Gearing Up for the Studio Screenings

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Let the games begin—the guessing games, that is, as an estimated 1,800 overseas program buyers flock to Los Angeles for the annual week-long viewing marathon at the Hollywood studios, scouring the three dozen or so new dramas and sitcoms that will grace the U.S. broadcast networks starting this fall.

While the media landscape is fragmenting and rearranging itself abroad as well as Stateside, some things remain constant: foreign buyers yearn for solid, story-led imported series—be they broad-appeal procedurals for free-to-air play or shorter-run, edgier fare for more narrowly targeted platforms–to round out their own domestically produced content.

And, of course, they don’t want to pay any more than they have to for the privilege. (License fees paid by international program buyers are essential to covering the deficits on U.S. scripted series, which explains why the Screenings are key to Hollywood’s ongoing creative health.)

So, what prospects await these acquirers?

Reboots of classics like Magnum P.I.—the Tom Selleck original became a huge hit abroad—and Murphy Brown (which in its day raised the bar for “intelligent” comedies abroad) will be weighed for what they bring that’s resonant and relevant today to overseas clients. Not to mention the updated reversioning of working-class workhorse Roseanne, which raises the question, especially in Europe, if there’s a similar viewer appetite for shows that mirror the populism that has roiled that continent.

Among the new series whose pilots will be unspooled for successive waves of buyers washing over the different studio lots each day, several already have gotten tentative thumbs-up from disparate overseas buyers who have seen trailers or field forward scouts based in L.A.

Among those being chattered about: Warner Bros.’s Whiskey Cavalier, an FBI-focused dramedy for ABC that looks “sexy, quick-witted and not too earnest,” one buyer opined, and Entertainment One’s The Rookie, toplining Castle alum Nathan Fillion as a 40-something police recruit, also for ABC. Also mentioned were NBCUniversal’s ‎The Village, set in a Brooklyn apartment building, and Twentieth Century Fox’s The Passage, which boasts Ridley Scott on its producer rostrum.

The only gripe so far is that many of these newcomers won’t premiere until midseason, so whether to fork out for them early or hold off until after they begin airing in the U.S. could be an issue for some clients.

Returning stalwarts like the NCIS and the Dick Wolf Chicago trio of procedurals will no doubt continue to ring up the cash register (the Wolf fold even has another entry with FBI, on offer from CBS Studios International), but the most eyebrow-raising phenom, said two buyers, is the proliferation of IP from Warner Bros.-based producer Greg Berlanti. (He will have ten scripted series across the Big Five this coming season, more than half of which on The CW.) ‎

Dramas with top-name stars or celebrated producers or cinematic sizzle always get immediate attention from the international contingent as such shows traditionally tend to travel well. Unfortunately, not that many of them are premiering this fall, since, for example, ABC is going crazy after its surprise success with its Roseanne revival to program half-hour comedies in that mold; other nets too, for varying reasons, are delaying a number of hours until midseason.

Still, buzz is beginning to build, though being intrigued by trailers is a far cry from inking on the bottom line. (Last go round, for example, Rise had the foreign contingent a-flutter, but it was the quieter contender, The Good Doctor, which eventually found an audience Stateside and abroad. Rise bit the dust. )‎

Where the guesswork comes in is figuring out which newcomers are likely to have staying power Stateside—and that certain je ne sais quoi to pique their own local TV schedules back home.

Given the cancellation of several hot contenders that attracted the interest of the overseas crowd last year—not only Rise but Wisdom of the Crowd, Deception and Valor—not to mention other once highly valued foreign faves that got the ax (Designated Survivor, Quantico and The Exorcist) several buyers have recently told World Screen that “caution” will, more than ever, color their deliberations with their Tinseltown suppliers.

And not only because every show, whatever its bona fides, is not a sure-fire winner until the ratings come home to roost, but because there’s so much disruption in the American media business right now. Disruption that could ripple outward.

“I can’t say there are concrete signs of turbulence on the international sales side, but I do think a lot of American executive time and energy is focused on these corporate developments. Don’t quote me, but it could mean the eye is off the (creative) ball,” suggested one foreign buyer who was in New York this week for the Upfronts.

