Elizabeth Guider Reports: Warner Bros. Unveils New Pickups

PREMIUM: Whether the adrenaline rush of Hostages, the tug on the heartstrings of Believe, or the laugh-out-loud antics of Rebel Wilson in Super Fun Night or Allison Janney in Mom, Warner Bros.’ upcoming prime-time hopefuls appeared Monday to have considerable range—and, more importantly, resonated with foreign program buyers.

Although most international customers are cautious in their public reactions, more than a few applauded at the end of several entries, something that happens rarely at any of the studios. Some 400 overseas execs traipsed to the Burbank studio backlot Monday morning for the first full unveiling of that studio’s ten new pickups for the upcoming broadcast season, including contenders from über-producers Jerry Bruckheimer, Greg Berlanti, Chuck Lorre, J.J. Abrams, Bill Lawrence and Kevin Williamson.

The kick-off series, Bruckheimer’s Hostages, had something extra going for it in that being based on a proven Israeli format, footage from future episodes was teased, including an unexpected kiss between the female surgeon who is abducted (played by Toni Collette) and her seemingly implacable abductor (Dylan McDermott). There was an audible reaction in the room to that plot twist. More than anything else, foreign buyers are concerned about story arcs, and whether a series can build an audience and go the distance. To that end, they also care about the U.S. network on which a show will air and what its competition will be. In the case of Hostages, the slot will be 10 p.m. on first-place network CBS, but it will be up against another buzzed-about new series on NBC called The Blacklist, which is being licensed abroad by Sony Pictures Television.

Before the auditorium was darkened for the all-day screening session, top brass at the studio, including the outgoing and the soon-to-be chairman of Warner Bros., Barry Meyer and Kevin Tsujihara, respectively, addressed the assembled buyers. (Absent was the former president of the TV division, Bruce Rosenblum, who recently lost out to Tsujihara for the top job as Meyer’s replacement and in the wake of that disappontment was shown the door.)

Both Meyer and Tsujihara put the accent on the increasing importance of international support in order to finance such hefty slates each season. “Given the ups and downs of a notoriously cyclical business, we simply couldn’t produce the quantity nor the quality without you,” said Meyer, who is stepping down after 40 years at the studio. For his part, Tsujihara, attending his first Screenings event, added that revenues from international partners was “absolutely essential” to the studio’s success.

Tsujihara then went on to re-introduce, as it were, the trio of recently promoted execs who are directly responsible for the key components of the Warner Bros. Television Group: Peter Roth, who as president and chief content officer, oversees all production, Craig Hunegs, president of business and strategy, and Jeffrey Schlesinger, who now handles domestic as well as the international distribution operation.

In his remarks, Roth put the emphasis on the creative talents behind the upcoming shows.

“Why do we have 18 series on air with more than 100 episodes? Because we invest in top writers, we relish our independence from vertical integration and we have passion for television.”

Schlesinger’s stats on the state of the business spoke for themselves: the studio is once again number one in total series—41 across broadcast and cable—number one in new series picked up and number one in returning shows. The feat, he added, has been accomplished 22 out of the last 27 years, and in nine of the last ten.

While arguably no one show galvanized all buyers on hand Monday in Burbank, that was not necessarily a negative. A few times in past years, Warner Bros. has stumbled with glossy pilots that wowed but which eventually fizzled—think Tarzan, The Fugitive, Alcatraz. Moreover, every foreign broadcaster is now a niche player of sorts, looking for specific genres with appeal to specific demos. It would be naïve in such a fractured foreign media landscape to imagine one single show fitting the needs of all broadcasters.

Among the many Latin American buyers on hand Monday, one from Mexico said she was pleased with what she called “the female appeal” of several shows. Yes, she added, “there’s a lot of action, but the women characters are sharp too.” She also praised the performance of the nine-year-old star in the Alfonso Cuaron and J.J. Abrams exec-produced Believe, one Johnny Sequoyah, whom she described as “magic.”

Other reactions at lunchtime after entries from Bruckheimer, Berlanti, Lorre, Lawrence and Abrams unspooled were also largely positive, especially among those buyers who have ongoing volume deals with that Hollywood studio.

“The shows were very watchable and nothing was painful,” said Denmark’s Henrik Ravn, who is president and managing director of the SBS Nordic operations—now owned by Discovery Communications—and is leading a team of 15 programmers here in Los Angeles this week. “We have now so many different channels with different target audiences in our group that we’ll be able to find appropriate homes for most of what we’re seeing here at Warners.” SBS has an ongoing deal for Warner product and another with Disney. He described what he had seen Monday morning as “engaging and well-produced.”

Unlike the financial problems plaguing several southern European countries, including Spain, northern European territories are managing reasonably well, with competition among TV stations increasingly fierce. Ravn said license fees for top-tier U.S. series continue to tick up, though not by double digits.

Over at the table of the powerful German media conglomerate ProSiebenSat.1, company toppers seemed upbeat about what they’ll be taking home in the first year of their arrangement for Warner output. “So far, so good,” the top buyer for the group, Rüdiger Böss, told World Screen Newsflash. His colleague Wolfgang Link, who programs ProSieben, said the need for peppering his prime-time schedule with American fare was ongoing, particularly right now on the sitcom front. “Given what we’ve seen, we’ll make out just fine.”