L.A. Screenings Buyer Feedback

A broad mix of buyers—from Germany, Italy, Ireland, Mexico and the Philippines—offer up their views on the new slate of series presented by the U.S. studios.

There’s a preponderance of crime-stoppers and lawyers in the new batch of broadcast and cable network series that will be rolling out in the U.S. this fall. And the buyers who descended onto Los Angeles to screen pilots at the end of last month were, for the most part, pleased with what they saw.

CBS’s Hawaii Five-O reboot was among the shows cited by a number of buyers as having strong potential. "We thought Hawaii Five-O was very good, and it’s a genre that hasn’t been done in a while," says Francesco Mozzetti, the head of acquisitions and sales at Italy’s leading commercial broadcaster, Mediaset, of the CBS Studios International show starring Alex O’Loughlin and Lost‘s Daniel Dae Kim. Rüdiger Böss, the head of acquisitions at the ProSiebenSat.1 Group, was also impressed with the series, along with another CBS show, the legal dramedy The Defenders with Jim Belushi and Jerry O’Connell. “We have already secured the rights to these series,” says Böss. Roxanne Barcelona, the VP of GMA Worldwide, the acquisitions and sales arm of Filipino broadcaster GMA Network, was a fan of the original Hawaii Five-O and notes, "This remake did not disappoint me, as the pilot script was very well written, production quality was very good, and there was a lot of action."

“The CBS series Hawaii Five-O does have potential,” concurs Dirk Schweitzer, the executive VP of program acquisitions and sales at RTL Television. “The pilot, however, was produced very expensively, and it remains to be seen whether the quality of the series [can meet] expectations. Furthermore, the cop series The Glades produced by Fox, the Bruckheimer series Chase produced by Warner, and NBC Universal’s Covert Affairs have stuck out positively.”

ABC’s superhero drama No Ordinary Family was also mentioned by a number of buyers surveyed by World Screen. "No Ordinary Family’s story premise is refreshing,” says Barcelona. Böss, meanwhile, referred to the series, starring The Shield‘s Michael Chiklis, as a "promising new drama."

Elsewhere on the Disney Media Distribution slate, the Criminal Minds spin-off with Forest Whitaker piqued some interest. “We do have a deal with Disney and we will get the Criminal Minds spin-off because the original Criminal Minds has done very well for us, it’s had its strongest season so far," says Dermot Horan, the director of broadcast and acquisitions at the Irish public broadcaster RTE. "Also from Disney, we’ll be delighted to get Body of Proof, with Dana Delaney. One of the things that I liked about it is that Dana Delaney is playing a more mature woman who has lived a bit of life. Too often we see women who are meant to be crack investigators or ex-FBI agents who look about 23 and wear Jimmy Choo shoes! And the guy they are hanging around with is in his 40s or 50s. Maybe in Hollywood that’s how it works! It is always good to see a woman in her 40s or 50s who can be very sexy, who’s lived a little bit of life, who has a few crow’s feet around the eyes, but has real credibility. Dana Delaney was very [popular] on Desperate Housewives and she’ll do well with Body of Proof."

From NBC Universal Television Distribution’s new catalogue, some buyers were buzzing about The Event, a conspiracy thriller. “We have high hopes for The Event, which is in the same vein as Lost and FlashForward," says Mediaset’s Mozzetti. "And we also noticed the exhilarating Love Bites [a romantic comedy anthology series].”

Carlos Sandoval, the general director of content acquisitions at the Mexican media giant Televisa, also listed The Event and Love Bites as shows he liked, along with three series from Warner Bros. International Television Distribution: Nikita, an action series for The CW; Chase, a Jerry Bruckheimer action drama; and Undercovers, a J.J. Abrams spy drama. The latter two shows also attracted the interest of Mozzetti. "For our free-TV channels we like Undercovers and the sitcom Mike & Molly.”

From Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution, meanwhile, GMA’s Barcelona liked Lonestar, while Mozzetti and Böss both mentioned the comedic crime drama The Good Guys.

Although the bulk of the programs presented at the Screenings were for the broadcast networks, there were several cable shows in the mix that had buyers intrigued. Sony Pictures Television was highlighting the Showtime show The Big C starring Laura Linney. Other cable shows that stood out for buyers were Lights Out from Fox TV Studios for FX and Shameless from Warner Bros., also for Showtime. “These were very courageous series, with excellent writing," says Fabrizio Salini, the VP of entertainment channels at Fox Channels Italy. "All three deal with somewhat challenging subject matter, but it’s no surprise they were made for cable.”

The rising importance of original cable dramas was one of many trends perceived by buyers at the L.A. Screenings this year. Mediaset’s Mozzetti also notes that "this was the year of procedurals, after vampires and doctors had monopolized last year’s Screenings."

Televisa’s Sandoval, meanwhile, notes a trend towards remakes. “It makes me wonder if it’s something that will be consistently done in the future. This can be good for the studios because they already have finished scripts and they know what worked and what didn’t, but at the same time it can cause a problem if there isn’t enough time between the new and original versions, and if it’s not well made it will have a short life span.”

“While [shows about] doctors and nurses take a break, cops, special units and lawyers are back in full force,” observes ProSiebenSat.1’s Böss, who adds that most of the shows were well suited for the international market and not specifically targeted to the U.S. audience.

“The hospital or medical series, which we saw last year in many variations, were no longer present this year,” reports RTL’s Schweitzer. “There is a return to law firm or court matters. Cop/detective dramas, with more or less action, dominated almost all studio slates.”

Fox Italy’s Salini found that “the cop/crime dramas made definite strides forward, in terms of their narrative structure, some of which even had a cinematic quality."

At RTE, Horan was struck by the comparative safety of the new crop of shows, "in that the only high-concept show I saw that had the kind of bravery of a Prison Break or a Lost or a 24 or even FlashForward was The Event from NBC Universal. All the other shows are of the self-contained episode type. I think people are now recognizing that high-concept shows are very difficult for the audience, and if the audience misses one or two episodes of them, they abandon the series."

While there were just a few standouts, there was overall a “marked improvement” in the slates presented this year as compared with the 2009 offerings, says GMA’s Barcelona. “This year’s shows have better quality in all aspects: script, production quality and casting. Nothing from last year’s screening stood out. This year’s cop/crime/legal dramas all look fresh.”

Reporting by Anna Carugati, Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari and Mansha Daswani.