Bernhard Schwab

Action Pack(ed)—Volume One—The Lost Future, Treasure Guards, 3rd title TBD: Action Pack(ed) was created at Tandem’s 10th anniversary. These 10 years of experience in the television market and the feedback from our partners has shown us that the clients look for high-quality entertainment and genres that reaches the broadest of audiences. This is why we came up with the label Action Pack(ed) – Volunme One. The Lost Future – the first Action Pack(ed) title budgeted at US$7 million – just started principal photography in South Africa beginning of March. Mikael Salomon as director and Sean Bean and Annabelle Wallis as main cast make up the star-cast in front and behind the camera. Treasure Guards. the second Action Pack(ed) title – budgeted at US$6 million will go into production in 2010 and will – true to the Action Pack(ed) format – be filled with adventure and explosive action. The third title will be announced soon and will be in the same genre and of the same high quality production value as the two before mentioned titles.

Patricia Cornwell At Front and At Risk: The Patricia Cornwell Franchise (2 x 90’ event movies) with the first two titles At Risk and The Front have received really strong feedback from the market. Given the worldwide strength of the Patricia Cornwell brand, the internationally-known cast including Andie MacDowell and Daniel Sujata and the veteran producer Stan Brooks, her new franchise has already presold in 140 markets prior to its US premiere this spring. Lifetime will premiere Patricia Cornwell At Front and At Risk on Saturday, April 10 and Saturday, April 17 at 9 p.m. Lifetime is organizing a big launch event that will take place in New York and then will go into the worldwide premerie on the U.S. broadcaster. Thereafter it will roll-out internationally as a crime-drama highlight for the broadcasters.

Impact: The catastrophe mini-series Impact (2×90’) continues to garner great ratings for our partners worldwide. TF1 in France were also the market leaders within the time slot with Impact and Canale 5 in Italy was also able to score extraordinary ratings. Impact was recently released on US FreeTV on the ABC network and lured 4.2 million viewers in front of the TV. The second U.S. window has already been licensed to the Syfy (airdate TBA). The mini has now been sold to over 170 countries worldwide.

Lost City Raiders: Our TV event Lost City Raiders is scoring very high ratings for our international partners. It performed very nicely in the U.S. where it premiered on the Syfy channel. It also scored extremely well on TF1 in France. The high concept movie has been sold to more than 160 countries so far. On ProSieben in Germany it was the 2nd most watched program of the evening, going up against a live-show of one of Germany’s top comedians.

Why will these programs appeal to buyers?
Our recent recent expericence is that fiction TV events can capture the advertising dollars out there. Given the genres, production quality and the well known cast these TV events shall find their place in the primetime of our partners. It is important to have topics and genres that appeal with the audiences worldwide – that find their appeal in Australia, in Japan, over Europe to the USA and Latin America at the same time.

What are your goals and expectations for MIPTV?
We will continue to listen to the needs of our broadcasters and provide them with primetime fiction TV events that our partners have continuous success with. The world-premiere of The Pillars of the Earth on the Starz is very exciting for us and our international partners and we look forward to a successful roll out worldwide. With this sale to Starz Tandem has achieved another big U.S. sale after Impact was sold to ABC. Tandem positions itself in the international market as a provider of high-quality product. Of course we don’t have the same volume as a major studio. We select our product carefully and ensure that it attains the best possible quality.