Toby Gorman at Content LA and Cathrine Wiernik on the LA Screenings

Today, at C21’s Content LA, we hear from Universal Television Alternative Studio president Toby Gorman about his current focus and from Cathrine Wiernik, TV4’s director of acquisitions, formats and development for the Nordic and Baltic regions, about her priorities at this year’s LA Screenings.

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C21’s Content LA took place at the Fairmont Century Plaza last week alongside the LA Screenings Independents and ahead of the major studios’ own screenings this week.

Among the line-up were execs from CBS, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros Discovery, Amazon, CAA and many more, with the US writers’ strike top of mind for most, as well as the return of some studios to licensing after several years retaining rights for their own streamers.

Universal Television Alternative Studio president Toby Gorman spoke to Claire Atkinson about building on key titles like The Titan Games, World of Dance and That’s My Jam; partnering with the BBC on The Traitors and new adventure competition format Destination X; and the possibility that unscripted production will accelerate to “plug the holes” created by the US writers’ strike.

With the LA Screenings underway and several major studios returning to licensing after a period of retaining rights to shows for their own streamers, there’s plenty of interest at this year’s event from overseas buyers.

But acquisitions execs flying into the US are facing disruption from the writers’ strike, not only in terms of picket lines but promised programme supply too.

Cathrine Wiernik, director of acquisitions, formats and development for the Nordic and Baltic regions for TV4 in Sweden, spoke to Karolina Kaminska about these issues and more, including the merger of its own streaming services into a single player.

C21FM is live 24/7, with a block of interviews starting at 10am BST every day HERE.