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The other LA Screenings
LA SCREENINGS: While the main focus is on what the studios are unveiling on their lots, there's a thriving market across town in Century City. Ed Waller took West Olympic Blvd. Contributions from Katie Jacobs. The American markets are changing. In the North, the wind of post-strike change that opened up US network primetime to non-studio distributors for the first time is still blowing, now with the economy helping to usher in new models. And in the South, opportunities are also opening up for the right content.  In the US, the economic downturn has opened doors, as networks look to reduce risk by partnering with international players. What began with US network slots for Canadian shows like Flashpoint (CBS/CTV) in 2008 continued this year when the same two networks teamed up for the second time for drama series The Bridge (left), produced and distributed by E1 Entertainment. ABC has since partnered with Canwest and E1 on 13-part drama Copper. John Morayniss (below), CEO of Toronto-based E1's television division, believes the faltering economy and the increase in opportunities for Canadian content are related. "If the US networks were healthier and were doing all of their own production, maybe we wouldn't have gotten an order from CBS," he says. "But they are looking to partner now and are more open to working with the Canadians, so it has actually opened doors for us." The US studios, which for years had the networks' slots to themselves, "are so big it's harder for them to turn on a dime," Morayniss continues. "Indies are more nimble, so when we see lower licence fees we can move into coproduction quicker. Our ability to get into the US network business has had a lot to do with the challenges those networks are facing and their need to get the same quality, but with different financing models. Independents can do that really well."  Another Canadian prodco, Shaftesbury Films, is capitalising on this new mood, producing supernatural drama series The Listener, for not just CTV in Canada but NBC in the US and Fox International Channels. The show is being shopped by ShineReveille International at the LA Screenings. Regarding her three-way deal, Shaftesbury CEO Christina Jennings says: "We've said for many years that shows can be coproduced at acquisition prices. That's what was interesting about this deal; for both NBC and Fox, it was an acquisition but they had seats at the table and helped shape the show with us."Acknowledging that the TV industry is "challenged" right now, she adds: "There are huge opportunities that bode well. The door used to be closed in the US and the UK. Drama series were seen as proprietary; NBC did their own, the BBC did their own. Because of what's going on in the economy, those days are behind us." So now the US doors are wide open for Canadian producers, what are the networks after? "There are two extremes," says Morayniss. "The broadcast networks are looking for comfort food, moving back into easy-on-the-eye scripted and light entertainment, while the premium pay services are screaming out for more edgy and outrageous programming to attract the younger audiences that are moving away to new media." Consequently, E1 has an "eclectic mix" of projects on the go: straightforward procedural hours like The Bridge and Copper alongside Hung - about a rather well-endowed gentleman - for HBO's June schedule. The US market might be wide open for Canadian producers, but what about those from the UK? There were equally high hopes that the US nets would start working closer with their transatlantic cousins, especially with UK-produced Merlin and Crusoe picked up for network primetime, but has that hope survived the demise of the latter on NBC? According to Chris Philip, president of worldwide sales at Crusoe's UK production partner Power, although the show was dropped, the business model behind it needn't be. "How can the US networks reject a model that reduces risk? If they do they need to rethink their strategy," he says. The Crusoe model saw Power generating as much as 70% of the production budget from outside the States, with the US network brought in later. "For the US studios, the traditional model means the money comes in later, if it comes in. The model we used for Crusoe means the international money comes in at the beginning; it's accelerated presales." Philip and the Power team will be at the LA Screenings looking to repeat the process with new 13-part drama projects The Catch and XIII. The first is based on an Alistair MacLean novel and is described by Philip as "The Dirty Dozen meets Ocean's Eleven," while the latter has been spun off from the Val Kilmer-starring miniseries XIII: The Conspiracy that aired on NBC earlier this year. Aside from drumming up US deals, the LA Screenings mission, for many of those occupying suites at the Century Plaza and Park Hyatt this month, is also about selling more into Latin America. Power has already licensed Crusoe to Fox Latin America and recently sealed a 200-hour package with Turner's regional channel, which included the BBC's latest adaptation The Day of The Triffids. "We also have the RHI catalogue for Latin America, and action/disaster series sell well in this region," adds Philip.  