A+E Networks
Marielle Zuccarelli, Managing Director, Content Distribution for A+E Networks
Our primary objective at MIPTV is to continue closing more business deals in Asia! We’ve also noticed a major trend toward reality and entertainment programming, and plan to introduce new content in these genres to our buyers at MIPTV.
We own almost all rights to nearly 100% of our content so, unlike many of our competitors, we are very well positioned to work with clients in granting rights across multiple platforms such as VOD and web. As the pool of traditional TV players and new digital players continues to expand, the value of owning all rights is more critical than ever before.
Broadcasters are always looking for content that will rate, and over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed an increased appetite for factual programming. We are in a unique position to offer our partners many of our top-rated US factual franchises including Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and Duck Dynasty, which recently attracted 8.6 million total viewers during the third season premiere.
We have some extraordinary “big history” series in our line-up, including The Men Who Built America (8 x 60’) and Mankind The Story of All of Us (12 x 60’). Both series offer an exciting new way to look at history, which makes you feel like you are watching a scripted drama – a totally new experience for any audience. The productions employ an innovative approach to storytelling, combining production techniques, graphics and dramatic recreations in a new way that represent a developing trend in presenting history and provides a unique viewing experience.
We will be presenting all-new real-life series such as Storage Wars: New York (6 x 30’), which follows a group of storage locker hunters on a modern-day treasure hunt in New York City; Double Divas (14 x 30’) which offers a peek into the world of intimate apparel at renowned boutique LiviRae Lingerie; and Counting Cars (39 x 30’) which follows Danny “The Count” Koker, a Las Vegas legend who acquires, restores and customises classic cars and motorcycles, and “flips” them for a profit.
ALL3MEDIA International
Sabrina Duguet, VP, International Format Sales
Our objectives at MIPTV this year are to close deals and to update our clients with our brand new formats and to hear all our client’s latest news and needs.
Interactive Media and Licensing are in constant increase in the region. These rights help not only the broadcasters to offer the viewers a larger number of options to enjoy the programmes but more importantly, these rights represent additional revenue for the channels. We have a team at ALL3MEDIA International dedicated to the exploitation of these rights and to helping our clients implement them in the region.
New media rights are generating a lot of interest. Some platforms are not exploited in Asia as they are in other countries yet, but buyers do understand the importance of the new media platform in the years to come.
BBC Worldwide
Joyce Yeung, EVP & GM, BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution Asia
We have a very strong 2013 programming slate spanning drama, comedy, natural history, documentary, factual entertainment and formats. Apart from launching three major new titles at MIPTV – Da Vinci’s Demons, The Wrong Mans and Ice Age Giants – we will be spotlighting BBC Worldwide’s catalogue and capitalising on the year’s robust sales of our key shows across these genres.
We continue to see a buzz in Asia around drama, especially crime thrillers, such as Good Cop and those series that put a very modern twist on tales set in historical times – for example Ripper Street, Sinbad, Call The Midwife, Father Brown and A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Quality drama, which has always been a must in a broadcaster’s grid, is definitely enjoying a renaissance as international buyers are eager to snap up titles with strong production values, brilliant screenwriting and sterling casts.
Imported formats continue to be a staple in the buyer’s line-up and so it is exciting to have licensed Family Mastermind to Disney in India. It has also been great to see commissioners branching out to devise different versions of hugely loved formats. For example, we saw the very first regional series of Dancing with the Stars when India’s ETV Bangla launched Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Bangla for a West Bengal audience. Perennial favourite, Top Gear, remains a key driver in Asia’s factual entertainment slate as Korea commissioned a second series of its local version for Kix. Our top quality factual slate has attracted interest, in particular, for titles such as Rise of the Continents, Ice Age Giants and Incredible Mr Goodwin.
Caracol Televisión
Roberto Corrente, Sales Executive for Eastern Europe and Asia
For this key market, our main goal is focused on the growth we have experienced in the last years. While we are able to offer more and better content to reach as many viewers as possible through a sales strategy that includes not only fresh and innovative productions, but also the flexibility that eventually allows us to customise our content local taste. Programming needs of each country and market will also include new content for the new platforms available today.
