista mexicana Alejandra Guzmán; y Rosario Tijeras 2, estelarizada por Bárbara de Regil. Alex Marin, VP ejecutivo de distribución y Networks, América latina de la compañía, conversa con TV Latina sobre el impulso que ha tenido SPT con sus producciones, generando interés por sus contenidos no sólo en televisión lineal, sino también a través de pantallas de cine y plataformas OTT como Crackle. El ejecutivo comparte su visión del negocio en Europa y Latinoamérica, y resalta la importancia de realizar buenas historias y contarlas constantemente.
TV LATINA: ¿Cuáles son las dinámicas de desarrollar negocios en Europa?, ¿es más sencillo negociar en América latina? MARIN: No diría que sea más sencillo, sino más bien que en Latinoamérica existe la comodidad de poder [lanzar contenido] en varios países. Lo difícil de nuestro negocio es desarrollar productos y contenidos que tengan relevancia, lo cual proviene de una sola fuente: Buenas historias contadas correctamente, [las cuales] se venden en cualquier parte. Las estamos [realizando] en Latinoamérica, y la calidad y forma de narrarlas transcienden fronteras. Mucha gente habla de la presencia del producto turco en América latina. Pero a mí me gusta [destacar] el producto latinoamericano que está viajando más allá de la región. En Estados Unidos, por ejemplo, se adaptó el formato de Juana la virgen, bajo el título Jane the Virgin. El hecho de ver a actores y actrices latinoamericanos en la televisión de dicho país es un motivo de orgullo. TV LATINA: ¿Qué puede comentar sobre las actividades que la compañía está desarrollando en Europa? MARIN: Hemos producido mucho [contenido] en Inglaterra, donde realizamos The Crown, por ejemplo. Estamos trabajando en varias series de televisión tanto con guión como sin guión. El formato de ¿Quién quiere ser millonario? se
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Rosario Tijeras 2 es una serie de acción protagonizada por Bárbara de Regil.
realizó en Inglaterra y en Francia seguimos realizando los game shows y ciertas series y películas televisivas. En España, trabajamos actualmente en varios proyectos aunque no estamos en producción. En Alemania, seguimos produciendo al igual que en Rusia. En definitiva, los negocios en Europa están teniendo un buen desempeño. En Asia, particularmente en China, también realizamos [contenidos]. Considerando lo mucho que producimos en Estados Unidos, la cantidad de horas que realizamos fuera del país es más alta que la que hacemos en Estados Unidos. TV LATINA: ¿Cómo innovan con sus producciones originales para seguir vigentes en un mercado lleno de ofertas en diferentes plataformas? MARIN: Nuestro gran ejemplo de innovación sería El rey del valle, que es una narcoserie, pero es comedia. A mucha gente le gusta la narcoserie. El rey del valle está escrita por Juan Camilo Ferrán, quien escribió Pablo Escobar, el patrón del mal, pero es una sátira, burla y comedia a los programas de narcotraficantes. Es muy divertida. La innovación también tiene que ver con cómo contar una historia de forma distinta. Sin embargo, lo más importante es tener una historia de calidad. En ese sentido, nos hemos caracterizado por hacer bien las cosas. Otro ejemplo es La Guzmán, que también es innovadora porque es una teleserie y está compuesta por 40 episodios. El show trata sobre la vida de la artista mexicana Alejandra Guzmán. Ella participó en la creación de esta producción, lo cual es muy emocionante. TV LATINA: Anunciaron la asociación con Dopamine para la coproducción María Magdalena. ¿En qué etapa se encuentra la realización del título? MARIN: María Magdalena se está grabando y se ve extraordinaria. No hemos hecho ningún cambio histórico, pero
hemos tomado libertades creativas de la historia que se cuenta en la Biblia. Estamos muy entusiasmados con la serie por la forma en que contamos esta historia bíblica, que es liderada por una protagonista. TV LATINA: ¿Cómo están negociando las ventanas de sus producciones en plataformas no lineales? MARIN: La ventaja que tenemos es que somos dueños de Crackle, nuestra plataforma SVOD autenticada. Tenemos la capacidad no sólo de [cuidar] el producto sino también velar por el bienestar de la plataforma. Contamos con producciones originales de Crackle como The Oath y otras series que han generado mucha expectativa cuando [los usuarios] acceden a la plataforma. Producimos grandes series para Netflix y Amazon, así como para nuestra propia plataforma. Al final del día, la idea es que mucha gente se suscriba a la plataforma por el producto que ofrece. Es parecido al cine. La gente va al cine porque es cómodo, pero no va si no se presenta una película [atractiva]. La comodidad que la plataforma brinda al usuario es importante, pero la calidad del contenido es más importante. TV LATINA: ¿Cuáles son los focos de trabajo para el resto del año y de cara al 2019? MARIN: Tenemos películas [que debutarán] el año próximo y de las cuales estamos muy orgullosos. En producción en Londres están las cintas Spider-Man y Men in Black. También tenemos Angry Birds y otras películas que estarán disponibles en 2019. Para televisión, el lanzamiento de Deadly Class [este año] y de L.A.’s Finest a principios del próximo, nos da mucho aliento porque a pesar de ser una productora un poco más boutique de contenido comparado a algunos de nuestros competidores, la mayoría del material que hacemos es el de mayor importancia para todas nuestras plataformas a las cuales les vendemos el producto.
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TV LATINA: ¿Qué tipo de series están buscando los compradores en Europa?, ¿cómo trabajan para diferenciar a sus series en un mercado tan vasto? JASIN: Tenemos un amplio catálogo, desde las novelas más clásicas hasta las series más modernas y contemporáneas como por ejemplo, las súper series. En general, en todos los mercados, tanto Europa como Asia, África y también Latinoamérica, vemos que hay demanda para todo [tipo de contenido]. Identificamos cuáles son los nichos de mercado y según el producto que tenemos, comenzamos a llegar a esos nichos con nuestro portafolio. Nuestro catálogo no sólo cuenta con ficción, sino también, documentales, películas y docu-realities, entre otros. Además, ofrecemos servicios de producción. Todo esto nos permite atender las múltiples demandas que se nos presentan.
Por Rafael Blanco
Este año, desde que Patricia Jasin fue nombrada VP de TV Azteca Internacional, posición donde apunta a expandir los contenidos de la empresa a nuevos mercados. Con casi 20 años de experiencia en la industria de televisión internacional, la ejecutiva ha liderado la gerencia, ventas internacionales, adquisiciones y desarrollo de contenido audiovisual para múltiples plataformas. Además, ha empleado su experiencia para establecer alianzas estratégicas con algunos de los principales jugadores de la televisión mundial. En esta entrevista con TV Latina, la ejecutiva conversa sobre el panorama actual del mercado europeo, detallando los desafíos y oportunidades particulares de esa región y la variedad de contenidos que ofrece el catálogo de TV Azteca Internacional, entre otros temas. TV LATINA: ¿Qué impacto ha tenido la explosión de plataformas OTT en Europa con respecto a la venta de las producciones de la compañía? JASIN: Pese a la explosión que ha habido de estas plataformas en Europa, no todas las OTT son líderes en la región. Estamos evaluando nuevas oportunidades de negocio y somos bastante selectivos al incorporar nuestro contenido a las OTT. Hay muchas plataformas que son nuevas y no tienen solidez o no cuentan con contenido diferencial. Preferimos trabajar con las líderes, con aquellas que consideramos que tienen algo más que ofrecer al usuario, porque finalmente una plataforma OTT sin contenido no [funciona], no sería un modelo de negocio sustentable. Así, le estamos dándo valor a nuestro contenido.
TV LATINA: ¿Cuáles considera que son los principales desafíos en Europa para lograr un mayor crecimiento? JASIN: El reto principal que enfrentamos al provenir de cualquier territorio de [habla hispana] son las diferencias culturales. Al presentarnos en mercados internacionales, [este tipo de diversidades] han sido el desafío de cualquier [actividad] de distribución, canal o productor. Lo que sí hemos visto a través de los últimos años es que la globalización está cerrando más diferencias culturales. Actualmente, encontramos que nuestros productos están [entrando] en territorios donde antes quizás no teníamos la capacidad. Hoy en día las audiencias se están pareciendo cada vez más y la globalización está minimizando las diferencias. Si tenemos un producto que no es totalmente afín a la audiencia mexicana, no significa que no se identifique con otras audiencias. La estrategia de ventas es no responder a preconceptos cuando un producto mexicano por ejemplo, no ha sido exitoso en el país. Es necesario abrirnos a la idea de que nuestros productos pueden llegar a cualquier territorio y no tenemos que frenar nuestros esfuerzos por entrar en regiones donde antes no teníamos presencia. No queremos dejar de explorar ninguna oportunidad de negocio. TV LATINA: ¿Hay algún país en Europa donde sea más difícil penetrar con sus producciones? JASIN: Tradicionalmente, los países del Norte de Europa son los que menos han consumido nuestro producto. Europa del Este y del Sur han sido las regiones que han adquirido y aceptado el producto mexicano de una forma más natural. El Norte de Europa es el territorio donde más se nos ha dificultado la entrada, pero contamos con una oferta de contenido universal con la cual tenemos la posibilidad de entrar. TV LATINA: ¿Cuáles son los destacados en MIPCOM? JASIN: Tenemos dos series que son muy fuertes: María Magdalena y Rosario Tijeras 2. Son los grandes lanzamientos de ficción para [este mercado]. Dado el perfil de estos productos, tienen muchas posibilidades [de éxito] en Europa, Asia y África. También, ofrecemos el nuevo docu-reality Mundo metro. Lo hemos desarrollado a través de nuestra unidad de producción de televisión paga. Además, contamos con producto factual como Indomable x naturaleza, y estamos relanzando el formato La academia a raíz del éxito que registró la última temporada por Azteca uno.
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John Krasinski como Jack Ryan.
John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce y Dina Shihabi, los protagonistas de Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, junto con el co-creador Carlton Cuse, hablan sobre la presencia del personaje en la pantalla chica. Por Anna Carugati ack Ryan, el personaje central de las novelas de Tom Clancy, es conocido por millones de seguidores en todo el mundo. También ha cobrado vida en varias películas, entre ellas The Hunt for Red October con Alec Baldwin, Patriot Games con Harrison Ford y The Sum of All Fears con Ben Affleck. Recientemente, se lanzó en Amazon Prime Video una adaptación para la pantalla chica, titulada Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan que ya ha sido renovada para una segunda temporada. Creada por Carlton Cuse y Graham Roland, la serie es protagonizada por John Krasinski. Contar la historia como una serie de ocho horas, realizada para la pantalla chica, permitió relatar más historias y un desarrollo de personajes más profundo, según Cuse. “Nos dimos cuenta de que uno de los temas que definen a Tom
J
Clancy fue que escribió thrillers geopolíticos del momento”, dice Cuse. “Si bien los libros fueron geniales, se sentían anticuados. Entonces, Graham y yo decidimos crear nuestra propia historia sobre algo que estaba sucediendo en este momento. Escogimos contar una historia sobre el terrorismo en Medio Oriente e intentamos hacer lo que Clancy había hecho en sus novelas, que era escribir una gran historia, pero muy actual y conectada al mundo de hoy”. Cuse y Roland imaginaron su historia de Jack Ryan como una precuela de las historias contadas en las novelas y películas. “Nuestra versión del personaje de Jack Ryan es un poco anterior a la que vemos en The Hunt for Red October”, explica Cuse. “Es un analista. Él solo ha estado trabajando para la CIA durante cuatro años. Está comenzando su carrera y vemos su
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Wendell Pierce interpreta a James Greer, jefe de Ryan en la CIA.
transformación de ser un chico que trabaja en un cubículo, redactando informes a alguien que ahora está experimentando por primera vez cómo es estar en el área”. Para Krasinski, quien es conocido por su papel de Jim Halpert en la comedia The Office y quien recientemente escribió, dirigió y protagonizó la película A Quiet Place, el atractivo de la serie de Jack Ryan fue el formato de ocho horas. “La idea de contar historias de forma larga fue el pitching que realmente me atrapó”, agrega Krasinski. “Una película no es el mejor medio para Jack Ryan porque los libros son muy ricos y están orientados a los detalles, por ello hay mucho más que extraer con forma de narración larga. También me encantó la idea de que pudiéramos empezar al comienzo de la carrera de Jack Ryan en la CIA y verlo en sus primeros días en su posición más baja y verlo crecer”. Los escritores hicieron algunos otros ajustes a los personajes de las novelas de Clancy. En los libros, James Greer es un oficial de alto rango de la CIA. Como explicó Cuse, él y Roland querían ver a Greer, interpretado por Wendell Pierce, al principio de la historia. “Lo convertimos en el jefe inmediato de Jack Ryan para que los dos pudieran interactuar y ser socios en la historia, y pudimos ver el arco de la narrativa de James Greer a lo largo del tiempo. “Un nuevo personaje del mundo de Jack Ryan es Hanin, interpretado por Dina Shihabi. La autenticidad fue de mayor importancia para Cuse y Roland, quienes trabajaron con los consultores de la CIA. Pierce dice que estaba impresionado e inspirado por los agentes reales de la CIA que conoció. “Cuando interpretas a un personaje, estás tratando de ver la humanidad de quien sea que estés interpretando”, comenta Pierce. “Los personajes no son una idea o un punto de la trama en la historia. Estás tratando de formar a alguien que sea tridimensional. Pude hacer eso con la ayuda de este oficial retirado en particular. Nos hemos hecho amigos. Me encargo de las
cosas por él, le pido consejos todo el tiempo. Eso es lo que realmente me ha ayudado a darle vida a mi versión de James Greer”. “Como dijo John, una de las cosas que nos atrajo fue tener ocho horas para contar nuestra historia en lugar de dos, lo que nos permitió profundizar mucho más en el lado político del thriller geopolítico y seguir analizando algunas de las razones por las que tenemos terrorismo en Medio Oriente”, explica Cuse. “Hemos tenido una gran cantidad de shows en el género de espionaje que son sobre antihéroes. La diferencia con Jack Ryan es que él es un héroe clásico. Él es la persona que todos esperamos se encuentre entre nosotros y los terroristas del mundo. Eso es algo que hoy se puede ver globalmente”. El terrorismo es sólo uno de los temas de la serie. “Sentimos que tuvimos la oportunidad con este show de no sólo hacer un show de acción insignia de verano, sino también brindar comentarios sobre algunos de los problemas de actualidad”, destaca Cuse. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan ofrece una perspectiva diferente del terrorismo con la historia de Hanin, la esposa de un terrorista, que escapa y termina en un grupo de refugiados de Siria. Esta historia da luz sobre la difícil situación de los refugiados y, como explica Cuse, “tal vez hace que la gente piense sobre los refugiados de una manera diferente o que vea una imagen más completa de cómo es esa experiencia”. Para Shihabi, el papel de Hanin ofreció una oportunidad emocionante. “La mayoría de las veces, cuando las mujeres de Medio Oriente son retratadas en los medios, son retratadas como víctimas”, dice Shihabi. “No tienen nombres. Viven en un estado de angustia terrible. Pero lo que Carlton y Graham crearon es una mujer inteligente y poderosa. Ella es una madre que hará todo lo posible para cuidar a sus hijos. Ella es acérrima, lucha y descubre formas intelectuales y emocionales para proteger a las personas que más ama. Fue una experiencia increíblemente maravillosa, satisfactoria y desafiante”.
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TVLISTINGS
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OCTOBER 2018
MIPCOM EDITION
THE LEADING SOURCE FOR PROGRAM INFORMATION
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TV LISTINGS
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3ZERO2
9 STORY MEDIA GROUP
3Zero2 4K Media 9 Story Media Group
JKN Global Media Kanal D International Keshet International Kew Media Distribution Lacey Entertainment
w 3zero2tv.it
w 9story.com
Stand: R7.F27 Contact: Susanna Vitelli, sales mngmt., new project dvpmt.; Daniela Di Maio, coprod. cnslt. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Penny on M.A.R.S. (Live action, S1: 16x22 min., S2: 10x22 min.) Penny has a dream: to go to MARS, the best performing arts school. She will find fascinating friends, a mystery to be solved and energetic music.
Stand: R7.E75 Contact: Vince Commisso, pres. & CEO; Natalie Osborne, chief strategy officer; Alix Wiseman, VP, business dvpmt. & acq.; Stephen Kelley, snr. dir., dist.; Federico Vargas, snr. dir., dist.; Angela Santomero, chief creative officer; Darragh O’Connell, creative dir.; Jennie Stacey, dir., dvpmt.; Kristin Lecour, VP, consumer products & sr. dir., Canadian dist.; Jennifer Ansley, VP, mktg. & comms.; Kathleen Bartlett, mktg. mgr., trade; Aoife Downes, sales & admin. asst. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Clifford the Big Red Dog (Kids 2-5 animation, 78x11 min.) Join Emily Elizabeth and her big red dog, Clifford, as they explore their island home and go on big new adventures. Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum (w.t.) (Kids 4-7 animation adventure comedy, 75x11 min. & 1x55 min.) Follow the adventures of Xavier, Yadina and Brad as they travel back in time to meet famous heroes of the past and learn how to be their own heroes of the present. Dr. Panda (Kids 3-6 animation, 39x7 min.) Welcome to the wonderful world of Panda City,
4 41 Entertainment A+E Networks A2 Filmes ABS-CBN Corporation Alfred Haber Distribution
6 all3media international AMC Studios Animasia Studio Armoza Formats Artist View Entertainment
7 Atlantyca Entertainment Atresmedia Televisión ATV Audiovisual from Spain August Media
8 Autentic Distribution BabyTV Banijay Rights BBC Studios Big Bad Boo Studios
9 Blue Ant International Boat Rocker Rights Bomanbridge Media CAKE Calinos Entertainment
10 Canal 13 Caracol Internacional CJ ENM CJ ENM Animation Division Crown Media International Distribution Cyber Group Studios
11 Deutsche Welle/DW Transtel DHX Media Dick Clark Productions Disney Media Distribution Latin America Distribution360 Dori Media Group
12 Dynamic Television Eccho Rights Endemol Shine International Entertainment One Family & Brands
13 Escapade Media Federation Kids & Family FilmRise Fox Networks Group Content Distribution Fremantle
14 FUN Union Gaumont Genius Brands International Global Agency Global Screen Gloob/Globosat
15 GMA Worldwide GO-N International GoldBee GRB Studios Green Gold Animation
16 Guru Studio Gusto Worldwide Media Hasbro Studios Hat Trick International HBO HBO Latin America
17 Imagina International Sales Incendo Intellecta Inter Medya ITV Studios Global Entertainment Jetpack Distribution
O (39-02) 2539-541 m info@3zero2tv.it
19 Lionsgate Entertainment MarVista Entertainment Media Ranch Mediaset España Mediatoon Distribution
20 Metro Goldwyn Mayer MISTCO Mobius.Lab Productions Mondo TV Motion Pictures Entertainment
21 Multicom Entertainment Group NBCUniversal International Distribution NHK Enterprises Nippon TV Nordic World NTV Broadcasting Company
22 Onza Distribution ORF-Enterprise Passion Distribution PBS International Pol-ka Producciones
Penny on M.A.R.S.
23 Portfolio Entertainment Rabbit Films Rainbow Record TV Red Arrow Studios International Rive Gauche Television
School Hacks (Sketch comedy, 30x5 min.) Focuses on a group of very social schoolmates in search of identity, love and fun, seen through their chat called “School Hacks.”
4K MEDIA
O (1-212) 590-2100
24 RTVE Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport Sabbatical Entertainment Sato Company Scholastic Entertainment Serious Lunch Sesame Workshop
Stand: R7.B12 Contact: Jennifer Buzzelli, sales cnslt.; Jennifer Coleman, VP, lic. & mktg.; Kristen Gray, SVP, operations & business & legal affairs; Mark Kirk, SVP, digital operations.
Singapore Pavilion by IMDA Sky Vision Smithsonian Channel Sonar Entertainment Sony Pictures Television
Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Tong Managing Editor
Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager
Yu-Gi-Oh!
27 SUNRIGHTS Superights Talpa Global TCB Media Rights Telefilms Terra Mater Factual Studios
28 The Story Lab TM International TV Asahi Corporation TV Azteca International TVF International Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution
WWE Xilam Animation ZDF Enterprises Zee Entertainment Enterprises Zodiak Kids
Mansha Daswani Editor
Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director
Spin Master Star India Star Media Studio 100 Media/m4e STUDIOCANAL
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Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director
Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director
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Twofour Rights Viacom International Studios Viacom18/Indiacast Vivicast Media
Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher
Sara Alessi Associate Editor
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O (1-416) 530-9900 m distribution@9story.com
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS (Animation, 49x30 min.) With advances in cutting-edge technology, duelists worldwide plug into LINK VRAINS to compete in fast-paced competition. But this cyberspace is under attack by a team of nefarious hackers determined to destroy the virtual realm. Konami Gaming Titles Three brands with a long history in gaming and pop culture: Bomberman, Frogger and Contra. Seeking coproduction partners for all markets. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions (Animation, 1x110 min.) A decade after the finale that bid farewell to the franchise’s original storyline, this movie marks the return of the original creator, the iconic hero and the classic characters idolized by generations of gamers and fans worldwide. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie (Animation, 1x90 min.) Heroic Yugi squares off against archrival Kaiba in an adventure even more dangerous when the imaginary monsters in their playing cards become ferociously real and an old evil enters the fray. Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V (Animation, S1-3: 148x30 min.) Yuya Sakaki’s dream is to become the greatest “duel-tainer” in history–and he just might pull it off when he discovers a technique that lets him summon many monsters at once.
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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 Listings © 2018 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreenings.com
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TV LISTINGS
where every day Dr. Panda tries out a new job working together with his friends. The Magic School Bus: Rides Again (Kids 48 animation adventure, 26x22 min.) Follow eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle and her eager students on a new set of science-based adventures aboard the magical school bus.
Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum Let’s Go Luna! (Kids 4-7 animation adventure, 76x11 min. & 1x44 min.) Three friends traverse the globe with their parents’ traveling performance troupe. At each of the Circo’s stops, Luna the Moon guides the trio as they get to know the local region and its people. Anne of Green Gables Collection (Family live-action movies, 3x88 min.) A retelling of L.M. Montgomery’s story of Anne Shirley, a girl mistakenly sent to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm. The Diary of Bita and Cora (Kids 3-5 stopmotion adventure, 26x5 min.) Explorers of the galaxy and best friends Bita and Cora crash-land on a wonderfully strange new planet named Pruna. Garfield and Friends (Kids 6-11 animation comedy, 121x22 min.) This classic series revolves around sarcastic Garfield, a lazy feline whose only desires in life are lasagna, catnaps and avoiding Mondays. Luo Bao Bei (Kids 4-7 animation, 52x11 min.) Luo Bao Bei is a bright and spirited 7-year-old girl with a vivid imagination, on a quest to understand the world around her. Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood (Kids 2-5 animation, 170x11 min. & 36x11 min.) Daniel, a shy but brave 4-year-old tiger, lives in the Neighbourhood of Make Believe.
Kong—King of the Apes (Kids action adventure, 26x22 min./1x83 min. & 22x22 min.) With superpowered robotic dinosaurs unleashed on the unsuspecting world, Kong is the only force formidable enough to stop them and save humankind. Tarzan and Jane (Kids action adventure, 13x22 min./2x83 min. & 5x22 min.) Sixteen-year-old Tarzan returns from the jungle to a London boarding school where he meets Jane, who aids him in solving crimes and mysteries. Superhero Summer Camp (Preschool action adventure, 26x11 min.) Kids of legendary superheroes spend their summer learning how to call up and control their superpowers as they transform into mini versions of their super parents. Superhero Pets (Preschool action adventure, 26x11 min.) When there’s trouble in town, these furry friends, accompanied by their pet walker Charlie, transform into superheroes to save the day.
Voices from the Grave (Format, 60 min. eps) Cutting-edge hologram technology offers people facing their final days of life a chance to show their loved ones that death is not the end of their story. Seatbelt Psychic (Format, 8x30 min.) Follows a gifted medium posing as a ride-share driver who picks up unsuspecting passengers, then surprises them with his ability to talk to their dearly departed. Snap Decision (Format, 60x30 min.) To take home the grand prize, contestants must challenge their preconceived notions by making instant judgments about strangers seen in onthe-street interviews. Jane Green (TV movies, 3x120 min.) A trio of emotionally truthful movies based on the internationally best-selling novels by Jane Green, with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide.
w internationalsales.abs-cbn.com Stand: P-1.F74 Contact: Macie F. Imperial, integrated pgm. acq. & intl. dist. head; Wincess L. Gonzales, acq. mgr.; Pia B. Laurel, head, sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Betrayal (Drama/romance, 45 min. eps.) Lino, a talented furniture designer, is caught between reuniting with the love of his life and staying true to his commitment to his wife.
O (1-305) 775-0104/
O (1-212) 210-1400 m intl.sales@aenetworks.com
(55-11) 9-9115-1900
m salete.stefanelli@a2filmes.com.br,
w sales.aenetworks.com
almir@a2filmes.com.br
w a2filmes.com.br Stand: P3.C10 Contact: Paul Buccieri, pres.; Sean Cohan, pres., intl. & digital media; Patrick Vien, exec. mng. dir., intl.; Edward Sabin, exec. mng. dir., intl.; Richard Tulk-Hart, mng. dir., intl. content dist. & coprod.; Melissa Madden, SVP, intl. mktg.; Vicky Kahn, SVP, corp. & intl. comms.; Hayley Babcock, head, format prod. & acq.; Liz Soriano, VP, intl. pgmng.; Ellen Lovejoy, VP/head, content sales, Americas & formats; Glen Hansen, VP/head, content sales, AsiaPac; Robin Hurd, VP, content sales, EMEA; Michael Oesterlin, VP, intl. content sales; Bryan Gabourie, VP, content sales; Helen Jurado, snr. dir., content sales; Sala Mauro, dir., content sales, EMEA; Marica Giessen, dir., content sales, EMEA; Pooja Nirmal Kant, dir., intl. content sales; Shannon Kerr, dir., intl. publicity, talent relations & press events; Freya Brown, dir., events; Grace Mangum, dir., intl. digital media.
Stand: VIP Lounge Contact: Salete Stefanelli, Almir Roberto dos Santos. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Antboy 3 (Family/adventure, 1x85 min.) Exofarm has a new CEO who wants to control the world. Antboy tries to stop her with a mysterious new superhero on a skateboard.
O (1-203) 717-1120 m nancy.koff@41ent.com w www.41e.tv
Superhero Pets
O (632) 415-2272 m internationalsales@abs-cbn.com
A2 FILMES
A+E NETWORKS
41 ENTERTAINMENT
Stand: R7.E59 Contact: Allen Bohbot, mng. dir.; Nancy Koff, VP, sales & mktg.; Francisco Urena, prod. & brand assurance dir.; Ashley Mendia, legal & business affairs mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Skylanders Academy (Kids action comedy, 1x44 min. & 37x22 min.) At Skylanders Academy, the greatest young warriors from realms all across Skylands are trained to protect the universe from evildoers. Super Monsters (Preschool comedy, 64x11 min.) Dual identity monster preschool children descended from famous historical characters learn how to be the best people and monsters possible. The Mini Musketeers (Preschool adventure comedy, 26x11 min.) Join the big and small adventures of Remi, Leo, Pierre and Aimee, the four young nieces and nephews of their famous uncles, The Three Musketeers.
ABS-CBN CORPORATION
Antboy 3
Project Blue Book PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Project Blue Book (Scripted, 10x60 min.) From writer/director Robert Zemeckis comes a series inspired by the real-life Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force’s investigation of UFOs. American Princess (Scripted, 10x60 min.) A New York socialite suddenly becomes a runaway bride in the midst of a meltdown in a cosplay universe at a Renaissance Faire. Watergate (Factual, 3x120 min.) Chronicles the story of the Watergate scandal from the first troubling signs in Richard Nixon’s presidency to his resignation and beyond. Nightwatch Nation (Factual, 10x60 min.) First responders across America scramble to save as many lives as they can on the busiest, most unnerving shift of all: the overnight. I Knew Jesus (Factual, 8x60 min.) Docudrama reveals Jesus Christ as never before: through the eyes of the men and women closest to him. Forged in Fire: Knife or Death (Factual, 6x60 min.) America’s most experienced bladesmiths, martial artists and knife experts slice, stab and chop their way through every blade-shattering challenge imaginable, to win the $20,000 grand prize.
Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield (Action/drama, 1x120 min.) In China’s Ming dynasty, Shen Lian, an imperial guard, searches for the truth behind a conspiracy that framed him and his partners. Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (Action, 1x94 min.) After being defeated by Ip Man, Cheung Tin Chi lives a depressed life and keeps a low profile. The Invincible Dragon (Action, 1x96 min.) Once upon a time, Kowloon (Zhang Jin), an undercover agent with a dragon tattoo, helped the police to solve mysterious cases. On Wheels (Adventure/drama/family, 1x72 min.) A road movie and coming-of-age drama aimed at a young audience. On Wings of Eagles (Drama, 1x90 min.) Olympic gold medalist Eric Liddell, one of Scotland’s greatest athletes, returns to wartorn China. Romans (Drama, 1x91 min.) An adult victim of childhood sexual abuse confronts the horrors of his past. Boys of Abu Ghraib (Drama/thriller, 1x112 min.) An American soldier deployed at Abu Ghraib finds himself behind the walls of the infamous “Hard Site.” Dead Awake (Horror/thriller, 1x99 min.) A young woman must save herself and her friends from an ancient evil that stalks its victims through the real-life phenomenon of sleep paralysis. Guard Dog (Family, 1x104 min.) Nine year-old Chance Watson is lying, cheating, stealing and flunking out of school.
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Secrets of El Paraiso Now & Forever (Drama/romance, 45 min. eps.) Eva, the long-lost heiress of the Cortes clan’s wealth, meets the recognized successor, Inno; a love will eventually flourish between them and the pieces surrounding Eva’s identity fall into place. Secrets of El Paraiso (Drama/romance, 45 min. eps.) As rich businessman Adrian and young professional Michelle fall in love, they find out they’re connected in more ways than one. The Blood Sisters (Crime/drama, 45 min. eps.) Unaware of each other’s existence, three identical sisters are reunited by a crime that ends up raising more questions than answers. Asintado (Crime/drama, 45 min. eps.) Ana decides to rebuild her life and seeks revenge after surviving an attempted murder orchestrated by her own sister. The Good Son (Crime/drama, 45 min. eps.) Following the sudden death of Victor Buenavidez, his loved ones are left shocked by the revelation of his deepest secret: he had two families. Did one of his own loved ones kill him? Since I Found You (Romance/drama, 45 min. eps.) A rom-com drama that follows the humorous and complicated office romances among five people working for a construction company. I’ll Never Say Goodbye (Romance/drama, 45 min. eps.) Waldo accidentally killed a man who attempted to rape Aryann. Will they accept that time changes many things... even love? Lost Hearts (Family/drama, 45 min. eps.) Follows two women through the disintegration of their friendship, the tragedies in their lives and their reconciliation.
ALFRED HABER DISTRIBUTION
O (1-201) 224-8000 m info@haberinc.com w www.alfredhaber.com
Stand: P-1.L50 Contact: Alfred Haber, pres.; Andrew Haber, VP, intl. sales; Steven Weiser, VP, domestic & intl. sales; Patricia Villagran, intl. sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 2019 61st Annual Grammy Awards (Awards/music show, 1x210 min.) It is all about the performances on the world’s most popular and prestigious televised music awards show. Shallow Grave (Reality, 8x60 min.) A murder has been committed elsewhere, likely cleaned of evidence, and then dumped at what investigators call “the deposition site” or shallow grave. Help! My House is Haunted! (Reality, 12x60 min.) From Zak Bagans, a new series that finds answers to unexplained supernatural phenomena to help families reclaim their properties from unwelcome spirits.
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Annual Grammy Awards Elvis ’68 Special: An All-Star Tribute (Music/variety, 1x120 min.) Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s legendary 1968 “Comeback Special,” top superstars pay tribute to the icon by performing the songs from that unforgettable evening. Top 20 Funniest (Reality, 49x60 min.) Includes comedic commentary over viral videos, home movies, news bloopers and more while we count down the week’s most hilarious videos. Hitched in Vegas (Reality, 10x60 min.) Follows couples and their wedding parties through the most exciting, elaborate and entertaining wedding adventures ever in the “Wedding Capital of the World.” Elton John: I’m Still Standing—A Grammy Salute (Music/variety, 1x120 min.) Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and more lead the performance-packed gala concert celebrating the extraordinary career of the five-time Grammy Award winner. Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed (Reality, 18x60 min.) Continues to make magic with dynamic ratings and renewal stories around the globe. 2019 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (Awards, 1x120 min.) Actors vote solely for actors in honoring the year’s finest film and television performances. World’s Most Amazing Videos (Reality, 65x60 min.) Features shocking “caught-on-camera” footage of dramatic events as ordinary people become immersed in extraordinary situations.
Blood (6x60 min.) Adrian Dunbar stars in this drama about love, loss, family and betrayal. Following her mother’s “accidental” death, Cat starts to question her father’s involvement. The Circle (60 min. eps) From the producers of Gogglebox, asks provocative questions about how we portray ourselves through social media as strangers compete in a popularity contest to win a cash prize. Flirty Dancing (30 min. eps) Two singletons are taught a dance, which they perform together at their first meeting. Will it be the start of a beautiful romance? Beat the Internet (30 min. eps.) From Vice Studios comes this new game-show format where contestants must correctly predict computer responses such as popular auto-completes and auto-generated suggestions. Born Famous (60 min. eps.) New from Studio Ramsay, this format sees the teenage offspring of Britain’s celebrities discover what life might have been without the luxury. Made in Asia—The Real Lion (2x60 min.) From award-winning producer Raw, this emotive series follows four adoptees as they travel to Asia to learn more about their biological roots. Extreme Salvage Squad (8x60 min.) Join the Extreme Salvage Squad team as they tackle time-critical, dangerous salvage missions headon with camaraderie and true Aussie grit.
AMC STUDIOS
O (1-310) 998-9300/
w www.animasia-studio.com Stand: P-1.G25 Contact: Edmund Chan, mng. dir.; Raye Lee, exec. dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Harry & Bunnie (Non-dialogue slapstick comedy, 78x7 min.) Features Harry, a not-so-talented young magician, and his mischievous stage rabbit, Bunnie, who always steals his limelight. Chuck Chicken (Action/adventure comedy, 52x11 min.) From an ordinary chicken to a Kung Fu Master, Chuck has the power of a golden egg and is on a mission to defeat evil.
w www.amcstudiosinternational.com
O (44-20) 7845-4350
w www.all3mediainternational.com
Informer
O (603) 7784-6987 m info@animasia-studio.com
(31-20) 820-8094
Stand: VIP Club Contact: Rick Olshansky, pres., business operations; Valerie Cabrera, SVP, intl. content. dist.; Mark Dee-Shapland, head, intl. content sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Unspeakable (Drama, 8x60.) Follows the story of two families affected by the tainted blood scandal in Canada in the early 1980s.
Dietland Dietland (Dark comedy, 10x60 min.) Follows Plum Kettle, ghostwriter for the editor of one of New York’s hottest fashion magazines, as she struggles with self-image and sets out on a complicated road to self-acceptance. Documentary Now! (Comedy, 21x30 min.) This twice Emmy-nominated series stars Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and an impressive list of guest stars paying comedic homage to some of the world’s best-known documentaries. Eli Roth’s History of Horror (Docuseries, 7x60 min.) Eli Roth brings together the icons and stars who define the genre to take viewers on a chilling exploration of how horror has evolved through the eras. Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (Docuseries, 4x60 min.) Paints a picture of Jim Jones’ transformation from charismatic preacher and champion of civil rights into an egomaniacal demagogue who led the biggest mass suicide in American history. Lodge 49 (Dramedy, 10x60 min.) A disarmingly optimistic ex-surfer, who’s drifting after his father’s death, finds himself on the doorstep of a fraternal lodge that offers the promise of Alchemical mysteries. Ministry of Evil: The Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo (Docuseries, 4x60 min.) Through rarelyseen archival footage, interviews with victims and present-day followers, this series unveils a bizarre tale of evangelical Tony Alamo that spans over five decades.
Eilon, sales dir., CEE; Louise Melzack, sales dir., AsiaPac, Nordics, Africa; Salome Peillon, sales dir., Western & Southern Europe, French-speaking Canada; Noa Benattar, sales dir., CIS & Baltics; Michal Itzhaki, head, acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Dance Revolution (Dance competition, 11x90 min.) Prime-time dance show where contestants will be judged with a 360-degree shot of their most spectacular “revolution” moment.
ANIMASIA STUDIO
m amcstudiossales@amcnetworks.com
ALL3MEDIA INTERNATIONAL
Stand: P3.C10 Contact: Louise Pedersen, CEO; John Wagener, COO; Gary Woolf, EVP, strategic dvpmt.; Maartje Horchner, EVP, content; Stephen Driscoll, EVP, EMEA & European coprod.; Sabrina Duguet, EVP, AsiaPac; Sally Habbershaw, EVP, Americas; Rachel Glaister, EVP, intl. brands & press; Robin Chalmers, chief legal counsel; Nick Smith, EVP, formats. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Informer (6x60 min.) From award-winning producers Neal Street Productions, follows a young second-generation immigrant coerced into going undercover for counter-terrorism officer Gabe. Cheat (4x60 min.) From award-winning Two Brothers Pictures, a case of academic deception triggers a devastating sequence of events. Agatha Raisin Series 2 (3x90 min./6x45 min.) From the producers of Midsomer Murders, season two stars Ashley Jenson and a fantastic ensemble cast, following the antics of our favorite amateur detective.
