WDR mediagroup Brings German Successes to the World

The German public-broadcasting group Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) has been operating for 60 years, serving the country’s TV and radio communities with original content. WDR mediagroup (WDRmg) was formed later as its commercial subsidiary, focused on marketing and selling WDR programs as well as content from other partners.

“WDR mediagroup has been quite active in the licensing and merchandising of kids’ brands for WDR,” explains Stefanie Fischer, WDRmg’s head of content. “WDR has some of the biggest kids’ brands in Germany, such as The Show with the Mouse and The Show with the Elephant, and merchandising has been really successful. WDR co-financed Shaun the Sheep in Germany, and WDR mediagroup did as well for the licensing and merchandising, plus the DVD and VOD distribution. That’s been really successful.

“With budgets generally getting tighter across most channels and networks in the business, the idea was to expand on this and bring it to a bigger level, an international level,” Fischer continues. “The idea was to do the distribution ourselves internationally and look for international co-production projects that we could ideally do together with the channel. That was the start of it last year.”

This MIPCOM marked the first time that WDRmg was present at the market with a slate of formats for international distribution. Fischer explains that this move was an outgrowth of the success seen with the edutainment show Ah – I Got It!, which sold into Russia and China. “We knew that formats was an area that hadn’t been actively explored, so we decided to get into it and develop that part of our business,” she says.

Nicole Offergeld joined the company in December 2014, after having previously worked at Red Arrow International in a post that saw her doing format sales. Her expertise in this area helped to give WDRmg the push it needed to begin mining the WDR catalogue for shows that could travel as formats.

“WDR was coming up with a lot of new ideas and developing new formats, which were successfully launched in Germany but didn’t go anywhere else,” Offergeld says. “That’s why we thought we should start to get them out there into the marketplace.”

She cites as an example The Human Quiz, which had been a local success for WDR. “The Human Quiz is all about the human body, so there is international appeal there,” Offergeld says. “The topic is interesting in any territory and could be easily adapted. That’s the kind of format we look for.”

Another format highlight for WDRmg is The Unlikely Events in the Life of…, which combines the genres of sketch show, musical and sitcom. Fischer says the WDR show was appealing for exploitation as a format because it is “fresh, innovative and modern.”

In addition to representing formats from WDR, the outfit is open to distributing third-party titles. In terms of what WDRmg is eyeing for acquisitions, Fischer says that “everyone is looking for the next big show, so anything that jumps out at us in that way. Of course, it still somewhat needs to fit in line with what we already have in the catalogue.”

Offergeld adds: “There are certain programs that everybody looks for, like a new shiny-floor game show. If that comes to us, we will be more than happy to distribute it. We will also be looking for some nice, small formats that are easy to adapt, easy to produce, that can play well in the international market.”

She says that there is no particular size that WDRmg is looking to achieve with the format slate initially, but that it is hoping to amass a catalogue with “a nice variety that covers different topics.” Highlights of the current portfolio include the sports show From Scratch to Pro, the family prime-time entertainment series Come and Ask the Maus! and the improvised fiction format Autumn Tingles.