LA SCREENINGS: Dori Media’s Nadav Palti is in LA this week with a new strategy for rolling out the Israeli company’s formats and sees Latin America as a region ready to take risks on new IP.

Nadav Palti

With the global broadcast ecosystem contracting and opportunities closing, Israeli production and distribution company Dori Media is looking to Latin America for the first screens for its new formats.

The strategy has so far seen Dori’s recently announced paper format The Auction, a gameshow developed by Israeli company Abot Hameri, getting its first window on América TV in Peru, with production going via the Argentinian companies Kapow (part of América TV) and Open Kimono.

The model seeks to lay the groundwork for more formats to find their way to screens in Lat Am first, explains Dori Media CEO Nadav Palti.

“There are five different companies [involved in the América TV deal] and each one has a role. There are five voices that have to come together, and it’s not easy. But I think that, after doing it once, you can send a message to the market that this can work,” Palti tells C21’s sister publication Cveintiuno from the LA Screenings Independents.

The show will have 13 episodes that will begin filming later this month, with the premiere scheduled for July in Peru during primetime on Latin America. Dori will manage international sales.

The case of The Auction is also a good example of what Palti calls “a new trend,” which is the need to cooperate. “We’re all going to have to understand that the market has changed and we need to do more than coproductions: we must find new ways to come together to move things forward,” the executive adds.

“Creative people often think that creating a new story or format is the hardest part, but today the hardest part is creating a deal. It takes a lot of creativity.”

A new version of Lalola is being produced in Mexico for ViX

With this in mind, Dori has been promoting the Latin American hub for its gameshow Power Couple for some time now, with plans to set up shop in Colombia and produce versions from there for different countries in the region, and potentially even Spain, where the company reports significant interest.

The biggest challenge for this to happen, according to María Pérez Campi, Dori’s sales director for Latin America and US Hispanic, is aligning the different channels’ schedules. However, she says that it’s “only a matter of time” before the production hub for Power Couple is completed.

“It’s a win-win for everyone. The channels win because they lower costs; the producers win because they offer multiple services; and we win because we sell. I’m confident we’ll be able to make it happen next year,” says the executive. “And after the first two arrive, it’ll be like a machine. Everyone else will come,” Palti adds.

In the scripted space, Dori Media announced at the LA Screenings this week that it will distribute worldwide the new series Young Suchard, which chronicles the early life of famed mentalist Lior Suchard.

The 20-episode series will blur the lines between reality and imagination, says Dori, offering “a unique blend of comedy and drama with a nostalgic wink to the vibrant 90s in which he grew up.” Young Suchard is produced and distributed globally by Dori Media and is expected to make its debut on Kan Kids in Israel later this year.

In Latin America, Dori is preparing the premiere of the series AMIA, following its recent premiere on Reshet 13 in Israel, where it will later be available on Netflix. The thriller chronicles the terrorist attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in the 1990s.

Additionally, the Mexican production company Atenea Media, with which Dori established a partnership in 2024, is currently “selecting the best stories” from Dori’s catalogue to adapt for Mexico and Latin America. Led by Joshua Mintz and Ana Celia Urquidi, Atenea seeks to continue what they started with Dori title Lalola, a new version of which was produced in Mexico for ViX, while continuing to develop stories based on local IPs.

In the face of the crisis facing the global media and entertainment industry, Palti asserts that “the most problematic issue today is money.”

“Everything is more difficult now than it was in the past,” he says. “If you walk the streets of Los Angeles today, you realise it’s not going through its best times. But on the other hand, you have certain advantages because producing in the rest of the world is cheaper. The world is changing, but sometimes in difficulty lies opportunity.”