NOS4A2 (Supernatural horror, 10x60 min.) Vic McQueen, a woman with a gift for finding things, finds herself battling Charles Manx, a man who lures children to a terrifying place with rides in his Rolls-Royce Wraith. This Close (Dramedy, 12x30 min.) Created, written and starring Shoshannah Stern and Josh Feldman, both deaf actors, explores the relationship between twentysomething best friends. Brockmire (Comedy, 32x30 min.) A famed baseball announcer who suffered a notorious public breakdown after discovering his wife’s infidelity finds his path towards reclaiming his career and love life.
Harry & Bunnie ABC Monsters (Preschool edutainment, 26x22 min.) Exploring the learning of ABCs with Alice, Brian and Cherry Berry. Supa Strikas (Comedy/sports/action, 65x22 min.) Join Shakes and the Supa Strikas team to lift the world’s most prized trophy. Robokicks (Bola Kampung Movie) (Sports/ action/comedy, 1x95 min.) Bola Kampung, one of the most successful Malaysian animated series, presented in a 3D CGI movie. Bola Kampung Xtreme (Sports/action/comedy, 13x22 min.) Mixing football and traditional village lifestyle, delves into the transformation of a group of characters from different backgrounds. Balla Bowl (Sports/action/comedy, 2x70 min.) The story of Sachin, a young boy who eats, sleeps and dreams cricket, and how he and his team achieve their dreams. The Nine Lives of Claw (Action/comedy, 26x3 min. & 52x11 min.) A sarcastic superhero cat, Claw, his genius mouse sidekick, Edison, and the always ambitious kitty, Purrfessor Purrnelope, battle villains to keep things in order in the fair city of Anonymous. Magiki (Preschool edutainment, 52x11 min.) The stories of an alternative heroine full of depth and grace who refuses to be a stereotype in pink. Mighty Mechs (Preschool edutainment, 52x11 min.) A quartet of adorable robots team up with a young girl and her pet flying squirrel to help solve environmental problems, using their special ability to transform into any vehicle that fits the job.
ARMOZA FORMATS
O (972-3) 540-8333 m info@armozaformats.com w www.armozaformats.com Stand: R8.B3 Contact: Avi Armoza, fndr. & CEO; Mihal Brezis, SVP; Amos Neumann, COO; Sharon Levi, head, sales, North America, U.K. & Ireland; Karina Dolgiej, sales dir., LatAm & U.S. Hispanic; Shoshana
624 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
The Food Ambassadors Singerella (Factual, 60 min. eps.) One unsuspecting and talented girl will be surprised with the chance of a lifetime—to perform with a musical icon and fulfill her dreams. The Food Ambassadors (Fact-ent., 8x60 min.) Follow a renowned chef as he embarks on an international journey to meet fellow culinary masters from his home country. Comes with a digital companion show. Trend My Room (Lifestyle, 8x60 min.) Offers families the chance to get their dream, on-trend room by teaming up with the internet’s best interior design bloggers. The Game (Drama, 10x60 min.) The life of upand-coming video game designer Marianne takes a deadly turn when she publicly criticizes online “trolls.” To survive, she must beat them at their own game. Instababe (Short-form drama, 15x1 min.) Exposes the issues that teenagers face and the realities of their world. A group of high school students are implicated in an ongoing physical abuse investigation. The Four (Singing competition, 90-120 min. eps.) Four finalists are announced in the first episode—but they shouldn’t get too comfortable because in every episode talented hopefuls will try to steal their seat. The Surprise Teacher (Fact-ent., 5x60 min.) A celebrity will surprise a class of high school students, disrupting their usual studies with a oncein-a-lifetime lesson. Back to Life (Docureality, 60 min. eps.) An emotional and intimate look at the struggle for survival of those waiting for a lifesaving transplant and the story of their donors.
ARTIST VIEW ENTERTAINMENT
O (1-818) 752-2480 m info@artistviewent.com w www.artistviewent.com Stand: P-1.F5/Table 7 Contact: Scott Jones, pres.; Jay Joyce, VP, worldwide sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Axcellerator (Action/sci-fi, 1x90 min.) When a car thief stumbles onto a teleportation device and the girl of his dreams, the invention of the century takes them on an adventure of a lifetime. Abducted (Action, 1x90 min.) After his young daughter is kidnapped, a war hero takes matters into his own hands while detectives try to unravel the mystery surrounding the unusual crime. Between Waves (Romance/adventure, 1x90 min.) When a best-selling author has a midlife crisis, he returns to his coastal hometown and embarks on a wild adventure in a desperate attempt to reclaim his youth. Above Ground (Thriller, 1x90 min.) When Julie’s ex-husband Thad disappears, the Sheriff, who is in love with Julie himself, won’t search for him. The Meanest Man in Texas (Drama, 1x90 min.) Based on a true story and best-selling book.
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TV LISTINGS Convicted murderer Clyde Thompson, also known as the “Meanest Man in Texas,” finds redemption. Bad Company (Action, 1x90 min.) Troubled teens in a boot-camp program encounter a group of terrorists trying to take out a rural nuclear power plant.
submarines-in-training who, under the guidance of Diver Doug, discover the marvels of Safe Harbour. ZDFE.junior Catalog Atlantyca also distributes programs of ZDF Enterprises’ Junior catalog, including H20, Scream Street, School of Roars, Zoom, Lexi and Lotti, Dance Academy and many others.
ATRESMEDIA TELEVISIÓN
platforms; Muge Akar, content sales deputy mgr.; Emre Gorentas, content sales deputy mgr.; Emir Duzel, content sales deputy mgr.; Serra Batus, content acq. deputy mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Lifeline (Drama, 72x45 min., S2 ongoing) Sold to a businessman as a child bride, Nefes suffers at the hands of her husband’s abuse.
O (34-91) 623-0500 m sales@atresmediatv.com
w international-sales-atresmedia.com Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Jose Antonio Salso, head, acq. & sales; Diana Borbón, sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Presumed Guilty (Presunto Culpable) (Drama) After the death of his father, a scientist living in Paris returns to the fishing village where he was born and must confront the ghosts of his past.
courageous mothers, adopted children and dimwitted widows embarking on the journey of life together. (Filmax International) Wild Hunters (Wildlife/nature, 13x52 min. 4K) Shows the struggle for survival of different animal species around the world. (Wild Stories) Photobomber (Ent. format, 45 min. eps.) Photobombing is the art of spoiling a photograph by unexpectedly appearing in the camera’s frame as the picture or video is taken. (Phileas Productions) All Flamenco 4K (Music/culture) A new 4K Flamenco channel. (Digital Cornucopia) Bodytown (Children/youth, 52x11 min.) Phil, Nikki, Mac and Gina are young immune system cells learning how to preserve peace and order inside Camila, a 10-year-old girl. (Anima Kitchent) Truth (Drama/family, 16x70 min.) A young girl suddenly appears in a coastal city claiming to be someone who disappeared a decade ago. (Mediaset España)
Axcellerator The Lost Day (Thriller, 1x90 min.) New Year’s Eve, the turn of the Millennium. Two men’s lives are derailed in mere moments as each blinks, opening their eyes in the body of the other. Snowbound (Thriller, 1x85 min.) A group of sex party attendees wake up naked in the snow. In the nearby cabin they find a dead girl and a message: in order to survive, they must decide who is responsible for the girl’s death and murder that person. Untold Story (Romance, 1x90 min.) Catarina shows Edward that pretending to be something isn’t the same as actually being it, and this chance meeting finally gives his life meaning. Game Day (Drama/comedy, 1x90 min.) A basketball-savvy teen reluctantly agrees to coach a brilliant but self-centered tech whiz who lost everything when her startup went bust.
ATLANTYCA ENTERTAINMENT
O (39-02) 4300-101 m distribution@atlantyca.it w www.atlantyca.com
Stand: R7.A20 Contact: Caterina Vacchi, head, animation dept., exec. producer & dist. dir.; Niccolo Sacchi, exec. producer & dir.; Alessandra Dematteis, dist. mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Bat Pat (2D, 52x11 min., S2 in prod.) An animated adventure-comedy that proves the supernatural isn’t always evil—just misunderstood.
Bat Pat Geronimo Stilton (2D, 78x23 min.) Inspired by the book series of the same name, focuses on the life and adventures of the super-famous mouse journalist and his family as they scour New Mouse City for scoops. Nutri Ventures (2D, 52x23 min.) In a world where foods bestow super powers, an evil man has replaced them with a single industrial compound. A group of kids embarks on an adventure to discover the remaining lost foods and their Nutri-Powers. Jurassic Cubs (CGI, 91x13 min.) Follows the adventures of dinosaur cubs who magically travel through time on board magical meteorites. Dive Olly Dive (CGI, 104x11 min.) The funfilled underwater escapades of two research
Orphan Flowers
Presumed Guilty Slaughter House (Matadero) (Drama) In a small town, the owner of the local abattoir is murdered. Things get more complicated when a gang of drug traffickers appears on scene in this rural thriller with dabs of black humor. Heroes Wanted: The Series (Cuerpo de Élite) (Comedy, 13x70 min.) A secret special operations group is formed with members of different police bodies to protect the country. The Incident (El Incidente) (Thriller, 5x70 min./8x50 min.) In a small village in the mountains, an unexpected and severe storm causes strange behavior in some of the inhabitants. Plastic Sea (Mar de Plástico) (Drama/thriller, S1: 13x70 min., S2: 13x70 min.) The murder of the mayor’s daughter in a village where greenhouses are the primary business stirs up friction among its inhabitants. The Secret of Old Bridge (El Secreto de Puente Viejo) (Telenovela, S1-22: 65x50 min. each & S23) A midwife crosses paths with the rich stepmother of her ex-lover, the father of her son, who was ripped from her at birth. Down Below (Allí Abajo) (Comedy, S1: 13x70 min., S2: 15x70 min., S3: 16x70 min. & S4) A hilarious love story of a traditional guy from the north and a jovial and gracious nurse. Privileged Observer (Enviado Especial) (Doc., S1: 7x60 min. & S2) The journalist Jalis de la Serna travels across the globe, helping us become aware of a world in the process of change and challenge. Inside of… (Dentro de…) (Doc., S1: 6x60 min. & S2) Hosted by Cristina Pedroche, offers an insider’s look at big companies like the Westin Palace Hotel, the airline Iberia, the hospital La Paz and the restaurant El Celler de Can Roca. Locked Up (Vis a Vis) (Drama, S1: 16x50 min., S2: 19x50 min.) A fragile young woman, betrayed by her lover and arrested for fraud, must learn to survive and fight to prove her innocence in a detention facility as she awaits her trial.
ATV
O (90-212) 381-2848 m info@atvdistribution.com w www.atvdistribution.com Stand: P-1.J2 Contact: Metin Ergen, GM; Mutlu Inan, deputy GM; Ziyad Varol, lic. & digital mgr., acq. & sales,
Don’t Leave Me (Drama, 110x60 min., ongoing) Arzu, her husband Cengiz and her two sons, Tarik and Emre, live together in Ankara. Broken Lives (Drama, ongoing) At a crowded party at the home of famous businessman and suspected criminal Cihan Karadag, a woman falls to her death from the balcony. Love and Hate (Drama, 111x45 min., S2 ongoing) Ali, who spent his youth in prison and didn’t learn to love, and Mavi, who never loved anyone, get to know each other only by the letters they exchange. Now it’s time to meet face to face. Orphan Flowers (Drama, 297x45 min., ongoing) Eylül is left in an orphanage. While bad days are ahead of her, she manages to form good friendships. Wedlock (Drama, 137x45 min.) A lie told by a desperate mother for her child turns lives upside down. She Was Pretty (Romantic drama, 28x120 min.) Childhood sweethearts find each other again as adults. Stolen Life (Drama, 100x45 min.) A young woman loses her life and Asiye takes on that identity. But her past will never stop chasing her. Torn Apart (Drama, 66x45 min.) Yusuf is a humble fisherman living with his family. Pinar is the daughter of Istanbul’s richest family. A terrible incident crosses their paths, leading them to take revenge on the people who destroyed their lives. Price of Love (Drama, 60x45 min.) Two men decided to be enemies rather than brothers for the love of one woman.
AUDIOVISUAL FROM SPAIN
Among Olives Trees Among Olives Trees (Drama/romance scripted format, 45 min. eps.) Revolves around a Spanish olive oil production and export entity with Latin American partners based in Mexico. (Comercial Television) Celebrations in 4K (Lifestyle/travel, 4x52 min./90 min.) Features the most popular celebrations and landscapes in Spain in 4K. (Medina Media)
AUGUST MEDIA
O (65) 6592-0577 m info@augustmh.com w www.augustmh.com Stand: P-1.C16/D15 Contact: Jyotirmoy Saha, fndr. & CEO; Hazel Lau, project mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Barangay 143 (Animated action drama, 26x22 min.) A story about love and family, set against the action-packed world of street basketball. The stakes are high and life is the biggest game you can win.
O (34-91) 639-1975 m javier.martinez@icex.es
w www.audiovisualfromspain.com Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Diana Borbon, head, sales, Atresmedia TV; Ignacio Orive, CEO, Brands & Rights 360; Emanuela Bosco, sales exec., Comercial TV; Carlos Navia, CEO, Digital Cornucopia; Francesca Garrigues, dir., intl. sales, Digital Cornucopia; Ivan Diaz, sales dir., Filmax International; Roberto Sánchez, sales mgr., MediaBank; Silvia Cotino, head, sales, Mediaset España Comunicación; Maria Medina, head, intl., Medina Media; Jessica Ortiz, sales mgr., Onza Distribution; Sergio Sancho, CEO, Phileas Productions; Javier Martínez, intl. dir., Phileas Productions; Carmen Romano, intl. sales, Sociograph; Sophie de Mac Mahon, head, sales, Sogepaq; Pablo Alemán, exec. producer, Wild Stories; Megan Speake, sales exec., Wild Stories. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Presumed Guilty (Drama, 13x70 min.) A researcher who lives in Paris is forced to return to the village where he was born after a ten-year absence. (Atresmedia Televisión) Little Coincidences (Comedy, 8x50 min.) A shopkeeper and a hedonistic food critic get to know each other. (Onza Distribution) Welcome to the Family (Comedy, 13x50 min.) A comical look at the institution of family, showing
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 625
Barangay 143 George of the Jungle (Animated comedy, S2: 52x11 min.) Take a vine-swinging ride with George, the undisputed king of the Jungle. George is back, this time, louder and prouder. Tilda Appleseed (Animated preschool, 26x7 min.) With Tilda the little mouse around, every day is lovely in the little village where small and big adventures await its inhabitants. The Kids from Seagull Street (Animated adventures, 52x12 min.) Tara and her best friend, Tina, are always having fun playing, solving mysteries, baking and more. Something’s always happening on Seagull Street. Ella Bella Bingo (Animated preschool, 78x7 min.) Little Ella can un-stick every sticky situation in spectacularly creative ways. Journey of Long (Animated comedy, 52x7 min.) A country dragon, Long, has a single goal: to become a
7
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TV LISTINGS
chef. Armed with his unlimited positive energy, his epic adventure to survive the city begins. Tish Tash (Animated preschool, 52x5 min.) Growing up can be tough. Luckily, Tish has her imaginary friend, Tash, to embark on imaginative adventures to help solve problems that life throws at them. The Adventures of Sherlock Sam (Animated mystery/comedy, 26x22 min.) The adventures of a genius boy detective, Sherlock, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Watson.
AUTENTIC DISTRIBUTION
O (49-221) 4848-200 m sales@autentic-distribution.com
BABYTV
O (44-203) 426-7086 m info@babytvchannel.com w www.babytv.com PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Big Bugs Band (Music/arts, 10x5 min.) A group of bugs display a unique musical performance in the woods. Through dancing and singing, the bugs introduce children to musical styles including samba, jazz and more.
w www.autentic-distribution.com Stand: R7.F2 Contact: Anne Hufnagel, GM, sales; Sophie von Kontz, intl. sales mgr.; Mirjam Strasser, sales dir.; Julian Althaus, jnr. sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Wild Andes (Nature/wildlife, 3x52 min./1x90 min.) Experience wildlife in the most stunning environments. From the tropical northern Andes to the chain’s frigid southern tail, this will be a cinematic revelation. Billy BamBam
2077—Ten Seconds to the Future Terror! (History, 6x50 min.) This groundbreaking series revisits iconic terrorist attacks. Firsthand interviews, archival footage and reconstructions piece together what exactly happened during those horrific moments in history. The DC3 Story—The Plane That Changed the World (History, 1x52 min.) In time for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the 70th jubilee of the Berlin Airlift, we take a look at this legendary aircraft. Vistas of Longing—Painters and their Landscapes (Arts/lifestyle, 5x45 min.) We link famous paintings with the actual landscape of today, giving the impression of moving between the worlds of Cézanne, Picasso, Tizian, Turner and Friedrich. Biking Boom (People/lifestyle, 3x30 min.) All over Europe there’s a vibrant scene where cycling is more than just a means of transport. Deltas of the World (People/places, 5x52 min.) See the fascinating diversity of the deltas on our planet, from the arctic to the tropics, on the border between land and sea. Empire of Mirrors (People/places, 1x55 min.) In times of globalization you can feel the meaning of tradition that has survived in the land of the rising sun. Celebrities give an insight into the Japanese soul. The Black Sea Coast (People/places, 5x52 min.) People have always been fascinated with the Black Sea and the numerous legends surrounding the region, characterized by a tumultuous history and a euphoric atmosphere. Raising Wildlife (Fact-ent., 13x30 min.) People dedicate their lives to helping abandoned animals. We will get an intimate look at their daily routine and experience exhilarating friendships between man and beast. 2077—Ten Seconds to the Future (Science/tech., 4x60 min.) Our choices of today will change the world of tomorrow. This journey connects the present with the past to show how we can influence the future.
Billy BamBam (Building friendships, 25x5 min.) Billy and BamBam find ways to play with everything. Each episode will put a smile on a child’s face with their cheerfulness, ending with a fun song. Charlie & the Alphabet (First concepts, 26x5 min.) Meet Charlie’s alphabet friends as they adventure together learning letters and their sounds. Lale Ki Lolu (Imagination & creativity, 24x6.5 min.) Illustrates the importance of friendship and imagination through a world created in stunning 3D graphics. The three characters welcome children to captivating shapes, colors and sounds. Tiny Bunch (Activities, 20x5 min.) Baby butterfly and his animal friends teach children about friendship. They solve the problems they face because they know that staying friends is the most important thing of all.
BANIJAY RIGHTS
Super Salon (Fact-ent., 4x60 min.) Behind the scenes at one of the country’s largest hair salons, witness the parties, the drama and intimate stories shared between client and stylist. Mind Set Go (Lifestyle, S1: 8x30 min., S2: 8x60 min.) Follows the journey of eight obese participants on a path to heal their mind, body and soul with the help of celebrated Paralympians. Killer in Our Classroom: Never Again (Doc., 1x60 min.) After another mass school shooting, students in Parkland, Florida, campaign for stricter gun laws in the USA, starting a global, youth-led movement. Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed the World (Doc., 1x60 min./1x90 min.) Tells the incredible story of Apollo 8 and hears from key people directly involved in the mission and the campaigns that followed. The Duo (Ent., 60 min. eps.) Diverse singers are brought together in a brand-new kind of audition to discover one unique vocal partnership the nation will fall in love with. LIVE (Ent., 60/90 min. eps.) Interactive entertainment show where the viewers lend a hand to two of Denmark’s biggest stars in their search for the country’s next big live artist. Strike! (Game show, 60 min. eps.) What happens when you mix trivia quiz with ten-pin bowling? Two celebrities help a contestant try and win a big cash prize.
BBC STUDIOS
O (44-20) 8433-2000 m emily.watt@bbc.com w sales.bbcstudios.com Stand: P3.B38 Contact: Tim Davie, chief exec.; Paul Dempsey, pres., global markets; Anna Mallett, mng. dir., prod. & group COO; Jaclyn Lee-Joe, CMO; Grant Welland, EVP, CEMA; Lisa Opie, mng. dir., factual; Nick Percy, EVP, Western Europe; David Weiland, EVP, Asia; Marcus Arthur, pres., U.K., Ireland, Australia & NZ; Mark Linsey, chief creative officer; Beth Clearfield, SVP, digital strategy & franchise business mngmt.; Jon Farrar, SVP, global pgmng. & acq.; Jon Penn, mng. dir., Sydney; Matt Forde, EVP, BBC Studios Productions Los Angeles; Ralph Lee, dir., content; Nick Betts, mng. dir., scripted.
O (44-207) 013-4000 m contactus@banijayrights.com w www.banijayrights.com Stand: C20.A Contact: Tim Mutimer, CEO; Caroline Torrance, head, scripted; Emily Elisha, head, factual; Steve Quirke, head, mktg.; Andrew Sime, VP, formats. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Truth Will Out (Crime drama, 8x45 min.) Misfit cops form a new cold case division tasked with investigating evidence to suggest Sweden’s most notorious killer is a fraud. Dynasties
The Truth Will Out Straight Forward (Crime drama, 8x60 min.) Conwoman Sylvia Petersen seeks revenge when a notorious gangster murders her father and she is thrown into the criminal underworld of Denmark. The Red Shadows (Crime drama, 6x50 min.) A woman kidnapped 25 years ago and presumed dead returns home, causing family conflict and revealing dark secrets.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Dynasties (Natural history, 5x50 min./5x60 min.) Enter a world of dynastic power struggles and family treachery. David Attenborough narrates this intimate landmark series following the lives of celebrated and endangered animals. Serengeti (Natural history, 6x50 min.) Follows the interconnected stories of a cast of savannah animals over one year, capturing the drama of their daily lives and the emotional moments they face. Earth’s Great Rivers (Natural history, 3x50 min.) Embark on the ultimate river voyage down three of the world’s most epic rivers—the Amazon, the Nile and the Mississippi. Revolutions—The Ideas That Changed the World (Science, 6x50 min.) A voyage through the history of our species, told through the lens of six iconic technological inventions, including the car and the rocket.
626 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
MotherFatherSon (Drama, 8x60 min.) A thrilling new drama from Emmy-nominated writer Tom Rob Smith, starring Richard Gere in his first major television role in 30 years. Les Misérables (Drama, 7x50 min./6x60 min./8x45 min.) Against the epic backdrop of France at a time of civil unrest, this is the story of Jean Valjean, a former convict unable to escape the shadow of his past life. Press (Drama, 6x50 min./6x60 min.) With an outstanding cast and timely storylines, this series gets to the core of an industry that’s never been more in the global spotlight. Dead Pixels (Comedy, 6x30 min.) An inspired mix of live action and computer animation, this comedy follows the tragicomic lives of obsessive gamers. Written by BAFTA winner Jon Brown. Brexit (Drama, 1x120 min.) Benedict Cumberbatch stars in this timely political thriller about the powerful and divisive figures driving Brexit from the shadows. From Olivier Award-winning writer James Graham. Bluey (Children’s, 52x7 min.) A funny and honest look at modern family life, with Bluey and her little sister using gameplay to bring the adult world into their own.
BIG BAD BOO STUDIOS
O (1-604) 688-6484 m info@bigbadboo.ca w www.bigbadboo.ca
Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Shabnam Rezaei, pres.; Aly Jetha, CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Bravest Knight (Kids 6-11 comedy/adventure, 13x11 min.) Sir Cedric recounts his fairy-tale adventures to his adopted daughter. Cedric’s quest to fulfill his destiny takes him through a world of witches and giants, and ends with the toughest challenge of all: teaching his daughter to do the same. 16 Hudson (Kids 4-7, 39x7 min. & 3x7 min. holiday specials) The adventures of a group of neighbors who treasure each other’s similarities and differences. Together, they celebrate cultural holidays like Chinese New Year, Norooz and Diwali. Lili & Lola (Kids 3-5, 10x7 min.) The adventure of two sisters, their parents and their lazy cat. Situated on a quiet street, their building is filled with interesting people from all over the world. 1001 Nights (Kids 6-9 comedy, 62x11 min.) An original show that brings the delightful tales of the famed 1001 Nights to the screen. Mixed Nutz (Kids 5-8 comedy, 13x22 min.) Babak, the self-conscious kid from Iran, Damaris, the superstitious bookworm from Cuba, and Sanjay, the Bollywood dreamer from Mumbai, learn to be proud of who they are and tackle life together, one bully at a time. Babak & Friends—A First Norooz (Kids, 1x33 min.) Enlisting the help of his visiting cousins, Babak is able to learn more about the beautiful traditions of Iran, including Norooz. Judge Jodhi (Kids 6-9 comedy, 26x7 min.) Jodhi, 10, has a courtroom in her backyard and every day after school, she hears neighborhood cases. Galapagos X (Kids 4-7 action/adventure, 52x11 min.) Four kids stationed in four corners of the world go on missions to help save animals and natural disasters from happening. Science curriculum. In partnership with Google.
Lili & Lola
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TV LISTINGS
BLUE ANT INTERNATIONAL
m valentina.daley@blueantmedia.com, sarah.etherden@blueantmedia.com w blueantinternational.com Stand: R8.D7 Contact: Solange Attwood, EVP, intl.; Kate Blank, snr. dir., sales, intl.; Alex Maldini, VP, sales & acq., intl.; Nick Solowski, dir., sales, intl.; Fleur Wheatley, sales mgr., intl.; Michael MacMillan, CEO, Blue Ant Media; David Haslingden, dir., Blue Ant Media; Samantha Linton, head, original content, Canadian media, Blue Ant Media; Andrea Harrick, dir., acq., Blue Ant Media; Julie Chang, VP, intl. coprod., Blue Ant Media; Jago Lee, creative dir., Antenna Pictures; Sam Sniderman, EVP, global prod., Blue Ant Media; Joshua Bowen, creative dir., Look Mom! Prods.; Donovan Chan, creative dir., Beach House Pictures; Jocelyn Little, exec. dir., Beach House Pictures; Dan Lubetkin, chief content officer, Blue Ant Digital Studios; Catherine Nebauer, head, Northern Pictures Kids; Carlyn Staudt, EVP, Love Nature, pgmng. & dvpmt.; Chiara McKee, VP, sales, EMEA, kids & global networks, Blue Ant Media; Harry Teper, pgmng. & creative services, kids & global networks, Blue Ant Media; Julia Baylis, GM, Top TV; Karina Holden, head, factual, Northern Pictures; Kyle Murdoch, mng. dir., NHNZ; Greg Kampanis, SVP, business dvpmt. & operations, Omnia Media. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Prison (Doc., 3x60 min.) Filmed over seven months in an English prison, tells the human story on both sides of the cell door: staff and prisoners, and the real issues facing them all.
Detention Adventure (Kids/family adventure, 10x11 min.) Three nerdy friends and their school bully must overcome their differences and use science to navigate mysterious tunnels and open hidden passages while trying to discover the fabled lost laboratory of Alexander Graham Bell. When I Grow Up! (Kids/family live action, 26x11 min.) Mikaela is on a quest to determine what she wants to be when she grows up, so she tries many different jobs and makes videos of her journey in a DIY production studio in her parents’ garage.
BOAT ROCKER RIGHTS
O (1-416) 591-0065 m sales@boatrocker.com w www.boatrocker.com
Stand: R7.K8 Contact: Jon Rutherford, pres.; Natalie Vinet, VP, factual pgmng.; Gia DeLaney, VP, kids & family pgmng.; Bob Higgins, EVP, kids & family; Henry Or, SVP, strategic partnerships, Asia; Chapman Maddox, VP, dvpmt. & prod.; Jessica Watson, dir., global sales & acq.; Kelsey Griffin, mgr., global sales & mktg.; Fabien Ching, asst. mgr., lic., Asia. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Cavendish (Comedy, 8x30 min.) Mark and Andy haven’t been to Cavendish since their parents split up more than 30 years ago. Now they’ve returned to their hometown to take care of their grumpy and ailing father and are learning that nothing much has changed over the years. Vintage Tech Hunters (Science/tech., 14x30 min.) Features charismatic retro-tech-collecting duo Bohus (“Bo”) and Shaun, who’ve turned their obsession with obscure technology into a thriving and lucrative business. Food Pop (Food/pop culture, 13x30 min.) Before they became photo-worthy trends, the foods we all love were much different than they are today. Find out how they evolved and made their way into pop culture history. Selling Mega Mansions (Home/property, 31x30 min.) Follow the brokers operating in the world of mega mansions.
John Torode ’s Middle East John Torode’s Middle East (Food/travel, 10x60 min.) Chef John Torode goes on a journey to track down the best food in the Middle East, hunting down the most inspiring local cooks and discovering the distinctive flavors of each country’s cuisine. Hellfire Heroes (Factual, 8x60 min.) A special breed of firefighters risk their lives to serve and protect, from battling raging house fires to search and rescue, saving lives on the most remote highways or delivering a new life. Great Escapes (Home, 8x30 min.) Designers Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan explore the North American wilderness to discover what lengths people will go to in order to create their perfect city escape. Best Cake Wins (Food competition, 20x30 min.) How do you make a child’s most awesome birthday cake a reality? By letting two cake-masters design a confectionary delight based on the child’s own colorful drawings. Into the Wild India (Nature/wildlife, 10x60 min. 4K) A journey through the wilderness of India, witnessing the lives and challenges of some of its most iconic species and the many other creatures with which they share their home. Turtles Inside the Nest (Nature/wildlife, 1x60 min. & 1x90 min. 4K) Follow a clutch of 100 turtle eggs over two months from when they’re laid to 51 days later when thousands of hatchlings “boil” out onto the beach and beeline for the ocean. Gary and His Demons (Animated comedy, 8x30 min. & 16x11 min.) Burdened by his “chosen one” status and backed by a team of specialists he can’t relate to, aging demon slayer Gary struggles to keep interest in the Earth-saving duty he never asked for and doesn’t want.
Vintage Tech Hunters Late Nite Eats (Food/travel, 26x30 min.) In its second season, food expert Jordan Andino visits brand-new cities and exceptional restaurants that reign supreme in the late-night food scene. History in the Making (History/civilization, 26x30 min.) Now in its second season, vividly presents the process—using original techniques—in the recreation of items of historical importance. Mysterious Earth (History/civilization, 13x30 min.) Based on the latest facts, theories and discoveries from today’s historians, scientists and anthropologists, reveals shocking new insights into the things you thought you knew about the world. The Polos (Kids 2-5 adventure/education, 26x11 min.) The Polos, a quirky group of friends, born and raised in a digital world, take off on epic road trips to experience the wonders of the natural world. Bitz & Bob (Kids 2-5 educational/adventure, 42x11 min., 44x4 min. & 1x22 min.) Meet Bitz, an inventor and engineer, and her younger brother, Bob, who love making things and going on imaginative adventures with their toys. The Strange Chores (Kids 6-11 comedy/adventure, 26x11 min.) Two teenage wannabe warrior heroes and a super high-spirited ghost girl master the skills they need to replace the world’s greatest (and oldest) monster hunter by doing his strange, supernatural chores.
BOMANBRIDGE MEDIA
O (65) 6224-4211 m info@bomanbridge.tv w www.bomanbridge.tv
9
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mighty Mike (Kids 6-12 animation, 78x7 min.) Non-dialogue slapstick comedy featuring a refined pug who longs for a quiet life but is instead forced to defend his house from a bunch of furry intruders.
Stand: P-1.E18 Contact: Sonia Fleck, CEO; Aegena Tay, dir., acq. & sales; Alicia Lee, acq. mgr.; Gleyce Soares, sales mgr., Southeast Asia; Josephine Lim, pgm. sales exec.; Liyana Juhari, mktg. & sales support. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Terra (Doc., 1x90 min./2x48 min.) Reflects human’s relationship to other species on Earth as humanity becomes more and more isolated from nature.
Mighty Mike
Donal ’s Asian Baking Adventure Donal’s Asian Baking Adventure (Food/travel, 10x30 min.) Food writer, cook and social media host Donal Skehan presents a new series exploring the growing popularity of baking and flour-based foods in Asia. Delicacy Hunter (Food/travel, S1: 6x30 min., S2: 5x30 min.) After traveling along the Chinese Silk Road, British chef Jamie Bilbow is back on track hunting for gastronomic delicacies inside and outside of China. Paul Goes to Hollywood (Food/travel, 5x60 min.) Celebrities, comedians and critics join Paul Hollywood for this part-travelogue, part-pilgrimage series to explore the connection between films and food as he bikes his way across the country to arrive in Hollywood. Baby Animals Around the World (Nature/ wildlife, 10x60 min.) A humorous narration-driven series based on a day in the life of a broad range of extremely cute baby animals around the world. Oddbods (Kids animation, 46x5 min./60x7 min.) A sketch-based series following seven adorable characters as they laugh, fool and trip their way through the most ordinary situations, with unexpected consequences. John Torode’s Korean Food Tour (Food/travel, 10x60 min.) Chef John Torode presents a new series tapping in to the growing popularity of Korean food as he jets off to tackle a whole new territory and range of dishes. Atlantic—Fire in the Ocean (Nature/wildlife, 1x60 min.) On this journey we’ll explore the natural history of the remote Atlantic islands, from Iceland in the north to those fringing Antarctica in the south. Oh! Dior (People/culture, 1x60 min.) Follows the career and life of the man who built a fashion legacy. Kids’ Planet (Kids, 52x30 min.) An educational show reinforcing the manners that are taught to kids by parents, grandparents and teachers, which are the basics for a lifetime.
Space Chickens in Space (Kids 6-12 animation, 52x11 min.) Surreal sci-fi comedy in which a trio of chicken siblings are mistakenly taken from their homes and enrolled in an elite intergalactic academy. Total Dramarama (Kids 6-12 animation, 52x11 min.) The much-anticipated prequel to the multi-award winning franchise re-introduces favorite cast members and ages them down from teenagers to toddlers with hilarious results. Kiri and Lou (Preschool animation, 52x5 min.) Kiri, a feisty little dinosaur, and Lou, a gentle and thoughtful creature, navigate a forest of feelings with laughter, song and adventure. Voiced by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, Moana). Kiddets (Preschool animation, 52x11 min.) Sister series to The WotWots, the Kiddets are learning to become space explorers who will one day go on a mission to investigate other planets. Kally’s MashUp (Kids 7-14 live action, 75x60 min.) Hit musical series inspired by Glee exec music producer Adam Anders’ life that follows a 13-year-old concert pianist who dreams of becoming a pop star. Pablo (Preschool animation, 52x11 min.) Pablo, a 5-and-a-half-year-old boy who is on the autism spectrum, turns his life challenges into imaginative drawings to help him face the real world with confidence. Olobob Top (Kids 2-5 animation, 52x5 min.) Tib, Lalloo and Bobble work together combining shapes, colors and patterns to create a new character who joins in their fun in this unique interactive series. Piggy Tales: 4th Street (Kids 4+ animation, 30x1.25 min.) The lovable simple-minded green pigs are back as you’ve never seen them before, going about their daily lives on the streets of Pig City, where anything can happen. Bottersnikes & Gumbles (Kids 6-9 animation, 52x11 min.) Award-winning comic adventures of three young Gumble heroes as they try to avoid getting tin-canned by their lazy, grumpy neighbors, the Bottersnikes.
CALINOS ENTERTAINMENT
O (90-216) 999-4999 m info@calinosentertainment.com w www.calinosentertainment.com
CAKE
O (44-207) 307-3230 m info@cakeentertainment.com w www.cakeentertainment.com Stand: R7.D18 Contact: Tom van Waveren, CEO & creative dir.; Ed Galton, chief commercial officer & mng. dir.; Bianca Rodriguez, head, sales; Julien Farcat, sales mgr.; Francesca de Nicolo, sales exec.; Rob Doherty, VP, prod.; Emily Whinnett, VP, creative; Jonathan Dyer, head, business affairs; Camille Beylot, sales asst.; Tanya Peck, mktg. mgr.; Odilia Sickinghe, mktg. asst.
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 627
Stand: P-1.M59 Contact: Firat Gulgen, chmn.; Ismail Dursunov, deputy GM; Asli Serim, intl. sales dir.; Goryana Vasileva, business dvpmt. mgr.; Ebru Mercan, intl. sales rep. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Our Story (Drama, on air) Adapted from the award-winning series Shameless, this Turkish drama is full of energy, real stories and passion. Woman (Drama, on air) A story of love, passion, human nature and the drama surrounding a group of women who sometimes support each other and at other times sabotage each other.
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TV LISTINGS
CARACOL INTERNACIONAL
O (1-305) 960-2018/
The Call (Music format, 8x70 min.) Four top artists listen to their heart’s desire and each call up a secret artist to collaborate with.
(571) 6430-430
m sales@caracoltv.com.co w www.caracolinternacional.com
Woman Relationship Status: It’s Complicated (Romance, on-air, 35+x45 min.) An aspiring scriptwriter experiencing betrayal and hard times meets a handsome actor. Although he is in love with another beautiful girl, no one knows what the future holds.
Stand: P0.B1 Contact: Lisette Osorio, VP, intl. sales; Paloma García, sales exec., Europe & Africa; Jesus Iriepar, sales exec., Europe & Middle East; Maria Estrella, sales exec., Asia. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Bolivar (Super series, 60x60 min.) The story of Simon Bolivar, who changed history by uniting his people against the oppression of the Spanish Empire.
