Warner Bros Discovery Poland seeks universal stories that can cross borders

Dorota Eberhardt, left, and Bogumił Lipski

CONTENT WARSAW: Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) Poland is currently seeking contemporary, universal stories across series and documentaries, two of its senior execs revealed at Day Two of Content Warsaw.

Discussing the group’s Polish content strategy, Dorota Eberhardt, VP of programming, streaming and secondary channels for WBD Poland, and Bogumił Lipski, senior director of creative development, said their focus is to tell contemporary, universal stories that resonate with audiences, with a particular emphasis on scripts that can be pitched in a few sentences.

WBD is navigating and monitoring changing audience demand for programming across its Polish portfolio of 30+ linear channels and streaming service Max, soon to be rebranded HBO Max, in line with the group’s global strategy.

Eberhardt noted its biggest digital growth has been around BVoD. “We see people shifting to on demand for easier content discovery, to have more flexibility to watch when they want but also where they want, because we also see the growth in consumption on mobile devices,” she said.

The exec also pointed to changing tastes in genres and TV formats. “Some time ago thriller and crime was an absolute solution for a great performance in viewership. Now people want to watch other genres as well, and especially, we see a big comeback of television formats like procedurals,” Eberhardt said, citing examples like US medical procedural The Pitt on Max, and a similar trend in the police and crime procedurals space.

The other big trend has been the rise in demand for theatrical movies. “After many, many years where scripted series ruled viewing, we now see people go back to movies,” she said.

Thanks to Poland’s strong macro economy, WBD has enjoyed robust revenues for its linear business and “the fastest growth ever seen on the on the market in all our digital products,” said Eberhardt. As a result, “we do indeed have the budgets to invest. We invest both on the linear side, but what’s most interesting for you is we invest on the streaming side,” she said.

“Whenever we release something on streaming side, it’s not only well-received by critics, it also performs very well. So there’s really a green light for Poland to go with even more investment and more bold productions.”

WBD Poland currently fields a US$50m content budget, spread across a range of genres, from premium scripted to documentaries, said Lipski.

Examples include returning seasons of Eastern Gate and The Thaw, as well as the recently launched A Decent Man, which has been a success both locally and internationally. The latter, likened in some quarters to Netflix hit Adolescence, plus the universal nature of the story, has led to three as yet undisclosed local adaptations now being discussed elsewhere in Europe, Eberhardt revealed.

“This proves that everything starts with a good script and that it proves also that there is really a demand for very contemporary stories touching on the problems we all have to face,” she said. “Catching the zeitgeist is the most important thing for me when looking for new stories.”

Lipski added that he was particularly interested in cross-border multi-language coproduction projects, and is currently looking for “great stories to tell around cross-border cities, for example, between Czech, Polish, German, Ukrainian cities.”