NTV Dramas to Go Global with Dori Media, Keshet International

Keshet International (KI) has acquired the free-TV, pay-TV and internet broadcasting rights to three of NTV’s top-rated drama series, while Dori Media Group picked up rights to the Russian crime thriller Shepherd.

NTV licensed the free-TV, pay-TV and internet broadcasting rights for its action-filled series Shepherd to Dori Media Group. Shepherd, a procedural, features the story of Maximov, a policeman with a strong career but messy personal life. He finds a German shepherd dog at the scene of a crime and decides to take him home, making him a partner in his own private investigation.

Keshet International, meanwhile, has taken on the rights for Sсhubert, The Crow and Beyond Death. Beyond Death is positioned at the meeting point between the paranormal and traditional science. The Crow is a thriller centered on a beautiful woman—with a traumatized past, troubled love life and difficult family relationships—working in law enforcement. Schubert features a main character whose unique hearing gift allows him to solve the most intricate crimes.

Timur Weinstein, NTV general producer, said: “Shepherd is a solid procedural, definite prime-time leader; the audience’s interest in the show remained steady for three seasons, and the number of online views approaches 100 million. We were able to create a long-running high-quality TV series with the main character’s horizontal development that captures the audience’s attention. Dori Media Group is active on the Latin American market; the viewers in that region love stories like that. The idea that served as Shepherd’s foundation makes it competitive as a finished product or as a format that may be implemented at any budget level.”

Nadav Palti, president and CEO of Dori Media Group, said: “We are delighted to distribute Shepherd, a second format form NTV following Dori Media’s short term success with the distribution of The Road to Calvary. We believe that the combination of the high quality of its production, the story’s international relevance and the touching content is a perfect content to travel worldwide. The huge prime-time success in Russia proves a tremendous potential to further deliver excellent ratings across the globe. We hope to extend our partnerships with NTV to many additional formats.”

Weinstein commented: “NTV is the leading producer of action genre series in Russia. We are delighted to enter a new stage in our partnership with Keshet International. Each of these dramas achieved excellent ratings and received multiple accolades and awards. We hold about 11,000 content hours in our library and bring 1,500-2,000 hours of brand-new programming to each TV market such as MIPTV.”

Keren Shahar, KI’s COO and president of distribution, remarked, “We’re really impressed with the quality of storytelling coming out of Russia right now, and these three compelling dramas in particular. We think they will sit alongside and complement our extensive slate of foreign-language titles really well, particularly Israeli series like Autonomies, Stockholm and Sleeping Bears. Given the growing global interest in high-quality foreign language, it’s an exciting time to be diversifying our portfolio and strengthening our relationship with a broadcaster like NTV.”