CJ ENM ANIMATION DIVISION
O (82-2) 371-8029 m ys.gweon@cj.net w www.cjenm.com
Stand: P-1.G1 Contact: Joseph Kim, head, global business team; Soohee Sung, head, acq. team. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Rainbow Ruby (Fantasy adventure CGI, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 52x11 min. in prod.) Ruby is a plucky little girl who transports to a whimsical land inhabited by her toys, and transforms into different jobs to save the day!
CYBER GROUP STUDIOS
CANAL 13
O (33-1) 5556-3232 m sales@cybergroupstudios.com
O (56-2) 22-630-2883 m ventasint@13.cl Contact: María de los Ángeles Ortiz, pgmng. sub dir.; José Navarro, head, acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Blood Pact (Pacto de Sangre) (Series, 140x30 min.) A thriller about four inseparable friends who are involved in a tragic accident during a bachelor party.
Blood Pact Queen of Franklin St. (La Reina de Franklin) (Series, 140x30 min.) A romantic comedy about Yolanda Garrido, a modest mother who became an empowered businesswoman. They Made It! (Ellos la Hicieron) (Docureality, 12x50 min.) Shows how ordinary people with no education, networks or support achieved professional success at a young age. Caught Red Handed (En su Propia Trampa) (Factual, 14x60 min.) We uncover criminals’ misdeeds so they can never deceive a new victim again. World’s Most Isolated Tribes (Las Últimas Tribus) (Doc., 21x50 min.) Searches for isolated tribes that have had very little contact with the outside world and that are about to disappear. Goodbye Haiti (Adiós Haití) (Doc., 7x55 min.) During a three-week trip, we’ll break down the prejudices that exist about Haiti to connect with its history and traditions. Iceland, Land of Ice and Fire (Islandia, Tierra de Hielo y Fuego) (Doc., 4x70 min.) We meet the friendly and welcoming Icelanders on a journey through legends and magical creatures to discover how they have used nature to escape isolation. Cumbia Steps (Pasos de Cumbia) (Doc., 11x52 min.) A Chilean-Italian-Kenyan co-production where the musician Cuti Aste embarks on a journey that aims to know the origins of cumbia, from Africa to Latin America. Love is Not Enough (No Basta con Amar) (Film, 1x85 min.) A drama about breakups, where love vanished and the only thing left is the silent look of children. Penguin Island (La Isla de los Pingüinos) (Film, 1x106 min.) A film about the most important Chilean student movement: the “Penguin Revolution.”
pulled back into the limelight, she has to decide which will come first—music or love. Truly, Madly, Sweetly (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) An inheritance throws two opposites together in a new business. Love in Design (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) A home-makeover TV star is sent to renovate an old building at the same time her old flame is sent to make sure her design does not disturb the historical significance. Christmas at Graceland (Christmas, 1x90 min.) A bank executive is reunited with her ex-boyfriend, who reminds her of the days when they were a performing duo on the brink of stardom. Road to Christmas (Christmas, 1x90 min.) An ambitious manager is tasked with getting her boss’s three adult sons to a family Christmas reunion. Christmas Joy (Christmas, 1x90 min.) A workaholic in the big city has to take a leave of absence to run the family farm.
w www.cybergroupstudios.com
Bolivar The Mafia Dolls 2 (Super series, 60x60 min.) Season one revealed the world of drug trafficking from a female perspective; eight years later we encounter the survivors of this story. The Queen of Flow (Telenovela, 80x60 min.) The story of Yeimy Montoya, a talented young woman in a New York prison, who seeks to take revenge against all those who destroyed her life. Crazy About You (Telenovela, 80x60 min.) Camilo and Juancho, best friends who work together at Master Guzman’s orchestra and share a dream of becoming famous tropical musicians, both fall in love with Daniela.
Pucca Robot Trains (Action CGI, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 52x11 min.) Whereas the first season deals with the growth of the members, for season two, the Rail Watch crew try to keep the Rail World safe with their friends. Pucca (Comedy, 2D: S1: 78x7 min., S2: 39x7 min., 3D: 78x7 min.) The story revolves around the unpredictable daily lives of Pucca and her beloved Garu.
CROWN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION
O (1-818) 755-1244 m franciscogonzalez@crownmedia.com
CJ ENM
O (82-2) 371-8616 m sy.kim33@cj.net
w crownmediainternational.com
w watch.cjenm.com Stand: P-1.G1 Contact: Chul-Yeon Kim, SVP; Jangho Seo, GM. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Lawless Lawyer (Drama, 16x60 min.) A merciless gangster becomes a lawyer to avenge the death of his mother. Children of a Lesser God (Drama, 16x60 min.) Science versus instinct. Two detectives with opposite styles come together to reveal the secrets of an island. Music Bites (Game-show format, 60 min. eps.) Celebrities dictate the lyrics of pop hits for a chance to taste savory bites. Love at First Song (Music/dating format, 12x60 min.) People who wish to find their soul mates are paired based on musical tastes.
Stand: P3.B13 Contact: Francisco Gonzalez, SVP, intl. dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Season for Love (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) A sous chef and her high school sweetheart, now a celebrity chef, go head to head in a cooking competition.
Love at Sea
Lawless Lawyer
Stand: R7.D22 Contact: Pierre Sissmann, chmn. & CEO; Richard Goldsmith, pres. & CEO, Cyber Group Studios USA; Dominique Bourse, COO; Raphaelle Mathieu, SVP, sales, acq. & new media; Olivier Lelardoux, SVP, studio & associate producer; Pierre Belaïsch, SVP, creative development; Ira Singerman, VP, dvpmt., Cyber Group Studios USA; Noemie Bourrie, intl. sales exec.; Michele Massonnat, snr. sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Gigantosaurus (Kids 4-6 CGI-2D adventure comedy, 52x11 min.) Stars four young dinosaur friends who are about to leave the family and explore a world full of mysteries and danger.
Love at Sea (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) A successful event planner onboard the biggest cruise ship meets her match in the charming cruise director. The Perfect Bride: Wedding Bells (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) Mike and Molly are about to get married, but the return of an old flame is making their trip to the altar a challenge. Wedding of Dreams (Romance/comedy, 1x90 min.) When a former singer superstar is
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Gigantosaurus Taffy (Kids 6-12 2D comedy, 78x7 min.) Follows the non-stop, slapstick extravaganza faced by loyal hound dog Bentley when his billionaire old lady owner Mrs Muchmore takes in an imposter posing as a wide-eyed, fluffy angora cat. Sadie Sparks (Kids 6-11 CGI-2D comedy, 52x11 min.) A teenage girl who just wants to be popular discovers she has extraordinary powers— which can only be harnessed in partnership with an ancient and extremely grumpy magical rabbit who just wants to retire. Mini Ninjas 2 (Kids 6-12 CGI-2D adventure comedy, 104x11 min.) Discover a new generation of 12-year-old ninjas, trained by the wise (and rather eccentric) Ninja Master to defend the Land Below the Clouds from the warlord Ashida. Ernest and Rebecca (Kids 6-10 2D comedy, 52x13 min.) Adapted from the comic strip by Guillaume Bianco and Antonello Dalena (published by Le Lombard), tells the story of Rebecca and her “microbe” Ernest, who becomes her best friend and protector after giving her a cold. Zak Jinks (Kids 6-10 2D adventure comedy, 52x13 min.) Follows the adventures of its eponymous hero, Zak. For Zak, school, street and home are all perfect settings for mischief-making. Tom Sawyer (Kids 6-12 CGI adventure, 26x22 min.) Tom Sawyer, a boy called to adventure from the moment he wakes up, and his friends are always on the go. Each episode will tell one of their great adventures, escapades or explorations. Zou (Kids 3-6 CGI comedy, 156x11 min.) Now in season three, follow the daily life of a 5-year-old
*LIST_1018_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 9/28/18 9:14 AM Page 11
TV LISTINGS Zebra Zou and his extended zebra family. Full of curiosity and love, Zou is now old enough to start becoming his own person. The Pirates Next Door (Kids 6-10 CGI-2D comedy, 52x11 min.) At Dull-on-Sea, quiet life is suddenly turned upside down by the appearance of a family of pirates. Nefertine (Kids 4-7 2D comedy, 52x11 min.) Nefertine is a little girl endowed with lively intelligence, inexhaustible curiosity and great courage. She aspires to be the first female scribe in the history of Egypt.
tures where the smallest person can make the biggest difference. Mega Man: Fully Charged (Kids 6-11 3D, 52x11 min.) A regular robo-kid, Aki Light discovers secret programming that transforms him into Mega Man who, to protect Silicon City, must battle the wickedest of Robot Masters.
DEUTSCHE WELLE/ DW TRANSTEL
O (49) 228-429-3501 m sales@dw.com w www.dw.com, www.dw-transtel.com Stand: P-1.K22 Contact: Dr. Arno Hefner, head, dept., docs & coprod.; Ulrich Wartmann, head, dist., Europe; Martin Maass, deputy head, DW Transtel; Kate Cox, deputy head, docs & coprod.; Hanne Kehrwald, snr. ed., docs & coprod.; Andrea Hugemann, dist. exec., America; Alexandra Lenz, dist. exec., Asia, Australia; Ekaterina Pototskaya, dist. exec., CIS; Mohammed Al-Sarray, dist. exec., MENA; Lukas Arnold, ed., DW Transtel; Rowena Lee, rep., Asia; Jihad Ibrahim, rep., Middle East. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS BauhausWORLD (Doc., 3x60 min.) Meet renowned designers, architects and artists from around the world who share a passion for Bauhaus and praise its influence on their work.
Polly Pocket Bajillionaires (Kids live action, 20x22 min.) Twelve-year-old Max Graham runs a tiny startup company out of his parents’ garage with his neighborhood pals. With every flop the gang learns valuable lessons, creates closer bonds and comes one step closer to their big idea. Spongo, Fuzz & Jalapeña (Kids 2D, 26x11 min.) Spongo, Fuzz and Jalapeña are three best buds on summer break with jobs in Champignon, where the state-of-the-art stadium plays host to a never-ending parade of weird and wonderful world championships. Fireman Sam: Set for Action (Preschool 3D, 1x60 min.) When Hollywood comes to town, Fireman Sam stars in the blockbuster movie remake of one of his most daring rescues.
DICK CLARK PRODUCTIONS
O (1-310) 255-4600 m snduna@dickclark.com Motoring Legends Motoring Legends (Doc., 7x30 min.) These cars once ruled the road, and now they are sought-after legends. The Mysteries of the Brain (Doc., 4+x30 min.) Explore the mysteries of the human brain in a new series that reveals the science behind who we are. Tricks of the Trade (Doc., 5+x30 min.) How can you be a conscious consumer and buy things in a way that helps preserve the environment? Unlocking the Past (Doc., 5+x30 min.) Witness how the history of the world’s civilization is uncovered by the artifacts, monuments and messages ancient people left behind.
The 2019 Billboard Music Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) Delivers the hottest performances live from the biggest stars in pop music. Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (Sci-fi, 45x30 min. & format) Featuring five bizarre scripted reenactments, some true and some not; at the end of each episode we learn which are fact and which are fiction. The 47th Annual American Music Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) Pays tribute to today’s most influential and iconic artists with over 16 musical performances by top acts. The 54th Academy of Country Music Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) Honoring and showcasing the biggest names and emerging talent in the country music industry. The ceremony features musical collaborations, performances and more. Now That’s Funny (Non-scripted comedy, 26x60 min.) Some of the most entertaining viral videos in the world, presented in a lighthearted way. No host, narrated. The 47th Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest (Music special, 1x240 min.) Bicoastal show features musical acts performing the top hits of the year and a look at New Year’s celebrations from around the world.
DISNEY MEDIA DISTRIBUTION LATIN AMERICA
O (1-305) 567-3700
w www.disneymediadistribution.tv Stand: C14 Contact: Fernando Barbosa, SVP, GM, dist. & prod., Latin America & U.S. Hispanic; Henri Ringel, VP, sales, media dist.; Gustavo Sorotski, dir., digital dist.; Leonardo Aranguibel, dir., prod., media dist.; Fabiola Bovino, snr. mgr., mktg.; Barbara Lorenzo, mgr., contract admin., media dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS El Secreto de Selena (Drama, 13x60 min.) The revealing story behind the tragic death of Selena Quintanilla, the queen of Tex-Mex, based on the bestseller by journalist María Celeste Arrarás.
w www.dickclark.com/international Stand: P0.A27 Contact: Mark Rafalowski, EVP, intl. dist.; Bob Kennedy, SVP, sales & acq.; Sandra Nduna, coord., intl. dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Football Show (Factual ent., 6x60 min.) An exclusive, off-the-pitch look into the lives of 14 superstars and legends of the game. Hosted from six of the greatest football cities.
w www.dorimedia.com, www.dorimediadistribution.com
DHX MEDIA
w www.dhxmedia.com
DISTRIBUTION360
O (1-416) 646-2711 m sales@distribution360.com w www.distribution360.com
Unknown Champions Fail Army (Non-scripted comedy, 140x30 min.) The worldwide leader in HD blooper videos returns. Each episode contains an average of 60 clips. No host, voice-over based. Unknown Champions (Fact-ent., 13x30 min.) Revealing the most eclectic competitions around the globe, from Wingsuit Flying to Female Sumo Wrestling—these incredible athletes use their amazing talents to become champions. The 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Awards show, 1x180 min.) The Golden Globes honor both motion picture and television achievements.
WW2 Treasure Hunters South Beach Classics (Fact-ent./automotive, 28x30 min.) Gives you behind-the-scenes access to what really goes on in one of Florida’s busiest dealerships, including all the trades, haggling, wheeling and dealing for some of the world’s most beautiful, and rare, classic cars. Volo House of Cars (Fact-ent./automotive, 6x30 min.) The guys at Volo: House of Cars make it their job to find the rarest, most unique vehicles from all over the globe and will go to any length to get them. It’s How You Get There (Fact-ent./automotive, 16x30 min.) Moto enthusiasts Greg White and Julian Taylor, along with resident expert Jenn Barrlow, take you on a trip to some of America’s most beautiful locales while driving some of the most exciting vehicles you can get your hands on. Treasure Champs (Preschool, 30x15 min.) Mixed-media series that explores universal moral values common to different faiths and cultures. Bryan Inc. (Fact-ent./home reno., 26x60 min.) Lifestyle stars and real-life couple Bryan and Sarah Baeumler take the next step in their adventure in business together designing and renovating homes for their clients. It’s My Party (Kids fact-ent., 13x30 min.) Each episode pairs up two kids who have never met; one acts as the party host introducing the other, their VIP guest, to their family’s cultural celebration.
O (41-43) 817-7050 m sales@dorimedia.com
Monzón (Biopic, 13x60 min.) Explores the life of Argentine boxing champion Carlos Monzón, who was convicted of murdering his wife, the mother of his youngest son, in 1988.
Stand: R7.K16 Contact: Josh Scherba, pres.; Anne Loi, chief commercial officer; Stephanie Betts, SVP, dvpmt. & current series; Roz Nowicki, EVP, Peanuts Worldwide; Jerry Diaz, VP, dist.; Richard Rowe, dir., intl. content acq. & coprod.; Wiebke Hoefer, snr. dir., European sales; Lara Ilie, territory mgr.; Sophie “Kido” Prigent, territory mgr.; Lisa Lee, territory mgr.; Liz Thompson, snr. dir., mktg., content & dist.; Jeff Cooke, mktg. mgr., dist.; Rebecca Lugo, sales associate; Hila Sharif, dvpmt. mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Rev & Roll (Preschool 3D, 52x11 min.) Welcome to the world of 8-year-old Rev and his best friend Rumble, a rambunctious anthropomorphic truck with all the personality of a loyal and enthusiastic dog. Polly Pocket (Kids 6-9 2D, 26x22 min.) When 11-year-old Polly Pocket shrinks to four inches tall, she discovers a world of unlimited adven-
to exploring concepts in science and technology that are changing lives today and making a difference tomorrow. Jack of All Tastes (Fact-ent./food, 6x30 min.) Follow Jackie Long as she journeys from city to city and dines with NFL athletes at their favorite restaurants.
DORI MEDIA GROUP
El Secreto de Selena
O (1-416) 363-8034 m sales@dhxmedia.com
11
Stand: P-1.A51 Contact:Diane Rankin, SVP, intl.; Smiljka Baljozovic, dir., sales; Jordan Cavallo, snr. mgr., acq. & operations. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS WW2 Treasure Hunters (Factual/history, 15x60 min.) These treasure hunters have made it their mission to unearth wartime relics buried across Europe, preserve their history and bring forgotten stories back to life. Just Like Mom and Dad (Finished/format, 42x30 min.) New prime-time family game show that finds out just how well parents and kids really know each other over three rounds of fun. Tomorrow’s World Today (Factual/science, 11x30 min.) Presents a cutting-edge approach
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 629
Stand: P-1.F50 Contact: Nadav Palti, pres. & CEO; Leora Nir, CEO, Dori TLV; Jonathan Faran, CEO, Dori Media Darset; Givon Snir, CEO, MeMeMe Studios; Carolina Sabbag, VP, sales, Dori Media Dist.; Pauline Ick, VP, sales, Dori Media Dist.; Maria Perez Campi, dir., sales, Dori Media Dist. Argentina; Camila Premet, sales mgr., Dori Media Dist. Argentina; Tali Fink, dir., acq., Dori TLV; Einat Borovich-Naim, mktg. dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Eilat (Teen adventure drama, 50x30 min.) At the eternal vacation city, a group of teenagers from all over the country meet at the most prestigious hotel in Eilat for one summer that will change their lives forever. The Box (Kids reality format) Talent show for kids (aged 5 to 14), where viewers will see, for the first time, a social media star born on TV. El Marginal 2 (Crime drama, 13+8x45 min.) Three years before season one, the Borges brothers are imprisoned and get involved in a war with El Sapo, who rules San Onofre. The Love Car (Dating game show) Takes place in one car in the course of one night. Provides a reallife glimpse into the world of today’s singles. Las Estrellas (5 Stars) (Romantic comedy, 120x60 min.) The death of Mario Star leaves
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TV LISTINGS
his five daughters faced with successfully managing a boutique hotel, a mission they will have to fulfill in order to claim an inheritance. The New Black (Comedy, 12x30 min.) They live the dream—enjoying the benefits of the prestigious yeshiva student status in the orthodox society and the pleasures of modern life.
The New Black Power Couple (Reality format) Puts love to the test like you’ve never seen before as eight couples face extreme challenges that will test how well they really know each other. The Road to Calvary (Drama, 13x45 min.) The story of two sisters in the period from 1914 to 1919, when friends and relatives are on the opposite sides of the barricades, and the yearning for a brighter tomorrow will pave the road to Calvary. Dumb (Crime drama, 50x35 min.) A frustrated and stoned 30-year-old actress goes undercover as a high-school student to help her exboyfriend, who was arrested for drug dealing. The Best of All (Shiny-floor game show) Is the average answer from a large group of people always closer to the right result than one person’s answer? This new game will test that theory.
DYNAMIC TELEVISION
O (1-323) 433-0100 m info@dynamictelevision.com w www.dynamictelevision.com Stand: R8.B21 Contact: Daniel March, mng. partner; Klaus Zimmermann, mng. partner; Jan Bennemann, VP, intl. sales; Gilda Demirtas, VP, intl. sales; Isabelle Carriere-March, VP, sales; Ryan St. Peters, sales; Marylou Johnston, PR dir./MLJ Agency. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Trapped (Crime/mystery, 10x52 min.) Tells the story of a troubled cop investigating a grisly murder when his small Icelandic town is hit by a powerful blizzard, trapping the villagers and most likely the killer in the town.
East Los High (Drama, 12x30 min.) Set against a backdrop of dance, follows the lives of a group of teenagers navigating their final years at an East Los Angeles high school. Cape Town (Crime/mystery, 6x58 min.) A cop returns to work after the traumatic death of his wife and, together with his new partner, investigates a series of high-profile murders. Almost Never (Teen comedy/drama, 13x30 min.) When a boy band loses in a talent competition, they must find success the hard way. The boys have to overcome their over-zealous parents, each other, and find their determination to be successful. How to Stay Married (Comedy, 8x30 min.) A couple fights for their long-term but stale marriage, overcoming challenges, including teenage children, new jobs and unexpected house guests. Deliver Us (Thriller, 8x60 min.) Four people in the small Danish town of Broholm join forces and plan the perfect murder of the local town psycho, Brian, only to realize that when you start playing God, it is easy to end up as the Devil. Sommerdahl Murders (Crime/mystery, 5x90 min./10x45 min.) When a busy cop in a small Danish town discovers the body of a young girl washed up on shore, he takes it upon himself to find out what happened, risking everything, including his marriage.
ECCHO RIGHTS
O (46-8) 5560-9380 m info@ecchorights.com w ecchorights.com Stand: P3.B1 Contact: Fredrik af Malmborg, mng. dir.; Nicola Söderlund, mng. partner; Handan Özkubat, head, Istanbul office; Barbora Susterova, head, LatAm & Iberia; Nixon Yau Lim, head, AsiaPac; Petra Larsson, sales & acq. mgr., CEE; Karim Strandberg Blom, drama dvpmt. exec. & Nordic sales; Liisa Helmi, head, business affairs & sales mgr., Africa. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Conspiracy of Silence (Drama, 8x45 min.) A former arms dealer, on a cold-blooded revenge mission, is stopped in his tracks by a shocking discovery—he has a family he never knew.
Dreaming of You
Trapped Wynonna Earp (Sci-fi, 12x52 min.) Follows Wyatt Earp’s great granddaughter as she battles demons and other creatures, bringing the paranormal to justice. Van Helsing (Sci-fi, 13x52 min.) After a catastrophic volcano eruption, the last remaining underground vampires rise. Vanessa Van Helsing, a descendant of the legendary line of vampire hunters, awakens from a coma to discover that she’s not only immune to vampires. The Day (Crime/mystery, 12x45 min.) An ingenious bank robbery spirals out of control in a quiet Flemish town with police, criminals and hostages revealing unexpected agendas. Each time-shifting episode reveals a new point of view on the events.
Stiletto Vendetta (Drama, 99x45 min.) The return of a woman to the group of friends that once betrayed her ends in a grisly murder. But who is truly the guilty party? Dreaming of You (Drama, 32x45 min.) Yagmur falls in love with Melek, the daughter of one of his care-home residents. But winning her heart doesn’t come easily to the shy young man. Elif (Drama, 1,200x45 min.) A goodhearted little girl finds herself the peacemaker in the middle of a series of family feuds in this long-running international hit. El Accidente (Drama, 17x45 min.) Lucia’s life starts to fall apart when her husband’s plane crashes. But when she discovers he never even boarded, the reasons why uncover more devastation than she could have imagined. Cennet (Drama, 114x45 min.) All she ever wanted was a mother, but when Cennet finally finds the woman who abandoned her as a baby, her motives are fiercely questioned.
ENDEMOL SHINE INTERNATIONAL
O (44-870) 333-1700 m sales@endemolshine.com
Family Food Fight (Ent.) Diverse, multigenerational families go head-to-head in cooking challenges to win the experience of a lifetime and the coveted title of the “Greatest Food Family.”
w www.endemolshinedistribution.com Stand: R8.E1 Contact: Endemol Shine Group: Peter Salmon, chief creative officer; Lisa Perrin, CEO, creative networks; Nicola Bamford, CEO, intl. operations; Patrick Keegan, co-dir., mktg. & comms.; Endemol Shine Intl.: Cathy Payne, chief exec.; Matt Creasey, EVP, sales & acq., Americas, Asia, Australia & NZ; Mark Lawrence, exec. dir., Europe; Rashmi Bajpai, exec. dir., Asia; Veronique Verges, SVP, LatAm & U.S. Hispanic; James Braham, snr. sales dir., U.K. & Eire; Claire Jago, snr. sales dir., Nordic; Tania Jacobson, SVP, Canada; Fabrizio De Leo, snr. sales dir., Italy & Iberia; Daryl Kho, snr. sales dir., Asia; Lyle BettsonBarker, sales dir., Australia; Marion Vergnaud, sales dir., French-speaking EMEA territories; Emma Knight, sales dir., CEE minor; Alexander Rubanov, sales dir., Russia, CIS, Baltics & Turkey; Katie Stephenson, sales dir., Benelux; Matthew Hodges, sales dir., Germany, Poland & Hungary; Jasmine Goh, sales dir., Asia; Robin Pollok, sales dir., Africa, Israel, Middle East; Lauren Farrar, sales dir., USA; Simon Cox, head, acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Insoupçonnable (Drama, 10x60 min.) French version of the international hit psychological thriller The Fall starring Emmanuelle Seigner and Melvil Poupaud.
ENTERTAINMENT ONE FAMILY & BRANDS
O (44-203) 691-8600 m tseagers@entonegroup.com w www.entertainmentone.com Stand: C15.A5 Contact: Olivier Dumont, pres.; Nick Gawne, COO; Monica Candiani, EVP, content sales; Jillianne Reinseth, SVP, creative affairs; Lorna Withrington, dir., creative affairs; Macaulay Wong, dir., content sales, Asia; Luciana Bianchi Vicos, snr. dir., content sales; Ralf Kies, snr. dir., content sales; Rachel Carson, dir., content sales; Tara Craze, VP, digital; Andrea Panayiotou, exec. asst. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Ricky Zoom (Preschool CGI, 52x11 min.) He’s an everyday kid with everyday experiences who happens to be a motorbike! Whether it’s racing around the adventure park or riding to the rescue, life with Ricky Zoom and his friends is full of fun, comedy and excitement.
Ricky Zoom Insoupçonnable The Bridge Malaysia/Singapore (Drama, 10x60 min.) Local adaptation of The Bridge (Bron/Broen). A body is left on the border of Singapore and Malaysia. Two investigators, one from each country, work together to catch a killer. Spring Tide (Drama, S2: 10x60 min.; total 20x60 min.) Based on a novel by Rolf and Cilla Börjlind, a brutal murder is solved, with unthinkable consequences. Second Chance Dresses (Ent., 22x30 min.) Follows brides-to-be searching for their perfect wedding dress on the pre-loved market. Emotions will run high as they meet sellers, share their stories and hopefully find their dream frock. Murdertown (Factual, 22x30 min.) Hosted by Happy Valley actress Katherine Kelly, each episode focuses on one murder in one U.K. city or town, setting the crime in the context of its location’s wider cultural and criminal landscape. Heist (Ent.) Starts in a small town, where eight ordinary citizens have been tipped off that some valuable treasure has been abandoned. If they can lay their hands on it and hide from detectives, it’s all theirs to keep. The Talent Project (Ent.) Each contestant must have raw talent. The format offers 100 days of intensive training at The Talent Project Academy before the contestants go up against each other in a studio-based audition with a never-seen-before visual element. All Together Now (Ent.) Talented performers take to the stage to perform in front of The 100, an audience of great singers with big voices and even bigger opinions. The greater the number that stand up and sing along, the higher the contestant’s score. Big Bounce Battle (Ent.) Contestants race the clock and gravity as they try to conquer spectacular trampoline obstacle courses as fast as they can.
630 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Cupcake and Dinosaur (Kids CGI comedy, 52x11 min.) Follows the larger-than-life exploits of a tiny cupcake with big brains and a napoleon complex and his giant, spunky dinosaur younger brother as they strive to make a name for themselves in the super competitive general-services business. PJ Masks (Preschool CGI, 104x11 min.) When something goes awry in the city, three special 6-year-olds put their pajamas on and are magically transformed into superheroes. Winston Steinburger & Sir Dudley Ding Dong (Kids 7-11 2D, 52x11 min.) Winston Steinburger sets out to explore every solar system with the help of his hapless cat, Sir Dudley Ding Dong, and his pint-sized galaxy guardian, Hampton. The Magic Hockey Skates (Family animation, 1x30 min.) A 9-year-old boy who dreams of being a hockey champion can only afford a pair of secondhand skates, but it turns out they’re magical, granting him three wishes. Peppa Pig (Preschool 2D, 256x5 min. & 4 specials) Peppa is a lovable, cheeky little piggy who lives with her younger brother George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom (Preschool 2D, 104x11 min.) The Little Kingdom is home to Princess Holly, a young fairy, and her best friend, Ben the elf. Lost and Found (Preschool animation, 1x30 min.) A magical tale of loneliness lost—and friendship found. Pat and Stan (Kids 6-9, 39x7 min., 1x26 min. & 250 shorts) Join this hilarious comedy duo as they manage to take mundane daily life to the silliest of extremes. Humf (Preschool 2D animation, 78x7 min.) Humf is short, round and cuddly and always curious to learn about the world around him.
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TV LISTINGS 13
ESCAPADE MEDIA
O (61) 411-035317 m natalie@escapademedia.com.au w www.escapademedia.com.au Stand: R7.B15 Contact: Natalie Lawley, mng. dir.; Anthony Mrsnik, dir.; Jessica Stonehouse, head, sales, partnerships & business dvpmt., U.S. & U.K. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 600 Bottles of Wine (Comedy/drama, 8x9 min./4x18 min.) Flung back into the dating scene after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, Claire is apprehensive about the rules, expectations and implications that she has to navigate on her journey as a newly single woman.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Squish (Kids 6-11 animated comedy, 52x11 min.) Follows an amoeba looking to survive life in the cutthroat world of single cell organisms–not to mention school. Based on the best-selling books by Jennifer and Matthew Holms. Find Me in Paris (Daily tween drama, 52x30 min.) Lena Grisky is a time-traveling ballerina from 1905 Russia trying to navigate her way through the perils of adolescence—in 2015 Paris.
Squish
Slice Walking Points (Factual, 1x90 min./1x52 min. 4K) In the U.S., cancer detection dogs are being used to test for this killer disease and the results are remarkable. Slice (Lifestyle, 13x30 min. 4K) Adam Richman takes viewers on an around-the-world eating adventure seeking out the greatest slices of local food and culture. Undocumented (Drama/comedy, 10x30 min. 4K) When a law-abiding Australian finds out she’s undocumented while living in New York, she must build a new life from scratch, survive being separated from her family and friends back home and avoid being deported. The Art of Killing (Drama, 6x60 min.) Marcus Koopman, a Liverpudlian ex-cop with a violent past, is enjoying a peaceful early retirement with his hedonistic artist wife Zoe in tropical Byron Bay, Australia, when his estranged son Stevie enters his life. Charged & Disbarred (Factual/crime, 13x30 min. 4K) Explores real-life crimes perpetrated by those trusted with the law. Narrated by lawyer and prosecutor James Pacitti. Food.Sail.Love. (Lifestyle, 8x30 min. 4K/HDR10) This unique culinary voyage invites the viewer to experience the local life and the preservation of precious traditions. Tomorrow When the War Began (Drama, 6x45 min.) A group of young friends overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to save the things they hold most precious. (Asian rights only) When We Go to War (Drama, 6x60 min.) Focusing on the impact the war has on a New Zealand family and a Maori brother and sister, cutting between life at home, Gallipoli and Egypt. The Fo-Fo Figgily Show (Preschool, 25x15 min. 4K) Explores fundamental learning concepts and helps children discover the importance of community and positivity.
FEDERATION KIDS & FAMILY
O (33-6) 5137-9895 m monica@cottonwood.tv
w fedent.com/kids-and-family Stand: R9.A5 Contact: David Michel, mng. dir.; Monica Levy, VP, intl. sales; Alexandre Henin, head, acq.; Sarah Zarka, sales exec.; Valerie Tailland, dir., comms.
The Ollie & Moon Show (Upper preschool animation, 104x11 min.) A slapstick comedy starring two animated cats who travel across the live-action world showing kids the joys of friendship, food and fun across the globe. Love, Divina (Daily teen drama, 60x45 min.) Divina (who secretly dreams of becoming a pop star) and a group of her street-urchin friends are taken in by Divina’s long-lost wealthy grandmother.
FILMRISE
FOX NETWORKS GROUP CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
O (44-203) 426-7000 m contentdistribution@fox.com
w www.fngcontentdistribution.com Stand: C16.C Contact: Prentiss Fraser, EVP & mng. dir.; Peter Grant, VP, global SVOD & France, Germany, Benelux; Julius Toh, VP, AsiaPac; Enrique Juarez, VP, LatAm & Hispanic U.S.; Magdalena Szwedkowicz, VP, CEE & MENA; Jean Vezina, VP, Frenchspeaking Canada; Brook Peters, VP, Englishspeaking Canada; Bingting Liu, sales liaison, China & Taiwan; Joanna Rowley, exec. dir., U.K., Ireland, Nordics, Africa; Maria Grazia Ursino, exec. dir., Italy, Spain & Portugal; JeeYoung Lee, exec. dir., Japan, Korea & regional formats; Annette Kollek, exec. dir., Australia & NZ; Luis Gadea, dir., Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua & Panama; Joao Fonseca, associate dir., Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay & Uruguay; Andrew Stephen, snr. sales mgr., formats; Carolina Lozano, snr. sales mgr., Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Caribbean, Ecuador, Peru & Venezuela; Lindsay Brown, snr. sales mgr., Canada; Natalia Shibanova, mgr., sales, Russia, CIS; Alex Zlatanova, mgr., sales, Bulgaria & Balkans; Filipa Pereira, associate mgr., sales, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium & Holland. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Valley of the Boom (Drama, 6x60 min.) An adrenaline-fueled ride through the culture of speculation, innovation and debauchery that led to the rapid inflation and burst of the 1990s tech bubble—as well as the arrival of Silicon Valley as the headquarters of modern technology.
O (1-718) 369-9090 m sales@filmrise.com w www.filmrise.com Stand: Buyers Club Contact: Danny Fisher, CEO; Melissa Wohl, head, sales; Vlad Wolynetz, head, prod.; Max Einhorn, VP, acq.; Emma Leslie, mktg. mgr.; Bianca Serafini, originals associate; Gennie Siegel, global acq. coord.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Miseducation of Cameron Post (1x91 min.) Follows Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) as she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after getting caught with another girl in the back seat of a car on prom night. Mountain Rest (1x90 min.) An aging actress (Frances Conroy) invites her estranged daughter and teenage granddaughter for a weekend of supposed reconciliation and celebration in a small mountain town. (U.S. & Canadian rights) Life in the Doghouse (1x82 min.) The inspiring life stories of two men who rescue dogs and allow them to live in their home (up to 75 at a time). They have rescued over 10,000 dogs. Modern Hero (18x30 min.) Celebrating incredible women—educators, businesswomen, nonprofit leaders and media personalities, among others—defying the odds, shattering glass ceilings and making a difference in their careers and in the world. Mantovani and His Orchestra: The Television Specials (1x125 min.) Mantovani was the most successful orchestra leader of his time, selling over 60 million albums in his career, and touring the world for nearly 20 years during the 1950s and 1960s. (U.S. & Canadian rights)
Explorer 3 (Current affairs/investigative doc., 13x60 min.) In its reimagined format, hosted by Phil Keoghan, this new series uses field pieces and interviews to examine the relationships between people and their environment. Celebrity Chef: East vs. West (Food, 5x60 min.) In each episode celebrity chefs David Rocco and Nicholas Tse visit a different city and after a tour put their new insight and cookery skills to the test in a colorful, culinary battle like no other.
FREMANTLE
O (44-207) 691-6457 m safiah.ngah@fremantle.com w www.fremantle.com Stand: C11 Contact: Jens Richter, CEO; Bob McCourt, COO; Americas: Lisa Honig, SEVP, intl. dist.; Caroline Kusser, SVP, sales & dist., U.S.; Michela Di Mondo, VP, sales & dist., Canada; Felicia Litovitz, dir., sales & dist., Canada; LatAm & Hispanic U.S.: Sheila Aguirre, EVP, intl. dist.; Natalie Rodriguez, sales mgr., LatAm, Caribbean & Hispanic U.S.; EMEA: Jamie Lynn, EVP, intl. dist.; Anahita Kheder, SVP, MEA & Southeastern Europe; Amac Us, sales dir., MEA & Southeastern Europe; Karen Finnegan, SVP, sales, U.K., Eire & Scandinavia; Maximilian Bolenius, SVP, German-speaking Europe & Israel; Nick Pawsey, VP, sales & dist., CEE, Russia & CIS; Al De Azpiazu, VP, sales & dist., Western Europe; Pete Kalhan, SVP, home ent. & archive sales; Gordon Craig, head, archive sales; Melanie McClure, sales exec., non-theatric/closed circuit (maternity cover); Australia, NZ, Japan: Paul Ridley, SEVP, intl. dist.; Daryl O’Connor, SVP, home ent.; Katsu Waza, SVP, sales & multiplatform dist.; Asia: Ganesh Rajaram, EVP, intl. dist.; Haryaty Rahman, SVP, sales & dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS My Brilliant Friend (Drama, 8x60 min.) From the producers of The Young Pope comes the highly anticipated adaptation of the internationally best-selling novel by Elena Ferrante.