Another Century Plaza exhibitor hoping the action/disaster genre will pay off in Latin America is Germany's SevenOne International. The firm has seen some recent success in this space: Telefutura has aired the catastrophe events Full Throttle, Tornado and Raging Inferno (left) in primetime. Hispanic network V-me, which airs in the US and is about to go into Mexico, also aired SevenOne's adventure miniseries Treasure Island and The Hunt for Troy. "We've also sold our new series Special Unit to A&E Latin America," reveals SevenOne MD Jens Richter (below). This new deal means the 13-part show will air on the regional channel this September. With action programming providing SevenOne with a Latin American bridgehead, Richter is now planning to move in with unscripted formats. "Scripted content gave us the relationships and brand presence, the next step is launching our light entertainment formats like Beat Your Host," he says. For AETN International, a first-time exhibitor at the LA Screenings, selling programming in Latin America has its own issues. After all, the company airs the A&E channel in the region (the only place outside the US) as well as History Channel and, most recently, Bio. "We have some of our strongest channels in the world in the Lat Am region," says senior VP of international Sean Cohen. "But our catalogue of programmes hasn't had the exposure that it has in other parts of the world. We're sending a sales team to LA as part of a push into programme sales in Latin America."  With A&E and History enjoying some 20 million Lat Am subscribers and Bio with "almost double-digit millions," says Cohen, for AETN's sales mission it's all about windowing: "Terrestrial airings can help boost the channels, and having strong channel brands can help what we're doing in terrestrial-land." He says Mexico and Argentina are his biggest markets "though Brazil, on most metrics, is growing the fastest."This programme sales push is going hand-in-hand with an effort to grow the channels business too. "We've always had a solid amount of crime on A&E Latin America and I'd love to see the day when we got our Crime & Investigation channel on air there. Our competitors are also launching HD channels there, and we're mindful of that. We benefit from the fact that we own something like 90% of our content so we don't really have any rights restrictions when it comes to launching into new territories or on new platforms." With the occupants of the Park Hyatt and Century Plaza hotels now resembling a mini-Mipcom, augmented by the screenings offered by independents like Lionsgate and others around town, there's plenty of programming on offer to compete with what's going on at the bigger studio lots down on West Pico or in the valley. BBCWW America: Partnership is a priority For Susanna Pollock (below), senior VP of television sales, copros and children's for BBC Worldwide (BBCWW) Americas, the economic downturn is not so much a cause for concern as an excuse to flex her creative muscles in selling BBC content overseas. With her help, the distributor is finding success selling BBC shows to US cable networks and she's now exploring new coproduction possibilities.  BBCWW heads to the LA Screenings with two key cable deals under its belt. MTV Networks' gay cable network Logo recently bought the BBC camp comedy Beautiful People. Seasons one and two were acquired, with the first episode due to air this month. Pollock also recently sold the original BBC version of comedy The Office to Turner cable block Adult Swim.Pollack says the deals confirm that the US market is once again hungry for British comedy. "We're seeing a trend for edgy, male-skewed, irreverent comedy," she explains. "There was a dip for a while. The middle-of-the-road, family sitcoms being made in the UK didn't translate well to America. But this younger, edgier humour works. Britain's known for amazing comedic talent, and the appetite for it is growing." This appetite for edgy comedy can't be sated by the offerings of the family-friendly US broadcast networks, it seems, which is why buying comedy from the Brits is becoming so attractive for cable. "Cable networks can get family comedies from US studios," Pollock says. "British humour goes further." Regarding last month's deal for The Office, she says: "Ten years later, it's a different offer because of the American version's success and because Ricky Gervais is a known name." With the success of British actors in America, such as Hugh Laurie in Fox's House, US audiences are becoming accustomed to Brits on screen. "There's a growing enthusiasm for stories that