Red Arrow Entertainment Group’s Jan Frouman

Red Arrow Entertainment Group, a part of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group, may be headquartered in Germany, but it has significantly increased its presence in the U.S. and the U.K. while boosting its output of English-language product. CEO Jan Frouman oversees all of Red Arrow’s business activities and international operations and has been spearheading this expansion. As Frouman tells World Screen Weekly, even though he manages a group of companies, his is fundamentally a people business. While he is always looking for growth opportunities, his main focus has been on finding companies or forging partnerships with executives whose mindsets fit well with Red Arrow’s business philosophy.

WS: Red Arrow has experienced considerable growth. What strategy has guided this?
FROUMAN: When we launched Red Arrow Entertainment, we were more focused on territories associated with ProSiebenSat.1’s TV footprint. This was when the group included SBS, so Scandinavia, Benelux and Eastern Europe were in the mix, alongside our German channels. However, two things happened along the way. First, our appetite grew for territories with content that traveled better, namely the U.S. and the U.K., which is why we started production companies in those territories. And second, we sold our channels in the SBS territories.

Without question, we now consider our anchor territories to be the U.S., the U.K. and Germany, and we plan to go deeper into these territories, particularly the U.S., over the coming months and years. We will also continue to have a small presence in Scandinavia and Israel. That’s not to say we aren’t always open to opportunities in other regions, including partnerships, co-productions or joint ventures, but these are our main focus.

When it comes to buying a company, the rules of the game are exactly the same for us now as they have always been. [The first thing we consider] is the market. You can have the greatest partners, but if they are not operating in a market that the rest of the world is paying attention to, or where you can do a terrific amount of production, it just doesn’t make sense for us to invest. Next we consider the partners themselves: who are the people we are going to be collaborating with, and are our cultures and goals both aligned? We have put culture and fit really high on the list of what we care about when we make these decisions. The terms of the deal are also fundamental: can you come to a sensible set of terms that both parties feel good about and that make for a great ongoing partnership?

WS: Does a company have to be of a certain size to succeed these days?
FROUMAN: We are a significant division of a large company, so to keep relevant to ProSiebenSat.1 as a whole we need to have a certain scale. That’s why we acquired so many companies in our first few years. We are now fortunate that we don’t have to do deals simply to grow, but we do see some interesting opportunities out there in scripted and non-scripted, for partnerships and acquisitions. We are in a number of active discussions with potential partners. Despite all the consolidation, there are still some great opportunities out there.

WS: Red Arrow has 13 production companies across seven countries. How does your team spot an idea that has the potential to travel?
FROUMAN: We always take the outside-in approach. We only want to partner with companies that can generate exciting creative shows by themselves and are not just production factories waiting for the next good format to land on their doorstep. If they can do that as well, terrific. But we definitely want our partners to be contributing to the group’s portfolio of IP.

It also comes down to having an effective and efficient way of communicating across the group. Our distribution business, our chief creative officer and his team, and the production companies themselves all make sure that we know what’s in their pipelines of development, which shows we think have international potential, and what are meaningful ways of exploiting the rights to the benefit of everyone. Some production groups tend to be more centralized in generating ideas and being creative. We’re much more open: good ideas can come from anywhere—the key is to efficiently communicate and develop them.

WS: The demand for drama seems to be at an all-time high. What are you seeing?
FROUMAN: We’re seeing exactly that. To a certain extent it feels like an ever-expanding bubble, and you wonder whether the appetite for good scripted shows really is limitless. A lot of that has to do with the proliferation of platforms that are now spreading their wings in scripted, but channels that have historically aired entertainment or docureality shows are now doing scripted as well. This seems particularly prevalent in the States; a good example is our U.S. production company Left/Right, which started as a non-scripted [outfit] but is now producing the sitcom Odd Mom Out for Bravo and the forthcoming USA Network show Donny!, starring Donny Deutsch.

The great thing about scripted is that the shows, particularly English-language shows, have an attractive shelf life. But the development process is lengthy and it is hard to plan when shows are going to get picked up, when they’ll go into production, how many episodes there will be and what the final deficit will be. These are the challenges, but we are still very optimistic about the business.

WS: And you’re ramping up your English-language scripted business, right?
FROUMAN: That has been our primary focus. Our colleagues at our U.S. and U.K. scripted companies, Fabrik Entertainment and Endor Productions, started with shows such as The Killing and Restless, and they have grown from there with hits such as The Escape Artist, Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot and Bosch. There are also a number of projects coming through distribution/co-production relationships we have with third-party producers—such as Cleverman for ABC Australia and Peter & Wendy for ITV—and German-language scripted coming out of ProSiebenSat.1. It will be interesting to see how they travel globally, either as a format or finished tape. We have a rich slate of scripted shows, and I expect that to continue to grow.