Valley of the Boom MARS 2 (Docudrama, 6x60 min.) Set nine years after the original astronauts left Earth for Mars, Olympus Town is now a fully-fledged colony. However, the future of the mission, and the Red Planet itself, will be forever changed when miners from a for-profit corporation touch down on the surface. Impuros (Drama, 10x60 min.) A young man from the slums of Rio de Janeiro who gets drawn into the world of drug trafficking is hunted by a veteran federal police officer who seems to be seeking his own destruction. Set in the 1990s and based on true events. The Host (Dramedy, 13x60 min.) Star-studded scripted series that mixes comedy, impersonations and music with all the goings-on that you’d expect in a contemporary hotel. Into the Okavango (Feature doc., 1x120 min.) Chronicles an epic, four-month, 1,500-mile expedition to save the river system that feeds the Okavango Delta, an oasis of freshwater in the middle of one of the driest places on Earth. Free Solo (Feature doc., 1x120 min.) Provides a portrait of professional rock climber Alex Honnold as he prepares to attempt the first-ever free solo climb (without ropes or safety gear) of the 3,200-foot, vertical face of El Capitan. The Flood (Natural history, 2x60 min.) Each year the Okavango Delta undergoes an epic makeover as desert is transformed into a water wonderland. We follow wildlife as they deal with the flood. Talento FOX (Ent., 13x60 min.) Competitive reality show that searches for the next big singing star features spectacular staging, a live audience, a judging panel comprising international names and a range of participants from different walks of life.
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 631
Beecham House Beecham House (Drama, 6x60 min.) From BAFTA-nominated writer, director and producer Gurinder Chadha comes an epic drama following the fortunes of the owner and staff of splendid Beecham House. Dublin Murders (Drama, 8x60 min.) Adapted from Tana French’s award-winning novels, an atmospheric, psychological thriller. Baghdad Central (Drama, 6x60 min.) A crime thriller set in the ruins of a fallen city. Charité: A Time of War (Drama, 6x60 min.) Series two of this compelling wartime drama follows our characters as they navigate challenging conditions at the leading wartime hospital in Europe. Expedition with Steve Backshall (Factual, 10x60 min.) A global series exploring uncharted regions of our planet in a series of epic world firsts. Manson: The Lost Tapes (Factual, 1x120 min.) From peace and love to cold-blooded murder. The chilling reality of life inside the notorious cult, told through previously unseen footage and exclusive interviews. Jamie Cooks Italy (Lifestyle, 8x60 min.) A glorious food travel series in which Jamie Oliver goes in search of Italy’s very best home cooks— his nonna’s—to bring us extraordinary Italian dishes.
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TV LISTINGS
In Search Of (Factual, 10x60 min.) An immersive, experiential journey with host Zachary Quinto examining unexplained phenomena from all over the world. Nadiya’s Family Favourites (Lifestyle, 8x30 min.) Nadiya Hussian whips up a feast of fresh ideas for every kind of day.
GLOBAL AGENCY
O (90-212) 240-5769 m info@theglobalagency.tv w www.theglobalagency.tv
FUN UNION
O (852) 2239-5312 m info@fununion.net w www.fununion.net Contact: Christine Brendle, CEO; Gushi Sethi, head, intl. content dist.; Vincent Chua, dir., animation content. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS BabyRiki (Musical edutainment CGI & live action, S1-2: 104x5 min., S3: 52x5 min. in prod.) Animated show where preschoolers learn through play. Each episode introduces an age-appropriate learning concept, illustrated with a song.
BabyRiki KikoRiki (Comedy adventure, S1-2: 216x6.5 min. 2D, S3: 52x11 min. CGI) The KikoRiki world is one of adventure and valuable life lessons. Each episode is fun and entertaining and captures the lives of a vibrant cast of characters. PinCode (Science edutainment CGI & 2D, S1-2: 104x13 min.) Explores the principles of physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences in each episode, while taking the heroes across the globe in their adventures. Panda and Krash (Comedy adventure CGI, 52x11 min.) Follow the comical adventures of a diverse set of toys in the magical toy store that wake up each night after the shoppers go home.
GAUMONT
O (1-424) 281-5200 m sales@gaumont.com w www.gaumont.us Stand: R8.C1 Contact: Christophe Riandee, vice CEO; Vanessa Shapiro, pres., worldwide TV dist. & coprod.; Nicolas Atlan, pres., animation & family; Gene Stein, pres., TV, U.S.; Isabelle DeGeorges, pres., TV, France; Terry Kalagian, SVP, creative dvpmt., animation & family; Gaelle Guiny, VP, animated series dvpmt., France; Jean-Baptise Lère, head, prod., animation; Cecilia Rossignol, VP, intl. TV sales, scripted; Laura Laas, VP, intl. TV sales, animation; Mathilde Rottier, VP, U.S. & Canada TV dist.; Ezequiel Olzanski, VP, LatAm TV dist. & coprod. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS El Chapo (Drama, 34x60 min.) From Univision’s Story House Entertainment, explores the life story of drug kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, one of the world’s most notorious criminals. Narcos (Drama, 40x60 min.) An inside look at the men who would stop at nothing to take down Pablo Escobar, delivering an unfiltered look into the war that would change the drug trade forever. Nox (Drama, 6x60 min.) A Creation Originale series produced for Canal+ about a retired cop forced back into action when her daughter disappears into the underground of Paris.
El Chapo The Art of Crime (Drama, 12x60 min.) A hotheaded detective teams up with an art historian from the Louvre to delve into mysteries that capture French culture and history. Hetty Feather (Family/kids drama, 40x22 min.) Hetty Feather lives in a children’s home where she faces daily challenges, makes friends and discovers untold truths as she searches for her mother. Shoelaces for Christmas (Holiday, 1x90 min.) A self-absorbed teenager learns the true meaning of Christmas spirit through the support of her family and an unexpected encounter with a very special young girl. Christmas Arrangement (Holiday, 1x90 min.) Love truly blossoms in this heartwarming tale of finding love in the most unlikely of circumstances. Christmas Village (Holiday, 1x90 min.) To save her reputation, Piper agrees to work for the owner of a failing Santa’s Village and discovers how magical Christmas is after all. Bionic Max (Kids 6-11 animated comedy adventure, 52x11 min.) A bionic guinea pig and his goldfish best friend break out of their lab and embark on life as express delivery boys in the middle of Central Park. Furiki Wheels (Kids 6-11 animated comedy, 52x11 min.) André Furiki is a hyperactive young sloth with plans to travel the world. But first he must learn to drive.
GENIUS BRANDS INTERNATIONAL
O (1-310) 273-4222 m info@gnusbrands.com w www.gnusbrands.com Stand: P-1.B11 Contact: Andy Heyward, chmn. & CEO; Deb Pierson, SVP, global content dist. & mktg. & pres., Kid Genius Cartoon Channel; Mark Shoeman, dir., dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Rainbow Rangers (Preschool animation, 26x30 min. & 52x11 min.) An empowering adventure following the lives of Earth’s first responders, whose mission is to help protect the planet’s environment and its animal inhabitants. Llama Llama (Preschool animation, 15x30 min.) A series about childhood moments and adventures, as well as the special connections between the lead character, Llama, his parents, grandparents and best friends. Thomas Edison’s Secret Lab (Kids comedy adventure animation, 26x30 min.) Featuring com edy, adventure and hijinks, encourages kids to explore the limits of their own imaginations with the help of Thomas Edison to inspire and encourage them.
Stand: R8.E17 Contact: Izzet Pinto, fndr. & CEO; Fahriye Senturk, head, mktg. comms.; Umay Ayaz, head, acq.; Senay Filiztekin, head, drama acq.; Senay Tas, sales dir.; Ivan Sanchez, sales dir.; Miroslav Radojevic, sales dir.; Isil Turksen, sales dir.; Deniz Tuzun, sales dir.; Ekin Gabay, sales dir.; Gozde Sergili, sales dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Gulperi (Drama, 120 min. eps. ongoing) Gulperi is faced with the danger of losing her children after she is slandered following the unexpected death of her husband.
formats mgr.; Ulrike Schröder, acq. mgr.; Bettina Birk, project mgr., TV. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS After the Crash (Thriller, 4x52 min.) A psychological thriller about the sole survivor of a plane crash: a three-month-old baby. Two families step forward to claim her, sparking an investigation for decades.
After the Crash
Gulperi Finding Hope (Drama, 120 min. eps. ongoing) The story of Derya, a mother in pain who is trying to hold on to life, Yılmaz, a man struggling to do the right thing, and Elif, a young woman trying to keep her family together. Once We Were Young (Drama, 120 min. eps. ongoing) Four siblings return home after the death of their father and realize that time has taken a toll on their relationships. Daydreamer (Dramedy, 120 min. eps. ongoing) Sanem begins working at an advertising agency and falls in love with Can, a world-class photographer, while his brother, Emre, schemes to be the one chosen to run the family business. Breathless (Drama, 120 min. eps. ongoing) Rüya leaves Berlin to try to find her mother, who she has never met before, in Syria. Waves (Drama, 113x60 min.) A move to Bodrum gives the Erguven family a new chance at life after they lose everything except for a modest hotel. Meryem (Drama, 90x60 min.) A car accident changes the lives of three people: a naive and innocent young woman, an ambitious state prosecutor and a rich and powerful man looking for love again. My Life Is a Scenario (Reality) Each participant will be assigned a different character, role and lifestyle, and will have to perform in a real-life situation accordingly. Tahiti Quest (Game show, 90 min. eps.) For five weeks, families consisting of two parents and two children between the ages of 8 and 12 head to Tahiti and compete in games that require teamwork, endurance and determination. Runaway Women (Factual/reality, 90 min. eps.) Eleven women will be taken away from their families and everyday lives to a luxury retreat, leaving the men to pick up their responsibilities.
GLOBAL SCREEN
Rule of Light (Legal dramedy, 6x48 min.) She sees what we don’t. Ambitious lawyer Romy is blind by birth. Together with her erratic assistant, she takes on the tough cases. Sophie—A New Beginning (Romantic comedy, 10x43 min.) Recently divorced, Sophie is trying to find a way of living her new life—while still sharing the same house with her ex-husband. The Weissensee Saga (Drama, 24x48 min.) A gripping family saga set behind the Berlin Wall in the former East Germany and in the changing times of the fall of the Iron Curtain. The Joshua Profile (Thriller, 1x105 min.) Max is going to commit a terrible crime soon—only he has no idea what it could be. Based on the bestseller by Sebastian Fitzek. Racko—No Better Friend! (Family, 13x25 min.) A faithful friend on four paws, Racko, and his master, 12-year-old Flo, experience various adventures in front of the picturesque backdrop of the Prealps. Let It Glow—How Pauline Saved Christmas (Family, 24x15 min.) When an impostor is chosen as the new Santa Claus, Santa’s gift bag, together with 8-year-old Pauline, sets out to find the real one. ZombieLars (Dramedy, 26x15 min.) 12-yearold Lars, half zombie, and his just-as-special friends with certain supernatural characteristics have a series of strange adventures in the town of Bekkebakken. The Undertaker (Crime, 40x58 min.) Undertaker Luc and police inspector Anna-Maria form the oddball duo at the heart of this screwball whodunit. Streets of Berlin (Crime, 8x48 min.) Berlin is not only a party mecca, it tops in crime and murder, too. An uneven duo of inspectors tackles the task of solving big-city homicides.
GLOOB/GLOBOSAT
O (55-21) 2145-8802 m tompson@globosat.com.br w gloobcontent.com Stand: P0.A10 Contact: Tatiana Costa, gen. dir.; Paula Taborda Dos Guaranys, head, content & pgmng.; Beatriz Tompson, sales exec.; Luiz Filipe Figueira, content & pgmng. snr. exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS S.O.S. Fairy Manu (Kids/family, S1: 26x11 min., S2: 26x11 min., S3: 13x15 min. in prod.) Despite her inexperience, Manu has received a very unusual mission: to become the new Fairy Godmother of the Enchanted Kingdom after her grandmother.
O (49-89) 244-1295-507 m alexandra.heidrich@globalscreen.de w www.globalscreen.de
Rainbow Rangers
Stand: P-1.K2 Contact: André Druskeit, mng. dir.; Alexandra Heidrich, head, TV sales & acq.; Kerstin Gruenwald, snr. sales mgr., TV; Stefanie Hofferbert, snr. sales mgr., TV; Helge Koehnen, snr. sales mgr., TV; Alexandra Kudelina, sales mgr.; Barbara Vallant,
632 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
S.O.S. Fairy Manu
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TV LISTINGS 15 Time to Rock (Kids/family, S1: 26x11 min., S2: 26x11 min. in prod.) Fred, Bea, Eddie and Chiclet form a peculiar rock band. When playing video game instruments, they “travel” to the past, changing the course of history. Click (Kids/family, 52x13 min.) Want to give life to seemingly useless objects? It only takes a bit of creativity and click, you can give wings to your imagination. Gaby Star (Kids/family, 124x26 min.) Realizing it takes more than pure talent to pursue her musical dreams, Gaby will spare no efforts to evolve into a complete artist. Guess Who’s Cooking (Kids/family, 130x13 min.) Three friends get together to prepare delicious recipes and learn their origins. Blue Building Detectives (Kids/family, S1: 26x13 min., S2: 13x13 min., S3-S6: 26x13 min. each; S7-11: 26x26 min. each; S11 in prod.) Whenever something fishy happens, three friends become the Blue Building Detectives. Valentins (Kids/family, 52x26 min.) When scientists Alice and Artur Valentim mysteriously vanish, their four kids are forced to face all kinds of fears, threats and an unexpected adversary. Brainiacs (Kids/family, S1-2: 26x26 min. each, S3-S4: 26x26 min. each in prod.) At the Genius School, among new friends and experiences, 12-year-old Isaac searches for a way to help his quadriplegic sister to play video games again. Gigablaster (Kids/family, S1: 26x11 min., S2: 26x11 min. in prod.) Giga is a blue rhinoceros who is charged with an odd mission: to sing like the Headless Japanese, the long-missing legend of Cool Daddy’s, the coolest karaoke bar in the city of Corner Pocket. Anittinha’s Club (Kids/family, S1: 10x5 min., S2: 26x5 min. in prod.) Between spectacular shows, the cutest pop star will find that being with loved ones is the funniest part of any trip.
Contessa (Drama, 80x45 min.) After being accused of a crime she did not commit, Bea escapes prison and takes the name Contessa to seek revenge against the people who made her suffer. Heart and Soul (Drama/fantasy, 90x45 min.) Criselda dies but remains a spirit that only appears to Crisanta. Their bond as twins falls apart when they both fall in love with Diego. The One That Got Away (Drama/romantic comedy, 48x45 min.) What happens when three beautiful, independent women who have the same ex-boyfriend meet and they all happen to still be in love with him? The Stepdaughters (Drama, 80x45 min.) Two women destined to be rivals suddenly became family when their single parents fell for each other and got married, making them stepsisters. The Way to Your Heart (Family drama, 40x45 min.) Onay, a person with achondroplastic dwarfism, has two daughters with contrasting personalities—one loves her unconditionally, while the other is ashamed of her condition.
GO-N INTERNATIONAL
O (33-1) 4874-8700 m marie.conge@go-n.fr w www.go-n.fr
Stand: P1.A75 Contact: Eric Garnet, producer, co-fndr.; Anne de Galard, producer, co-fndr.; Marie Conge, head, sales & business dvpmt. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Simon (Preschool animation, S1-2: 104x5 min.) Tells the story of Simon, the adorable little rabbit who exudes all the vitality of childhood.
GMA WORLDWIDE
O (632) 333-7633/7634 m gwi@gmanetwork.com w www.gmaworldwide.tv Stand: P-1.E67 Contact: Roxanne J. Barcelona, VP; Ana A. Sevilla, asst. VP; JC A. Estrada, sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Heart of Courage (Action adventure, 40x45 min.) Victor, an ordinary mortal, is chosen as the rightful wielder of Thor’s powerful hammer and must protect the world from the evil Loki.
Heart of Courage Happy Together (Romantic comedy, 50x45 min.) Happylou’s simple yet happy life gets complicated when she becomes an instant millionaire after her boss makes her the sole heiress to his fortune. Broken Hearts (Drama, 50x45 min.) An unsuspecting mother and daughter become fierce rivals when they both end up falling in love with the same man. The Heart Knows (Family drama, 40x45 min.) A man with autism faces the challenge of becoming a parent after a prostitute seduces him and claims he is the father of her baby. The Clash (Talent reality, 26x45 min.) 62 amateur singers compete in a one-versus-everyone sing-off to become the country’s next singing sensation.
Tib & Tumtum Tib & Tumtum (Comedy/adventure animation, 52x13 min.) The story of the incredible friendship between a boy and a dinosaur. ZipZip (Animated comedy, 52x13 min.) Washington the fox, Sam the wild boar and Eugenie, Sam’s little sister, are tired of living paw-tomouth in the wilderness and decide to disguise themselves as run-of-the-mill house pets. Tootuff (Animated comedy, 75x7 min. & 1x22 min.) A new adaptation of the cult comic series by Zep about the troublesome 10-year-old with the lock of unruly blond hair. Lou! (Animated comedy, 52x13 min.) Set in a cool urban environment, a unique take on modern relationships and the inner lives of pre-teens everywhere. Commander Clark (Animated comedy, 50x11 min. & 24x1 min.) The adventures of the bravest of space dogs and his crazy crew in their intergalactic patrol cruiser to explore the Sunny Galaxy.
Cleo & Cuquin ToonMarty (Animation, 40x11 min.) With every bend, bounce, flip and spin, Marty makes sure everyone feels included in his Marty party—and he makes sure there is one every day. Cleo & Cuquin (Preschool, 78x7 min. & 26x2 min.) In each fun episode, Cleo and Cuquin, with the help from their four siblings, will find solutions for all kinds of small situations. At the end of every adventure, Cleo will know what she wants to be when she grows up—or at least for that day! The Worst Witch (Live action, 13x25 min.) Mildred Hubble is a first-year student at Cackle’s Academy for Witches, and is living every child’s dream—learning how to do real magic. The Athena (Live action, 26x26 min.) Nyela Malik, a young model whose career implodes when she dares to complain about a famous designer treating her like an object, wins a place at London’s most prestigious art school. School of Roars (Preschool animation, 52x7 min.) Going to school for the first time is one of the biggest things you’ll do in your life. Lassie (Animation, 26x26 min.) The beloved collie comes to life in an animated TV series that is adventurous, humorous and a whole lot of fun. Zoom, The White Dolphin (Animation, 52x13 min.) Yann and Marina experience thrilling adventures on an island paradise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. An extraordinary friendship blossoms with a mysterious white dolphin. Mako Mermaids (Live action, 68x26 min.) Mako is a magical island that a pod of mermaids calls home. Their peaceful lives are turned upside down when a merman develops a connection with the island that poses a threat to their existence. Little Roy (Preschool live action/animation, 52x14 min.) Follows the everyday adventures of 5-year-old cartoon boy Roy O’Brien as his abilities and enthusiasm cause mayhem with his real-life family.
GREEN GOLD ANIMATION
O (91-040) 4436-1900 m sales@greengold.tv
w www.greengold.tv, us.greengold.tv Stand: P-1.K69 Contact: Rajiv Chilaka, fndr. & CEO; Marc Lumer, VP & head, operations, Green Gold USA; Bharath Laxmipati, VP, content sales; Desmond Aram, GM, content sales.
GRB STUDIOS
O (1-818) 728-4140 m sales@grbtv.com w www.grbtv.com Stand: R7.K17 Contact: Gary R. Benz, pres. & CEO; Scot Cru, pres., intl.; Patrice Choghi, SVP, intl.; Mehmet Gunduz, sales exec.; Torquil Macneal, sales cnslt.; Melanie Torres, sales cnslt. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Executed (Crime, 6x60 min.) Examine shocking stories of heinous crimes and hear from the experts who will analyze the unique details of each case. Irreconcilable Differences (Lifestyle docuseries, 10x60 min.) Watch as our panel of industry insiders exposes the details of Hollywood’s most controversial divorces.
GOLDBEE
O (34) 665-467-853 m christophe@goldbee.es w www.goldbee.es Contact: Christophe Goldberger, mng. dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Chop Chop Ninja (Animation, 40x11 min. & 40x1.5 min.) Follows the antics of a clumsy ninja-in-training and his friends as they protect their island home from a villainous organization.
Man at Arms (Science docuseries, 18x60 min.) Expert craftsmen recreate iconic weapons from video games, movies and comics. Then, each creation is tested for its strength and real-world functionality. Hosted by Danny Trejo. Showdown of the Unbeatables (Competition/ challenge, 9x60 min.) Inventors and entrepreneurs pit their products and machines against each other. Day 5 (Scripted, 14x60 min.) In the immediate aftermath of a fatal sleep epidemic, Jake ventures into the abandoned streets unaware that most of the world has died in their beds. Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal (Doc., 1x90/1x120 min.) Interviews with celebrities and Hollywood insiders shed a light on the Weinstein sexual abuse scandal and the issue with abuse of power in the film industry. Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter (Doc., 42x60 min.) This roundtable interview series features the hottest A-list stars and directors from the year’s most acclaimed films and television series. On the Case (Crime, 194x60 min.) Explore intriguing murder mysteries through in-depth interviews with witnesses and suspects and examine the forensic evidence that helped unravel the mystery. Occult Crimes (Crime, 20x60 min.) The stories of murderers who take their orders from Satan; these real-life demons are determined to gain immortality by committing heinous murders. The Stalker Files (Crime, 10x60 min.) Hear the chilling stories behind celebrity stalking cases involving Gwyneth Paltrow, Steven Spielberg, Madonna and more.
Man at Arms
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 633
Dragon Kingdom PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Dragon Kingdom (Animated action adventure, 10x22 min.) At the emperor’s request, Bheem and friends agree to stay back in China to explore the kingdom and its nearby villages, making new friends and defeating foes both new and old. I Am Number One (Animated slapstick comedy, 104x7 min.) In the jungle there can only be two number ones. Jungle Trouble (Animated slapstick comedy, 104x7 min.) Four carefree and primitive jungle beasts versus a greedy, high-tech penguin and his thuggish sidekick rhinoceros. Kalari Kids (Animated comedic adventure, 60x11 min.) Surrounded by a mystical jungle, Beenu and Raaka’s teams face new challenges every day with a hint of magic and tackle them using Kalari. Duchess (Animated action, 26x22 min.) High fashion meets psychedelic spy adventures in this fast-paced and stylish series.
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TV LISTINGS
GURU STUDIO
O (1-416) 599-4878 m jonathan.abraham@gurustudio.com w gurustudio.com Stand: R8.C12 Contact: Frank Falcone, pres. & exec. creative dir.; Louise Jones, VP, finance & business affairs; Jonathan Abraham, snr. dir., sales & new business dvpmt.; Daniel Rattner, snr. dir., mktg. & branding; Rachel Marcus, dvpmt. exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS True and the Rainbow Kingdom (Preschool, 30x22 min.) Follow our intelligent and compassionate heroine, True, and her hilarious best friend, Bartleby the cat, as they come to the rescue of Rainbow City’s whimsical citizens.
One World Kitchen (Food/cooking, S1: 30x30 min., S2: 24x30 min., S3: 28x30 min. 4K) Features international cuisines (Italian, Indian, Thai, Argentine, Japanese, Cantonese, Lebanese and Greek). Accompanied by 320-plus webisodes, recipes and photography. The Latin Kitchen (Food/cooking, 15x30 min. 4K) Explores three Latin cuisines (Mexican, Venezuelan and Spanish) with three hosts. Turnkey marketing package includes 60 recipes, webisodes and photography. The Urban Vegetarian (Food/cooking, 15x30 min. 4K) Set in an upscale kitchen, celebrates delicious vegetarian cuisine. Accompanied by 45-plus recipes, webisodes and photography. A is for Apple (Food/cooking, S1: 30x30 min., S2: 24x30 min. 4K) Recorded on a one-of-akind set accompanied by 160-plus recipes with webisodes and photography. Fresh Market Dinners (Food/cooking, 10x30 min. 4K) Features a young host as she transforms ingredients from local farmer’s markets into chic dinners. Includes 30-plus recipes, webisodes and photography.
HAT TRICK INTERNATIONAL
O (44-207) 7184-7777 m intsales@hattrick.com
w www.hattrickinternational.com Stand: R7.F24 Contact: Sarah Tong, dir., sales; Sarah Bickley, snr. sales exec.; Elfyn Morris, snr. sales exec.; Cassandra Toller, sales exec.; James Mill, mktg. & materials exec.; Hana Zidek, acq. exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Flack (Drama, 6x60 min.) Academy Award winner Anna Paquin stars as a PR agent whose job is to fix other people’s lives even though she can’t fix her own.
HASBRO STUDIOS True and the Rainbow Kingdom Justin Time (Preschool, 74x11 min. & 2x22 min.) Justin and his imaginary pals Olive and Squidgy star in the biggest stories of all time, told from every corner of the world. Big Blue (Kids 5-9 comedy, 52x11 min.) Siblings Lettie and Lemo lead their quirky submarine crew to solve the ocean’s mysteries and find the origins of a new magical recruit named Bacon Berry. Pikwik (Preschool, 52x11 min.) Suki and her team deliver surprise-filled parcels to the colorful residents of Pikwik.
GUSTO WORLDWIDE MEDIA
O (1-613) 730-1728 m sales@gustoworldwidemedia.com
O (44-208) 569-1234 m internationalsales@hasbro.com w hasbrostudios.com Stand: R7.D32 Contact: Finn Arnesen, SVP, intl. dist. & dvpmt.; Nina Scales, VP, intl. sales dist.; Leila Ouledcheikh, VP, Power Rangers franchise sales; Nuno I, sales dir., AsiaPac; Sheetal Merchant, sales dir., EMEA; Lucy Mackrill, intl. dist. mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (195x22 min.) In the village of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle and her five pony friends learn all about the most powerful magic of all: the magic of friendship.
w www.gustoworldwidemedia.com Stand: P-1.A51 Contact: Corey Caplan, snr. dir., intl. sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Bonacini’s Italy (Food/cooking, 30x30 min. 4K) Features celebrity chef Michael Bonacini as he cooks sumptuous Italian fare. Marketing package includes 64 recipes, stylish webisodes and food photography.
Bonacini ’s Italy Flour Power (Food/cooking, 26x30 min. 4K) Set in a retro-style kitchen, the host inspires viewers with simple to extravagant baked treats. Accompanied by 85-plus recipes, webisodes and photography. Watts on the Grill (Food/cooking, 13x30 min. 4K) This fast-paced cooking series is all about delectable barbeque and inspiring viewers to entertain guests outdoors. Accompanied by 61 recipes, webisodes and photography. Spencer’s Big 30 (Food/cooking, 26x30 min. 4K) Shot in real time, features healthy, familystyle meals made in around 30 minutes for about 30 dollars. Accompanied by 115-plus original recipes, webisodes and photography. Fish the Dish (Food/cooking, S1: 15x30 min., S2: 15x30 min. 4K) Celebrates sustainability while demystifying cooking seafood. Accompanied by 120-plus recipes with videos and photography.
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic My Little Pony Equestria Girls Specials (2x44 min. & 3x22 min.) From music festivals to theme parks, magic is sure making things interesting. Join the girls as they take on their biggest challenge yet: high school. My Little Pony Equestria Girls Movies (4x72 min.) Head through the magic mirror to Canterlot High as the beloved My Little Pony characters become their human counterparts in a parallel world in these fulllength movies. Transformers Cyberverse (18x11 min.) Bumblebee is on a critical mission—only, he can’t remember what it is. It’s a good thing Windblade has found him to help repair his memory to complete their mission before the Decepticons find them. Transformers Rescue Bots Academy (52x11 min.) A group of young Bots fresh from Cybertron have the honor of being the first-ever class to enroll in Earth’s Rescue Bot Training Academy and learn how to become Earth heroes through hands-on experience. Saban’s Power Rangers (929x22 min.) In season 26, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, a secret agency combines a newly discovered substance called “Morph-X” with animal DNA to create the Beast Morphers team. Littlest Pet Shop A World of Our Own (52x11 min.) Welcome to the land of Paw-Tucket, a petonly world made by pets, for pets, where Trip, Quincy, Jade, Roxie, Edie and Bev hang out at the cozy corner of the Littlest Pet.
Flack The Time It Takes (Ent. format, 8x30 min.) A quiz format where the contestants choose the time in which they have to answer questions to win money and prizes. Football Genius (Ent. format, 6x30 min.) Two teams of rival fans compete in a test of football knowledge played on a virtual pitch in this quiz format. The Trials of Howard Greenberg (w.t.) (Factual, 4x60 min.) Ob-doc series following one of New York’s most infamous, outlandish and feared criminal defense attorneys, where winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Hugh’s Fat Fight (Factual, 4x60 min.) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is on a mission to tackle the obesity crisis head-on by working with the public and challenging supermarkets and restaurant chains. Supermarket Secrets Revealed (Factual, 3x60 min.) This investigative consumer series uncovers exactly what we’re feeding our families and whether it’s as good for our health as it is for our wallets. Meet the Drug Lords: Inside the Real Narcos (Factual, 3x60 min.) Follows former Royal Marine Commando Jason Fox in Mexico, Colombia and Peru exposing the horror of the country’s multi-billion-dollar drug industry. Fantasy Homes by the Sea (Factual, 20x60 min.) Brand-new series following a pair of house hunters as they head to the coast in search of their dream home. All at Sea (w.t.) (Factual, 4x60 min.) Three celebrities with a passion for casual fishing join the crew of a North Sea trawler on a genuine two-week commercial fishing trip. Stunt Science (Factual, 10x60 min.) An actionpacked clip show featuring stunts, pranks and home experiments caught on camera and analyzed by scientific experts.
True Detective Big Little Lies (Limited series, 14x60 min.) Three mothers with seemingly perfect lives unravel to the point of murder. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and joining this season, Meryl Streep. Warrior (Drama, 10x60 min.) From an idea by martial arts legend Bruce Lee, a gritty actionpacked crime drama set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the late 1800s. Chernobyl (Miniseries, 5x60 min.) Dramatizes the true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, the Ukraine nuclear plant disaster of April 1986. Watchmen (Drama, 60 min. eps.) Created by Damon Lindelof, based on the Alan Moore graphic novel and set in an alternate history where “superheroes” are treated as outlaws. Mrs. Fletcher (Comedy, 30 min. eps.) Kathryn Hahn stars in this series created by Tom Perrotta and based on his bestselling novel. The coming-ofage comedy explores the impact of internet porn and social media on an empty nester and her college freshman son. Succession (Drama, 10x60 min.) An aging media conglomerate CEO plans for the future as his four children jockey for position and vie for control of the family business. Camping (Comedy, 8x30 min.) The aggressively controlling Kathryn (Jennifer Garner) organizes a “back to nature” camping weekend with friends and family, but things go horribly wrong from the start. Random Acts of Flyness (Alternative series, 6x60 min.) From artist and filmmaker Terence Nance, each episode features a handful of short vignettes showcasing an ensemble cast taking on controversial topics with distinct perspectives. Barry (Comedy, 8x30 min.) Created by Alec Berg and Bill Hader, stars Hader in the title role as a hitman who decides to become an actor and change his life.
HBO LATIN AMERICA
O (1-305) 648-8100
w www.hbomax.tv, www.hbolapress.com Contact: Luis F. Peraza, pres., networks; Roberto Ríos, corp. VP, original prod.; Xavier Aristimuño, VP, lic. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Magnífica 70 (Drama, S1-3: 33 eps.) Set in the ’70s. When government censorship agent Vicente discovers an erotic actress, his fascination leads him to work with her and the owner of the production company Magnífica, forming an intense love triangle.
HBO
O (1-212) 512-1000 w www.hbo.com Stand: R9.A8 Contact: Charles Schreger, pres., pgmng. sales; Jennifer Bowen, SVP, pgmng. sales; Dan Selig, SVP, intl. dist.; Melissa Caron, VP, intl. dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS True Detective (Drama, 24x60 min.) Starring Mahershala Ali, the third season follows a horrific crime in the heart of the Ozarks, with the mystery playing out in three separate time periods.
634 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Sr. Ávila
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TV LISTINGS Sr. Ávila (Action, S1-4: 43 eps.) Ávila, a middle-class life insurance salesman with a double life as a hit man for hire in a criminal organization, finds that keeping up with the façade of a normal life becomes harder and harder. O Negócio (The Business) (Drama, S1-4: 28 eps.) When Karin finds herself stuck in her career, she recruits Luna and Magali to revolutionize their industry, applying modern marketing techniques to the world’s oldest trade. El Jardín de Bronce (The Bronze Garden) (Action/thriller, 10 eps.) Architect Fabián Danubio becomes desperate in his attempt to find his daughter after she disappears. He takes the investigation into his own hands with the help of an eccentric private detective. PSI (Drama, S1-3: 28 eps.) Tells the adventures of Carlo Antonini, a slightly pathological and very interventionist psychiatrist, psychologist and psychoanalyst. A Vida Secreta Dos Casais (The Secret Life of Couples) (Drama, 12 eps.) Sofia, a successful sexologist and therapist, comes under investigation and will need to protect herself from a series of attacks while trying to maintain her secrets and struggling to unveil a great mystery. O Hipnotizador (The Hypnotist) (Drama, S1-2: 16 eps.) Natalio Arenas is a hypnotist who unearths people’s lost memories. He lives immersed in painful memories and damned to an eternal insomnia with a deep secret. To be cured from this disorder, he and his accomplices must face Darek, the hypnotist who cursed him. Epitafios (Epitaphs) (Drama, S1-2: 26 eps.) When brutal murders take place in Buenos Aires, a former cop and his psychiatrist ex-lover must team up in the hunt for a serial killer who is linked to their past.
IMAGINA INTERNATIONAL SALES
O (34-91) 728-5738 m info@imaginasales.tv w www.imaginasales.tv
Stand: R7.F31 Contact: Beatriz Setuain, dir.; Esther Agraso, head, sales; Miguel García, sales mgr., LatAm; Marta Piedade, sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Side Games (Todo por el Juego) (Thriller, 8x50 min.) An ambitious executive for a regional soccer club will be immersed in a thrilling game of corruption, violence and power.
Side Games Forever or Never (Dating show, 50 min. eps.) The first dating show that takes you to the future, to decide your present. I’m Alive (Estoy Vivo) (Thriller, 26x70 min.) Inspector Vargas, after being killed, wakes up in an unrecognizable place where a strange man informs him that there has been an error and he should not be dead. The inspector is returned to Earth in another body to hunt down his murderer. To Serve and Protect (Servir y Proteger) (Soap opera, 400x70 min.) Two policewomen at the heart of a rough neighborhood. A worldly officer and a rookie face the daily struggles of a suburban police station. The Look (Talent show) Eight famous celebrities team up with eight expert stylists. Will they be able to make someone else look like a star? Photobombers (Ent./humor) A comedy panel game show where two comedians issue comedic and bizarre photobomb challenges to five contestants.
Betrayal (Traición) (Drama, 9x70 min.) The apparently perfect family begins to crack.
INCENDO
O (1-514) 937-3333/
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Singing Star (Drama, 312x30 min., ongoing) The magic in her 7-year-old voice moves stoned hearts, and many have acknowledged her musical genius, yet her mother refuses to let her sing.
(1-310) 614-2416
m greardon@incendo.ca w www.incendo.ca Stand: P0.A1 Contact: Jean Bureau, pres.; Jean-Philippe Normandeau, COO; Gavin Reardon, intl. sales & coprod.; Ian Whitehead, head, prod. & dvpmt.; Michael McLaughlin, SVP & mng. dir., Fox/Incendo; Jean Vézina, VP, pgm. sales, French Canada, Fox/Incendo; Brook Peters, VP, pgm. sales, English Canada, Fox/Incendo. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Los Juniors (Drama, 10x60 min.) Inspired by true events. Four teens are trained by a ruthless drug lord to fight as a crew against a rival cartel.
Radio Silence Echo (Drama, 10x60 min.) A past-life memory, as told through the voice of a 4-year-old boy, triggers an international cold-case investigation when a dead body is found where the child said it would be. Disasterland (Drama, 10x60 min.) In search of a greater sense of purpose, Kristine Turner makes a radical mid-life decision to train as an emergency responder at the world’s most prestigious training facility. Love on Safari (MOW, 1x90 min.) American web designer Kira Slater inherits her grandparent’s wildlife reserve in Ukuthula, South Africa, but struggles to keep her grandfather’s legacy alive while also turning a profit. Love Blossoms (MOW, 1x90 min.) Perfumer Violet, desperate to formulate her late father’s unfinished signature scent, hires an inexperienced botanist with an uncanny ability to identify scents. The Queen of Sin (MOW, 1x90 min.) After a chance encounter with Jack, Posy Pinkerton seizes the opportunity to experience one last fling before settling down with her fiancé, Tom. Twisted (MOW, 1x90 min.) Kara and Tyler are planning on getting married when Tyler’s exgirlfriend returns from rehab, pulling her into a twisted game of cat and mouse. Mean Queen (MOW, 1x90 min.) Julie hopes for a fresh start when she is hired as a replacement high school teacher, but things take a dark turn when her daughter Miya becomes fast friends with the school’s resident mean girl. Mad Mom (MOW, 1x90 min.) What was supposed to be a benign first meeting of the in-laws quickly turns into a dangerous competition between Amber’s mother, Sharon, and her future mother-in-law, Jill. Radio Silence (MOW, 1x90 min.) One year after the traumatic on-air suicide of a caller named Alexis, radio host Dr. Jill Peterman reboots her show only to be the target of attacks orchestrated by a caller using the same name.