look at the world beyond our contemporary society," Pollock says, evidently hoping to exploit this both by importing UK shows and coproducing with US networks. BBCWW Americas has a long history of coproducing drama with US networks such as HBO, with shows like Band of Brothers and House of Saddam. It also coproduces with BBC America, its sister cable channel in the States. Pollack is keen to continue this tradition, and says that as coproducing is more cost-effective than commissioning, it is an attractive concept to US networks. "Networks are happy to partner with us as long as there is editorial input, which we are open to. They know the BBC will deliver quality content and that we attract great talent," she explains. The BBC has also managed to sell the remake rights to several of its shows into America. Pollack adds that rights to No Heroics, a Tiger Aspect comedy about off-duty superheroes that she represents, is being piloted by ABC. Beyond North America, Pollack sees Latin America as ripe with opportunity. Spanish-language networks Univision, Telemundo and Discovery Familia have all purchased programmes from her. In September 2008, Paraguayan broadcasters Telefutura and Hispanoamerica TV Del Paraguay acquired over 100 hours of BBC content, including natural history shows Planet Earth and Blue Planet, and docu-drama Ancient Rome - The Rise and Fall of an Empire. MTV Networks Int'l: New sales approach MTV Networks International (MTVNI) is by no means a newcomer to the LA Screenings, but this time its programme syndication effort is now being overseen by Steve Grieder (below), recently promoted to executive VP of Nickelodeon International and programme sales.  "Our programme sales arm had a great 2008 and it seemed logical to take what we'd been doing at Nick and apply it across the other channels in the portfolio," he says. "So we're looking at our stakeholders, digging into their archive and current programming slates and instead of a brand-centric approach to sales, we're taking a client-centric one. We used to offer the Nick slate or the MTV slate, but now we're offering content in terms of the genres, categories and demos that our clients want. We're fuzzing the old lines dividing our content."Over half of the current programming on MTVNI's slate used to come from Nickelodeon but Grieder's new plan will see that boosted with titles from sister channels CMT, VH1, Spike, Comedy Central and others in the MTV Networks family. Formats, too, are new, following the division's first step in this direction last Mipcom. "As well as our format consultant Caroline Beaton, we've hired two managers in New York to dig through the archive to find great ideas that can be translated across cultures and deliver real short-cuts," says Grieder. "Our clients can always spend time and money to figure out similar formats so we've got to make it very quick and easy for them to capture the heart of our format and make it a hit." One of the sales division's big pushes this month will also be Latin America, a region overseen by head of sales Adeline Delgado. Top of the slate this market is Penguins, "our first creative collaboration with DreamWorks and the highest-rated premiere of a Nickelodeon animation to date," according to Grieder, as well as True Jackson (below), a live-action "fashion-forward sitcom," he adds. The latter Nick show was once seen as girl-skewing, tapping into teen fashionista aspirations, but Grieder says that by depicting a child taking over a fashion chain and telling the adults what to do in the workplace, it attracts boys too. "It removes the mystery of what adults do in their jobs and so reaches a much broader audience than just girls," he says.  Grieder is confident these two shows will soon join the long list of other MTVNI titles that have found homes in Latin America. Of the Nick shows, SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer are the most widely sold, both going to Artear (Argentina), Globo (Brazil), Megavision (Chile), RCN (Colombia) and America TV (Peru), among others. Deals with Artear, Globo, Megavision, America and Televisa in Mexico for Back at the Barnyard are being announced later this month. From the MTV slate, Fist of Zen and Jackass have gone to Chilevision and TVN in Panama and Pimp My Ride was sold to Canal Once in Mexico. "For us, it's about strategic windowing with our partners to build hits," says Grieder.But Latin America isn't just a place to sell programmes into, he adds; it's increasingly a place where MTVNI can coproduce. Skimo was Nick's first original Latino sitcom, coproduced with Macias Group in Mexico, while more recently the channel teamed up with Sony Pictures Television International on its first original telenovela for kids, titled Isa TKM and made in Venzuela. "Like Europe, Latin America is now a two-way street for us," concludes Grieder. Ed Waller 20 May 2009 © C21 Media 2009 
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