Caleb Weinstein

Caleb Weinstein
Senior VP
Discovery Enterprises International

Just before MIPTV last year, Discovery Communications announced the appointment of Caleb Weinstein to head its newly formed Discovery Enterprises International group, which functions as the single access point to the company’s content and brands in the international market. A daunting task it seems, given Discovery’s enormous stable of franchises and extensions that span television, merchandising and licensing.

In the year since he’s come on board, Weinstein has managed to narrow his focus somewhat, honing in on further driving the program-sales business. “We have an amazing catalogue,” he says. “Now we’re focused on bringing that catalogue—which originates from 27 brands around the world—to potential broadcast partners.”

And Discovery has a number of different ways of working with its partners. “We do everything from large-scale branded program blocks—as we do with kabel eins and the ProSiebenSat.1 Group in Germany, where we have a dedicated amount of hours per week that we help to fill—to relationships where we go show by show. We also have a strong relationship with Channel 4 in the U.K., which not only licenses and airs Man vs. Wild/Born Survivor with Bear Grylls, but also airs the Deadliest Catch franchise. It’s everything from program blocks to broadcast partners who buy multiple shows from us to working with broadcasters in a preproduction manner.” At MIPTV, Discovery Enterprises International landed several deals to launch new program blocks with European broadcasters, including RTL in Croatia.

The engaging content Weinstein has to work with spans a wealth of nonfiction genres, including science, exploration, adventure, natural history, technology, health and wellness, lifestyle and current events, from across a wide portfolio of networks, including the flagship Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Planet Green, Investigation Discovery and more. “Our main messaging for this market is the variety and the depth and breadth of the programming we have.” This includes new seasons of hit returning series like American Chopper, Little People, Big World, Jon & Kate Plus 8 and Animal Cops, now in its 11th season. And new properties include Animal Planet’s Jockeys: Win or Die Trying, which explores the world of horseracing. "Here is a sport where the human being is very much second to the animal," explains Weinstein. "These animals are often worth millions and millions of dollars while the jockeys riding them are often just scraping by week to week, as they try to ride their way to success. The series is an amazing portrayal of the struggle to achieve success by several jockeys, both women and men—a topic that has never been explored before in such a hard-hitting and entertaining manner. We’re looking to bring that up to third-party partners in both the broadcast and home-video realm."

Other exciting news on the Animal Planet side is the merchandising opportunities that Discovery is opening up. "We have a whole new style guide that we’re in the process of marketing to partners that features great ways of using the Animal Planet brand around programming with a variety of products and merchandise." DMAX, Discovery’s major channel platform in Germany, is also entering the licensing arena for the first time this spring. "The brand embodies men, and we’ve been looking at a host of products that really embody the DMAX brand."

Having this great wealth of high-quality titles under the Discovery umbrella has helped make Weinstein’s job fun for him. “To be very honest, the quality of the catalogue and quality of the programming, for lack of a better expression, really almost sells itself,” he says. “The programming that Discovery produces, by and large, is top-rate quality. What has really impressed me is the passion that people have at Discovery for answering this call for knowledge. Our development teams around the world are trying to fulfill on answering curiosity. We are a company focused on the world, where we like to say, Discovery is the number one fan of the world.”