19 (Quiz format) 19 boxes, 19 questions, 19 seconds. A duel between two contestants for a cash prize. Flames of Desire (Drama) In effort to become friends again after a huge dispute, Bayram and his blood brother Salih plan to marry their children to one another. Money Monster (Game-show format) A studiobased quiz show in which contestants win the money they manage to count correctly after each right answer. Entrusted (Drama) After a car accident, Kerem holds himself responsible for the death of his wife and can’t overcome feelings of pain and guilt.
ITV STUDIOS GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT The Singing Star Strange Love (Drama, 398x30 min.) An intense love-hate relationship between two individuals in a new perspective, highlighting the dilemma of how they cannot do without one another, and at the same time cannot be with each other. Love Gamblers (Drama, 448x30 min., ongoing) The Oberoi family owns the biggest industries and hosts the most lavish parties. The ghosts of the past keep coming in front of them. Family Secrets (Drama, 312x30 min.) Seventeen-year-old Anami, abandoned at birth and adopted by a family in Banaras, returns as the sole yet reluctant heir to a royal family in Bihar and a saga begins. The Wait for Love (Drama, 120x30 min.) After a torrid romance, Prince Madhav Singh leaves a hurt and humiliated movie actress, Kamini, at the altar. Kamini delivers their love child and swears to never let her experience the ordeal she went through. The Threshold (Drama, 104x30 min.) Swadheenta confesses her love for Adarsh during his engagement to another girl. They have to convince Adarsh’s mother that they should be together. On the wedding day, tragedy strikes. This Is Love (Drama, 1,162x30 min., ongoing) The story of Raman and Ishita, who are connected by their common love for the little Ruhi. There Was a Beautiful Woman (Drama, 216x30 min.) Durga changes her identity and comes back to rewrite her own destiny and see the justice that was denied to her.
INTER MEDYA
O (90-212) 231-0102 m info@intermedya.tv w www.intermedya.tv Stand: C16.D Contact: Can Okan, CEO & fndr.; Ahmet Ziyalar, COO; Hasret Ozcan Mordeniz, general counsel; Bahar Toker Sarac, PR & mktg. exec.; Nesrin Eyüpoglu, PR & mktg. exec.; Beatriz Cea Okan, sales exec.; Sibel Levendoglu, sales exec.; Elena Pak, sales exec.; Pelin Koray, sales exec.; Lela Apa, team asst. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Pit (Drama) Çukur, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Istanbul, is ruled by the Koçova family. Although they are closely related to crime, the family has its own rules. The Perfect Couple (Reality dating format) Eleven men and eleven women looking for love compete for rooms in a luxurious house in the Caribbean.
O (44-207) 157-3690/3184 m abby.leng@itv.com, jason.wren@itv.com w www.itvstudiosge.com Stand: ITV Studios House, C16 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Love Island (Reality, U.K. version S4: 48x60 min., 4x75 min., 2x90 min.; Australian version: 20x60 min.) Singles live in a beautiful villa under the watchful gaze of the audience at home, who have the power to decide who stays and who goes.
Magical Land of Oz Magical Land of Oz (Nature, 3x60 min.) The animals that inhabit the island possess some curious oddities, as they do things a little differently Down Under. Supercar Customiser: Yianni (Ent./reality, S2: 20x30 min.) Yianni Charalambous is the car customizer to the stars. He lives life in the fast lane. He’s the man the rich and famous trust with their rides at his bespoke London garage, Yiannimize. Hospital (Doc., S3: 6x60 min., S4 coming soon) Documentary series on the NHS goes behind the scenes of some of the busiest and largest hospitals in the U.K. War of the Worlds (Drama, 3x60 min.) In the first television adaptation of the novel, we follow one man’s attempt to escape as the inhabitants of Earth slowly fall victim to a vicious invasion. West of Liberty (Drama, 6x60 min.) Laced with action and suspense, this brand-new thriller is adapted from the first novel in Thomas Engström’s acclaimed series centering on Ludwig Licht, former Stasi agent and CIA informant. Balthazar (Drama, 6x60 min.) Raphael has it all—he’s charming, handsome and intelligent. The most talented forensic pathologist of his generation, he can be fascinating as much as he can be infuriating. Dark Heart (Drama, 6x60 min.) Will Wagstaffe, a workaholic whose personal life is as troubled and complex as his day job, investigates a string of horrifying murders in this atmospheric new crime series.
JETPACK DISTRIBUTION
O (44) 7825-00-6924 m dominic.gardiner@jetpackdistribution.tv,
INTELLECTA
gillian.calvertridge@jetpackdistribution.tv
O (359) 888-308180 m marketing@intellectasrl.com
w www.jetpackdistribution.tv
w www.intellectasrl.com Stand: P-1.D51 Contact: Christina Vlahova, GM; Anna Kraeva, VP, business dvpmt., Russia & CEE; Giuseppe Zappala, VP, business dvpmt., Western Europe.
17
The Pit
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 635
Stand: R7.C26 Contact: Dominic Gardiner, CEO; Gillian Calvert Ridge, global head, sales; Rhiannon Lyons, sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Boj (Kids 3-5 2D, 50x11 min. & 1x22 min.) A show about Boj, a bilby from the Aussie Outback, his musical parents and his Boj-a-boom ideas.
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TV LISTINGS The Bangle Love, betrayal, murder—the curse of the bangle. The Guardian A mistake in the past imprisons his spirit in the house; hatred locks her spirit there. Death might be the gateway to love. Evil Box All wishes will come true, but you need to trade with your soul.
Daisy & Ollie The Cul de Sac (Kids 9-16 live-action drama, S1-3: 18x22 min.) Dystopian teen thriller that centers on Rose, who wakes one day to find the adults have mysteriously vanished. Daisy & Ollie (Kids 4-6 2D, 52x7 min., 1x22min. & 22x1.5 min. nursery rhymes) Encourages young children to be curious and question the world around them. Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed (Kids 6-11 3D, 52x11 min.) Brand-new comedy featuring the star of the world’s longest-running comic, The Beano. Yoko (Kids 4-6 2D, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 14x12 min. in prod.) Follows the adventures of three children whose playful energy and enthusiasm awakens the magical creature Yoko. Talking Tom & Friends (Kids 6+ 3D, S1: 52x11 min., S2: 28x11 min., S3: 28x11 min. in dvpmt.) Follows the adventures of the global app sensation Talking Tom and Friends. Kitty is Not a Cat (Kids 6-10 2D, 52x12 min.) A young girl is taken in by a household of cats with hilarious and charming results. The Sisters (Kids 6-11 2D, 52x12 min.) A show about two sisters, Marie and Wendy, who have very strong and different personalities. Wolf (Kids 4-6 2D, S1-2: 156x7 min.) The show is about Wolf, who is friendly, endearing and always up for an adventure. Kazoops (Kids 3-7 3D, 78x7 min. & 1x22 min.) Monty, a spirited boy of 6, embarks on imaginary musical adventures with his friend to discover fresh perspectives on life.
JKN GLOBAL MEDIA
O (66) 2482-2273-4 m marketing@jknglobal.com w www.jknglobal.com Stand: P-1.C64 Contact: Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, CEO; Pimauma Jakrajutatip, chief admin. officer; Banpot Chawangorn, chief investment officer; Krittini Silpi, content dvpmt. dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Love Destiny One soul lives in the past, another soul lives in present. Destiny has brought two souls together. Nakee She has yearned for her lover for a thousand years. It’s time to get her lover back and take revenge on her enemies. Rising Sun I & Rising Sun 2 If your life is standing among family, responsibility, tradition and honor, can you leave everything behind for love? Switch Their souls are switched into the wrong bodies by destiny. But finally destiny brings them the love of their lives. Love Beyond Time When love is beyond time, the bed becomes a time machine to let her find her true love. Victims of Love The fires of desire and passion have burned everyone’s hearts into ashes.
KANAL D INTERNATIONAL
O (90-212) 413-6090 m dilara.kervancioglu@kanald.com.tr w kanald.international Stand: R9.A32 Contact: Emrah Turna, exec. dir.; Mikaela Perez, sales exec., Americas, Spain; Selim Türkmen, sales exec., Western Europe, MENA, Africa; Salmi Gambarova, sales exec., CIS, Asia, Australia; Ekin Koyuncu, sales exec., CEE; Dilara Kervancioglu, operations specialist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Price of Passion (Romance drama, 96x45 min.) Ferhat is a hitman working for his criminal uncle. Asli is a young and idealistic doctor. One day, their paths cross in the most unexpected way.
Price of Passion Wounded Love (Historical drama, 168x45 min.) Set along the beauty of the Aegean coastline, this epic romance asks if love can stay unwounded in the face of betrayal. Big Fat Lies (Drama) While questioning love, loyalty and their marriage, three women will face all the facts that they have not realized until that day. For My Son (Drama, 82x130 min./241x45 min.) Suspended from the police force for a crime he didn’t commit, Poyraz Karayel loses everything he cared for. Sunshine Girls (Drama, 39x135 min./113x45 min.) Günes and Haluk Mertoglu are in love and wish to marry. Secrets will come to light and nothing will be the same. Sweet Revenge (Romance drama, 30x140 min./82x45 min.) Pelin, unlucky with her love life, finally decides to marry the man of her dreams—but the groom, Tolga, gets lost on the wedding day. Matter of Respect (Family drama, 26x130 min./76x45 min.) Two brothers decide to avenge their father’s death. One will choose the rule of the law, the other the way of organized crime. Waiting for the Sun (Drama, 54x110 min.) Will Zeynep, raised by a single mom, find happiness and her missing father in Istanbul? A.K.A. The Legend (Teen drama, 29x140 min./86x45 min.) After a car accident forces a legendary basketball player to retire, he finds himself coaching troubled kids at a local high school.
KESHET INTERNATIONAL
O (972-3) 767-6031 m info@keshetinternational.com w www.keshetinternational.com
Love Destiny
based narrative where martial arts, honor and betrayal rule the land. 100 Days to Victory (Doc., 2x60 min.) Through cinematic recreations, interviews with top historians and CGI, offers an account of the last 100 days of the First World War, telling the story of how the Allied generals strategized to win the war.
Stand: R8.C9 Contact: Alon Shtruzman, CEO; Keren Shahar, COO & pres., dist.; Sammy Nourmand, mng. dir., U.K. & Western Europe; Kelly Wright, VP, dist. & new business; Limor Gott-Ronen, VP, mktg. & comm.; Sebastian Burkhardt, SVP, digital & acq.; Anke Stoll, dir., acq. & coprod.; Nicola Andrews, sales & commercial snr. dir., kids; Paula Cohen McHarg, snr. sales mgr.; Rose Hughes, snr. sales mgr.; Axel Kühn, mng. dir., Tresor; Peter Schweizer, head, dvpmt., Tresor.
Stockholm PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Showdown—Aviv/Eyal (Talent show, 21x75 min. format) Two of Israel’s most popular performers take their well-known rivalry to another level in a bid to discover Israel’s next great singing talent. Stockholm (Drama, 4x40 min. & format) The leading candidate for the Nobel Prize for economics is found dead in his bed after an apparent heart attack just five days before the winners are announced. Autonomies (Drama, 5x45 min.) A dystopian drama set in an alternate reality of present-day Israel, focuses on the burning issues of identity, religion, politics and personal freedom. Trucking Hell (Factual, 10x60 min.) Follows the men and women who take on super-sized transport jobs in the world of heavy vehicle rescue. Senior Year (Drama, 15x46 min & format) Two high school students document their final year and share their journey on social media. Anna’s 12 Steps to Love (Docureality, 6x60 min.) With the help of a psychologist, celebrity dancer Anna throws herself into a journey of selfdiscovery, hoping that it will lead her to true love. Trauma Team (Docureality) Join the team at Barnsley Hospital’s A&E department and discover the doctors’ and nurses’ perspective of life on the medical fast lane. Tower Block Kids (Factual, 2x60 min.) Follows eight children and their parents as they explain what it’s like growing up in a tower block. Elvis and Benny (Kids animation, 26x5.5 min.) Best friends Elvis and Benny have the most amazing wacky adventures in a fantasy world full of crazy creatures. Behind the Mask: The Youth Center Case (True crime, 3x75 min.) Doc exposes Israel’s most expensive police investigation, into the 2009 shooting at the Youth Bar in Tel Aviv—a crime that, to this day, remains unsolved.
KEW MEDIA DISTRIBUTION
O (44-207) 851-6500 w www.kewmedia.com
Stand: C15.A6 Contact: Steven Silver, fndr. & CEO, Kew Media Group; Peter Sussman, fndr. & chmn., Kew Media Group; Greg Phillips, pres.; Jonathan Ford, EVP, sales; Carrie Stein, EVP, global scripted series; Vicky Ryan, EVP, commercial affairs; Jennifer Brinkworth, EVP, mktg. & comms.; Mark Benmore, SVP, sales; Stephen Joy, VP, sales; Tom Bairstow, VP, sales; Jennifer Askin, VP, sales; Hana Palmer, VP, sales; Maria Ibarra, dir., sales; Becci Payne, dir., sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (Drama, 8x60 min. & S1-2: 7x60 min.) The new installment from the franchise, set during the mid-1950s, captures the lives of four women with extraordinary intelligence, breathtaking capacity for pattern recognition and a genius for decryption. Frankie Drake Mysteries (Detective drama, S2: 10x60 min., S1: 11x60 min.) Set in 1921, follows Toronto’s first female private detectives as they solve cases the police can’t, and other detective agencies won’t. Care (Event drama, 1x90 min.) From Emmyand multi-BAFTA-Award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern, stars Sheridan Smith as a single mother struggling to raise her two children in the aftermath of a family tragedy. The Dead Lands (Drama, 8x60 min.) Based on the globally successful international film set in pre-European Polynesia, the English-language version takes audiences into an action-adventure-
636 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco The Brigade: Race to the Hudson (Nonfiction, 8x60 min.) With $500,000 at stake, ten strangers must work together to conquer a cross-country wilderness race, traveling 1000 km across the York Factory Express, a historic fur trade route. Haunted Hospitals (Nonfiction, 13x60 min.) Tells the chilling stories of paranormal activity inside hospitals, nursing homes, morgues and medical institutions. Paranormal 911 (Nonfiction, 13x60 min.) Each year, over 250 million 911 calls are made in North America—an alarming number lead to paranormal encounters. This series explores these real-life events through the accounts of the first responders. Chuck Berry (Biopic doc., 1x100 min.) Director Jon Brewer was personally selected by the Berry Estate to produce and direct this exclusive insight into the man known as the bedrock of rock ‘n’ roll. Killer In Plain Sight (Crime nonfiction, 52x30 min.) Features cases of murder where the detectives look at all those involved as a suspect, and must filter the lies from the truth in order to crack the case.
LACEY ENTERTAINMENT
O (1-646) 220-2507 m laceyent@gmail.com
w www.laceyentertainment.com Stand: VIP/Buyers Lounge Contact: Brian Lacey, pres. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Kiva Can Do! (Children’s, 104x11 min.) New season of the series featuring Kiva, a young girl with a wonderful imagination. Along with best friend Saul and her dog Angus, Kiva conceives amazing adventures that bring them around the world and beyond.
Kiva Can Do! Dinosaur King (Children’s, 79x22 min.) Featuring a fun-loving ensemble cast of kid characters combined with CG-animated dinosaur battles, this is a fantasy adventure series that underscores the timeless appeal of dinosaurs. America’s Dumbest Criminals (Light ent., 104x22 min.) Features stories and dramatic reenactments along with surveillance camera footage that proves that crime can be funny when the criminal is a victim of his own incompetence.
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TV LISTINGS 19
LIONSGATE ENTERTAINMENT
MARVISTA ENTERTAINMENT
w www.lionsgate.com
w www.marvista.net
Stand: C15.A8 Contact: Aarti Mandelia, sales, India; Agapy Kapouranis, EVP, worldwide SVOD; Amit Dhanuka, EVP, India operations; Annie Yim, VP, sales, Asia; Belinda Lam, mgr., sales; Brian Tannenbaum, SVP, alternative pgmng.; Chase Brisbin, VP, worldwide digital & SVOD; Chris Selak, EVP & head, worldwide, scripted TV; David Luner, EVP, worldwide TV mktg.; Dawn Flagg, mgr., events; Elissa Shenkman, VP, events; Gabriella Ballabio, cnslt., sales, Spain & Italy; Gene George, EVP, worldwide dist.; Gisela Minnberg, VP, alternative pgmng.; Jamie Phillips, mgr., sales; Jennifer O’Connell, EVP, alternative pgmng.; Jim Packer, pres., worldwide TV & digital dist.; Kara McKinney, dir., worldwide AVOD/SVOD; Katarina Eriksson, sales dir.; Kevin Beggs, chmn., TV Group; Lawrence Szabo, EVP, North American TV sales; Magdalene Cheung, mgr., dist.; Mark James, exec. dir., sales; Maryann Pasante, SVP, LatAm sales; Meggan Kimberley, VP, worldwide dist.; Nazneen Sethi, head, sales, U.K.; Nicola Pearcey, pres., U.K. dist.; Paula Warwick, cnslt., intl. TV sales; Peter Iacono pres., intl. TV & digital dist.; Phaedra HargraveJames, mgr., sales; Sam Ellis, contract & sales mgr.; Sandra Stern, pres. TV Group; Suzy Feldman, SVP, worldwide TV mktg.; Thomas Hughes, EVP, worldwide digital; Thomas Morton, mgr., digital lic.; Tom Reveler, digital account dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Rook (Drama, 8x60 min.) A young woman wakes up in a London park suffering total amnesia and pursued by shadowy paranormal adversaries. Grappling with supernatural abilities of her own, she must fight to uncover her past and resume her position at the head of Britain’s secret service.
Stand: R9.A9 Contact: Fernando Szew, CEO; Jody Cipriano, head, dist. & acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Back of the Net (Kids/family, 1x90 min.) After a transportation mistake, a science fanatic must complete a semester at a soccer academy while making friends, avoiding bullies and learning a new sport.
O (1-310) 449-9200 m general-inquiries@lionsgate.com
The Spanish Princess The Spanish Princess (Event series, 8x60 min.) The story of Catherine of Aragon, who finds her future as Queen in question and at the mercy of a divided Tudor court under the threat of enemies both abroad and closer to home. You Kiddin’ Me?! (Unscripted, 10x30 min.) A comedic prank series that peeks into the family relationships of Hollywood stars as children prank their famous parents and the unsuspecting public. BoJack Horseman (Comedy, 61x30 min.) BoJack Horseman was the legendary star of a hit 1990s sitcom; 18 years later, the washedup former celebrity is trying to find his way back to fame through a muddle of selfloathing, alcoholism and failed relationships. I Love You America (Comedy, 21x30 min.) Sarah Silverman’s new variety sketch show delivers hilarious comedy and at the same time works to spread the message that people should not be divided by their differences in beliefs.
O (1-424) 274-3000 m sales@marvista.net
Back of the Net Surrounded (Thriller/action, 1x90 min.) Two sisters must use their strength, resourcefulness and immense courage to survive horrific shark attacks. The Perfect Christmas Village (Christmas/ holiday, 1x90 min.) After magically waking up in her miniature Christmas village, a woman learns that the holiday season is about more than just perfection. A Wicked Vendetta (Thriller, 1x90 min.) When her daughter is abducted with no demand for ransom, an ex-hostage negotiator will do anything to find her. A Holiday Wish Come True (Christmas/holiday, 1x90 min.) Two sisters’ only wish is to spend the holidays as a family, forcing their divorced parents to work out their issues and find love again. The Sinister Surrogate (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A couple hires a surrogate to bear their child but things take a turn for the worse when they realize her true intentions. Cradles For Cash (Thriller, 1x90 min.) After her newborn baby is stolen from the hospital, a woman must go to great lengths to get her child back. Sins and Seduction (Thriller, 1x90 min.) When a soft-spoken yet possessive parishioner begins to exhibit strange behavior, a pastor must save his soul before it’s too late. Fallen Queen (Thriller, 1x90 min.) A couple fights to keep a former child beauty queen from destroying their lives, but soon discovers that the intended victim is their own daughter. Christmas Makeover (Christmas/holiday, 1x90 min.) A workaholic advertising executive is sent to Christmas Bootcamp to remember what makes the holidays special and restore her Christmas cheer.
Who Am I?! The Judas (Format, 12x10 min.) Interactive crime investigation format that invites six players to go beyond the fiction by immersing themselves at the heart of an alternative reality game. Verdict On Demand (Court TV reality format, S1-4) A well-known judge and presenter solve neighborly disputes and deep-rooted conflicts in 12 hours. Legal House Call (Court TV reality format) A legal expert makes house visits to desperate people struggling with various legal issues they can’t resolve themselves. Pay It Forward (Reality format, 8x60 min.) The show finds people who need help to change their lives for the better. Once a person has received help, he or she must “pay it forward.” Thunderstruck (Dating game format, 13x30 min.) Three single men and three single women must find their love match by answering questions and digging for clues and dirt on social media. True Sex Confessions (Factual format, 13x30 min.) Adults share their most memorable sexual encounters in a frank and intimate way. As the story unfolds, the highlights are reenacted. Who Am I?! (Celeb. panel format, 21x45 min., 24x70 min.) In this game show two teams of celebrities are facing a huge identity crisis and are trying to find out who, what and where they are. Face It (Social experiment format) The internet has given a voice to thousands, perhaps millions of anonymous, cowardly trolls. It’s time to lure them from under the bridge and make them face the people they have hurt.
MEDIASET ESPAÑA
O (34-91) 396-6300 m info@mediaset.es w www.mediaset.es,
www.sales.mediaset.es Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Ghislain Barrois, dir., acq. rights; Leonardo Baltanás, prod. division; Miguel Vila, head, formats; Alejandro López Armendariz, head, editorial dept.; Silvia Cotino, head, intl. sales; Rocío Cachero, sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Vivir Sin Permiso (Unauthorized Living) (Series, 13x75 min.) A story about passions, strong rivalries and conflicted interests within a family that is headed by a Galician drug kingpin. Second season confirmed.
Secretos de Estado (State Secrets) (Series, 13x70 min.) Political thriller about an assassination attempt on the Spanish Prime Minister. Sé Quién Eres (I Know Who You Are) (Series, 16x75 min.) New thriller created by Pau Freixas (The Red Band Society) about the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a young girl, where the main suspect is her uncle. Lo Que Escondían Sus Ojos (Hidden Behind Her Eyes) (Series, 4x75 min.) A story about the beautiful, intelligent and modern aristocrat who was involved with Ramón Serrano Suñer, Franco’s brother in law and a minister of Spain. Los Nuestros (Our Guys) (Series, 3x70 min.) Two children have been kidnapped in Mali by a Salafist terrorist group. The mission of the Spanish army is to bring them home. El Process (Catalonia’s Process) (Doc., 2x60 min.) Explores the real relationship between Catalonia and Spain from the perspective of what is happening in the streets, in the markets and within the families. Misión Exclusiva (Exclusive Mission) (Doc., 3x60 min.) How do paparazzi manage to capture images in the Pitiusan Islands? Me Cambio De Apellido (Switching Families) (Format) Two families from opposite ends of the spectrum will swap lives for a few days. Mi Casa Es La Tuya (My House Is Yours) (Format) Weekly program focused on interviews with a wide variety of celebrities, from the home of the guest or the host.
MEDIATOON DISTRIBUTION
O (33-1) 5326-3100 m aude.rimbault-joffard@mediatoon.com w www.mediatoon-distribution.com Stand: P-1.E61 Contact: Jérôme Alby, mng. dir.; Clément Arnault, business affairs & new media; Isabelle Denis, commercial dir., Dreamwall & Keywall; Laurent Duvault, dir., dvpmt.; Caroline Duvochel, deputy GM, Ellipsanime; Mélanie Errea, business affairs & sales; Fanny Gilabert, business affairs & sales; Hervé Godinot, snr. sales admin. & traffic; Livia Guffanti, intl. sales mgr.; Samar Hachem, youth animation film project mgr.; Jérôme Leclercq, mng. dir., Mediatoon Lic.; Julien Papelier, dir. gen., Éditions Dupuis; Léon Pérahia, dir. gen, Dupuis Audiovisuel; Olivier Perrard, GM, Mediatoon Lic.; Aude Rimbault-Joffard, mktg. & comm. dir.; Claude de Saint Vincent, CEO, Media Participations; Benoît de Tauriac, dir., dvpmt., Citel; Maïa Tubiana, producer. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Fox-Badger Family (Preschool, 52x12 min.) When Mrs. Fox and her daughter move in to live with the Badger family, they learn to accept their differences and go on great adventures.
MEDIA RANCH
O (1-514) 315-4548 m info@mediaranch.tv
The Fox-Badger Family
w mediaranch.tv Stand: P0.A1 Contact: Sophie Ferron, CEO & exec. producer; Tanja van der Goes, SVP, Media Ranch Europe; Viviane Rheault, associate producer. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Ex-pert (Factual format, 13x60 min.) Follows a high-profile divorce lawyer and a family psychologist as they conciliate divorced couples. The Vault (Reality game format, 10x50 min.) A new reality game show that sees 12 contestants get the chance to plan and carry out their own epic bank heist.
Vivir Sin Permiso La Verdad (Truth) (Series, S1-2: 16x75 min.) A girl appears in a coastal town claiming to be someone who disappeared under strange circumstances a decade ago. A young and ambitious policeman is in charge of the investigation.
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Martin Morning (Young kids comedy, 52x13 min.) Our young ginger hero, Martin, continues to wake up each morning in the shoes of a new character. Little Furry (Preschool comedy, 78x7 min.) Little Furry is an endearing character who throws himself into extraordinary universes where anything is possible. The Minimighty Kids & The Minimighty Squad (Kids comedy, 234x7 min.) New feelgood series teaches young viewers to accept themselves for who they are and that flaws can be turned into superpowers. Lucas etc. (Family/co-viewing comedy, 25x7 min.) When Lucas and his mum move in with his new stepfamily, life isn’t going to be easy.
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TV LISTINGS
Teen Crumpets (Comedy, 52x13 min.) The wacky family is back, with a focus on the teens. Follow the musical, spiritual, ecological and romantic adventures of Pfff, Caprice, Cassandra, Marylin, Larry and Cordless. MaXi (Kids comedy, 26x11 min.) Dive into the fantasy world of Vakarma, where music, nature and laughter intertwine. Follow the incredible adventures of Mara and Xilo. Miru Miru (Kids edutainment, 50x5 min.) Miru is a curious little sea otter with a big imagination. Join Miru on a remarkable journey of friendship and discovery. Bobby & Bill (Young kids comedy, 104x12 min.) The three buddies are inseparable, and together they go on crazy and fun adventures. With his cheeky and unusual pets by his side, Bobby can do (almost) anything. Yakari (Kids adventure/edutainment, 156x13 min.) Yakari lives a great adventure every day in the wilderness with his best friends. He is the bravest little Sioux boy and has a magical gift.
METRO GOLDWYN MAYER
O (1-310) 449-3000 m bgurstein@mgm.com w www.mgm.com
Stand: R9.A30 Contact: Chris Ottinger, pres., worldwide TV dist. & acq.; Paul Bischoff, EVP, intl. dist., EMEA; Charles Farmer, SVP & mng. dir., U.K., China & European coprod.; Greg Robertson, mng. dir. & SVP, intl. TV dist., AsiaPac; Alex Peschak, SVP, intl. TV dist., EMEA; Matt Vassallo, SVP, intl. TV dist.; Caroline Edwards, SVP, sales, Australia; Tomas Davison, SVP, TV dist., LatAm; Shaila Chopra, VP, intl. TV dist., EMEA; Lesley Drukker, VP, intl. TV dist.; Deblina Charkabarty, VP, intl. TV dist., EMEA; Guro Viddal, VP, intl. TV dist., EMEA; Ludo Attal, VP, intl. unscripted TV & formats. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Four Weddings and a Funeral (Romantic comedy, 10x60 min.) Inspired by the film, the series from Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton will follow a group of friends as their lives intersect through five events.
Condor Our Lady, LTD (Drama, 10x60 min.) Follows a young grifter as he attempts to prey upon a pastor (Ben Kingsley), who turns out to be far more dangerous than he suspects. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (Drama, 10x60 min.) Patrick Dempsey stars as literary icon Harry Quebert, who is indicted for murder after the body of a girl is found buried on his property. Condor (Spy thriller, 10x60 min.) A young CIA analyst stumbles onto a terrible but brilliant plan that threatens the lives of millions. Starring Max Irons and William Hurt. The Contender (Reality/competition/sports, 12x60 min.) A new version of the seminal boxing franchise, produced by Mark Burnett, that launched multiple boxers into contention for world titles. The Addams Family (Animated comedy) Based on the famous New Yorker creations of Charles Addams, the family face off against a crafty reality TV host while preparing for their extended family celebration, Addams-style. The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Drama/thriller) A first-time adaptation of the global bestseller, starring Claire Foy as the outcast vigilante defender Lisbeth Salander.
Creed II (Drama) The next chapter in the Adonis Creed story follows his life inside and outside of the ring as he deals with new-found fame, issues with his family, and his continuing quest to become a champion. Fighting with My Family (Biopic/comedy/drama) A reformed gangster and wrestler makes a living performing with his family. The kids get the chance to audition for WWE and learn that becoming a WWE Superstar demands more than they imagined. The Hustle (Comedy) Two scam artists compete to swindle a naive tech prodigy out of his fortune. Starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson.
MISTCO
O (90-216) 695-1300 m info@mistco.tv w www.mistco.tv Stand: P-1.N51 Contact: Aysegul Tuzun, VP, sales & mktg.; Beyza Nur Torun, sales & mktg. mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Hold My Hand (Romance drama, 100x45 min.) The love story between a well-educated, beautiful girl, Azra, and a spoiled boy, Cenk, starts with a tragedy but later becomes fortune.
Hold My Hand Resurrection: Ertugrul (Drama, 360x45 min., S5 in prod.) In this great story from the 13th century, Ertugrul is struggling to find a home for his tribe and the woman he is in love with. Two Parts One Love (Family drama, 100x45 min.) One impossible love between people from two parts of the country. Zeynep and Deniz fall in love although their parents fight each other every day. The Last Emperor (Drama, S1-2: 189x45 min.) Sheds light on the real-life story of the last, strongest Ottoman Emperor, Abdulhamid Han, who faced many schemes to dethrone him. The Prisoner of Love (Romance drama, 227x45 min.) The story of two young people who end up in a contractual marriage while hating each other. Aslan (Animation, 39x11 min.) Aslan is a little inventor who loves to imagine and create new devices with his friends and grandpa. Momo (Animation, 39x13 min.) Funny and entertaining story of a bunny named Momo, who has a special ability to find lost items, and his friends. Ege and Gaga (Animation, 62x7 min.) A little boy named Ege and his best friend Gaga, a talking crow, explore nature and their surroundings. Jade (Animation, 39+x13 min.) Jade is a smart girl, ambitious to learn math with some help from her little friends, the Mat Mats. Erdem: Little Treasures Bookstore (Animation, 24+x13 min.) Erdem and his friends become characters in each book they read at the mysterious bookstore and go on various adventures.
Food Gone Pop Notorious Crimes (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) Examines some of the world’s most shocking, gruesome and notorious crimes of all time. Cursed Bloodlines (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) From royal families spanning centuries to billionaire business tycoons and their clans, examines real-life historical instances of tragically ill-fated bloodlines. Mysterious Earth (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) Uncovers the world’s most mysterious locations, histories and phenomena. Drug Stars (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) A portrayal of the lives and eccentricities of the infamous drug lords that became pop culture icons. Killer Instincts (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) With impactful imagery and engaging narration we will immerse ourselves in the savage arena of the world’s deadliest animals. Daily Vibes (Docuseries/ent., 1x3 min.) New digital magazine delivers a daily fix on what’s hot and what’s not, music and celeb news. Animaltastic (Children’s, 13x30 min.) A family show with some of the funniest and cutest wildlife video clips as well as fun facts about our favorite animals in the world. Digital Package A series of short-form videos portraying original content, supported by the powerful Getty image library, and specifically designed for social media. Zara: The Rise of a Fast Fashion Empire (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) The story of how Amancio Ortega built the Zara chain of stores, changing the world of fashion by making haute couture accessible to the everyday woman.
MONDO TV
O (39-06) 8632-3293 m micheline.azoury@mondotvgroup.com w www.mondotv.com Stand: P-1.M2/N1 Contact: Orlando Corradi, pres.; Matteo Corradi, CEO; Paolo Zecca, chief prod. officer; Micheline Azoury, head, acq. & TV sales; Alessandro Venturi, intl. sales mgr.; Theo Kouroglou, intl. sales mgr.; Maria B. Fois, GM, Mondo TV Iberoamerica; Dimitri Papanikas, sales exec., Mondo TV Iberoamerica; Valentina La Macchia, dir., consumer products. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Heidi Bienvenida a Casa & Heidi Bienvenida al Show (Live action, S1: 60x45 min./120x24 min., S2: 60x45 min./120x24 min.) A co-production with Alianzas Producciones, an adaptation of the famous story of Heidi, one of the best-loved characters in fiction, with a mix of music, humor, comedy, color, magic and extraordinary characters. Invention Story (Comedy adventure CGI, 104x11 min.) Co-produced with York Animation, the tale of a creative young fox whose inventions delight the inhabitants of Carrot Town and infuriate the angry, jealous mayor.
MOBIUS.LAB PRODUCTIONS
O (1-305) 442-3411
Contact: Ailing Zubizarreta, VP, creative services; Gladys Rosinol, exec. account dir. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Food Gone Pop (Docuseries/ent., 13x30 min.) A look at popular foods that are consumed worldwide, highlighting how these famous creations were born and have evolved to impact our culture as inspiration for art, jewelry and even amusement parks.
Sissi the Young Empress
638 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Robot Trains (Comedy adventure CGI, S2: 52x11 min.) A co-production between Mondo TV and CJ ENM, season two introduces Rail Watch, the trusted robot train guardians of Rail World, who transform from trains to robots to protect their home and its vital energy supplies. YooHoo to the Rescue (Comedy adventure CGI, 52x11 min.) Based on the Aurora World plush toys, five friends help endangered animals in a show that aims to inspire respect for the environment. MeteoHeroes (Comedy adventure 2D, 52x7 min.) Addresses issues like climate change, ecology and respect for nature through the amazing adventures of six children who transform into superheroes with power over the weather. Sissi the Young Empress (Comedy adventure CGI, S3: 52x11 min.) Sissi has now achieved her dreams of love with her beloved Franz but is still the little rebellious princess getting in trouble with the Empress mother, Sofia. Adventures in Duckport (Comedy adventure 2D, 52x11 min.) The popular Suzy’s Zoo characters try to be helpful and save the day, although things don’t always go according to plan. Cuby Zoo (Preschool comedy adventure CGI, 52x11 min.) They look like toys but come to life when humans are away and play a vital but anonymous role in keeping the world in balance. The Treasure Island (Adventure 3D, 26x26 min.) Inspired by the Robert Louis Stevenson masterpiece, the story deals with incredible adventures of Jim Hawkins, the narrator of the stories.
MOTION PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT
O (34-93) 200-2500 m info@motionpic.com w motionpic.com
Stand: R7.F15/H14 Contact: Tony Albert, CEO & sales dir.; Oscar Albert, acq. mgr.; Jorge Patiño Donaggio, sales mgr. & exec. producer. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS MyaGO (Preschool, 104x5.5 min.) Animated show about a young girl whose enthusiasm infects everyone around her. With her fearless sense of adventure, she tries things for the first time with a go-getter attitude. Misha the Purple Cat (Preschool, 78x7 min.) Misha is a very bubbly, sharp cat who takes interest in investigating everything that goes on around her. Horaci the Inuit (Preschool, 35x6 min.) This series will transport you to the Lands of the North where, together with his best friend Sedna, Horaci will have to solve all kinds of mysteries.
MyaGO Pumpkin Reports (Kids 6-10 comedy, 52x11 min.) Max Green lived a carefree life with his loving parents in quiet Cucurtown until he discovered that his newly adopted brother and sister are aliens bent on taking over the Earth. Glumpers (Kids 6-10 non-dialogue comedy, 104x2 min.) Imagine what happens in a house inhabited by six beings with completely conflicting personalities. Van Dogh (Preschool/educational, 104x4 min.) Yon, Pan and Kit meet Van Dogh, a painter dog who makes magical drawings that become visual puzzles for children to solve. Boom & Reds (Preschool/educational nondialogue, 104x4 min.) In every episode Boom, a friendly purple ogre, will try to find out what a big crowd of peppy little mushroom-headed creatures, the Reds, are drawing on the floor.
*LIST_1018_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 9/28/18 9:15 AM Page 21
TV LISTINGS 21 Telmo and Tula—Little Cooks (Kids 5-9, 52x7 min.) Two brothers teach children to cook easy recipes, supervised by a parent and accompanied by their pet Paquito, a friendly mouse. Telmo and Tula—Arts & Crafts (Kids 5-9, 52x7 min.) Telmo and Tula will teach children how to develop their own arts and crafts skills using all kinds of materials. Zumbers (Preschool/educational, 150x3 min.) Educational cartoon series that helps preschoolers learn the numbers up to 20.
MULTICOM ENTERTAINMENT GROUP
O (1-310) 693-8818 m info@multicom.tv w www.multicom.tv
Stand: R7.F28 Contact: Irv Holender, chmn.; Darrin Holender, pres.; Niloo Badie, VP, sales & dist.; Jesse Baritz, dir., content acq. & pgmng. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS For Now (Comedy/drama) Fully improvised film about four Australians who take a road trip to California to audition for dance school. Streaker (Film) In order to get out of a financial crisis, a high school teacher starts recruiting and training streakers for illegal sports betting. 4K Restorations Since mid-2017, Multicom Entertainment Group has completed more than 20 film restorations from 35mm and 16mm film to digital 4K and UHD.
