L.A. Screenings Buyer Feedback: RTL

LOS ANGELES: At the L.A. Screenings, Dirk Schweitzer, the senior VP of program acquisition and sales for the RTL Television & Media Group, RTL Germany, found the dramas and comedies he viewed to be of very high quality, but saw no outstanding show.

“We saw some good shows from our studios [the studios with whom RTL Germany has volume deals] which we definitely consider buying like White Collar (Fox) or Royal Pains (Universal), but of course we will have to see how they perform in the U.S. first,” says Schweitzer. “But also the other studios, especially Warner Bros., offer good shows, which we would consider buying if they would become available.”

RTL Germany includes RTL Television, the market-leading commercial station in Germany as well as the channel VOX, whose schedule is based on blockbuster movies and quality series from the U.S.

Schweitzer, who at the Screenings saw, “solid drama products and a few really funny comedies,” added that, “We are looking to fill some prime-time slots on VOX as well as on RTL. Some of the current VOX shows got cancelled, for example Life, and some RTL shows could use a break over the summer, such as House or CSI.”

He notes that the mood at the Screenings this year was different and that the studios have overcome the Writers’ Strike. “Production volume and quality are back where they had been before the strike,” continues Schweitzer. “The commercial crisis has not had a major effect on what you could see on the screen, yet.”