Elizabeth Guider Reports from the Fox Lot

PREMIUM: With a dozen new prime-time series to license to foreign buyers this go-round, Twentieth Century Fox boasts by far the largest bundle of hopefuls on offer at the L.A. Screenings.

The viewing sessions on that lot start each morning at 9 a.m. and do not wrap until 7 p.m.

“The pilots we’ve seen today are [altogether] the best group of shows Fox has presented in the last five or six years—and I mean best for our viewers back home.” So opined David Shin, the president of Fox Networks Group Japan, whose channels in that key territory program an array of American series and movies.

And yes, one might think that the acquisitions exec is partial since FNG is part of Fox’s extended family and, moreover, enjoys an ongoing deal to take a half dozen or so of the studio’s series each year.

Still, Shin was adamant that most everything he and his team were seeing on the Fox lot Wednesday—a whopping eight dramas and four sitcoms for prime time on the broadcast networks (plus Hugh Laurie in Chance for Hulu)—was “very well executed.”

He cited 24: Legacy and Prison Break as likely pick-ups, pointing out that stars of both of the originals, Kiefer Sutherland and Wentworth Miller, respectively, were big draws in Japan during the run of their shows. “These are brands that work for us,” he told World Screen Newsflash.

And Shin was not alone in his assessment. Japanese satcaster WOWOW seemed to be wowed by the offerings as well. Mioko Iwashima, head of international acquisitions, said, “We’re happy to see procedurals coming back to the U.S. schedules. It’s what our audiences back home prefer. And there were many such examples here today at Fox.”

Like so many other overseas broadcasters, WOWOW’s team will not make final decisions on what series to shoot for until they return home and consult with their programming department. But having attended sessions at most of the Hollywood studios already, she singled out Fox’s dramedy This is Us as a standout, as well as the legal drama Bull (sold by CBS and toplining Michael Weatherly), and a re-versioning of the classic movie The Exorcist (for and licensed by Fox).

Another buyer, from Germany, who was buttonholed by World Screen Newsflash on her way out for a quick lunch break, also volunteered This is Us as “a particularly powerful and affecting” series among those screened that morning. (Dan Fogelman exec produces from a script based on his own family circumstances.)

As it turns out, This is Us is actually scheduled on NBC, on Tuesdays this fall after The Voice. It was described earlier in the week by a veteran buyer as “Thirtysomething crossed with Parenthood.”

A media consultant who gathers intelligence for several foreign broadcasters told World Screen Newsflash Wednesday evening that there was, unusually, “significant applause” after several of the shows screened at Fox. She did caution, however, that buyers are by definition a little schizophrenic in that they have their own personal tastes, often quite sophisticated, but they have to act on their commitment to buy material to fit the profile of their audience. The two can often be at odds: reactions at screening sessions can be misleading as to what buyers will actually end up acquiring.

Even so.

“How can I put it? Our quality is astonishing right now. The buyers are almost all staying throughout the day, to see everything in full,” Marion Edwards, the president of Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution, told World Screen Newflash Wednesday before heading into a negotiation with clients.

As for the growing reliance by U.S. broadcasters on reboots and remakes, sequels and spin-offs—a development that foreign program buyers in past years have decried as “derivative” and “disappointing”—Edwards demurred, stressing that they made eminent business, marketing and creative sense.

“Think about it. The Hollywood majors’ tentpole film business has been doing precisely that for years now, to enormous global success, so, why not in TV? With so much noise out there, putting on brands that resonate with viewers helps break through the clutter.”

Edwards also made a point of focusing attention on two other series she’s handling that have sparked foreign buyer interest—ones which because of their very specific “American” subject matter, she did not initially think would so intrigue them.

The Pitch, she explained, is not just about a young woman (played by Kylie Bunbury) who breaks into America’s favorite pastime, but, more universally, about what one has to give up in life in order to make it to the top of one’s game, baseball or anything else. And, she added, Shots Fired, which centers on the theme of racial violence, is “a gripping emotional drama” that multiple buyers responded well to.

Asked if a studio supplier can have too many properties on its plate, Edwards allowed that shows generally have to work Stateside in order to have a chance to succeed abroad, but that ownership of one’s own content—something all the network-studio combos have increasingly aimed to do—helps ensure that those in-house series will be given good slots and marketing support by the sibling network.

From the foreign buyers’ perspective, having a large selection of shows to choose from can also be a plus as it allows for flexibility of approach and of deal terms, but, on the downside, it can signal that the network affiliated with the studio supplier has just suffered a raft of cancellations and could be in disarray. (In Fox’s case, the network’s entire freshman comedy block, including Grandfathered and Grinder, got the heave-ho three weeks ago, and hence, a lot of new contenders are tasked with plugging holes this fall or at midseason.)

Fox was down 5 percent in the all-important 18 to 49 demo this season and essentially flat in total viewers. Foreign programmers tend to appreciate a stable schedule Stateside as it suggests that series they buy will have legs that don’t wobble in the U.S. or when they arrive overseas on their stations.