Electric Entertainment’s Sonia Mehandjiyska on Today’s Scripted Market

Electric Entertainment, based in Los Angeles, is an independent studio that produces and distributes television series and feature films. Many of the TV shows offer a unique blend of fantasy, sci-fi and adventure. Sonia Mehandjiyska, the company’s head of international distribution, explains how these titles, with their universal themes and high-quality production values, are finding loyal fans in the U.S. and in several international countries, whether on linear channels or digital platforms.

TV DRAMA: In the current market, risk aversion is high among buyers. What scripted genres are meeting their needs?
MEHANDJIYSKA: We are fortunate to work in a genre that reliably rises above the market’s usual ebbs and flows. Our titles—Leverage: Redemption, The Ark, The Librarians, Almost Paradise and more—deliver true escapism and comfort viewing. They blend fantasy, sci-fi and caper adventure with the reassuring promise that the heroes prevail. This mix resonates most powerfully during periods of global uncertainty, and in today’s economic and political climate, we’re giving audiences exactly what they crave: an hour or two to forget their worries and step into a world designed to lift them out of the everyday.

TV DRAMA: To what do you attribute the success of series such as Leverage, The Librarians, The Librarians: The Next Chapter and The Ark?
MEHANDJIYSKA: I believe it all begins in the writer’s room. Partnerships like Dean Devlin and John Rogers on The Librarians: The Next Chapter and Leverage: Redemption, and Devlin and Jonathan Glassner on The Ark are rooted in creating characters audiences connect with and themes that remain universal—whether the stories unfold in another century, through time travel or aboard a starship. Electric’s loyal fans know that whatever series we take on, they can always expect rich storytelling, dimensional characters and top-tier production quality.

TV DRAMA: When developing and greenlighting scripted series, does international appeal factor into decision-making?
MEHANDJIYSKA: In every possible way. As mentioned earlier, our TV series and films naturally gravitate toward universal appeal. That instinctive reach is exactly what makes our presence at international markets so essential. In most cases, we won’t move a project into development unless we’re confident it can resonate with audiences around the world.

TV DRAMA: Are financing models evolving? If so, what have you been seeing?
MEHANDJIYSKA: Yes, I believe they are evolving. Given the current economic climate and the wave of M&A activity across the industry, it often takes more than a single entity to finance a high-quality production. We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with exceptional partners such as Prime Video, SYFY and TNT, who help make it possible for us to deliver top-tier television. For independent producers like us, securing at least an eight-episode series may require bringing multiple partners together to move a project across the greenlight threshold in the future. We are also actively seeking co-production partners abroad.

TV DRAMA: Are you finding distribution opportunities on FAST and VOD platforms?
MEHANDJIYSKA: We launched our own OTT FAST/AVOD platform, ElectricNOW, in 2019, with the ElectricNOW app launching shortly after in 2020, without fully anticipating how quickly it would take off. Our goal was simple: to bring our fans together, build a true community, and give them a single destination to discover all of our film and television projects they might not have known about. Today, ElectricNOW is delivered to 35 different platforms, and its rapid expansion has far exceeded our early expectations. And just this past year, we announced original content we are creating for ElectricNOW.

TV DRAMA: What new scripted projects does Electric Entertainment have in the works?
MEHANDJIYSKA: Without saying too much, it’s our most ambitious slate of projects we’ve had yet. We’re hoping to make some announcements in the first quarter of next year, but we’re incredibly excited about the shows we have on the runway.