Walter Presents Wins Creative Europe MEDIA Grant

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The Walter Presents VOD platform has secured a grant of €458,000 ($539,000) from Creative Europe MEDIA.

The foreign-language drama service was one of 14 applications submitted from the U.K. for the promotion of European audiovisual works online, seven of which were successful. Six out of the seven grants were awarded to U.K.-based VOD platforms that program a significant percentage of European content. Walter Presents plans to use the grant money to promote European TV drama in both the U.K. and the U.S.

The combined Walter Presents catalog currently features more than 83 series of world TV drama from 17 different countries.

Jo McGrath, the director of marketing and communications for Global Series Network, said: “The Creative Europe grant comes at a crucial stage of Walter Presents’ planned global rollout and will help us put foreign-language drama even more firmly on the world TV map. It will allow us to introduce award-winning European drama to an entirely new audience in the U.S. and to attract wider viewership in the U.K., particularly amongst younger audiences, for our exciting, upcoming series.”

Agnieszka Moody, the director of Creative Europe Desk U.K., added: “VOD is the new frontier of global content distribution and I’m really happy to see successful U.K. applicants, highly established brands in this space, prioritizing European content. The range and quality of submissions this year was extraordinary but what made Walter Presents stand out was its ambitious marketing plans and its exclusive focus on premium foreign-language TV drama, as opposed to feature films.”