Discovery Italia returns to Tatort

Tatort follows a team of Viennese investigators

MIPTV: Discovery Italia’s free-to-air channel Giallo has licensed a further three TV movies from Austrian pubcaster ORF’s long-running police series Tatort (Scene of the Crime).

The latest deal with the pubcaster’s sales arm, ORF Enterprises, adds to the 26 episodes aired by the Italian network since 2017.

ORF’s Tatort movies, which focus on a team of Viennese investigators, form part of a long-standing cross-border collaboration between German-speaking public broadcasters that also includes Germany’s network of ARD regional channels and Switzerland’s SRF, with each country contributing new episodes to the franchise annually.

Outside of this collaboration and the sales to Discovery Italia, ORF’s Tatort films have also travelled to channels and platforms in Denmark, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Iran, Ukraine and the US.

ORF recently partnered on six-part thriller M: A city Hunts a Murderer, which it co-commissioned with Germany’s RTL for its OTT service TV NOW. Made by Superfilm, the show is loosely based on Fritz Lang’s classic movie M.

The series, written by David Schalko and his wife Evi Romen, is produced by John Lueftner for Superfilm and distributed internationally by Beta Film. It premiered on ORF in February.