Walter Presents secures Euro funding

Catalan series Nit I Dia (Night & Day) features on Walter Presents

Foreign-language drama platform Walter Presents has secured a grant of more than €450,000 (US$550,000) that will be used to promote European drama in both the UK and the US.

Walter Presents, which is backed by UK broadcaster Channel 4, unveiled plans to launch in the US earlier this year and secured the €458,000 grant from European funding body Creative Europe Media.

The combined Walter Presents catalogue features more than 80 series of world TV drama from 17 different countries, including Catalan show Nit i Dia (Night and Day).

It is operated by C4 alongside Global Series Network, which is run by former Fox UK boss Jason Thorp and former C4 and Fox exec Jo McGrath, plus Walter Iuzzolino, co-founder and curator of the service. Iuzzolino was previously creative director at UK prodco Betty.

McGrath, director of marketing and communications for Global Series Network, said the funding grant “comes at a crucial stage of Walter Presents’ planned global roll-out and will help us put foreign-language drama even more firmly on the world TV map.

“It will allow us to introduce award-winning European drama to an entirely new audience in the US and to attract wider viewership in the UK, particularly among younger audiences, for our exciting upcoming series.”

Agnieszka Moody, director of Creative Europe’s UK desk, added: “VoD is the new frontier of global content distribution and I’m really happy to see successful UK applicants, highly established brands in this space, prioritising European content.”