WS: What trends are you seeing in the format business?
FROUMAN: We clearly see a continuing trend toward and genuine appetite for social experiments. We’ve had enormous success with Married at First Sight. After the launch of the show in the U.K., the feedback we’ve had from Channel 4 has been tremendous. It has led to an immediate recommission, something we see in most territories, including in Australia after their recent production. The show continues to be a huge hit in the U.S. and Germany. In fact, the show has done exceptionally well in every single territory it has launched in. One of the things we have taken from our experience of working on the show is that if you are going to be in the social-experiment space, you have to do it thoughtfully and with care. You need to treat the subject with a degree of maturity and seriousness. Fundamental to the show’s success has been closely following our colleagues from Snowman Productions in Denmark, which created the format, and using the careful development thinking that they brought to the show as our benchmark.

WS: Do non-scripted formats hold more potential for success than scripted ones?
FROUMAN: The business of non-scripted formats is more substantial and more executional than the scripted business for a couple of reasons. Scripted formats, while they do sell, are still not a huge volume business. As wonderful as Homeland is, it’s one show in one territory that has 12 episodes a year. I also think that networks in general have a lot more experience taking non-scripted shows and adapting them to their own territories. That said, as a distributor we are working with broadcasters that are increasingly interested in our scripted formats catalogue. The recent Nippon TV and Hulu Japan adaptation of our drama The Last Cop is a great example. We are also getting early interest in our new slate, including the SAT.1 crime series Einstein. But generally, in terms of our production business, the non-scripted business is absolutely our priority.

WS: Tell me about Collective Digital Studio (CDS). How do its activities complement the rest of the group?
FROUMAN: For lack of a better expression, acquiring CDS in 2014 was the digital kick in the ass that we needed. It brought to the group an entertainment environment, a mindset, a business model and talent with whom we were simply not doing enough. At the time, Red Arrow was much more focused on conventional entertainment and scripted television, even though we were working together with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. Now we are looking at exciting new business and content opportunities via CDS, from talent to new types of content. Much of what comes from a multichannel network like CDS will go to a new suite of clients with whom we haven’t historically been working.
Our partnership with CDS has also been a really provocative incentive for all of our production companies to start thinking more aggressively about what they can do with their formats and their new shows in terms of utilizing different platforms and digital extensions.

ProSiebenSat.1 has been very active and successful in the digital space for years and provides us with an excellent collaborative environment. The acquisition of CDS, which is now majority owned by ProSiebenSat.1 and has merged with the German-based Studio71, has been a good catalyst to get us moving in the digital direction. Working together with the CDS and Studio71 guys is terrific—and refreshingly without any of the organizational-silo nonsense you often see in large companies.

WS: You sound like a happy camper! Do you enjoy what you do?
FROUMAN: I do enjoy it, enormously. I am forever aware of how much there still is to achieve—sometimes even dissatisfied with that—but I am very proud of everyone at Red Arrow. It’s [about] finding a balance between being enthusiastic and supportive and a cheerleader for everything we accomplish, and acknowledging that this is a transient business and you have to be forever looking forward to what’s next. So whether it’s Bosch or Married at First Sight, we have to stay focused on the next big show. That’s part of the fun, and that’s why we want to work with people we really like and only enter into partnerships with companies where we think the people are great. Everyone will enjoy the inspiration and achievement that comes from that. As you can see from our MIPCOM lineup—with shows produced by our own production companies and by third-party producers—that inspiration and achievement leads to huge variety. We like that kind of breadth.

Our new scripted shows will include Cleverman, produced by Goalpost Pictures and Pukeko Pictures for ABC in Australia; Peter & Wendy, based on J.M. Barrie’s book Peter Pan and produced by Headline Pictures for ITV; Donny!, produced by Left/Right for USA Network; the SAT.1 dramas Einstein and Berlin One; and the second season of Bosch, produced by Fabrik Entertainment for Amazon Studios. Among our new formats will be Kiss Bang Love, from Snowman Productions in Denmark, produced by Redseven for ProSieben Germany; Safeword, produced by STV Productions for ITV2 in the U.K.; Married at First Sight, created by Snowman Productions in Denmark; and Real Men, from MakeitBee for DR1 Denmark.