FME Lands Pre-DISCOP Deals

LONDON: A number of broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe have signed up for programming from FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), ahead of the company’s showcase at DISCOP East.

The third season of Merlin went to TV3 in Russia, ProTV in Romania and Poland’s Polsat. Also in drama, Monday Monday was picked up by Fox in Bulgaria.

FME also sold a host of factual programming, including the Jamie Oliver titles. Canal+/Kuchina and Domo in Poland snapped up Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Jamie’s Family Christmas and Jamie Does. The Polish broadcaster further picked up the cooking titles The Delicious Miss Dahl and Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook, as well as the fourth season of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Also scoring a pickup were Cracking Antiques, season two of Grow Your Own Drugs and the Grow Your Own Drugs Christmas special. Also in Poland, Canal+/Planete bought Invasion of the Giant Pythons: Florida with Nigel Marvin, An Article of Hope, The Da Vinci Shroud, Egypt’s Animal Mummies and the third installment of Big Ideas for a Small Planet. BBC Poland took on Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour, Rome Unwrapped and Christianity: A History.

Further factual deals include Viasat TV3 in Hungary picking up the second season of DEA; Ukraine’s STB acquiring the second run of Deadliest Warrior, along with the one-hour special and the first season of 1000 Ways to Die; and Polsat taking on the first three seasons of Black Gold.

Entertainment titles were also in demand. MTV Russia scooped up the sixth season of Project Runway and Viasat TV3 in Hungary took the entire back catalogue of seasons one through six. Viasat TV3 Hungary and MTV Russia also went for the companion series Models of the Runway. Viasat took on season nine of American Idol for pan-Eastern Europe. MTV Russia snapped up season eight of the hit show. Viasat in Hungary took seasons four and five of America’s Got Talent, while season two of the talent competition was picked up by Viasat TV2 Lithuania and Pop TV in Slovenia.

NBC Universal, which broadcasts pan-regionally in CEE, went for 30 titles from the ACI catalogue, with films such as The Christmas Shoe, Countdown: The Sky’s on Fire, Man of Miracles and a package of three movies about Jackie Kennedy.

In the way of formats, Hole in the Wall went to Ukraine, where Studio Pilot will produce a local version for ICTV. The Price is Right and Password were picked up by TV7 in Bulgaria. Idols was sold to MBK Production to produce for A1 Macedonia. Farmer Wants a Wife heads to Fox in Serbia. Season two of America’s Got Talent is going to Slovenia’s Pop TV and Lithuania’s Viasat TV3.

Maximilian Bolenius, the VP of sales for German-speaking Europe and Eastern Europe at FME, said, “This year we continue to see great demand for all our programming across Central and Eastern Europe; with our range of new and returning programming across multiple genres, we’re pleased to be able to offer something for every broadcaster in the region and we look forward to continuing this great run of sales at DISCOP.”