The developments to which the overseas buyer was referring include not only the long-running (and now iffy) AT&T/Time Warner tie-up and the still fuzzy repercussions of a looming Disney/Fox amalgamation, but also the increasingly heated tussle between CBS management and network owner National Amusements over a proposed merger with Viacom. (The latter is also controlled by the Redstone family’s National Amusements.)

“What all these corporate hook-ups bode for their partnerships with us, well, we’ll be talking about it,” he added. (Key program buyers around the world tend to have ongoing volume deals with one or more of the major U.S. suppliers, and are thus contractually bound to take a handful of new series each season. Sometimes they luck out with what turn out to be long-running hits; other times they get stuck with one or more shows that don’t perform, or get the chop before they can.)

Among other reactions from a few overseas buyers who stopped over in New York, several mentioned they’re glad to see more procedurals getting greenlights rather than serials, while another said he welcomes the return to mystery and the supernatural. There is also a sea change in the international appetite for American comedies, with shows like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory having outsize fan bases abroad.  ‎(Albeit comedy pilots are notoriously hard to gauge, Last Man Standing looks “promising,” one buyer hazarded.)

Another issue which several overseas buyers say may become of concern down the road is the extent to which the major Hollywood suppliers are now “so vertically aligned” that they are essentially giving the go-ahead almost exclusively to pilots from their own sibling production studios.

“As a general rule, the more openness to outside programming sources, and the more level the playing field for creative projects to vie, the better,” one buyer opined. “Hard to say if consolidation directly impacts creativity—but I think we (in the foreign market) generally prefer having many suppliers to choose among, not just five or six.”

That’s why, he explained, overseas buyers try to find time to visit with whatever independent producers and distributors are on hand, and not rely exclusively on the six (and likely soon to be five) “majors”‎ for their supply of shows.

“Independent” of course is a fungible term in this business: in terms of the international program sales market, since even behemoths like Warner Bros. International TV Distribution and Sony Pictures Television arguably count as odd-men-out, meaning they have to work extra hard to secure slots on the Big Four broadcast networks, sometimes having to relinquish partial ownership in an asset to do so. (Warner Bros. does not own a broadcast net outright, but it is a 50-percent owner of The CW and accounts for more than half of its schedule; joint owner CBS Corporation supplies the rest through CBS Studios International.)

From the “independent” sellers’ perspective too, consolidation‎ is making their efforts to secure slots on the broadcast networks more challenging.

Said Keith Le Goy, president of worldwide distribution at Sony Pictures Entertainment, “Essentially, we have to be twice as good, putting out triple-A, top-tier material [in order to get picked up to series].” This go-round his unit is banking on Schooled, which is a spin-off of its successful comedy The Goldbergs, both for ABC. ‎

Even so, one of Sony’s high-profile contenders this spring, a cop procedural called L.A.’s Finest, with Jessica Alba toplining, was passed over last week by NBC. It may be revived at Charter. (Like its competitors, almost all the Peacock’s upcoming series hail from the conglomerate’s in-house production unit.)

Somewhat differently, Paramount’s president of worldwide TV licensing, Dan Cohen, will be using the Screenings to pitch a few “alternative” series his team is now fielding. Most recent among them is Yellowstone, which he describes as Dallas meets House of Cards and that boasts star Kevin Costner. “It plays like a 10-hour movie,” Cohen told World Screen. The series premieres on the Paramount Network in June. In addition, he pointed to Looking for Alaska, based on a novel by John Green (he of The Fault in Our Stars fame). While Viacom-owned Paramount is a major player in the global film biz (think A Quiet Place and Mission Impossible), the company acts more like a boutique player on the TV side.

“It’s a really competitive landscape (in broadcast TV right now),” he said, referring to the near virtual lock on network schedules by the webs’ sister production studios, “but we have a handful of high-quality content plays: there’s a reason for overseas buyers to stop and take a look.”

His unit is also handling rights on the George Clooney-backed Catch-22 adaptation, which will stream on Hulu’s platform Stateside but that Cohen has already placed on Channel 4 in the U.K. and Sky Italia in Italy.

The Screenings fire up in a major way come Sunday evening on the Disney backlot when Mouse House brass unveil ABC’s upcoming schedule.

For more on the U.S. network and studio lineups, visit World Screen’s Fall Season Grid here.