For Now Remarkable Life of John Weld (Film) From working in Hollywood as a stunt double throughout the ‘20s to becoming an acclaimed journalist and novelist, John Weld led a remarkable life. Shadow of Suribachi: Sammy’s Story (Film) Sammy Bernstein’s story of two battles: his 36 days of hell on Iwo Jima and serving as a Jew in the World War II Marine Corps. The Grapevine (Channel) Multicom’s unscripted channel will enlighten, touch and inspire you with true stories, interviews and reality programming. The Archive (Channel) Boasts rare, retro and restored films and classic TV series featuring stars and acclaimed storytellers.
NBCUNIVERSAL INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION
O (1-818) 777-1300 m www.nbcuniversal.com
Stand: P4.C4 Contact: Kevin MacLellan, chmn., global dist. & intl.; Belinda Menendez, pres. & chief revenue officer, global dist. & intl.; Don McGregor, EVP, sales liaison, intl. dist.; Rob Bell, EVP, intl. new media; Satpal Brainch, mng. dir., dist. & networks, EMEA; Justin Che, mng. dir., AsiaPac, dist. & networks; Chris Taylor, mng. dir., dist. & networks, Australia & NZ; Rajiv Dhawn, SVP, sales liaison, Asia; Carolyn Stalins, SVP, dist., EMEA; Liz Avery, SVP, sales liaison, U.K., Eire, MENA, Israel, Turkey, Russia & CIS; Maxim Mikhailov, SVP, sales liaison & mng. dir., corporate Russia; Sven Noth, SVP, sales liaison, GAS & CEE; Maria Sanchez, SVP, sales liaison, LatAm; Chloe van den Berg, SVP, head, kids & family ent.; Olivia King Canter, VP, sales liaison, kids & family ent.; Anne-Lorraine Villeroy, VP, sales liaison, France & Africa; Daryna Pyrogova, VP, sales liaison, CEE; Paul Mayanja, VP, sales
liaison, Africa; Dave Lipp, VP, sales liaison, Middle East; Eliza Milbank, VP, sales liaison, Italy; Tamara Misert, VP, sales liaison, Spain & Portugal; Orjan Olsson, VP, sales liaison, Benelux & Nordic; Doug Davis, VP, intl. new media; Ben Cowling, dir., sales liaison, Benelux & Greece. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS New Amsterdam (Drama, 13x60 min.) Medical drama follows the brilliant and charming Dr. Max Goodwin, the institution’s newest medical director who sets out to tear up the bureaucracy and provide exceptional care. Magnum P.I. (Drama, 13x60 min.) Centers on Thomas Magnum, a former Navy SEAL who returns home from Afghanistan to become a private investigator in Hawaii. The Enemy Within (Drama, 13x60 min.) FBI Agent Will Keaton grudgingly enlists Erica Shepherd, brilliant former CIA operative and notorious American traitor, to help track down an elusive criminal.
New Amsterdam The Inbetween (Drama, 10x60 min.) Cassie Bishop reluctantly uses her psychic abilities to help her longtime friend Det. Tom Hackett and his new partner solve challenging cases. The Village(Drama, 10x60 min.) Chronicles a unique apartment building in Brooklyn whose residents have built a bonded family of friends and neighbors. DreamWorks Where’s Waldo? (Animated, S12: 40x30 min.) Follow Waldo and Wenda as they inquisitively travel the globe, celebrating diverse cultures in their quest to earn their Wanderer stripes. I Feel Bad (Comedy, 13x30 min.) Emet is figuring out life like the rest of us. From executive producer Amy Poehler comes a modern comedy about being perfectly okay with being imperfect. Get A Room with Carson & Thom (Reality, 10x60 min.) Thom Filicia takes Carson Kressley under his wing to teach him interior design by channeling Carson’s impeccable sense for fashion. The Titan Games (Competition, 10x60 min.) Dwayne Johnson inspires this new athletic competition series offering everyday people the opportunity to be challenged in incredible headto-head battles designed to test their fortitude. Falsa Identidad (Telenovela, 86x60 min.) Two strangers assume new identities as a happily married couple in an effort to evade their nemeses and survive.
NHK ENTERPRISES
O (81-3) 3468-6984 m info-w@nhk-ep.co.jp w pf.nhk-ep.co.jp
Stand: P-1.C51 Contact: Akira Ichikawa, GM, pgm. sales; Kayoko Ohmae, exec. mgr., pgm. sales; Akiko Nakano, exec. mgr., pgm. sales; Shintaro Kanbayashi, exec. mgr., pgm. sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Marble Brothers’ Great Adventure! (Children/education, 1x15 min.) The Marble Brothers face the evil Black Ball Army in this adventure with pitfalls, drawbridges and paper cups. Bodypedia (Children/education, 26x10 min.) A unique perspective on the human body for a young audience featuring 4K microscope images and CGI from the science series The Body. Pingu in the City (Animation, S2: 26x7 min.) The cheeky penguin is back in this new adventure in the city. He meets penguins holding interesting jobs and wants to help.
receive a sum of money—their age times $100— on their birthday to use as they please. A camera follows their journey as they try to find the best gift to enrich their lives.
Wildlife—Survival Instincts: Iguana vs. Basilisk Out of the Cradle (Science, 3x49 min.) The story of how the human family evolved told through the latest in paleoanthropology, featuring CGI by the world’s top video-game creators. Einstein’s Brain Unlocked (Science, 1x52 min.) NHK goes on an extraordinary journey in pursuit of Einstein’s brain fragments scattered around the world to “recreate” it as a 3D CGI model. Wildlife—Survival Instincts: Iguana vs. Basilisk (Natural history, 1x50 min.) A part of the Wildlife series, this episode features the lizards of Costa Rica: the basilisk, famous for running on water, and the iguana. Denali—The Ultimate Descent (Adventure, 1x49 min.) Daredevil skier Daisuke Sasaki embarks on a death-defying descent down the southwest face of Denali, the peak formerly known as Mount McKinley (6,190 meters). Big Wave Surfers—Pursuit of the World’s Biggest Waves (Adventure, 1x50 min.) The cameras follow daredevil professional surfers who gather in Nazare, Portugal, to challenge monster waves that can reach the height of an eight-story building. Half Blue Sky (Drama, 156x15 min.) A girl loses half her hearing but lives life to the fullest, with support from her loving family and childhood friend Ritsu. Cinderella Network (Ent./format, 45 min. eps.) This makeover show connects ordinary girls with YouTubers who give practical advice online.
NIPPON TV
O (81-3) 6215-3036 m nippontv-ibd@ntv.co.jp w www.ntv.co.jp/english Stand: P-1.F55 Contact: Kenichi Hirose, board dir. & operating officer; Hisashi Tsugiya, senior drama producer; Atsushi Sogo, pres., intl. business dvpmt.; Kako Kuwahara, mng. dir., intl. business dvpmt.; Cindy Chino, snr. dir., intl. business dvpmt.; Yuki Akehi, PR snr. mgr., intl. business dvpmt.; Sayako Aoki, format sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Fusako Nagashima, format sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Tom Miyauchi, format sales, intl. business dvpmt.; Arisa Mori, sales & lic., intl. business dvpmt.; Eri Watanabe, sales & lic., intl. business dvpmt.; Keisuke Miyata, sales, intl. business dvpmt. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Way Too Kawaii! (Drama, 10x30 min.) An elite editor finds himself unwillingly transferred to a teen fashion magazine where cuteness (kawaii) reigns supreme. Born to be a Flower (Drama, 10x60 min.) A “beauty and the beast” romance in which two individuals with immense disparities fall in love. OASIS—A Love Story (Drama format, 60 min. eps.) After a failed suicide attempt a woman pretends to have lost her memory and is taken in by a detective who recently lost his wife. Caution, Hazardous Wife (Drama format, 60 min. eps.) A housewife decides to reinvent herself after realizing she is a disaster when it comes to homemaking but a champion of justice who becomes incredibly dangerous when angry. Abandoned (Drama format, 60 min. eps.) A drama about children facing the harsh reality of life in an orphanage. Is innocence and happiness lost forever when abandoned or will these children ultimately find their place in the world? When Life Gives You Money (Emotainment format, 60 min. eps.) In each episode, celebrities
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 639
Way Too Kawaii! Run with the Wind (Anime, 23x30 min.) Based on the youth novel by Shiwon Miura and produced by Production I.G., showcases university students and their pursuit of glory in Japan’s most famous collegiate championship, the Hakone Ekiden.
NORDIC WORLD
m post@nordicworld.tv w www.nordicworld.tv Stand: R7.E58 Contact: Espen Huseby, CEO; Ann Christin Siljan, VP, acq.; Paulina Eklund, VP, sales; Yolanda Ano, sales & acq. exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Forgotten Polar Hero (Doc, 4x57 min.) Goes on a journey to the remote Cape Adare and reveals how the controversial explorer Carsten Borchgrevink ended his life virtually unknown and destitute. Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Hidden Heroes (Lifestyle, S1-2: 26x30 min., S3: 17x30 min.) A hidden-camera show developed for teens in which each episode secretly captures acts of kindness, compassion and commitment to others. Day Zero (Doc., 1x52 min.) Cape Town, South Africa’s world-class tourist destination is facing its worst drought in recorded history; we venture into the conditions that gave rise to the crisis. Semester (Drama, 7x15 min.) Erling returns home to Oslo a loser and an outsider. He has one goal; to win over the girl he just can’t get over. Men’s Food Fight (Format, 9x30 min.) Ten single men must compete to make the best meal. Furry Friends (Format, 10x60 min.) Hosted by a veterinarian, features a different guest star each week and segments that help viewers round out their knowledge of the animal kingdom. National Treasures (Format) A multi-platform TV project exploring the social history of a nation. Will You Carry My Child (Format, 2x45 min.) Follows four heterosexual single men above the age of 35 years who want to father a child.
NTV BROADCASTING COMPANY
O (7-495) 725-5718 m sales@ntv.ru w sales.ntv.ru/
Stand: R7.E65 Contact: Timur Weinstein, general producer; Vadim Ostrovksy, dir., prod. dept.; Marina Kataya, head, intl. sales dept.; Anastasia Lisova, CMO; Olga Bayramova, PR dir.; Anastasia KhlebnikovaArnold, intl. sales mgr.; Anna Horutz, intl. sales mgr.; Natalia Stogova, intl. sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Brass Sun (Drama, 6x48 min.) A small military orchestra is caught in a guerilla conflict in the ’90s in Central Asia. They have to fight to protect the lives of innocent villagers. The Road to Calvary (Historical drama, 12x50 min.) A big-budget adaptation of Alexey Tolstoy’s famous novel about the tragic events of WWI, the October Revolution and the civil war in Russia. Aria of the Doomed (Historical drama, 10x45 min.) A striking tale about women’s lives in the Stalinist camps.
*LIST_1018_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 9/28/18 9:15 AM Page 22
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TV LISTINGS
ORF-ENTERPRISE
O (43-1) 87878-13030 m lisa.poepperl@orf.at w contentsales.orf.at
Brass Sun The Crow (Crime/thriller, 12x50 min.) A beautiful woman in law enforcement repeatedly hits the glass ceiling and meets with discrimination. Beyond Death (Mystery/thriller, 16x48 min.) An original crime drama packed with suspense, mysteries and unpredictable plot lines. Schubert (Crime/thriller, 10x48 min.) The story of a modern superhero with a unique hearing ability who solves the most mysterious crimes. Sleepers (Thriller/mystery, 8x50 min.) The tale of portraits painted from dead people whose souls reincarnate into the same looking men and women. The Win Cases (Period crime/mystery, 10x50 min.) Packed with lavish costumes and props, this courtroom drama gives a glimpse into the Russian legal wars of the early 1900s. Shepherd (Crime drama/comedy, S1: 20x48 min., S2: 36x48 min.) A classic police procedural featuring a detective and his dog. Hatchet (Drama, 2x45 min.) A dramatic tale about a former White Russian officer fighting for the Soviets in WWII.
ONZA DISTRIBUTION
O (34-93) 827-5326 m onza@onzadistribution.com w www.onzadistribution.com Stand: R7.J11 Contact: Jessica Ortiz, mng. dir.; Paula Membiela, sales mgr.; María Arroyo, sales mgr.; Gonzalo Sagardía, mng. partner. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Little Coincidences (Rom-com, 8x50 min.) An atypical romantic comedy featuring a couple that still don’t know each other, but whose lives constantly intertwine in search for one another. The Gipsy Heiress (Romance drama, 119x50 min.) Luz is an exotic beauty raised by a Gypsy family after she was kidnapped as a baby; years later she will inherit a major fortune. The Value of Life (Romance drama, 55 min. eps.) Carolina and Artur don’t know each other, but they share a deep bond as they both wake up from an eight-year coma on the same day. Dalia, The Dressmaker (Drama, 4x70 min.) Dalia arrives at Prescedo to find out if the sudden death of her mother was a twist of destiny. The Pretender (Drama, 113x50 min.) A plane mysteriously goes missing, taking with it Veronica’s twin sister, the victim of a millionaire’s scam. Veronica will assume her identity to seek revenge. Everest (Doc., 1x55 min.) Nobody has climbed Everest without oxygen in winter. It’s one of the biggest challenges in the world of mountaineering. Will they make it?
Stand: P-1.L1 Contact: Beatrice Cox-Riesenfelder, mng. dir.; Marion Camus-Oberdorfer, head, content sales intl.; Armin Luttenberger, sales dir., intl.; Monika Kossits, sales mgr., TV; Johannes Stanek, sales mgr., TV; Alexandra Hopf, sales mgr., TV; Mario Leonhardsberger, digital content dist. mgr.; Franka Giesemann, sales mgr., new media/home ent. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Wild Austria—Created by Water (Nature, 2x52 min.) Austria’s Alpine glaciers, ancient seas and mighty rivers have carved out giant mountains, caves and lakes, which are key to its wildlife today.
Trump’s Showdown
Dr Christian: 12 Hours to Cure Your Street
Wild Austria—Created by Water Seefeld—Tyrolean Wonderland (Nature, 2x52 min.) Seefeld lies at the heart of Tyrol, surrounded by the most beautiful and wildest Alpine peaks. The diversity of the landscape is breathtaking. Secrets of Squirrels (Nature, 1x52 min.) We only know squirrels from their brief visits to ground level. The production shows them in their environment: high up in the treetops. Atatürk—The Father of Modern Turkey (History, 1x52 min.) Comes to terms with Atatürk as both a larger-than-life personality and a phenomenon of the zeitgeist at the turn of the last century. The Great Wall (History, 2x52 min.) The Great Wall played a significant role in the rise and fall of empires. It determined the history of China— and the entire world. Beer-tastic! (Factual leisure/lifestyle, 4x52 min.) Follow sommelier and author Conrad Seidl on a journey around the globe to discover famous beer styles and experience new flavors. Suburbia—Women on the Edge (Fiction, 30x48 min.) Five women whose biggest challenge so far has been surviving their daily shopping tours are taken by complete surprise when suddenly one of them gets a divorce. K-Files (Fiction, 231x45 min.) The town of Kitzbuehel, at the foot of the Austrian Alps, makes a fascinating setting for this detective series. “Yummy”—WOW Factor Cooking (Kids edutainment, 36x15 min.) In every episode, Chef Alexander Kumptner presents the kids with an ingredient that they use, chop, cook and personalize as they please. Christmas in Vienna 2018 (Music Concert, 1x90 min.) Every year, the traditional Christmas event takes place in the glamorous Wiener Konzerthaus and brings together a quartet of the best international vocalists.
PASSION DISTRIBUTION
m sales@passiondistribution.com w www.passiondistribution.com
Little Coincidences
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Emma Willis: Delivering Babies (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) Presenter Emma Willis trains for three months on a busy maternity ward as a maternity care assistant. Dr Christian: 12 Hours to Cure Your Street (Fact-ent., 10x60 min.) Dr Christian Jessen leaves the comfort of the clinic as he travels across the country in a mobile clinic to treat individuals in their hometowns.
Stand: P4.C18 Contact: Emmanuelle Namiech, CEO; Nick Rees, mng. dir.; Sean Wheatley, head, acq.; Nick Tanner, dir., sales & coprod.; Nikki Andrews, snr. sales mgr.; Agnes Mbye, sales mgr.; Eliana Barbosa, sales mgr.; Alex Dubard, sales mgr.; Michelle Choi, sales exec.; James Murphy, sales admin.
Inside the Foreign Office (Doc., 3x60 min.) Insight into a crucial 12 months for the British Foreign Office as it responds to a fast-changing, unpredictable world. Mini Disco Divas (Fact-ent., 8x30 min.) Unique-access documentary series tapping into the energetic dance craze of freestyle disco popular with children. Rogue to Wrestler (Fact-ent., 3x60 min.) Twelve new recruits enter the ICW Fight Club in the hopes of becoming wrestling stars. The Asian Wedding Planner (Lifestyle, 1x60 min.) Lifts the curtain on the booming industry of lavish and spectacular weddings for modern British South Asian communities. #BirthBumpBaby (Fact-ent., 3x60 min.) Deals with real issues around women trying to navigate motherhood, relationships, their jobs—and their social media profiles. Postcode Playdates (Fact-ent., 3x60 min.) Families with children from the same neighborhood but across social divides open their doors to their neighbors’ offspring for a play date for the very first time. Find It, Fix It, Drive It (Lifestyle, 10x60 min.) Henry Cole and Sam Lovegrove set out to locate, buy, restore and use an iconic vehicle for a challenge that it was originally designed for. Darcy Bussell: Dancing to Happiness (Doc., 1x60 min.) Former ballerina Dame Darcey Bussell explores how dance can have a positive effect on mood and behavior.
PBS INTERNATIONAL
O (1-617) 208-0747 w pbsinternational.org
Stand: P-1.G66 Contact: Tom Koch, VP; Germaine Deagan Sweet, mng. dir., coprod. & drama acq.; Tracy Beckett, dir., pgm. & media acq.; Betsy LeBlanc, dir., sales; Anna Alvord, snr. sales mgr.; Nanci Church, sales mgr.; Sarah Marks, mktg. & strategy mgr.; Richard Kingsbury, GM, PBS America; Katie Cook, head, pgmng., PBS America. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Eugenics Crusade (2x60 min.) Explores the campaign to breed a “better” race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the fledgling science of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control. Trump’s Showdown (2x60 min.) With the threat of impeachment growing, President Trump wages an unprecedented war against the Special Counsel, the FBI and even his own Attorney General. Facebook Dilemma (2x60 min.) FRONTLINE investigates the early warnings about Facebook’s impact on privacy and democracy around the world and the company’s response to charges of promoting “fake news” and disrupting American politics. Secrets of Britain’s Great Cathedrals (8x60 min.) Features interviews with historians and experts and breathtaking 4K footage captured by drones filming their legendary facades and soaring interior spaces.
640 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Native America (4x60 min.) Combining modern science with Native American knowledge, the series shines a spotlight on these ancient cultures and the communities that still thrive today. Apollo’s Daring Mission (1x60 min.) NOVA tells the story of the race to beat the Soviets and send three men to the moon before 1968 came to a close. Mayo Clinic (2x60 min.) Ken Burns presents the story of the renowned institution that has been called the “place for hope when there is no hope.” World War Speed (1x60 min.) It’s long been known that German soldiers used Pervitin in WWII. But have tales of Nazis on speed obscured the massive use of stimulants by British and American troops? What’s the Right Thing to Do? (5x45 min.) Harvard Professor Michael Sandel challenges participants with difficult moral dilemmas, asking: What’s the right thing to do? Rise of the Superstorms (1x53 min.) NOVA goes inside the 2017 superstorms and the cutting-edge research that will determine how well equipped we are to deal with hurricanes in the future.
POL-KA PRODUCCIONES
O (54-11) 4588-9273 m legurrola@pol-ka.com.ar w www.pol-ka.com
Stand: R7.F18 Contact: Manuel Martí, head, dvpmt. & intl. prod.; Luciana Egurrola, intl. sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mi Hermano Es Un Clon (My Brother Is a Clone) (120x60 min.) Renzo, who was conceived via in-vitro fertilization, learns he has a brother, the result of a cloning experiment by his scientist grandfather. Simona (120x60 min.) Simona, who dreams of being a successful singer, becomes a maid to the Guerricos, where she meets and falls for Romeo. Solamente Vos (Only You) (225x60 min.) A romantic comedy full of funny stories, agreements and disagreements, infidelity, reconciliation and hate that will eventually lead to real love. Sos Mi Hombre (You Are My Man) (189x60 min.) Ringo, a retired boxer and volunteer firefighter in a tough economic situation, falls in love with Camila, a young and wealthy doctor who dedicates her life to helping the needy.
Simona Silencios de Familia (Family Silence) (20x60 min.) Focuses on Miguel and Elisa, their children and Elisa’s assistant Fabiana, who Miguel finds himself attracted to. Guapas (Cunning Girls) (173x60 min.) Five women lost all their savings after their bank closed down. They become friends and work to recover from that loss and get their lives back on track, both financially and emotionally.
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TV LISTINGS 23 Farsantes (Dissemblers) (123x60 min.) Tells the secrets of a law firm led by the relentless and ruthless Guillermo Graziani, who is resurrecting his career after being disbarred for some time.
PORTFOLIO ENTERTAINMENT
O (1-416) 483-9773 m sales@portfolio-ent.com
celebrity comedians prove that winning has never been so funny. Don’t You Know Who I Am? (Game show, 12x60 min.) A celebrity-based quiz show where eight contestants compete for serious money prize by guessing the guest celebrity’s life numbers such as their IQ level.
w www.portfolioentertainment.com Stand: P-1.A0 Contact: Lisa Olfman, CEO & cofndr.; Joy Rosen, CEO & cofndr.; Marianne Culbert, VP, prod.; Donnie MacIntyre, VP, sales & business dvpmt. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Addison (Preschool animation, 50x11 min.) At only seven years old, Addison, a determined and resilient inventor, heads on comical yet brainteasing adventures in her neighborhood. Bubu and the Little Owls (Preschool animation, 26x11 min.) Bubu and her family of cute owls face a new nature adventure in each episode and find answers to their questions through inventions, songs and games. Cyberchase (Kids 6-9 educational animation, 114x30 min.) In a classic good-versus-evil battle, kids go on a wild ride through cyberspace where they are challenged to use the power of math.
The Awards Show conWEBsation (Fact-ent., 10x60 min.) Comedy panel show that tests celebrities on their mastery level of the rapidly evolving tech/digital world. Globetrotters (Ent., 8x60 min.) Three unsuspecting celebrities each get dropped off at a random point and have to solve clues to pick up eight objects from eight different locations in the world. The first one back in the homeland wins the race. Queen of the Day (Ent., 8x60 min.) Eight former beauty pageant winners from different decades are brought together for an unforgettable eight-day journey.
RAINBOW Addison The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That! (Preschool animation, 80x30 min./160x15 min. & 4x60 min. movies) Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat and his friends are back for a STEM-focused season three as they embark on brand-new adventures fueled by curiosity and imagination. Freaktown (Kids 6-11 animation, 52x11 min.) In a never-ending battle of pink vs. stink, glam vs. gross and ponies vs. piranhas, join Ben Bones (a skeleton with soul) and his pals in the place where it is cool to be a ghoul. Do You Know? (Preschool, 50x15 min.) YouTube sensation Maddie Moate makes the leap to TV to answer some of the world’s most pressing questions from preschoolers. Fast Indian Cooking with Sapna (Cooking, 6x30 min.) Sapna Anand helps home cooks whip up modern Indian dishes with ease and reminisces about her wonderful childhood in India. Sailing Chef (Cooking, 30x30 min. 4K) Vicky Ratnani, a celebrity chef and former chef de cuisine who has sailed and cooked across 37 countries, sautés, poaches, blanches and bakes worldwide delicacies while giving them an Indian twist. Café Maria (Cooking, 30x30 min. 4K) Maria Goretti, TV celebrity turned chef, delights with eclectic dishes from brunch menus around the world. You Gotta Eat Here! (Food/travel, 132x30 min. & 16x30 min. compilations) Comedian John Catucci is on a quest to find the most delicious, mouthwatering and over-the-top comfort foods.
RABBIT FILMS
O (358-50) 593-3891 m irini.kylkilahti@rabbitfilms.com w www.rabbitformats.com Stand: P-1.J56 Contact: Irini Kylkilahti, intl. sales exec.; Jonathan Tuovinen, COO & head, intl.; Olli Suominen, CEO; Suvi Valkonen, producer & dvpmt. exec.; Minna Haapkylä, producer; Jarno Laasala, board chmn., partner; Jukka Hilden, head, Rabbit USA. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Awards Show (Ent., 10x90 min.) Live prime-time shiny floor comedy series where
O (39-071) 7506-7500 m info@rbw.it w www.rbw.it Stand: R7.H2 Contact: Iginio Straffi, fndr. & CEO; Joanne Lee, COO; Cristiana Buzzelli, SVP, lic. & acq.; Andrea Graciotti, head, sales & coprod.; Luana Perrero, head, sales, TV; Simone Borgarelli, sales exec., TV & HV; Silvia Quintili, digital rights mgr.; Lorena Vaccari, mktg. dir.; Silvia Conti, comms. mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 44 Cats (CGI comedy, 52x13 min.) Follows the adventures of a group of cat musicians. The stories explore the themes of friendship, altruism and helping others.
Dancing Horses (Comedy CGI, 52x11 min.) Three friends and their magical horses join forces to save Dance World from a villain who wants to bring music and dance to an end. Pinocchio (Adventure comedy CGI, 26x30 min.) Magic turned Pinocchio into a real boy, but he must now defeat a great danger to save the other world—and his new life! Regal Academy (Comedy 2D toonshade, S1-2: 52x30 min.) Fairytales come to life at Regal Academy, where Rose Cinderella and her classmates must combine study with dealing with their families. Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends (Liveaction comedy, S1-3: 78x30 min.) Maggie and Bianca meet at the Milan Fashion Academy, where they follow their dreams and discover secrets that change their lives forever. Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends TV Movies (Live-action comedy, 2x50 min.) The girls must fight to keep their home, help their father with a trip to Paris and investigate a school disaster. World of Winx (Action/mystery 2D, S1-2: 26x30 min.) The Winx travel the world searching for talent for WOW! and preventing the talent thief from kidnapping them.
RECORD TV
O (55-11) 3300-4022 m emendes@recordtv.com.br
Winx Club Season 8 (Adventure/action 2D, 26x30 min.) The Winx fairies embark on a cosmic adventure that will lead them to the farthest reaches of the Magic Universe to save the stars themselves. Shark4 (Comedy 2D, 52x11 min.) The unusual adventures of Norman, a 10-year-old boy, who helps out Wallie and his team of lifeguards—who just happen to be super-powered sharks. 2 Happy Farmers (Comedy 2D, 78x7 min.) A brother and sister bear run their farm with a little help—and a lot of distractions—from cheerful farm animals and friendly talking vehicles.
O (49-89) 9507-7303 m sales@redarrowstudios.com
w redarrowstudios.com/international Stand: P4.C10 Contact: Henrik Pabst, pres.; Bo Stehmeier, EVP, global sales; Alex Fraser, SVP, acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Death and Nightingales (Drama, 3x60 min./2x90 min.) An intense and haunting new BBC drama from acclaimed writer/director Allan Cubitt, starring Matthew Rhys, Ann Skelly and Jamie Dornan. Australian Gangster (Crime drama, 2x90 min./4x45 min.) A wild tale of ruthless ambition and revenge, set within the Sydney underworld, where gangsters and the Instagram generation collide with the glamorous social elite. Checkout! (Comedy, 21x24 min.) A sitcom about the clash of cultures and characters in a dysfunctional supermarket, following the daily lives of the store’s crazy staff and eccentric customers. Pirates Inc. (Fact-ent., 10x60 min.) Meet the team who make danger their business by flipping the spoils of drug runners, from speedboats and minisubmarines to exotic cars and light aircraft.
w www.recordtvnetwork.com Stand: P-1.G22 Contact: Delmar Andrade, intl. sales dir.; Edson Mendes, intl. sales mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Jesus (Soap opera) For the first time the trajectory of the man who changed mankind will be told in its entirety. Leah (Series) At age eight, after the death of her mother during Rachel’s birth, Leah is forced to take responsibility for the care of the newborn sister. Apocalypse (Soap opera) A story of love, spirituality and redemption in portraying one of the most controversial topics in the Holy Bible: the end of times. Belaventura (Soap opera, 134x45 min.) Set in the 15th century in the fictional kingdom of Belaventura, a story full of emotion and transformations.
Jesus
Winx Club Season 8
RED ARROW STUDIOS INTERNATIONAL
The Rich and Lazarus (Soap opera, 187x45 min.) A love triangle develops between childhood friends Asher, Joanne and Zach, who will also have to deal with the invasion of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. The Promised Land (Soap opera, 179x50 min.) After Moses’ death, Joshua, the new leader of the Hebrews, must fulfill a difficult mission ordered by God: to command the 12 tribes of Israel in their conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land. The Slave Mother (Soap opera, 151x60 min. 4K) The tale of the light-skinned slave girl who was obsessively pursued by Mr. Leôncio won over the world; none of this story would have happened without the characters of this series. Moses and the Ten Commandments (Soap opera, 242x60 min.) The story of Moses, from his birth to the arrival of his people in the Promised Land, through the Red Sea crossing and the encounter with God on Mount Sinai.
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 641
Death and Nightingales Don’t Stop the Music (Reality format) An uplifting, heartwarming social experiment that follows the progress of children from an underprivileged school as a groundbreaking new music program is introduced. Heartbreak Island (Reality format) Love and tactics explode in this new reality format that tests how modern routes to finding love stand up against real-world challenges. How Trains Changed the World (History, 6x50 min.) Since their invention, trains have changed the way we live; this is a captivating journey through the rich history of railways, across every continent. All or Nothing (Drama, 250x22 min.) A surprise inheritance has devastating consequences for a family in this new daily serial drama about money, love and betrayal. Slender Man: The Untold Story (True crime, 1x120 min.) Documentary about how a fictional internet character drove two young girls from a small Wisconsin town to kill.
RIVE GAUCHE TELEVISION
O (1-818) 784-9912 m marine@rgitv.com w www.rgitv.com
Stand: P-1.H75 Contact: Jon Kramer, CEO; Marine Ksadzhikyan, SVP, dist. & dvpmt.; Tomas Silva, VP, intl. sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS My Misdiagnosis (Medical doc., 26x60 min.) Each episode features two cases told by the people who were misdiagnosed, their friends, family and doctors. Something’s Killing Me (Medical doc., 20x60 min.) Examines puzzling behaviors and diseases that result in near-death struggles. Each episode chronicles a race against time to discover what, or who, is killing the patient. Uncovering… (Crime, 3x60 min.) Focuses on those pivotal moments in crime cases where
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TV LISTINGS
justice hangs in the balance. All the detectives need is one clue or testimony that will bring the criminal down. Homicide’s Elite (Crime, 12x60 min.) Features the most baffling, shocking and heartbreaking cases Detectives David Quinn and Vince Velazquez have worked in their combined 50 years on the street.
Homicide ’s Elite Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files (Crime, 26x60 min.) Renowned undercover reporter and crime journalist Donal MacIntyre examines the most horrific and fascinating crimes. Trace of Evil (Crime, 52x60 min.) Explores and reconstructs some of the most intriguing criminal cases of the past two decades, where technology has changed the course of the investigations and brought the guilty to justice. Overexposed (TV movie) Erin, the teen daughter of the county sheriff, didn’t mean to hurt Taylor, school baseball star and class president, just stop him. She tries to cover up the murder, but instead it sets other murders in motion. Project Dad (Reality, 8x60 min.) Follows Donnell Rawlings (comedian, Chappelle Show), Daniel Cosgrove (actor, Days of Our Lives) and DJ Skribble (disc jockey, MTV’s TRL) as they step out of the spotlight and into the role of Mr. Mom. Egg Factor (Docureality, 8x60 min.) Follows the journeys of intended parents who need the help of egg donors in order to have a baby. Written in Blood (Crime, 16x60 min.) Brings fact and fiction together as bestselling thriller writers meet other top crime writers to discuss how their works of fiction have been inspired by real-life crimes.
RUSSIA TELEVISION AND RADIO/SOVTELEXPORT
SCHOLASTIC ENTERTAINMENT
O (1-212) 389-3525 m cfriedman@scholastic.com
O (7-495) 955-8920 m ref.ste@vgtrk.com
w www.scholastic.com
w sales.vgtrk.com Stand: R7.E1 Contact: Julia Matyash, dir., Sovtelexport; Maria Dorokhina, head, intl. sales, worldwide, except CIS & Baltics; Elizaveta Shcherbakova, mgr., intl. sales; Anastasia Krasnova, mgr., intl. sales. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Godunov (Historical drama, 16x52 min.) Sixteenth century. The mysterious death of the heir to the throne ends the rule of an ancient dynasty. For the first time, the Russian people elect a Tsar. It is Boris Godunov. Desperate Wives (Drama, 16x50-53 min.) Four Russian women—a teacher, a ballet dancer, a nurse and a housewife—find themselves on the brink of extreme poverty in the turbulent 1990s. No challenge will stop them from earning a living and supporting their families. The Maze (Drama, 16x46-52 min.) Marina will have to go through many trials until the maze of fate will deliver her to a long-awaited motherhood. Anna Karenina (Drama, 8x42-47 min.) New vision of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel. Late 19th century, Russian high society, St. Petersburg aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a reckless love affair with the dashing count Alexey Vronsky.
Human Nature The World is Yours (Family, 52x24 min.) Takes adults and kids to the four corners of the globe to meet people and experience their traditions, their food and what they do for fun. Kids’ Planet (Kids, 52x24 min.) An educational show that reinforces the manners and values that are taught to kids by parents, grandparents and teachers. Crazy for Madonna (Doc., 1x60 min.) Part of an exclusive series about great imaginers, creators, artists or thinkers who changed the world.
SATO COMPANY
O (55-11) 4134-4455 m secretaria@sato.tv.br
Clifford the Big Red Dog
w www.sato.tv.br
SERIOUS LUNCH
Stand: P-1.A89 Contact: Nelson Akira Sato, CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Tokyo Ghoul (Adventure, 1x119 min.) Ken Kaneki, a ghoul-human hybrid, finds sanctuary at a café run by the people he once considered monsters, but when they are targeted by anti-ghoul forces, Kaneki will risk life and limb to protect them. (LatAm rights) BraveStorm (Action, 1x84 min.) A group of freedom fighters from the future travel to the past armed with a super-powered suit of armor and psychic teleportation abilities to battle alien invaders in giant robot gear. (LatAm rights)
Desperate Wives
RTVE
O (34-91) 581-7827 m mjesus.perez@rtve.es antonio.perez@rtve.es
w www.rtve.es/commercial Stand: R7.L15 Contact: María-Jesús Pérez, intl. sales dir.; Tony Pérez Bonilla, sales mgr.; María José Loranca, sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS El Continental (Fiction, 10x70 min.) A story of love, violence and fight for power between rival gangs, set in a Madrid nightclub during the 1920s. We’ll see the first woman leader of a gang.
The Captain’s Wife (Drama/adventure, 16x50-53 min.) A young girl loses everything she loved. Now she has to travel far away and face a life full of challenges and fate’s twists. China. The Economic Miracle (History/bio., 1x52 min.) In this exclusive interview, Chinese leader Xi Jinping talks about the country’s economic leap. The End of Romanovs (History, 1x44 min.) In July 1918 Bolsheviks cruelly executed Nicolas II, his family and servants. The Romanov dynasty, with its 300 years of history, came to an end. Viner Takes it All (Sports/bio., 1x52 min.) Coach Irina Viner taught her pupils, the Olympic gymnastics champions Alina Kabaeva, Yana Kudryavtseva, Margarita Mamun, about overcoming obstacles. Climate. Catastrophe is Inevitable? (Doc., 1x53 min.) The climate on the planet is changing. Who benefits from the hysteria surrounding the climate and can the planet be saved for human life? Megapolis (Travel, 1x82 min.) Shows how Moscow, the biggest city in Europe, has been evolving, what it was like and what it has become.
SABBATICAL ENTERTAINMENT w www.sabbaticalentertainment.com El Continental A Different View (Fiction, 13x70 min.) Portrays Spanish society in the ’20s through the lives of teachers and students in a school for girls clinging to the provincial capital’s traditions. I’m Alive (Fiction, 13x70 min.) Combines the fantasy genre and the most authentic detective drama as a police inspector, dead while in service, is offered the chance to come back to life. Sabuesos (Fiction, 10x70 min.) Alberto and Max, a dog that can talk, work together as a strange detective team to solve the most complicated cases.
Contact: Miguel Somoza, CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Best of the Best (Ent., 1x90 min.) The most original and innovative lists of events and highlights of the year in different categories: celebrities, movies, music, fashion. Human Nature (Kids, 52x24 min.) The first talk show with animals, based on the Cloud9World educational curriculum using fascinating stories in which animals are protagonists and models of behavior.
