AsiaPac Perspectives: Fremantle’s Ganesh Rajaram

Ganesh Rajaram, general manager and executive VP of sales for Asia at Fremantle and soon-to-be CEO of the company’s Asian and Latin American businesses, offers up his perspectives on distribution trends across the region.

Rajaram was tapped as CEO of Asia and Latin America at Fremantle earlier this week. In his new role, he takes on oversight of the company’s production operations in those two regions. Ahead of Asia TV Forum’s official start in Singapore this week, World Screen caught up with Rajaram on what’s shaping Fremantle’s distribution business across AsiaPac.

TV ASIA: What has the intensifying competition in the streaming landscape meant for your distribution business in Asia?
RAJARAM: It’s been a real positive for our business, particularly on the scripted side. A few years ago, before the big streamers landed in Asia, the scripted market was primarily dominated by English scripted content. The global streamers brought multi-language, multi-cultural offerings from many different countries to Asia. This really helped create a voracious appetite for high-quality scripted content, regardless of where it came from. And we’ve benefited immensely with our blockbuster dramas from Italy, like My Brilliant Friend and Senorita 89 from Latin America, selling all across Asia in markets like China, Korea and Southeast Asia.

TV ASIA: What’s selling well across the catalog?
RAJARAM: For formats, we’ve seen a renaissance of our evergreen game show titles like Family Feud and The Price Is Right across Asia. Clients across the region are renewing hundreds of episodes almost quarterly because of the tremendous success they are having with these titles. For scripted, beyond the steady demand for our English-language titles like The Responder and This England, we have a healthy demand for our non-English-language scripted titles as well. And we have some of the best factual offerings around with titles like The Elon Musk Show and Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne; these high-end factual titles are being devoured by all and sundry.

TV ASIA: Given macroeconomic concerns, what are you hearing from your clients about how they are approaching their acquisition remits for the year ahead?
RAJARAM: Clients are definitely being more cautious because of fiscal concerns but at the same time finally coming out of Covid lockdowns after almost three years is also fueling cautious optimism. And for us, given our tried and trusted brands, we are still seeing healthy demand for favorites like Got Talent and Idol but also for the newer titles.

TV ASIA: Are you seeing differences in the needs of “traditional” linear clients vs. the streamers?
RAJARAM: At Fremantle, because of our vast catalog, we have a very healthy business; we have great global deals with big streamers and linear clients. Locally, the local linear players are beginning to be more aggressive because quite a few of the pan-regional pay-TV giants have either been absorbed by the new global streaming entities or have gone into a standstill period whilst determining launch plans. This has provided local linear players the opportunity to get first-run titles and they are going for it.

TV ASIA: What are your goals for your business in AsiaPac in 2023?
RAJARAM: With more markets opening up post-Covid, we’d like to see even more format productions sprout up across the region and for the demand for our tape content to continue to grow. Another area is scripted formats; we are beginning to see a lot of interest in markets like China and Korea to make local versions of some of our hit dramas and we hope to make a few of these versions in 2023.