CME Bolsters Local Production Efforts

HAMILTON, April 25: Central European Media Enterprises has
announced a raft of new local productions as it looks to further strengthen its
position in the Central and Eastern European broadcasting landscape.

“One of CME’s massive strengths is in the success of our
local productions,” commented Marina Williams, the executive VP of CME. “We are
building a strong catalogue of scripts covering genres from soaps and
telenovelas to sitcoms and action series. We are focusing on the pan-regional
idea exploitation—the production and audience synergies available between
CME territories mean we can now utilize the flow of creativity and expertise
our channel network provides—naturally our next step will be to export
our ideas beyond the CME stations footprint.”

CME will be launching a Ukraine adaptation of the popular
Romanian cop drama Good Guys that was
originally developed in 2006 by CME’s partner company, MediaPro, for Pro TV
under the name Baieti Buni. The
Ukrainian production company Star Media will produce the local version for
Studio 1+1 as well as for the Russian-speaking markets for the fall.

The Good Guys
adaptation comes on the heels of CME’s decision to create a Russian-language
version of MediaPro’s telenovela hit Tears of Love. CME will be working with Intra Communications and
Film U.A. to launch Tears of Love
on Studio 1+1 in Ukraine and on
TV Broadcasting Company’s Petersburg-Channel 5 in Russia this fall.

In related news, CME has reported strong results for the
Slovak sitcom Neighbours (Susedia), and has renewed its daily soap The
Street (Ulice) in the Czech Republic. Neighbours on TV Markiza delivered an average 58 percent share
in its first season. The second season launched in March with the first episode
delivering a 62.1-percent share. The Street is the first open-ended locally developed daily soap
for CME, airing on TV Nova in the Czech Republic since September 2005 with over
330 episodes now broadcast and 400 episodes produced. CME retains all rights to
the formats and finished programs of both Neighbours and The Street and shares rights in the Russian-language adaptations of Tears
of Love and Good Guys with MediaPro and its co-production partners in
Russia and Ukraine.