Broadway Video Digital Showcases Soap Lineup

CANNES: Broadway Video Digital Distribution will be in Cannes this week introducing international broadcasters to a catalogue of U.S. soap operas, including As the World Turns and Guiding Light.

Earlier this year, Broadway Video Digital Distribution scored the international distribution rights, across multiple platforms, to a collection of soaps produced by P&G Productions, a division of consumer-products giant Proctor & Gamble. The slate is led by As the World Turns, with about 7,700 episodes that aired from 1979 to 2010, and Guiding Light, with 5,400 episodes spanning 1988 to 2009. "Guiding Light actually is the longest-running show in television history but nothing was recorded prior to 1988," says Mark Yates, the company’s president. Together with Another World, Search for Tomorrow, The Edge of Night and the short-lived Texas, the soaps will be showcased to buyers at MIPCOM.

"We’re very excited about bringing almost 21,000 hours of new content to the market in new and different ways," Yates says. "We feel that there’s a tremendous pent up demand [for these titles] because they have not been marketed, they have not been aggressively sold, and there actually are some markets that weren’t even aware that this content was available.”

Yates’ sales team has already begun early discussions with broadcasters and "we were surprised at the interest level in places where we didn’t expect it, such as Latin America. They’re fine producers of their own telenovelas, yet there’s absolutely interest in this content."

Yates continues, “They’re nostalgic, I think, for those who watched them in their youth. I think they’re also compelling for a whole new generation who are seeing them for the first time.”