In a strategic market as MIPTV, we have always received a variety of buyers with different profiles, mostly defined by the type of rights they are looking for. While Free TV and Cable/Satellite rights are still the most demanded, as of three years ago we are noticing a more important and relevant presence of specialised companies demanding very specific kinds of rights such as SVOD. We believe this tendency will be more than a mere trend and eventually will represent an important part of our closed deals.
Among the spectacular new productions in our catalogue, we would like to highlight two diverse and incredible productions: The Dance Floor, a dance contest and original format of Caracol Televisión that is without a doubt one of the most ambitious original entertainment shows ever made in the region. The second one: The Hypochondriac, a co-production between Caracol Televisión and Sony Pictures Television, is a contemporary love story with hints of humour where a really beautiful but also a convinced hypochondriac woman finally realises that the best cure for all her imaginary problems is love!
ITV Studios Global Entertainment
Hyeonza Hong, VP Sales, Asia, ITV Studios Global Entertainment
We have a strong MIPTV slate, particularly in the drama, factual and entertainment genres, from ITV Studios’ iconic detective drama Agatha Christie’s Poirot and new wildlife documentary series Islands on the Edge from Maramedia to ITV Studios’ formats Saturday Night Takeaway and The Big Reunion. We look forward to presenting these to buyers from around the world at the market.
There are more IPTV, VOD and streaming service providers launching in Asia, so we’re seeing a great deal of interest in new media rights. To a certain extent, these rights were already granted in territories such as South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Singapore over the past 2 – 3 years, and this now has extended to India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
There’s a continued appetite for high-quality drama, and ITVS GE is renowned for distributing this genre, with titles such as Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Agatha Christie’s Marple, Lewis and Vera (all ITV Studios) and Endeavour (Mammoth Screen) having sold in the region.
On the factual side, audiences are choosing to watch spectacular nature programming and returning series featuring big personalities in extreme situations. We have a number of titles that fulfill these demands, such as Islands on the Edge (w/t; Maramedia), Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan (Cream/ Wildfire) and River Monsters (Icon Films).
Our formats catalogue offers a wide range of genres, from ITV Studios’ new entertainment show The Big Reunion and refreshed hit format Saturday Night Takeaway and factual entertainment series Keeping Your Nation Alive from The Garden (creators of The Audience).
On the factual side, we have landmark wildlife documentary series Islands on the Edge (w/t; Maramedia; 4 x 60’). Filmed using the latest in camera technology by an award-winning team, and narrated by Ewan McGregor, this series transports us to the Hebrides, one of the most beautiful places on earth and home to a compelling cast of animal families.
Passion Distribution (for Scripps Networks International)
Nick Tanner, Sales Executive for Asia, Passion Distribution
We are coming to MIPTV with a huge slate of over 700 hours of new and returning series. MIPTV is crucial to continue relationships with our existing clients and drive our brands in key growth areas such as China and India. We have over 200 hours of content from Scripps Networks International, who we have an exclusive distribution agreement with. This market will very much be aimed at pushing our ever growing content from HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel, and offering the market headlining shows such as Food Feuds and Got Home Alive.
The rise of Smart TV means we have seen a lot of interest in worldwide VOD rights from television manufacturers building exclusive, often short form offerings for the owners of their hardware. There is large demand for inspirational lifestyle content from South Korea, particularly travel and home design content.
High quality, inspirational lifestyle programming is always in high demand. Our exclusive relationship with Scripps Networks International ensures that Passion Distribution offers the pick of the most successful brands. Stand out titles at MIPTV include brand new property show, You Live in What?, sleek, retro interior design series West End Salvage and the return of the popular cooking series, Rachael Ray’s Week in a Day.
Playboy Plus
Lanny Huang, General Manager, Asia Pacific, Playboy Plus Entertainment Inc.
