MTG’s Nice expands prodco hubs

MIPCOM: Modern Times Group (MTG)-owned Nice Entertainment Group is expanding its production hub business and has completed its first show for a third party broadcaster.

Morten Aass

The Stockholm-based producer has worked with fellow MTG-owned prodco Paprika Latino at its Lithuanian hub on the third season of Release the Hounds for ITV2 in the UK, with further shows on the slate.

Morten Aass, Nice CEO, told C21 the hub had been launched to deal with broadcasters seeking lower cost entertainment programming and claimed producers could save around 45% on costs.

“It’s a way to meet the new need for much more efficient productions while also still being able to do these huge projects,” he said.

“We are doing hub productions in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary and we’ve also done Release the Hounds for ITV2 after they moved their production from a British hub to Lithuania. I presume the cost was about half while the quality was fantastic.”

The prodco has also launched Nice United, based at its Stockholm headquarters, to deal with location and hub-related queries and the firm’s also working on a local version of reality show Ex On The Beach for MTV3, which is being produced via a hub in Bulgaria.

“All the channels want the same volume of local productions but they want to pay less,” Aass said. “It’s an enormous price pressure and that’s challenging us to produce more efficiently.”

The move comes at a time when MTG is making big cut backs in other areas of its business.

The Sacandi broadcast giant shed 300 jobs in August having made lay offs in Sweden in January. President and CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann said the move was necessary to fund a renewed focus on digital.

The broadcaster has also been hit hard by new media regulations in Russia, with a clampdown on foreign ownership of channels forcing it to sell its stake in local channel CTC. The move reportedly resulted in a writedown of around 400m Krone (US$47m) for MTG.