Contact: Caitlin Friedman, VP & GM; Jef Kaminsky, VP, TV dvpmt. & pgmng. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHT Clifford the Big Red Dog (Children’s animation, 39x22 min.) Every day is an adventure in this new series based on the best-selling children’s books, starring a big red dog and his best friend, Emily Elizabeth.
O (44-20) 8771-7310 m gdexter@seriouslunch.co.uk w www.seriouslunch.co.uk Contact: Genevieve Dexter, fndr. & CEO. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Art Ninja (Kids, 50x26 min.) This BAFTA nominated Dot to Dot Productions series for CBBC is a new-look art show for a new generation of kids interested in experimenting with modern-art techniques. Gigglebug (Preschool, 52x5 min.) Based on the award-winning mobile app of the same title, this preschool short is set in an enchanted forest and features a little bug with an irresistible laugh— could a cartoon character spontaneously and irresistibly make you catch the giggles? Horrible Science (Kids, 10x26 min.) Based on the famous Scholastic books, for CiTV, ABC and Discovery Kids, this scripted “show within a show” comedy stars Ben Miller.
BraveStorm Attack On Titan & Attack On Titan—End of the World (Adventure, 1x98 min., 1x87 min.) A hundred years ago, Titans emerged and decimated the majority of humanity. To stop their advance, humankind built walls. (LatAm rights) Ronaldinho Gaucho’s Team (Animation, 52x12 min.) Based on Mauricio de Sousa’s comic and inspired by the Brazilian soccer player. (LatAm rights) Death Note (Adventure movies, 1x135 min., 1x141 min., 1x126 min.) Based on the popular manga. Death Note, Death Note 2: The Last Name and Death Note: Light Up the New World. (LatAm rights) Bruce Lee: The Big Boss (Action, 1x100 min.) The film that made Bruce Lee a star worldwide. (LatAm rights) Mofy (Animation, S1-2: 26x5 min. each) Mofy is a shy and sensitive rabbit living in a hot and puffy cotton ball. (LatAm rights) Doraemon (Animation, 104x22 min.) Noby, an ordinary student with little interest in sports who is lazy and loves to sleep, is visited by a robot cat from the 22nd century, Doraemon, sent to change the boy’s future. (Brazil rights) Om Nom (Animation, 29x1 min., 7x3 min., 3x3 min.) Chronicles Om Nom’s adventures with a young boy named Evan, beginning with the little monster’s mysterious appearance on his doorstep. (LatAm rights) Paraiso Team (Animation, 28 min., 10 songs) Educational content for children 0-6 in which colorful characters sing and entertain in cheerful music videos, which encourage preschoolers to sing, interact and have fun. (LatAm rights)
642 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Gigglebug Operation Ouch! (Kids, 84x26 min.) This BAFTAwinning factual-entertainment show helps kids combat their fears of hospital by showing them how amazing the human body is at fixing itself. Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter (Kids, 26x26 min.) Studio Ghibli and the Astrid Lindgren Company present this animated story—based on the book of the same name—that won the International Emmy Kids Award for best animation in 2016.
SESAME WORKSHOP
O (1-212) 595-3456 m celia.musikant@sesame.org w www.sesameworkshop.org Stand: P-1.N13 Contact: Ed Wells, SVP & head, intl. media & education; Kay Wilson Stallings, SVP, creative dvpmt.; Celia Musikant, dir., intl. media dist. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Abby’s Amazing Adventure (Kids 2-5, 13x5 min.) Abby and Rudy take off on amazing adventures to incredible locations, learning all about different careers—overcoming obstacles and persevering until their mission is complete.
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TV LISTINGS 25 Wasted Earth (Doc., 3x10 min.) Takes you on an immersive 360-degree experience of places in Asia, once untouched or thriving with humans, now being turned into wastelands at the hands of men. Blessed Reunion (Action drama) Min, a female killer, travels back to her hometown in the days leading up to Chinese New Year for a bittersweet reunion with the family she never knew, and a mission—to kill the brother she never knew she had. Special Delivery (Travel/reality, 13x30 min.) Six hosts, all from very different backgrounds, but bound by a common mission: to undertake special deliveries that will meet real needs in faraway communities. Abby ’s Amazing Adventure When You Wish Upon a Pickle (Kids 2-5, 1x50 min.) When a mysterious Wish Pickle is delivered to Sesame Street, Elmo, Abby and Bert’s wishes start coming true. Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck (Kids 2-5, 26x5 min.) In each tasty installment, Cookie and his pal Gonger learn how a key recipe ingredient is grown or produced. Elmo’s World (Kids 2-5, 52x5 min.) Journey with Elmo and his imagination in this updated and totally refreshed version. Tony Award winner Bill Irwin returns as Mr. Noodle. Sésamo (Kids 2-5, 52x26 min.) Sing, dance and play on Sésamo, where you never know what fun monster or celebrity guest will drop in next. Sesame Street (Kids 2-5, S49: 35x30 min.) The curriculum is “Learning Through Play,” with a focus on careers—if you can see it, you can play it and you can be it.
SKY VISION
w sky.com/skyvision Das Boot Stand: R7.C39 Contact: Jane Millichip, mng. dir.; Leona Connell, dir., sales; Jason Simms, dir., drama & comedy; Barnaby Shingleton, dir., ent. & factual; Gillian Rose, SVP, U.S. sales & acq. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Curfew From the award-winning producers of Peaky Blinders and featuring a star-studded ensemble cast, an emotional, dystopian blast of action, adventure and automobiles.
BY INFOCOMM MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (IMDA)
w www.imda.gov.sg
Leo the Wildlife Ranger Salam Ramadan Sarawak (Info-ed.) Since the mid-19th century, Sarawak has opened its arms to migrants of varied ethnicities, leading to a proliferation of multicultural communities living in harmony. Leo the Wildlife Ranger (Preschool edutainment, 60x11 min.) Introduces the secrets and wonders of nature and wildlife and kickstarts a curiosity for flora and fauna in kids 3 to 6 years old. Oddbods (Kids, S1-2: 120x7 min.) Watch seven friends survive the perils of everyday life, where ordinary situations spiral into extraordinary events, in this non-dialogue comedy. Prison Food (Doc.) Filipino-American chef Johneric Concordia heads into some of the world’s most notorious prisons to discover a hotbed of human ingenuity with food as he cooks behind bars for some of the world’s toughest inmates.
inspired by the acclaimed 1981 film and novel, telling the heroic and human stories of men and women on land and sea. The Son (Drama, S1: 10x60 min., S2: 10x60 min.) Starring Pierce Brosnan, a multi-generational saga of the bloody price of power that follows the rise of one ambitious family, made for AMC in the U.S.
O (44-207) 032-3000 m leona.connell@sky.uk
SINGAPORE PAVILION
Stand: P-1.C16/D15 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 360 Icefjord in Greenland (VR, 1x5 min.) Ilulissat Icefjord, one of the northernmost UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is a massive collection of icebergs; a dramatic and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon. Mr Midnight (Teen scripted, 13x30 min.) In the middle of an epic, eternal battle between good and evil, a group of teenagers are taking selfies. Inspired by the best-selling book series and set in a rapidly developing Asian city. The Breakup List (Comedy/drama, 8x30 min.) Dumped by their girlfriends on the same day, Luke and Joe set off on a journey to rebuild their lives and survive singlehood.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS America in Color (History, 11x60 min.) This landmark series uses colorization to tell the story of America in color for the first time. Six new thematic episodes include “Rise of the Mafia” and “Hollywood’s Golden Age.” The Lost Tapes (History, 10x60 min.) Uses contemporary film and audio to retell events in real time as they occurred, including Malcolm X’s assassination, Apollo 13 and the Clinton impeachment. Aerial America (Travel/adventure, 52x60 min.) The most ambitious aerial filming in TV history. Explore America from the air, from California’s Hearst Castle to bears catching salmon in Alaska’s rivers.
Bullets 8 Days Directed by the Oscar-winning director of The Counterfeiters, a distinctive and thoughtprovoking pre-apocalyptic thriller about a world that spins out of control. Bullets Winner of MIPDrama’s Coup de Coeur award, a powerful twist-laden international thriller where no one is who they seem. The Victim Starring Kelly Macdonald, John Hannah and James Harkness, a gripping contemporary thriller told through the eyes of the plaintiff and the accused. The Reluctant Landlord Written by and starring Romesh Ranganathan, this semi-autobiographical sitcom follows his misadventures as he tries to run the pub he doesn’t want. AllTime Greatest Clip Show Features the best online content from creators around the world, from DIY stunts to the weirdest characters on the internet. Life: First Steps From Offspring Films, biologist Patrick Aryee’s latest series shows an adorable cast of young animals learning the skills they need to survive. Mega Marine Machines From deep-sea danger to mega holiday cruises, explores the extremes of engineering required to deal with the toughest oceanic challenges. The Great Escapers From a bar in Spain to a B&B in France, follow the couples and families chasing their dream lives abroad Animal Conversations Shot all over the world and revealing new scientific breakthroughs, explores how animals communicate with us and each other.
SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL
O (1-202) 261-1700
w www.smithsonianchannel.com Stand: R7.C30 Contact: David Royle, EVP & chief pgmng. officer; Chris Hoelzl, SVP, research & dvpmt.
Air Warriors Aerial Africa (Travel/adventure, 6x60 min.) Reveals fascinating stories you’d never find if you weren’t airborne—celebrating the natural wonders of southern Africa’s landscape and revealing humanity’s impact. Sacred Sites (History, 12x60 min.) A glimpse into the world’s most hallowed shrines, temples and monuments. Filmed in stunning 4K, this series unravels the mysteries that surround them. Air Warriors (Science/aviation, 21x60 min.) Tells the stories of the most influential aircraft of modern times, combining extraordinary engineering and technological feats with great dramatic stories. The Pacific War in Color (History, 8x60 min.) With the aid of unseen contemporary color footage, each episode explores a different stage of the war, from the calm before the storm of 1937 to the bitter end in 1946. V-Day (Science & natural world, 2x60 min.) This 4K special asks the question, what would happen if every volcano on the planet erupted at the same time? Stunning graphics and CG visually explode the face of the Earth, while digging deep into the complex science of volcanology. The Mountain Lion and Me (Natural his tory, 1x60 min.) A unique story about the relationship between the mountain lion—one of the most elusive creatures in the world—and a filmmaker. Apollo’s Moon Shot (History/space, 6x60 min.) Ready in advance of the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing in July 2019, it explores the journey from America’s first manned orbit to the last man on the moon. Draws upon the definitive collection at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum.
Taboo (Drama, S1: 8x60 min., S2: 8x60 min. in 2019) Set in 1814 London, follows James Keziah Delaney (Tom Hardy), a man who has been to the ends of the earth and comes back irrevocably changed. Made for BBC One in the U.K. and FX in the U.S. Kickasso (Lifestyle, 6x22 min.) A modern-day Picasso at the forefront of the intersection of fashion, celebrity and art, Kickasso transforms popular apparel—predominantly shoes—into priceless works of wearable art.
SONY PICTURES TELEVISION
O (1-310) 244-4000
w www.sonypicturestelevision.com Stand: C12 Contact: Mike Hopkins, chmn.; Keith Le Goy, pres., worldwide dist. & networks; Wayne Garvie, pres., intl. prod.; Paul Littmann, EVP, global digital dist.; Mike Wald, EVP, dist., content strategy & mngmt.; Flory Bramnick, EVP, U.S. dist., synd., cable sales & advertiser sales; Jason Spivak, EVP, U.S. dist., home ent., pay TV & SVOD sales; Thanda Belker, EVP, dist., U.S. pay TV, SVOD; Alexander Marin, EVP, dist. & networks, LatAm & Canada; John Rossiter, EVP, dist. & networks, CEEMA; Mark Young, EVP, dist. & networks, Western Europe; Ken Lo, EVP, dist. & networks, AsiaPac; Malvika Prabu, head, networks lic. synd. sales.
Rosario Tijeras 2
SONAR ENTERTAINMENT
O (1-424) 230-7140 w sonarent.com
Stand: R7.N11 Contact: Tom Lesinski, CEO; David Ellender, pres., global dist. & coprod.; Andrea Gorfolova, pres., kids, family & factual; Roberta Ibba-Hartog, SVP, intl. dist., EMEA; Kylie Munnich, SVP, intl. dist., Australasia; Jeff Hevert, SVP, factual dvpmt. & prod.; Alan Zapakin, SVP, mktg. & publicity; Ashley Rite, VP, kids & family; Andres Santos, VP, intl. dist., LatAm; Fred Joubaud, dir., intl. dist. & acq., EMEA; Louise Oliver, dir., intl. dist., EMEA; Sarah Castellvi, dir., mktg. & publicity; Hannah Atlas, intl. dist. coord., EMEA; Hendrik van Daaalen, intl. dist., EMEA. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Das Boot (Drama, 8x60 min.) Co-produced with Sky Europe and Bavaria Film, a WWII drama
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 643
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS La Guzman (Musical bio., 60x43 min.) To tell the story of the life of Alejandra Guzmán is to discover a world full of adrenaline, rebellion, love, addiction, and rock ‘n’ roll. Maria Magdalena (Biblical, 60x45 min.) A biblical melodrama that recreates the life of a passionate and independent woman living in a time of great oppression. Atrapada (Drama/action, 60x60 min.) Revolves around Mariana, a beautiful young woman who, after the murder of her parents, becomes a professional thief. Her days alternate between danger, passion, and vengeance. Tres Milagros (Drama/action, 50x60 min.) The story of three young women whose destinies are intertwined thanks to a prophesy and to a shared love. What defines the course of destiny when three girls are united by it? Rosario Tijeras 2 (Action/drama, 60x43 min.) The story of the legendary Rosario Tijeras continues.
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She will have to do everything possible to save her younger brother and reunite with Antonio, the love her life. The Good Doctor (Drama, S1-2: 18x44 min. each) Centers on a young surgeon with Savant syndrome who is recruited into the pediatric surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. L.A.’s Finest (Drama, 13x60 min.) Syd Burnett (Gabrielle Union) and Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba) are LAPD detectives who attack every case from different points of view, but with a shared passion for fighting crime and saving lives. Into The Dark (Thriller/horror, 12x80-90 min.) Each episode is inspired by a holiday from the month of its release, with Blumhouse working with a broad section of filmmakers, creators and actors to bring this unique, first-of-its-kind series to Hulu audiences. The Launch (Reality, 60 min. eps) Unsigned artists from every music genre compete for the chance to record a brand-new song and launch themselves to the world. Deadly Class (Drama, 10x60 min.) Follows a disillusioned teen recruited into a storied high school for assassins. Set against the backdrop of late 80s counter culture.
SPIN MASTER
O (1-416) 364-6002 m thomc@spinmaster.com w spinmaster.com Contact: Adam Bedar, EVP, global lic. & business affairs; Thom Chapman, snr. dir., sales & dist., ent.; Jennifer Dodge, EVP, Spin Master Ent.; Toni Stevens, dir., prod., supervising producer, ent.
Hatchimals: Adventures in Hatchtopia PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Super Dinosaur (Animated action comedy, 26x30 min.) Derek Dynamo, a tech whiz, and his best bud Super Dino, a genetically altered T-Rex, go on awesome missions to protect the planet against evil. Hatchimals: Adventures in Hatchtopia (Animated adventure, 44x3 min.) Follows the ongoing hatchings and discoveries of our heroes, Penguala, Cheetree, Draggle and Puppit, as they discover all the magic and wonder that is Hatchtopia.
STAR INDIA
m contentinfo@startv.com w www.contentsales.startv.com Stand: P-1.D51 Contact: Leena Salins, VP, content synd.; Deep Hegiste, mgr., sales, content synd.; Shruti Raghavendran, mgr., sales, content synd.; Manish Vaidya, AVP, mktg., content synd. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Kasauti Zindagi Kay (Love Conquers All?) (Romance, 260x30 min.) A story of two star-crossed lovers, Anurag and Prerna, who meet and separate time and again as they get entwined in the web of love and revenge. Kullfi Kumar Bajewala (Kullfi Kumar, the Singing Star) (Drama, 260x30 min.) The magic in her 7-year-old voice could move stone hearts, yet her mother, Nimrat, refused to let Kullfi sing. After a tragedy strikes, she ventures out on a new journey to find her estranged father. Love Ka Hai Intezar (The Wait for Love) (Romance, 120x30 min.) The story of actress Kamini Mathur, an ordinary girl at heart, who falls
in love with Madhav Singh, a prince. Surrounded by powerful enemies, finding love is not easy for these star-crossed lovers. Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon (Strange Love) (Drama, 398x30 min.) While Arnav is rich and arrogant, Khushi is bubbly and well-mannered. In their first meeting, their worlds clash into a war of words. But soon enough, their intense hatred for each other turns into a blissful love.
Kasauti Zindagi Kay Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon… Ek Baar Phir (Strange Love Season 2) (Drama, 542x30 min.) Destiny brings free-spirited Astha and chauvinistic Shlok together. Soon Astha learns that not all is as rosy as it seems in Sholk’s perfect family. Ishqbaaaz (The Love Gamblers) (Drama, 578x30 min.) Omkara, Rudra and Shivaay are scions of the powerful and affluent Oberoi business family. The cousins are extremely close and always have each other’s back. But with plans for succession in the offing, will their love stand the test of wealth? Yeh Hai Mohabbatein (This is Love) (Drama, 458x30 min.) After a failed first marriage, hotheaded Raman (a businessman) and sensitive Ishita (a dentist) are brought together by destiny and their love for Raman’s daughter, Ruhi. Rishton Ka Chakravyuh (Family Secrets) (Drama, 154x30 min.) A royal saga begins when Anami, an abandoned girl, returns as the sole yet reluctant heir to a royal family. Naamkaran (The Naming) (Drama, S1-3: 469x30 min.) Emotional drama made by one of the biggest Bollywood directors revolves around a girl who in her journey to shed her illegitimate status carves a niche and a name for herself. Chandra Nandini (Historical drama, 286x30 min.) Loosely based on the tumultuous love story of the brave Indian warrior King Chandragupta and the daughter of his enemy, Princess Nandini.
STAR MEDIA
O (7-499) 356-5400 m office@starmediafilm.com
Maestro (Adventure drama, 12 eps.) In 1986, after serving as a machinist for eight months aboard a merchant ship, young sailor Pasha returns to Odessa to marry his love, Lilly. Operation Muhabbat (Drama, 12 eps.) Afghanistan, 1985. Dmitri, the son of an adviser to the General Secretary of the Communist Party, and his love, Ania; become the objects of a secret intelligence operation codenamed “Muhabbat,” which, in Farsi, means “love.” The Experts (Detective drama, 20 eps.) Andrey Makarov, the head of the police forensic laboratory, helps solve the most complex crimes, while also searching for the person who murdered his sister. Ancestral Land (Drama, 16 eps.) An epic family saga set in the Russian Urals before, during and after WWII, centered on two brothers and two sisters with a multitude of complex relationships between them. Mata Hari (Historical drama, 12 eps.) The year is 1913 and the world is on the verge of a war that will change the entire course of history. Mata Hari cannot imagine what fateful role she is to play in these coming events. The Russian Revolution (Docudrama, 8 eps.) Using a mixture of CGI, dramatic reconstruction scenes and unique historic library footage, commemorates the centenary of the two most crucial events in Russian history, the February and the October revolutions in 1917. The Birth of a Nation (Docudrama, 4 eps.) Features a period in history associated with the advent of Christianity in the territory of ancient Rus, exploring how the views and religious beliefs of the people of that time were evolving. Oriental Sweets (Melodrama, 24 eps.) After years of struggling to conceive, Tatiana and Igor see a world-famous fertility specialist in Istanbul. After only a few weeks, the pregnancy test is positive—but she realizes that the father is not her husband.
STUDIO 100 MEDIA & M4E
O (49-89) 960-855-0 m distribution@studio100media.com w www.studio100.m4e.de Stand: R7.C15 Contact: Hans Bourlon, CEO, Studio 100; Ulli Stoef, CEO, Studio 100 Media & m4e; Jo Daris, CCO; Dorian Bühr, snr. sales exec.; Tanja Aichberger Schätzle, snr. sales exec.; Anke Manthey, sales project mgr.; Joe Hofer, intl. PR & events mgr.; Petra Keil, dir., channel & pgm. mngmt.; Anja van Mensel, CEO, Studio 100 Benelux; Katell France, GM, Studio 100 Animation; Pia Flohr, head, home ent.
w starmediafilm.com Stand: R9.A23 Contact:Maria Grechishnikova, VP, sales & intl. projects; Nadia Rekhter, head, intl. projects dept.; William J. Peck, intl. sales cnslt.; Vlad Ryashin, gen. producer. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Detective Anna (Drama/sci-fi, 56 eps.) Nineteenyear-old Anna, living at the end of the 19th century in the town of Zatonsk, discovers that she can communicate with the spirits of the dead, allowing her to solve crimes. Richard Sorge. Master Spy (Historical drama, 12 eps.) Spring 1941. Richard Sorge, Soviet secret agent, works in Tokyo disguised as a German journalist. He is tasked with finding out if Japan is going to start a war against the USSR and if so, when.
Detective Anna
Nils Holgersson (CGI adventure, 52x13 min.) One day an elf changes Nils into a miniature human. With his faithful friend Martin the gander, Nils embarks on an extraordinary journey among the wild geese. The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill (CGI adventure comedy, 52x12 min.) Without Blinky, Green Patch would be a quiet refuge from the dangerous outback. With this kid koala, everyday life has a way of spiraling into a chain of escapades. Maya the Bee (CGI preschool adventure, 130x13 min.) The new season features 52 new adventures with Maya, the little bee who is so unlike any of the other bees, and her very best friends. Ghost Rockers (Live-action mystery, 209x12 min. & 1x92 min.) After their summer holidays the Ghost Rockers receive a sinister message from someone called the Queen of Clubs challenging them to play a game. Drop Dead Weird (Live-action comedy, 26x24 min.) Three Aussie kids trying to fit into their new hometown are harboring an enormous secret: their parents are zombies. Random & Whacky (Live-action comedy, 15x24 min.) Comedy series about a top-secret agent who solves the problems faced by real-life kids.
STUDIOCANAL
O (44-20) 7534-2700 m sales@studiocanaltv.com w www.studiocanaltvseries.com Stand: P1.A1 Contact: Francoise Guyonnet, exec. mng. dir., STUDIOCANAL TV; Anna Marsh, EVP, intl. dist., film & TV series; Beatriz Campos, head, intl. sales; Sarah Mottershead, sales exec.; Elise Woolfe, sales dir.; Rola Bauer, mng. dir., STUDIOCANAL TV; Sandra Munivrana, sales asst., STUDIOCANAL TV; Jonas Bauer, head, intl. acq. & coprod.; Stéphanie Bro, SVP, mktg. & publicity, TV series; Hooman Afshari, EVP, dist., Germany; Sebastian Miska, snr. sales mgr., TV/digital series acq., Germany; Milena Thomsen, sales mgr., TV dist. Germany; Katheryn Needham, head, TV & digital sales, U.K. & Ireland; Julia Breatas, snr. mgr., TV sales, U.K. & Ireland; Imrun Islam, snr. mgr., digital sales, U.K. & Ireland; James Forde, chief commercial officer, U.K.; John Rodden, head, home ent. & library, U.K.; Juliette Hochart, head, intl. library sales; Maxime Vauthier, intl. library sales mgr.; Victoire Lefevre, intl. library sales mgr.; Pauline Saint-Hilaire, VP, intl. library sales; Aska Yamaguchi, head, intl. digital sales; Julie Lagarde, intl. digital dist. project mgr.; Laure de Boissard, SVP, TV/SVOD, France; Zelda Camilleri, sales mgr., pay TV/SVOD, France; Camille Soudan, sales coord., France; Chloé Champenois, VP, sales, VOD, France; Lionel Balzan, head., acq., video, TV & new media mgr., France; Yann Le Prado, EVP, library.
Wissper PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Wissper (CGI preschool adventure/comedy, 104x7 min.) Wissper is a little girl who can talk to animals—she can sense their feelings and thus help them around the world. Arthur and the Minimoys—The Series (CGI adventure/fantasy, 26x24 min.) Arthur found the world of the Minimoys and visits his friends. The King of the Minimoys is organizing the resistance against tyrant Malthazar. Tip the Mouse (CGI preschool comedy, 78x7 min.) Based on the original character Topo Tip from the best-selling children’s book series published by Dami/Giunti. Mia and me (Fantasy/adventure, S1-3: 78x23 min., S4 & feature in dvpmt.) Mia and her friends in Centopia are facing the arrival of a new villain who poses a threat to their fantastic world.
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Moscow Noir PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Esther’s Notebooks (Animation, 50x2 min.) Told in the first person, this series draws us into the daily life of a 10-year-old girl, Esther, living in Paris with her family, talking about school, friends, family and pop stars. Interns (Drama, 8x60 min.) In a public hospital, after a patient dies from an infection, the main staff is put into quarantine at home indefinitely. The department is henceforth run by young medical interns. Moscow Noir (Thriller, 8x60 min.) In Moscow at the turn of the 21st century, an innocent trade
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TV LISTINGS 27 plunges Swedish investment banker Tom Blixen into a battle with millionaires, politicians, oligarchs and their private armies. Pros and Cons (Dramedy, 10x60 min.) An everyday couple leading a quiet family life in the suburbs of Copenhagen must hide their past as notorious con artists. Raven (Thriller, 6x60 min.) Adam Kruk, a brilliant police inspector from Lodz, must uncover the truth behind the kidnapping of a teenage boy while also dealing with his traumatic past in the city that is all too familiar to him—his birth town. Ride Upon the Storm (Drama, S1-2: 20x60 min.) Creator Adam Price (Borgen) turns his attention to how faith and religion affect our lives in this modern, character-led drama produced by Camilla Hammerich (Borgen) and starring Lars Mikkelsen (House of Cards).
SUNRIGHTS
O (1-646) 284-9801 m sales@sunrights-inc.com w www.sunrights-inc.com usa.beyblade.com Stand: R7.K20 Contact: Daizo Suzuki, pres.; Ayako Tsunekawa, creative/mktg. dir.; Natasha Gross, dir., TV sales & lic.
Beyblade Burst Turbo PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Beyblade Burst (Action animation, 51x22 min.) This is the story of a group of passionate Bladers who follow their dreams on an unforgettable journey to the top. Beyblade Burst Evolution (Action animation, 51x22 min.) Valt travels to Spain after being scouted by a prestigious Spanish club. He and his friends fight to make it to the World League. Beyblade Burst Turbo (Action animation, 51x22 min.) This season, more action-packed than ever, introduces a new competitor, Aiger Akabane, a wild child who sets out to earn a chance to unseat Valt and claim the title of World Champion.
SUPERIGHTS
O (33) 516-500-016 m sales@superights.net
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Pat the Dog (Kids cartoon comedy 3D, 78x7 min., S2 in prod.) Tells the daily adventures of an ordinary little dog, Pat, and his owner, Lola. Pat would do anything to save Lola’s day. Story Time! (Preschool/family 2D, 26x13 min., TV special in prod.) A collection of beautiful tales, both forgotten wonders and original series. The series has been designed to open children up to other cultures. Helen’s Little School (Preschool comedy 3D, 52x11 min.) Follows 5-year-old Helen and her unruly toy students in this not-so-ordinary class, where they will discover that helping and listening to each other is the best way to learn. Kika & Bob (Kids comedy/educational 2D, 52x13 min.) Kika, a gutsy 9-year-old girl, and Bob, a not so clever but kindhearted fireman, travel the world with a goal: to go back home and save Tiger, Kika’s kitten and best friend. Bo Bear (Preschool/family live action, 26x5 min., S2 in prod.) In each episode, a kid faces a new situation that could sound difficult or challenging, but with the help of Bo Bear, it becomes a life-learning lesson. The Horn Quartet (Kids/family 2D, 1x26 min.) In the course of an amusing trip to the beach, four cows will discover freedom in an unknown world that extends far from their meadow. Puffin Rock (Preschool comedy 2D, 78x7 min.) Set on a beautiful island off the Irish coast. Nature and wildlife are central to the stories of Oona and Baba, a cute sister and brother puffling pair. Clay Time (Preschool edutainment 2D, 30x3 min. & 30 live tutorials) Aimed at 3- to 5-year-olds, young viewers are invited to develop their imagination with a universal activity: modeling clay. Will (Kids comedy 2D, 52x2 min.) Will is a highly energetic and clever boy who lives his life to the fullest in a wheelchair. Boyster (Kids comedy 2D, 52x13 min.) Half oyster, half human, Boyster is different from the other boys in this comedy series dealing with universal topics such as finding one’s identity, social exclusion and the desire to fit in.
TALPA GLOBAL
O (31-35) 533-3111 m sales@talpa.tv w www.talpa.tv Stand: C16.B Contact: Maarten Meijs, mng. dir.; Annelies Noest, dir., formats & global network; Ingid Akkerman, head, lic., & branded concepts. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS House of Talent (Reality, 25 min. eps.) Begins with the launch of the careers of eight musical artists. They have to build a fanbase, perform throughout the country and release a new track every six weeks. Which artist’s popularity will spiral sky-high?
w www.superights.net Stand: R7.G19 Contact: Nathalie Pinguet, deputy mng. dir., intl. sales & acq.; Safaa Benazzouz, sales mgr.; Jeromine Ader, sales coord.
Lucky13
Bo Bear
The Voice Senior (Talent show, 4x70 min.) In this brand new spin-off of the worldwide successful talent show, it’s the seniors’ turn to shine. Golden Boys (Dating, 6x40 min.) Each episode we follow one old-school Casanova (70-plus) in his quest for love. One thing is certain: when it comes to love, it’s never too late. Dance As One (Talent show, 8x70 min.) Sets out to find the best dance group in one of the most challenging disciplines: synchronized dancing. Pitch the Dish (Talent show, 43 min. eps.) A daily cooking competition in which home cooks get the opportunity to show off their culinary skills. In this show pitching the dish is an essential ingredient.
Lucky13 (Game show, 23 min. eps.) The live mobile-first game show that can also be watched on TV in which anyone can play anywhere, every day and every round to win cash!
TCB MEDIA RIGHTS
O (44-203) 970-5577 m office@tcbmediarights.com w www.tcbmediarights.com
Media Group; Juan Parodi, dir., The Magic Eye; Humberto Delmas, sales mgr.; Alfredo Andreotti, sales mgr.; Alejandro Carballo, sales mgr.; Mariana González Pistiner, mktg. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Adrift (Feature film) Based on a true story of survival, a young couple’s chance encounter leads them first to love and then on the adventure of a lifetime as they face one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history.
Stand: R8.D3 Contact: Paul Heaney, CEO; Dina Subhani, dir.; Jimmy Humphrey, head, acq. & coprod.; Hannah Demidowicz, commissioning editor; Nicola Davey, acq. & coprod. exec.; Simona Argenti, snr. sales mgr.; Holly Newey, snr. sales mgr.; Holly Cowdery, sales mgr.; Lenneke De Jong, sales mgr.; Claire Lowe, commercial & business affairs dir. Adrift
Borderforce USA: The Bridges PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Border Interceptors (Reality/ent., 10x30 min.) Capturing the frontline work and fast-paced lives of Ireland’s borders protectors. Their mission is to ensure everything’s above board, to safeguard the Irish people. Borderforce USA: The Bridges (Reality/ent., 10x60 min.) Provides unique insight into the world of the Customs & Border Protection officers: the nation’s gatekeepers. Egypt’s Unexplained Files (History, 10x60 min.) Unprecedented access to the latest research and data from high-tech scans and satellite imagery allows our experts to solve some of Egypt’s most complex hidden mysteries. Extreme Love Stories (Reality/ent., 8x60 min.) True stories of love overcoming huge odds from sharing your man with his other wives to loaning out your girlfriend and even being fed excessively. How I Caught the Killer (Crime, 10x60 min.) Revealing how police officers not only solve the mystery of these worldwide murder cases but track down the killers and bring them to justice. Massive Engineering Mistakes (Science/ tech., 10x60 min.) Learning from experts who help unpick the science behind unbelievable building blunders, and eyewitness reports of these crazy calamities. Mythical Beasts Unearthed (History, 8x60 min.) For thousands of years, civilizations believed in mythical beasts—dragons, cyclops, giants and vampires. But where did the stories of these fabled creatures come from? Private Lives (History, 6x60 min.) Exploring the lives of influential aristocrats, from powerful royals to controversial figures of world history. Tracy Borman investigates the people behind the personalities. Wild Tube (Reality/ent., 12x30 min.) Smartphones capture surprising and unexpected animal events, giving us a unique insight into the real world of the animals we share this planet with. World’s Most Extraordinary Families (Reality/ent., 6x60 min.) Each episode features three unique families from around the world who live their lives in a less than conventional way.
TELEFILMS
O (54-11) 5032-6000 m telefilms@telefilms.com.ar w www.telefilms.com.ar Stand: P-1.C2 Contact: Tomás Darcyl, pres.; Ricardo Costianovsky, CEO; Bruce Boren, CEO, THR3
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 645
Hereditary (Feature film) When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. Peppermint (Feature film) A revenge story centering on a young mother who finds herself with nothing to lose and is now going to take from her enemies the very life they stole from her. The Happytime Murders (Feature film) When the puppet cast of an ‘80s children’s TV show begins to get murdered one by one, a disgraced LAPD detective turned private eye puppet takes on the case. Mile 22 (Feature film) An elite American intelligence officer, aided by a top-secret tactical command unit, tries to smuggle a mysterious police officer with sensitive information out of the country.
TERRA MATER FACTUAL STUDIOS
O (43-1) 87003-0 m office@terramater.at,
sven.westphal@terramater.at
w www.terramater.at Stand: R7.N1 Contact: Sven Westphal, snr. intl. coprod. mgr.; Andrea Gastgeb, exec. producer. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Beasts in the City (Nature, 1x50 min.) You thought they were far away in the wild, but they’re here—urban invaders.
Beasts in the City Earth—The Nature of Our Planet (Nature, 3x50 min.) Geological marvels, spectacular weather, mysteries of the plant and animal kingdoms are all inextricably linked and shaped by air, land and water. Mystery of the Celtic Tomb (Science, 1x50 min.) Amid the European Alps, remarkable evidence of Celtic culture has been found. It may be the first real evidence of mystical rites from the dawn of the Celts. Cantabria—Spain’s Magical Mountains (Nature, 1x50 min.) The Cantabrian region is a kingdom of forests, rough canyons, high mountains and amazing wildlife, filled with primeval landscapes where fantasy and reality blurs. Dogs in the Land of Lions (Nature, 1x50 min.) A deeply intimate portrayal of selflessness and motherhood in the rare African Wild Dog plays out in the mist-shrouded Zimbabwean hilltops. Whale Wisdom (Nature, 1x50 min.) With renowned filmmaker Rick Rosenthal we embark
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on a journey to make first contact with the culture of the whales. It’s A Wild Christmas (Nature, 1x50 min.) From snow-white wallabies in eastern Tasmania to colorful parrots in snowy Stuttgart, all of nature celebrates life on a wild, silent Christmas night. The Sun—Inferno in the Sky (Science, 1x50 min.) Our sun is a dynamic star. The most recent scientific findings and innovations are combined in this film to better be able to cope with this inferno playing out in the sky. Sex, Lies and Butterflies (Nature, 1x50 min.) Scientists reveal the survival tricks of moths and butterflies—the eyesight and flight techniques these remarkable creatures have. Amazing Pigs (Nature, 1x50 min.) Unafraid of frostbite or heatstroke, they reside anywhere from Siberia to the Bahamas. Exploring their lives we ask, what is the key to their success?
across five rounds of tough questions. Building a bank of cash, they must then gamble each other’s money and choose each other’s questions to sabotage them out of the game.
TM INTERNATIONAL
O (49-89) 450610-44 m sales@tmg.de w www.tminternational.de
Stand: R8.A6 Contact: Herbert L. Kloiber, mng. dir.; Giannina Antola, head, intl. sales; Angelika Koch, Concorde Media/TM Intl. sales agent; Cosima von Spreti, VP, acq. & coprod.; Henriette Gutmann, head, mktg. & comms.
THE STORY LAB
m hello@storylab.com w storylab.com PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Evil Monkeys (Ent. format, 60 min. eps.) Unsuspecting celebrities held captive on a remote jungle island by a group of intelligent apes face a series of hilarious “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil” challenges to secure their freedom and win loot for charity.
The Name of the Rose PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Name of the Rose (Thriller, 8x60 min.) Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the series depicts the suspenseful hunt for a murderer in a secluded abbey. Hubert & Staller (Crime/comedy/action, 124x60 min.) In this top-rated access primetime series set in the Alpine foothills, inspectors Hubert and Staller lure perps into confessions with shrewdness and a light hand. Thanks for the Memories (Romantic comedy, 2x90 min./1x140 min.) The miniseries is based on Cecelia Ahern’s novel. After an accident Joyce has strange memories and keeps stumbling into an attractive college professor.