In January 2013, Playboy Plus launched the first ever 24/7 Asia Playboy TV HD Channel at AsiaSat 5 Satellite. With our existing Asian affiliates taking up our HD Channel, we plan to sign four to five new Asian countries very soon. We hope to reach out to more countries for carriage at MIPTV. Responding to the demand of high quality, well-produced high definition programmes, we aim to make available and further distribute true HD and soon, 3D programmes to pay-TV, IPTV, internet, OTT and mobile platforms.
The most challenging is selling extended rights. Many pay-TV and IPTV operators are going triple play and would want extended internet, mobile and streaming, download rights all at once. These rights may not all be readily available. Yet Playboy Plus has all rights available, and has created short forms, clips, long forms and different durations to suit any hand-held devices.
Popular genres that our buyers are asking for are movies, drama series and reality series. Overall, they are looking for production value in these genres. And as Playboy is increasingly producing more and more shorter forms (15 minutes or less) with higher production value, buyers, especially for internet and mobile platforms, ask for them as well.
Telemundo Internacional
Xavier Aristimuño, SVP Sales and Business Development, Telemundo Internacional
As there is a strong interest in formats, we will be sharing our offer of a variety of formats of different genres, including telenovelas and entertainment. We have been successful in selling the formats of our novelas, and we want to continue pushing this trend at MIPTV 2013 as well as at all other markets. We will continue promoting the latest successful TV content distributed by Telemundo Internacional.
In Asia, romantic stories are highly valued and we are successful in this territory with our top classic telenovelas. As usual, we continue to work to set the trend with a new generation of novelas that keeps the type of script and structure of the traditional novela, but combined with growing social topics, such as the leading role of women. We see interest not only in the “can”, but also in the rights for the formats.
In regards to the “cans”, we are also taking into consideration another challenge, which is the length of the novelas. Therefore, we at Telemundo Internacional have been working on a production strategy to make novelas that range from 80 to 120 episodes, thus meeting this requirement from our clients.
Nowadays, telenovelas are being considered more and more for prime time in places where they didn’t use to be aired on these time slots. This is the result of having a better rating measurement system in many countries, which has allowed for the tracking of their performance, and that of all TV content. We continue to present a leading telenovela offer with fresh titles, such as La Patrona (The Return), and Pasión Prohibida (Forbidden Passion). For clients looking for entertainment formats, we are bringing to MIPTV two game shows: Letris and Minuto de Gloria (One Minute of Glory), both created by Reset TV.
TREASURE BOX JAPAN
Mikiko Nishiyama, Sales Manager of Nippon Television Network Corporation
The biggest reason why the major Japanese networks are participating in the TREASURE BOX JAPAN project is that by showcasing the uniqueness and the creativity of Japanese formats as a whole, buyers will have more opportunities to recognise and understand Japanese formats, which will help individual sales for each broadcaster.
We believe that right now, physical games shows are in high demand. There are more large-scale physical game shows from Japan because those shows traditionally generated good ratings over the years in Japan, and most of Japanese broadcasters are well experienced in not only consistently creating physical game shows, but also in “formatising” these shows for overseas markets. They also symbolise “craziness” or “outrageous” aspects of Japanese programmes, as many overseas buyers would like to emphasize.
Turner Content Solutions
Grace Chan, Executive Director, Syndication, Turner International Asia Pacific Limited
A compelling kids’ and lifestyle slate will be front of mind for Turner’s syndication team at this year’s MIPTV. In the past few months, we have successfully licensed all three Ben 10 movies, including the hugely popular Ben 10 – Destroy All Aliens (1 x 90’), and Firebreather (1 x 90’) to China’s CCTV6 channel. We expect this demand to continue at Cannes. Also catching the eye from Cartoon Network are both seasons of BAFTA and Emmy award-winning The Amazing World of Gumball (18 x 30’ and 20 x 30’). Meanwhile, a new season of popular preschool offering LazyTown (13 x 30’) is set to impress.
From Turner’s lifestyle and general entertainment portfolio, the bouquet of content from QTV’s I’m Real series has been really selling well internationally. Buyers continue to snap up Korean content and this kind of series – featuring young celebrities in a variety of different environments – attracts plenty of interest from clients right around the world wanting engaging programming across platforms.
