Roger leads MNet charge

NATPE: The new head of sales and acquisitions at South African pay-TV company MNet is at Natpe Budapest this week shopping the firm’s formats and African Film Library to buyers.

Mandy Roger, who spent 12 years in the UK working for the BBC, has recently been promoted to head of sales, acquisitions and business development at MNet following the departure of Mike Dearham who left to join Cote Ouest Audiovisual.

Roger’s role is to lead the company’s push into format sales, and also acquire content for its growing library of historical African films.

On the Eastern European market, she told C21: “We have brought a whole new range of formats to Natpe and we selected them for this market because they’re studio-based, uplifting and made pretty cheaply.

“People do not want anything too depressing or expensive. They want lighthearted things that are easy to watch day to day. We have had a lot of requests for standalone episodes, particularly around crime, also a lot more female-skewing programmes such as Snitch, Jacobs Cross.”

Roger says MNet is working through the African Film Library to protect films that may otherwise have been lost.

She added: “Some of the most beautiful films made in Africa have never been broadcast and nobody has ever seen them. They sit in boxes under producers’ beds, and they capture a snapshot of what was happening at that moment in time. That knowledge and history could be lost.

“We’re keen to buy the rights to them to protect them, and have this library available and distribute them internationally. “