Buyers Discuss Wish Lists, Programming Strategies

LAS VEGAS, January 22: At a NATPE event co-organized by the International
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and moderated by World Screen’s group editorial director, Anna Carugati,
executives from Channel 6 in Ireland, TV5MONDE and ImaginAsian TV discussed
their programming strategies and what’s on their wish lists for the year.

The panel was introduced by Bruce Paisner, the president and
CEO of the International Academy and also the president of Hearst
Entertainment. It featured David Chu, the senior VP of programming and
production at ImaginAsian TV, an Asian-American cable TV network in the U.S.;
Patrice Courtaban, the COO of TV5MONDE, U.S., the global French-language
network; and Michael Murphy, the founder and director of programs at Channel 6
in Ireland.

Each of the executives began by describing their respective
stations. Chu noted that ImaginAsian TV was the “first Asian American cable TV
network…. There are a lot of Asian networks in the U.S., mostly on pay
satellite services, really catering to first-generation Asians in the country.
We’re marketed and geared and packaged for mainstream American audiences.
There’s a phenomenal wealth of Asian content out there that non-Asians are
interested in.”

Courtaban stressed the gains that TV5MONDE has made since
its launch more than two decades ago. “The idea of the channel originally was
to bring five countries which share a language—France, Canada, Belgium,
Switzerland and Quebec—together to create a channel to showcase French
content and production. Over the years it has been growing and now it is the
second largest global network in the world. We reach out to more than 171
million households worldwide and we have about 25 million unique viewers on a
daily basis.” Courtaban noted that news and French-language films have been
crucial to TV5MONDE’s schedule.

Murphy said that Channel 6, which has been on the air for
about ten months, was set up as a “U.S.-style network purely focused on
entertainment. So we have no news, no current affairs, no children’s, no sport.
We are, like a lot of European markets, dominated by a large incumbent public
service broadcaster. This is one of the first times that somebody is trying to
break out and create a standalone entertainment channel.”

Of the three broadcasters, ImaginAsian TV is most dependent
on acquisitions, which account for 90 percent or more of its schedule, Chu
said. “We’re acquiring from multiple Asian territories. We’re looking at China,
Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and India. The other 5 or 10
percent we produce ourselves. We’ve made a few comedy standup shows, a reality
show, for Asian American [audiences.]”

TV5MONDE is also dependent on acquisitions, with eight
worldwide feeds to program. “Original productions is about 25 percent,”
Courtaban said. “We produce the news and a number of variety and lifestyle and
news magazines. We acquire documentary films, films, TV movies and children’s
programming.”

At Channel 6, about 55 percent of the schedule is acquired,
Murphy said, with about 90 percent of those purchases coming from the U.S. The
remainder of the schedule is original productions of formats and music and
movie shows, which Murphy said, “give the station a local flavor.”

Murphy cited The Sopranos as one of his smartest buys since the launch of the network. “I thought
it would be strong but not that strong,” he said.

At TV5MONDE in the U.S., TV movies have been high on
Courtaban’s shopping list, and top tier sports acquisitions have also proven to
be crucial to the channel’s success. “We were one of the few networks [in the
U.S.] airing the World Cup last year,” Courtaban noted. “We offered the Tour de
France, only two networks in the market were offering that. That’s something we
want to continue this year.”

ImaginAsian TV, meanwhile, has fared well with Korean drama,
particularly Winter Sonata, with both
Asian and non-Asian audiences. “Asian Americans only make up 4 percent of the
country,” Chu said. “There are only 13 million, 14 million Asian Americans. If
we only geared to that audience, it wouldn't make for a good business model. We
don’t want to take our Asian American audience for granted. They are our core
audience. But in terms of marketing, in terms of packaging, we’re really
looking for the mainstream viewer.”

Courtaban too discussed the challenges of striking a balance
in TV5MONDE’s programming strategy to ensure that both native French speakers
and those with just an interest in the culture are being served by the channel.

For TV5MONDE, which has eight worldwide feeds, output deals
have been particularly useful to its programming strategy. “We always try to
maximize our investment and get programs for all our feeds at once,” Courtaban
said.

Output deals have also been beneficial to ImaginAsian TV.
“When the network first launched I did a number of volume deals,” Chu said. “As
a start-up network, frankly I wasn’t offering hefty license fees. So what [the
distributors] pushed for was volume deals. You’ll get some A-list content and
some B-list.”

Once the deal has been completed and the content is on the
air, theme nights have been used “as a way of presenting choice to the
audience,” Murphy said. “They allow us to package the newer programs with more
established reruns.”

“Destination blocks, theme nights, they work for us as
well,” Chu noted. “We didn’t want to say Monday is Korean night, Tuesday night
is Japanese night and Wednesday is Chinese night. We really want to promote
cross-cultural viewing. The only exception we made was South Asian content.
Some of the South Asian content doesn't travel as easily with [other] Asian
audiences, and vice versa. So we felt if we had a destination for South Asian
content, we would draw the South Asian viewer.”

Looking ahead, Murphy said that morning and afternoon shows
are on the top of his shopping list for the moment. He continued, “We want to
launch more channels. We’re looking at a plus-one-hour channel and a music
channel in the next 12 months. We’ll see where that takes us.”

“This year the main focus will be films,” said Courtaban.
“We have a high demand for that. We want to do more deals with French
producers.”

For ImaginAsian TV, meanwhile, Chu is on the lookout for
anime, as well as sports content. “There’s a certain niche for Asian sports
that have wide appeal—mixed martial arts, sumo, even ping pong, those are
the things I have my eye on.”

Chu however, did note that his limited budget has made his
hunt for marquee sports content more challenging. What has helped, however, is
the desire from most Asian distributors to crack the U.S. market. “In Asia
they’re selling their content for phenomenal license fees and they’re cutting
me a phenomenal break, because they want to get into this market. We have the
only Asian movie theater in Manhattan. That gives me a lot of leverage because
all these producers, filmmakers, distributors, they want a theatrical release
[in the U.S.] We’re also opening up a movie theater in Los Angeles this June. We’ve
built out a theatrical distribution business and a home video distribution
business.”

For Murphy, first-run features haven’t made it onto his
shopping list because of the license fees involved. “It’s very frustrating for
me but the prices that RTE would pay would be disproportionate to the audience
I can bring in and revenue I can get for that program,” he said. “That’s where
I can’t compete.” When asked what he would buy if he didn’t have a budget to
worry about, Murphy cited the NBC hit Heroes.