FremantleMedia Sells 260-Plus Hours of Programming at DISCOP

LONDON, July 2: FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) has
announced a raft of deals for its drama, comedy and factual catalogues that
were concluded at DISCOP, totaling more than 260 hours of programming to more
than 15 broadcasters across Eastern Europe.

Broadcasters in Croatia
and Poland picked up the 13×1-hour drama series The Best Years. Produced by Blueprint Entertainment in association
with Global Television in Canada and The N, the nighttime network for teens in
the U.S., The Best Years follows
a group of friends through the ups and downs of college life.

Broadcasters in Lithuania and Hungary have picked up the
13×30-minute dark-comedy scripted series Love You to Death, also produced by Blueprint Entertainment,
and starring Hairspray director
John Waters in his television series debut.

Broadcasters in Poland, Croatia and Slovenia opted for Monarch
Cove, available as a 120-minute pilot
plus a 12×1-hour series. Broadcasters in Croatia, Slovenia and Romania have
also acquired the family drama Falcon Beach, available as a 26×1-hour series plus a 120-minute
pilot.

For its new factual
programming, FME has already secured a pan-Eastern European deal with Viasat
for a trio of one-hour documentaries from Atlantic Productions: Apollo
11: The Untold Story, Apollo
13: The Inside Story and Superspy:
The Man Who Betrayed The West. The
Viasat deal also includes U.K. documentaries such as the one-hour The
Story of 1, the 5×30-minute Great
Scientists and the one-hour Death
In Santaland. Additionally, two other
documentaries from Atlantic Productions: Secrets Of The Great Plague and Munich: The Real Assassins, were also licensed into Slovenia, together with Pioneer’s 32×1-hour Naked
Science, while Penguin
Adventure With Nigel Marven has been
picked up by Russia and Slovenia.

The Emmy-nominated
sitcom The IT Crowd has
been licensed into Hungary and Bulgaria. FremantleMedia has also licensed
additional comedy programming into Bulgaria that includes the 12×30-minute
series That Mitchell & Webb Look, featuring the Rose d’Or-winning comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert
Webb of Peep Show fame, the
12×30-minute Pulling, a comedic
look at single life from Silver River Productions, and the second season of the
20×30-minute Comedy Inc, from
Australia’s Crackerjack.

A number of format deals were also inked during DISCOP for
several of FremantleMedia’s popular game shows. Hungary has signed up to
produce a local version of PokerFace; the
Ukraine has optioned The Price Is Right, while Serbia and Armenia have acquired rights to produce a second
season of Going For Gold and Family
Feud respectively. Entertainment formats
such as Got Talent were acquired
by the Ukraine, and a third season of Armenian Idol was ordered. Romania has also purchased the format How
Clean is Your House? while Estonia will be
producing Farmer Wants A Wife for
local audiences.

David Ellender, the CEO of FremantleMedia Enterprises,
commented: “Central and Eastern Europe is proving to be a dynamically
developing market for FME, with new channels and opportunities emerging
throughout the region. We have also seen a huge increase in local production
and are confident that the wide range of internationally successful formats
acquired will prove extremely popular with local audiences. The importance of
the DISCOP market to us is evident by the sheer volume of new deals, covering
both tape sales and format licensing, concluded by Veronika during the event
and we look forward to announcing further deals in the upcoming weeks.”