Evil Monkeys Game of Clones (Reality format, 20x30 min.) A singleton creates an avatar of their ideal date before moving in with eight identical suitors. Whose personality will win them over? Ninja Warrior (Ent. format, 60+ min. eps.) The family entertainment show where hundreds of competitors attempt to complete a four-stage obstacle course to be the one left standing. All Star Driving School (Reality format, 30 min. eps.) Celebrities learn to drive in the most extreme, nerve-shredding way: on an intensive week-long course, joined by their family, friends, fellow cast members or band-mates as backseat drivers. Hall Pass (Reality format, 60 min. eps.) Couples at a crossroads in their relationship are each granted 72 hours to do whatever they want with absolutely no consequences. Will they choose to separate or will the “hall pass” prove to strengthen their relationship? No Sleep No Fomo (Ent. format, 30 min. eps.) Comedic travel series where guest star teams land in a global destination and attempt to do every single thing that every travel show, blog and guidebook says travelers must do—in only 72 hours. Road Diaries (Reality format, 30 min. eps.) Each episode features three recurring drivers driving to different destinations across the globe, joined by ride-sharers who share their stories on their extraordinary adventures. Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Ent. format, 60 min. eps.) New singing game show that sees two celebrity team captains head up teams of contestants, all hoping to outshine their rival with amazing performances over three rounds, to win the hearts and votes of the studio audience. Travel Ink (Reality format, 6x30 min.) Two celebrities travel together to a specific destination in the world known for a tattoo artist or culture to get inked up. A travel adventure, we also learn about the celebrities while they search for their dream tattoos. Sabotage (Ent. format, 12x60 min.) Each episode sees five contestants go head-to-head
TV ASAHI CORPORATION
O (81-3) 6406-1952 m ml-international@tv-asahi.co.jp w tv-asahicontents.com
Ninja Hattori (Animation, 355x22 min.) A 10year-old boy becomes friends with a real ninja boy, Hattori, who saves him from trouble using his magnificent ninja techniques in Tokyo. Barangay 143 (Animation, 26x22 min.) A new collaboration between Japan, South Korea, the U.S., Malaysia and Singapore, with an all-star Filipino voice cast. An 18-year-old basketball player searches for his identity. Yuri!!! on ICE (Animation, 12x25 min.) Two people named “Yuri” will face the challenge of the Figure Grand Prix series. Its first theatrical movie is slated for release in Japan in 2019. The Dinner Table (Social experiment/reality format, 30 min. eps.) A family must start dinner together at 7 p.m. sharp for 100 consecutive days to win a big cash prize. The show captures surprising, heartwarming and funny family moments. Test of Friends (Game format, 60 min. eps.) We all have friends. But how many of them are real friends you can rely on? More importantly, how far will they go for you? Hide-and-Seek with Drones (Game format, 30 min. eps.) By using high-tech drones, the children’s pastime of hide-and-seek has become an entirely futuristic and thrilling game for all ages. New Japan Pro-Wrestling (Sports, 130x60 min.) The action from Japan’s premier wrestling organization, NJPW, now comes with full English commentary.
O (44) 759578-0949 m catriona.mcneish@tvf.co.uk w www.tvfinternational.com Stand: R7.C40 Contact: Harriet Armston-Clarke, division head; Will Stapley, head, acq.; Lindsey Ayotte, sales mgr.; Julian Chou-Lambert, acq. mgr.; Oliver Clayton, snr. sales exec.; Catriona McNeish, snr. sales exec.; Sam Joyce, sales exec.; Irini Koulovasilopoulos, sales exec.; Henry Pelham, sales exec.; Katie Bench, sales exec.; Izabela Sokolowska, head, pgm. servicing; Patrick Lavin, pgm. servicing exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The World from Above (S11: 14x26 min.) Heads out for an all-new globe-trotting aerial adventure.
O (5255) 5166-2330 m jrico@tvazteca.com.mx
w www.tvaztecainternacional.com Stand: R8.B10 Contact: Patricia Jasín, VP; Ramón Salomón, operations content dir.; Andres R. Payá, mktg.; Jorge Berthely, intl. sales; Berta Orozco, sales rep., Spain, Africa, MENA, Asia & French-speaking territories; Melissa Pillow, sales rep., Europe, Turkey, Israel, U.S., NZ & Australia. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Maria Magdalena (Historical drama, 60x60 min.) An epic melodrama recreating the life of a passionate woman during oppressive times. A woman different from the rest, one who will challenge the laws of a corrupt society entirely run by men.
Maria Magdalena
Ossan ’s Love
TVF INTERNATIONAL
TV AZTECA INTERNATIONAL
Stand: R7.H6 Contact: Motoko Nakai, dir., intl. business; Nakamura Mayumi, head, format sales; Takahiro Kishimoto, head, animation; Maiko Sumida, head, animation sales & dvpmt.; Sachiko Yoshida, sales exec., animation; Setsuko Yoda, intl. business; Yoshiyuki Sugimoto, head, animation sales; Yukie Uwakubo, animation sales.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Ossan’s Love (Comedy drama, 7x60 min.) Haruta, a 33-year-old bachelor, is desperately looking for a girlfriend. Suddenly he finds himself the object of desire of two male co-workers. Legal V (Drama, 9x60 min.) This former lawyer takes any risks needed to win in court although she has been disqualified. She will use any means necessary to win. Doraemon (Animation, 1,074x22 min.) Longrunning animation series about a cat-like robot from the future, Doraemon, helping an elementary schoolboy, Nobita.
Wild By Nature (Factual, 30x30 min.) Actor and naturalist Arturo Islas travels jungles, deserts and seas in search of the wonderful species of fauna in Mexico.
Mundo Metro (Docureality, 15x60 min.) Welcome to the largest and most advanced underground transport in all of Latin America, the Mexico City subway—12 lines, 390 trains that connect 195 stations and hundreds of stories to tell. Dementia (Series, 10x60 min.) A reporter decides to admit herself into a psychiatric hospital to solve her grandmother’s murder. Once she discovers the truth, leaving will not be easy. La Academia (Format) This format has attracted audiences from countries such as Mexico (12 seasons), Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (13 seasons) and Central America (2 seasons). Fut Azteca (Sports) TV Azteca has the worldwide broadcast rights of six of the 18 Liga MX teams, which includes 102 regular games during the 2018-2019 season as well as half-hour weekly highlights.
646 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Will a Robot Steal My Job? Will a Robot Steal My Job? (1x53 min.) As artificial intelligence develops at breakneck speed, Anne-Marie Tomchak, science journalist and U.K. editor of Mashable, asks the question: Are any of our jobs safe? Grand Spaces: Thailand (6x23 min.) Discover Thailand’s extravagant multi-billion-dollar resorts, hotels and boutique spas and meet the great minds of design as they reveal secrets behind their luxury creations. The Bikes of Wrath (6x50 min./1x90 min.) Follow an adventure from Oklahoma to California to explore inequality and disenfranchisement in America through the lens of Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. Being Me (20x29 min.) Features intimate stories of people living with a variety of disabilities and tells the tale of confidence and positivity in the face of adversity. Miss Amazing (1x48 min.) Join 17-year-old Abigail Manery as she travels to the National Miss Amazing Pageant finals in search of a crown and more importantly, a real friend. Ultimate Braai Master (S6: 13x48 min.) The world’s toughest outdoor cooking competition is back with 13 brand-new teams battling it out over a series of fireside barbeque challenges. Wild Kai Legends (10x26 min.) Join passionate hunter Jack Terei as he teams up with local hunting legends for a series of rugged pursuits following wild pigs, stags, deer and boars. Celebrity Car Wars (S3: 8x48 min.) An adrenaline-fueled action reality series that’s a mix of competition, racing, fun and adventure. Mistress, Mercy: Story of a Teenage Dominatrix (2x44 min.) Teenage dominatrix Renee Chignell was accused of murder; 30 years later, she tells her story for the first time.
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION
O (1-310) 369-1000 m FoxTVD@fox.com w www.foxfast.com
Stand: P3.A1 Contact: Mark Kaner, pres.; Gina Brogi, pres., global dist.; Kristen Finney, EVP, EMEA; Richard
*LIST_1018_LIS_1006_LISTINGS 9/28/18 9:15 AM Page 29
TV LISTINGS 29 Samuels, EVP, AsiaPac & mng. dir., Sydney office; Evan Scheffel, EVP, Americas; David Smyth, SVP & dvpmt., EMEA & mng. dir., U.K. office; Manuel Alduy, SVP & dvpmt., EMEA & mng. dir., Paris office; Maria Rodriguez, SVP, EMEA; Brendan Zauner, SVP, AsiaPac; Ricardo Rubini, SVP, LatAm; Michael McLaughlin, SVP, Canada; Simon Bathe, VP, sales, Europe; Cristina Sala, VP, sales, Europe; Martine Bazin, VP, sales, EMEA; Vanessa Patenon, VP, sales, EMEA; George Giodas, VP, EMEA; Jose Luis Gascue, VP, LatAm; Brook Peters, VP, pgm. sales, Canada; Jean Vezina, VP, pgm. sales, Canada; Dorothy Crompton, VP, format lic., TVD; Lisa Gallo, exec. dir., Americas, TVD; Tina Kwon, exec. dir., AsiaPac; Annette Kollek, exec. dir., Australia & NZ; Yan-Jong Wong, dir., sales, AsiaPac; Christophe Jiang, dir., sales liaison, China; Kate Stevenson, snr. mgr., sales, EMEA; Dragana Kos, snr. mgr., sales, Europe. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Proven Innocent (Drama, 13x60 min.) Writer and producer Danny Strong partners with David Elliot to tell the emotional story of one woman’s fight for the innocence of others, as well as her own.
What Would Your Kid Do? (Ent. & format, 6x60 min.) Merging factual takeout with an entertaining game-show mechanic, parents compete to try to guess how their children will behave in a variety of challenging situations in order to win some incredible prizes. Undercover Girlfriends (Fact-ent., 5x60 min.) Five girls determined to discover whether their man is really the one have decided to go undercover, using technology and a range of disguises, to put their boyfriends to the test. Weekender Boat Party (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) In this new spin off format from the Weekender brand, the reps take their guests on a tour across some incredible locations, while plenty of mischief and drama happens above and below deck.
mgr., CEE; Joe McLusky, VP, Elephant House Studios; Agata Ziomek, sales dir., intl. content sales, UKNEE; Jill Offman, EVP, CC & Paramount Intl., VIMN; Arran Tindall, SVP, intl. content dist., VIMN; Lauren Marriott, VP, intl. content sales; Amanda Cordner, snr. dir., intl. content sales; Jules Borkent, EVP, content network strategy, Nickelodeon Intl.; Nina Hahn, SVP, Nickelodeon Intl. dvpmt.; Layla Lewis, SVP, global acq. & content partnerships, Nickelodeon; Jemma Yates, VP, acq., comedy & ent., VIMN; Adam Robinson, dir., acq., comedy & ent., VIMN. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Kids animation, 26x30 min.) A franchise reboot featuring the legendary heroes who have an allnew look, new weapons, awesome new powers, and discover a hidden city beneath NYC.
synd., AsiaPac & Europe; Bhavishya Rao, snr. mgr., synd., MENAP & Americas. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Naagin 3 (The Serpent) When the wedding of an Icchadhari Naag (shape-shifter serpent) and Naagin is marred by a group of drunken youngsters, the atrocities result in his death, leading Naagin to avenge the death of her partner. Internet Wala Love (Internet Love) Adhya who is anti the digital world, crosses paths with Jai, a social media addict. The show focuses on this new-age romance wherein both our protagonists end up exploring options in both the traditional and contemporary ways. Silsila (Unfaithful) Portrays the impact of an extra marital affair between a young, happily married man and his wife’s erstwhile best friend whom they had given solace to while she was going through a bad marriage. Bepannah (Beyond Boundaries) Aditya and Zoya discover that their spouses were cheating on them and were together when they died in an accident. In the chaos that follows they find each other. Roop (The Soft Hearted Boy) Shamsher Singh wants to train his son, Roop, to become a so-called “real man,” but Roop grows up to be someone who changes the perception of the defined role of a man in society.
Take the Tower
Proven Innocent The Passage (Drama, 10x60 min.) Based on author Justin Cronin’s best-selling trilogy of the same name, an epic, character-driven thriller written by Liz Heldens (Friday Night Lights). The Cool Kids (Comedy, 10x30 min.) A comedy about a rowdy, rag-tag group of friends living in a retirement community who are willing to break every rule in order to have fun. The Resident (Drama, S1: 13x60 min., S2: 13x60 min.) A provocative medical drama that rips back the curtain to reveal the truth of what happens behind the scenes at hospitals. The Gifted (Drama, S1: 13x60 min., S2: 16x60 min.) A suburban family goes on the run, seeking help from an underground network of mutants after suddenly discovering that their teenage children possess mutant powers. The Orville (Sci-fi comedic drama, 12x60 min., S2: 15x60 min.) Set 400 years in the future, follows the voyages of The Orville, a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar fleet. 9-1-1 (Drama, S1: 10x60 min., S2: 18x60 min.) A fast-paced procedural drama about the lives and careers of emergency responders who put their lives on the line to save others.
TWOFOUR RIGHTS
O (44-1752) 727-400 m sales@twofour-rights.co.uk w www.twofour-rights.co.uk Stand: ITV Studios House Contact: Melanie Leach, chief exec., Twofour Group; Andrew Mackenzie, chief creative officer, Twofour Group; Anthony Hughes, COO; Holly Hodges, head, sales operations & VP, sales; Eniela Bella, VP, sales; Marta Csizmadia, sales exec.; Tom Burton, sales exec. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Take the Tower (Ent. & format, 6x60 min.) One of Hollywood’s most iconic villains, Dolph Lundgren, dares wannabe action heroes to take him on in an adrenaline quiz challenge format, and win a luxury holiday or cash prize.
Our Shirley Valentine Summer (Fact-ent., 6x60 min.) Across one summer, eight famous women spend a month discovering the Greek islands, rediscovering themselves, and even looking for love. Extreme Cake Makers (Factual ent., S3: 30x30 min.) Follow the crazy, creative and elite group who go all out to produce the world’s most delicious and breathtaking creations. Impossible Railways (Factual, S2: 6x60 min.) New season of this science and history series conquers dizzying altitudes, wilderness, seas and cities, to showcase some of the world’s most extraordinary engineering achievements of a truly remarkable global network. Impossible Engineering (Factual, S4: 10x60 min.) The stories behind the inventions and scientific advances in this series are revealed in a new season that celebrate the trailblazers of modern engineering and pioneering structures of the world today. Sinkholes (Factual, S2: 12x60 min.) A bumper edition of incredible stories of people who have survived these deadly natural disasters, plus expert analysis and cutting-edge 3D technology that can predict where the next sinkholes are likely to open. Educating Greater Manchester (Factual, S5: 6x60 min.) The BAFTA award-winning producers invite you back through the school gates for a new term of inspirational and entertaining stories from the hallways of a Manchester-based school.
VIACOM INTERNATIONAL STUDIOS
O (44-203) 580-2504 m programsales@vimn.com w b2b.viacom.com
Stand: R7.K5/N7 Contact: Mark Whitehead, pres. & mng. dir., VIMN AsiaPac; Pierre Cheung, SVP & GM, VIMN, Greater China; Syahrizan Mansor, VP & GM, Nickelodeon brand, AsiaPac; June Yeoh, snr. dir., intl. content sales, AsiaPac; Pierluigi Gazzolo, pres., VIMN Americas & EVP, Nick Intl.; Guillermo Borensztein, VP, intl. content sales, Americas; Dario Turovelzky, SVP, global content, Americas; Rita Herring, SVP, content dist. mktg., Americas; Pete Flamman, SVP, youth & music & kids & family brands, SWEMEA; Amalia Martinez de Velasco, SVP, ent. content, SWEMEA; David Urgell, SVP, strategy & business dvpmt., VIMN SWEMEA; Emmanuel Bon, snr. dir., intl. content sales, SWEMEA; Elena Balmont, SVP/GM, VIMN Russia; Gabor Harsanyi, VP, content dist. mgr. & country
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Butterbean’s Café (Preschool, 40x30 min.) An animated preschool series about a fairy named Butterbean who runs a neighborhood café and magical bakery. N00bees (Kids live action, 60x60 min.) Silvia creates her own e-sports team to compete for the title of Professional League of Video Games, acquiring epic powers along the way. Secrets Of McDonald’s: 50 Years of the Big Mac (Factual, 1x60 min.) An entertaining documentary revealing the history of the fast food franchise. Albert: The Power Behind Victoria (Factual, 1x120 min.) A scripted drama that tells the untold story of how the ‘Pauper Prince’ rose from obscurity to become the most powerful man in the world. True Love or True Lies? (Competitive reality format, 60 min. eps.) Couples must weed out the “liars” who live amongst them while competing to be the “most perfect pair.” 100 Days to Fall in Love (Scripted comedy, 125x60 min.) A telenovela about two women who take a temporary break from their husbands to go party. Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis (Comedy, 1x120 min.) A roast celebration by some of the biggest names in entertainment who serve up punches of their own to Hollywood’s go-to action star. The Bobby Brown Story (Scripted, 2x150 min.) A miniseries chronicling the “King of R&B” from his exit from the popular ‘80s boy band through his solo success, and marriage to Whitney Houston. Hit the Floor (Scripted, 8x60 min.) A scripted drama that explores the fame, money, power and sex in professional basketball through the eyes of the LA Devil dancers and basketball team.
Naagin 3 Ishq Mein Marjawan (To Die for Love) Aarohi has been married into a fake family full of con artists who frame her for a murder she did not commit. She plans the ultimate escape from the prison to unravel the mystery and seek revenge against the man who deceived and framed her. Dil Se Dil Tak (From Your Heart to Mine) The story of Parth and Shorvori, a happily married couple whose lives are turned upside down after the arrival Teni, a young bubbly girl who they are using as a surrogate in order to have a child. Madhubala A beautiful girl who has no aspirations of entering India’s glamorous film industry is compelled to act and marry a superstar where love has no role to play. Will their hate turn into love and transform their lives? Rangrasiya (Colors of Passion) Paro hates Rudra, who killed her husband Varun at their wedding. Watch their journey as they deal with starkly opposite views on everything—from love to duty to life. Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi (My Love Is Only For You) Ranveer, the son of the driver to a very wealthy family, is secretly in love with the daughter of the house. Will the class divide prevent her from returning his affections?
VIVICAST MEDIA
O (1-901) 842-5353 m info@vivicast.com w www.vivicast.com
VIACOM18/INDIACAST
O (91-22) 6697-7777 m keerthana.anand@indiacast.com bhavishya.rao@indiacast.com
w www.indiacast.com Stand: P-1.E73 Contact: Debkumar Dasgupta, SVP, intl. business & synd.; Keerthana Anand, mgr.,
10/18 WORLD SCREEN 647
Stand: P-1.D66 Contact: Stuart Smitherman, pres.; Matt Pohlman, VP, worldwide sales. HIGHLIGHTS C4K360 The world’s first and only lifestyle entertainment pay-TV channel 100 percent 4K UHD native, dedicated to millennials and generation Y and giving access to VR 360degree content.
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TV LISTINGS
4K Universe 24/7 4K channel bringing general entertainment to audiences around the world, including original TV series, movies, docs and sports. Travelxp 4K The world’s first 4K travel channel with 100 percent premium and exclusive programming delivered in stunning 4K HDR. Stingray’s Ambiance Channel in 4K Programs filmed around the world in 4K by top nature cinematographers, bringing viewers the most stunning scenery delivered to any screen. The Country Music Network A top TV destination for the best in country music entertainment, from original programming to an extensive array of music videos ranging from the 1980s all the way through to the present day.
a soccer ball, the superstar Erico Platana will have to deflate his ego and help Daniel, a clumsy but headstrong young boy, become a soccer champion.
impact becomes so significant, it begins to change the planet’s own systems. Cirque du Soleil—”O” (Show, 1x100 min.) Cirque du Soleil weaves an aquatic tapestry of artistry, surrealism and theatrical romance in the timeless production “O.” Cash or Trash (Docutainment, 55 min. eps.) The popular daily show that uncovers the price of the public’s treasures and hidden heirlooms.
Raw PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Raw (Sports/ent., 52x60 min./52x120 min./52x180 min.) Live, weekly, in-ring programs featuring edge-of-your-seat action and unpredictable drama. SmackDown (Sports/ent., 52x60 min./ 52x120 min.) Live, weekly, in-ring flagship program featuring edge-of-your seat action and unpredictable drama. Total Divas (Sports/ent., 12x60 min.) Reality series featuring the real women of WWE—go inside their personal lives like never before. WWE Experience (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.) Weekly highlight program with fresh commentary and in-depth analysis of the action-packed matches and storylines from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live. WWE BottomLine (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.) Weekly highlight program that chronicles the action from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live with post-match analysis and exclusive updates. WWE AfterBurn (Sports/ent., 52x60 min.) Weekly highlight program that chronicles the action from WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown Live with post-match analysis and exclusive updates.
XILAM ANIMATION
O (33-1) 4018-7200 m sales@xilam.com w www.xilam.com
Stand: R7.J9 Contact: Marc du Pontavice, chmn. & CEO; Morgann Favennec, EVP, dvpmt. & global sales; Leyla Formoso, SVP, media dist., LatAm, MEA & Southern Europe; Céline Carenco, SVP, media dist., AsiaPac, Northern & Eastern Europe; Cathy Leclère, mktg. operations mgr. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Coach Me If You Can (Kids 6-10 comedy, 52x13 min.) To lift the spell that turned him into
O (44-207) 013-4000 m sales@zodiakkids.com Stand: C20.A Contact: Benoit di Sabatino, CEO; Delphine Dumont, SVP, sales, acq. & coprod.; Julia Rowlands, VP, sales, coprod. & acq.; Cecile Cau, VP, sales & coprod. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Tumble Leaf (Preschool animation, 51x30 min.) Set in a whimsical land where a small blue fox named Fig plays each day and discovers adventure, friendship and love around every bend in the path.
O (1-203) 352-8600 m wweintl@wwecorp.com Stand: R7.C31 Contact: James Frewin, snr. dir., content media dist., EMEA; George Quick, mgr., content media dist., EMEA; Thomas Sitrin, snr. dir., content media dist.; Stefan Kastenmueller, SVP & GM, Europe, Africa & emerging markets.
ZODIAK KIDS
w www.zodiakkids.com
WWE
w www.wwe.com
Yoga Girls (Lifestyle, 6x60 min.) Features two groups of yoga instructors, one driven by selfpromotion, the other the die-hard traditionalists, competing to attract clients and gain recognition.
A New Kind of Magic Zig & Sharko (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, 234x7 min.) Zig, a famished hyena, comes up with the craziest plans to make a meal out of Marina, the carefree mermaid. But Sharko the shark will do anything to protect her. Mr Magoo (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, 78x7 min.) In the neighborhood everybody loves Mister Magoo, the dynamic, kindhearted and cheerful guy always happy to give a helping hand. But beware—he also causes disasters. Paprika (Kids 3-6 comedy, 75x7 min. & 11x2 min.) Olivia and Stan are the Paprika twins, taking everyday life and turning it into colorful and zany adventures. A New Kind of Magic (Kids 6-10 comedy, 52x13 min.) Willow the fairy and her beloved husband, Gregore the ogre, have no choice but to emigrate and settle in the real world with their children. Oggy and the Cockroaches—Seasons 5-7 (Kids 6-10 slapstick comedy, 350x7 min.) In season five, we discover that the clash between Oggy and the cockroaches has been around forever, and in seasons six and seven we’ll find a mix of new episodes and full remakes of classic stories from seasons one and two, all produced in 4K.
The Athena Over Water (Crime/suspense, 10x45 min.) John Beckers was Flanders’ favorite TV celebrity, but his heavy addiction to drink and gambling led him down a dark path, causing him to lose almost everything he had worked so hard for. Kristina Ohlsson’s STHLM Requiem (Crime/suspense, 10x45 min./5x90 min.) Follows police recruit Fredrika Bergman, who accepts a position with the special investigations unit of the Stockholm police. JJ (Crime/suspense, 10x60 min.) John Jeiver, a.k.a. Yei Yei, was kidnapped by the FARC at 13 and trained as a one-man army. After the Colombian peace agreements, Yei Yei escapes to Bogotá, where he looks after his mother and a teenage son.
ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES
O (91-22) 7106-1465 m response@atl.esselgroup.com w www.globalcontenthub.net
ZDF ENTERPRISES
O (49) 6131-9910 m info@zdf-enterprises.de w www.zdf-enterprises.de Stand: P-1.L2/M1 Contact: Fred Burcksen, pres. & CEO; Robert Franke, VP, ZDFE.drama; Ralf Rückauer, VP, ZDFE.unscripted; Peter Lang, VP, ZDFE.junior; Christine Denilauler, VP, mktg. & corp. comms. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Athena (Kids live action, 26x26 min.) A young model whose career implodes when she dares to complain about a famous designer treating her like an object decides she wants to design her own clothes and wins a place at The Athena, London’s most prestigious art school. The Worst Witch (Kids live action, S1-3: 39x28 min.) Follows the exciting adventures of one of the most iconic and best-loved characters in children’s literature, Mildred Hubble. Find Me in Paris (Kids live action, S1-2: 52x26 min.) A fun fish-out-of-water story about Lena Grisky, a Russian princess and student at the Paris Opera Ballet School who accidentally time travels to present day. History of Weapons (Science & knowledge, 10x50 min.) Tells a story about weaponry that took leading roles in the major battles in history. Anthropocene—The Rise of Humans (Science & knowledge, 3x50 min.) This age in the history of Earth is sometimes referred to as the Anthropocene—the epoch in which human
Stand: P-1.K51 Contact: Sunita Uchil, chief business officer, global synd. & prod. & intl. ad sales; Sharmeen Dsouza, lead India, synd.; Manjyot Sandhu, lead Europe, synd.; Nitin Michael, territory head, synd.; Sandeep Hardasmalani, lead AsiaPac, synd.; Jose Sanchez, lead Americas, synd.
The Life of Earth from Space PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS The Life of Earth from Space (Doc., 2x60 min.) Delivers a cinematic, blue-chip view of the entire life history of our planet, as seen from satellites, airplanes and drones. Altar’d (Lifestyle/reality, 6x60 min.) Twelve weeks before their nuptials, overweight couples are paired with trainers and begin their transformation. Finding Fido (Lifestyle, 13x30 min.) In each episode, canine expert Seth Casteel helps an enthusiastic dog owner-to-be find the perfect companion for his or her lifestyle.
648 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Preschool animation, 45x30 min.) Despite the mousey mayhem that ensues for Mouse and his “pet kid” Oliver, the stories always come full circle and include a joyous celebration of making new discoveries with a friend. The Stinky and Dirty Show! (Preschool animation, 38x30 min.) Stinky the garbage truck and Dirty the backhoe loader are a dynamic and hilarious duo of resourcefulness that learn when things don’t go as expected, asking “what if” can lead to success. Wishenpoof (Preschool animation, 39x30 min.) Bianca is just like any other little girl, except for one teensy little thing—Bianca has Wish Magic, so she can make wishes come true. Lilybuds (Preschool animation, 52x11 min.) The Lilybuds are tiny, magical gardeners who live under our noses, undetected, in an urban oasis called Garden Park. Tee and Mo (Preschool animation, 50x7 min.) The adventures of a fun-loving 3-year-old monkey, Tee, and first-time super-mum, Mo, as they navigate the swings and roundabouts of their life together. Kody Kapow (Animation, 52x11 min.) An aspiring martial arts-style superhero named Kody spends the summer with his extended family in a small village in China. Lost in Oz (Animation, 23x30 min.) A modern, magical adventure based on a beloved classic. Dorothy and Toto will make new friends, face new enemies, and reunite with loved ones from Emerald City and beyond. Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street (Live action, 39x30 min.) When it comes to the families on Normal Street, there is no norm. Fantastical occurrences in this ordinary suburb make growing up unusually peculiar for Gortimer Gibbons and his two best friends. The Kicks (Live action, 10x30 min.) Devin Burke was the star player on her soccer team back home until her family moved to California. Now, Devin has to rise to the challenge after discovering that her new school team has been on a losing streak and is badly in need of a leader to turn things around.
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ADVERTISERS’ INDEX
3Zero2 178, 179 4K Media 253 9 Story Media Group 205, 305 41 Entertainment 166, 167 A+E Networks 335, 425, 471, 480, 573 A+E Networks Latin America 613 A2 Filmes 607 ABS-CBN Corporation 113 Alfred Haber Distribution 127 all3media international 1, 102, 103 AMC Networks 6, 7 AMC Networks International Latin America 585 AMC Studios 35 Animasia Studio 299, 301 Armoza Formats 410, 411, 423, 436, 437 Artist View Entertainment 45 Asia TV Forum & Market 545 Asia Video Summit 541 Atresmedia Internacional 611 Atresmedia Televisión 69 ATV 337 August Media 241, 537 Autentic Distribution 489 BabyTV 291 Banijay Rights 330, 331, 427, 429, 619 BBC Studios 434, 435, 494, 495 Beyond Distribution 237, 239, 499 Blue Ant International 515 Bomanbridge Media 550 Brightcove 142, 143 CAKE 199, 201, 203, 309 Calinos Entertainment 2, 3 Canada Media Fund 117 Canal 13 129 CDC United Network 615 Cisneros Media 119 CJ ENM 361, 439, 441 Cosmos Maya 295 Crown Media International Distribution 18, 19 Cyber Group Studios 101, 168, 169, 314 Deutsche Welle/DW Transtel 39 Dick Clark Productions 73 DRG 377 DISCOP 563 Disney Media Distribution Latin America 575, 577 Distribution360 174, 175, 478, 479 Dori Media Group 155 Endemol Shine International 77- 92 Entertainment One Family & Brands 172, 173 Escapade Media 367, 503 Federation Kids & Family 189 FilmRise 41 Fox Networks Group Asia 527 Fox Networks Group Content Distribution 567 Fox Networks Group Latin America 587 FoxTelecolombia/Estudios TeleMéxico 597 Fred Rogers Productions 303 Fremantle 133, 141, 144, 319, 334, 407, 416, 466, 472, 473, 519, 522, 551, 553, 571 FUN Union 257 Gaumont 95, 396, 656 Global Agency 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 408, 409, 412, 413 Global Screen 343 Gloob/Globosat 184, 185 GMA Worldwide 107, 373, 453 GoldBee 289 GO-N International 255 GRB Studios 121, 123, 395, 511 Green Gold Animation 293 Guru Studio 243, 245 Gusto Worldwide Media 476, 477 Hari International 284, 285 Hasbro Studios 182,183, 283 HBO 29 HBO Asia 523 HBO Latin America 149, 605 International Academy of TV Arts & Sciences 552 Imagina International Sales 145, 465 Incendo 363 Intellecta 109 Inter Medya 30, 31, 125, 259, 320, 321, 418, 419, 568, 569 ITV Studios Global Entertainment 10, 11, 13, 15, 401
Jetpack Distribution 186, 187 JKN Global Media 22, 23 Kanal D International 160, 402 Keshet International 347, 491 Kew Media Distribution 481, 483 Lacey Entertainment 251 Lionsgate Entertainment 328, 329 Madd Entertainment 385 MarVista Entertainment 4, 5, 52, 170, 171, 399 Media Ranch 21 Mediaset España 357 Mediatoon Distribution 246, 248, 250, 252 Miramax 25, 99 MISTCO 263, 332, 333 Mondo TV 310 Motion Pictures Entertainment 287 Multicom Entertainment Group 655 National Geographic Partners Latin America 313 NATPE 566, 649 NBCUniversal International Distribution 16, 17 NHK Enterprises 487 NTV Broadcasting Company 345 Onza Distribution 359, 583 ORF-Enterprise 51 Passion Distribution 47, 443 PBS International 518 Pol-ka Producciones 451 Portfolio Entertainment 261 Rabbit Films 449 Rai Com 393 Rainbow 176, 177 Record TV 592, 593 Red Arrow Studios International 339, 431 Reed MIDEM 565 Rewind Networks 539 Rive Gauche Television 493 RTVE 147 Russia Television and Radio/Sovtelexport 371 Sabbatical Entertainment 297 Sato Company 135 Scholastic Entertainment 249 Series Mania 389 Serious Lunch 227, 229, 231 Singapore Pavilion by IMDA 520, 521 Smithsonian Channel 43 Sonar Entertainment 8, 9 Sony Pictures Television 589 SPI International 159, 549, 555 Spin Master 233 Star India 351 Star Media 349 Studio 100 Media/m4e 180, 181 STUDIOCANAL 33 Superights 165, 188, 223, 225 Talpa Global 447 TCB Media Rights 474, 475 Telefilms 579 Terra Mater Factual Studios 501 The Story Lab 455 THEMA - Kanal D Drama 609 TM International 381 Translations.com 623 Turner Asia Pacific 531 TV Asahi Corporation 355 TV Azteca International 49, 365, 595 TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific 533 TVF International 517 Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution 65, 97, 421, 603 Twofour Rights 414, 415 Universal Cinergía Dubbing 617 Viacom International Studios 599 Viacom18/Indiacast 387, 535 Voxx Studios 391 Warner Bros. 417 WeKids 247 WWE 63, 581 Xilam Animation 195, 197 ZDF Enterprises 27, 37, 207, 209, 211, 213, 215, 217, 219, 307, 341, 485, 618 Zee Entertainment Enterprises 111 Zodiak Kids 191, 193
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WORLD’S END
IN THE STARS Almost every national constitution forbids the establishment of an official state religion. But this secular bent doesn’t stop people from looking to the heavens for answers to life’s most troublesome questions: Will I succeed? Will I find love? Will I squeeze in two workouts and a prayer session today? Every day, papers, magazines and websites worldwide print horoscopes— projections for people born in a specific month, based on the positions of the stars and planets. While many people rely on these daily, weekly or monthly messages for guidance in their lives, some readers skip over them entirely. The editors of WS recognize that these little pearls of random foresight occasionally prove pro phetic. But rather than poring over charts of the zodiac to pre-
Claire Foy
Angela Bassett
MARK WAHLBERG
Global distinction: The Crown Queen. Sign: Aries (b. April 16, 1984) Significant date: September 17, 2018 Noteworthy activity: Fresh off her Emmy win, Foy
Global distinction: Muscular American actor. Sign: Gemini (b. June 5, 1971) Significant date: September 11, 2018 Noteworthy activity: The 47-year-old actor shares his
heads to the Governors Ball to begin celebrating the big night. However, the lead actress in a drama series winner is denied entry to the party because the ticket that allows her team to head in through the back entrance is ripped. Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness comes to the rescue to solve the situation, and the two reportedly gush over meeting each other. Horoscope: “Mercury’s backward spin prompts miscommunication, malfunctions and delays, so make sure you’ve prepared a few contingency plans.” (allure.com)
daily schedule on Instagram and sends the internet buzzing about the rigorous regime. This “typical” day includes a 2:30 a.m. wakeup, followed by a half-hour of prayer time, and there are two workouts, four meals, three snacks and one “cryo chamber recovery” session, all before heading to bed at 7:30 p.m. Horoscope: “You can win more respect if you remain yourself and be modest in your behavior.” (gotohoroscope.com)
ASHTON KUTCHER ANGELA BASSETT Global distinction: TV & film star. Sign: Leo (b. August 16, 1958) Significant date: September 18, 2018 Noteworthy activity: The New York Times publishes a photo of Rachel Brosnahan receiving the award for lead actress in a comedy series at the Emmys, with presenters Tiffany Haddish and Angela Bassett both present in the shot. However, the caption wrongly identifies Bassett as Omarosa Manigault Newman, The Apprentice contestant turned former White House aide, who wasn’t even in attendance. Horoscope: “Instead of reacting to people’s comments as if they’ve gone out of their way to hurt your feelings, laugh it off.” (smh.com.au)
LINDSAY LOHAN
prefers to use past horo-
Global distinction: Former party girl. Sign: Cancer (b. July 2, 1986) Significant date: August 31, 2018 Noteworthy activity: A video of the actress dancing
legitimize the science. As you can see here, had some of these media figures remembered to consult their horoscopes on significant dates, they could have avoided a few surprises.
Ashton Kutcher
CLAIRE FOY
dict world events, our staff scopes in an attempt to
Mark Wahlberg
vigorously at her beach club in Mykonos, Greece, goes viral. This prompts such “mean girls” as Busy Philipps (Cougar Town) and Snooki (Jersey Shore) to record themselves imitating/making fun of Lohan’s moves, which include lots of hair-flipping and sensual knee lifts. Horoscope: “Ignore other people and just get on with what you are good at. Maybe the reason they talk so tough is that, deep down, they realize you are better than them.” (dailymail.co.uk) 654 WORLD SCREEN 10/18
Global distinction: Hollywood hunk. Sign: Aquarius (b. February 7, 1978) Significant date: September 18, 2018 Noteworthy activity: Kutcher, known for his television roles in That ’70s Show and Two and a Half Men, accidentally hits a scooter-rider with his car in Hollywood. The victim—who thankfully only suffers minor injuries— is excited to meet the 40-year-old star and takes a selfie with him in order to make up for the collision. Horoscope: “It’s important that you pay attention to your surroundings. You don’t want things taken away from you.... You also don’t want your life thrown into chaos.” (mistykuceris.com)
NORM MACDONALD Global distinction: Canadian comedian. Sign: Libra (b. October 17, 1959) Significant date: September 11, 2018 Noteworthy activity: In the midst of the #MeToo movement, NBC cancels the Saturday Night Live alum’s appearance on The Tonight Show after he makes comments defending such entertainers as Louis C.K., who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. To make matters worse, after apologizing for his controversial remarks, MacDonald tells Howard Stern: “You’d have to have Down syndrome to not feel sorry for” victims of harassment and abuse. Horoscope: “Before you have to pry your foot out of your mouth, keep in mind who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about. A lesson learned too late could put you in a sticky situation.” (savannah.com)
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