Record Sales for Terra Mater at MIPCOM

VIENNA: At last week's market, Terra Mater Factual Studios sold more than 250 hours of programming to buyers from Germany, France, the U.S., Sweden, China, South Africa, Russia and Poland.

In Germany, WDR snapped up the rights for Wild Canada and Wild France. Killer IQ: Lion vs. Hyena is headed to Germany's n-tv. Swedish pubcaster SVT went for 22 hours of Terra Mater Factual Studios content, including such titles as Wild Canada, Wild Sri Lanka, Nile: The Ultimate River and Brazil: A Natural History.

VOD services MultiChoice​ (South Africa) and CuriosityStream (the U.S.) licensed 28 and 23 hours, respectively. Among the science and history docs picked up are two three-part series presented by Richard Hammond, The Tulip Bubble and The Mona Lisa Mystery. France is slated to begin airing Wild Sri Lanka and The Model and the Bushmen.

Additional sales see South Africa's SABC licensing Doctors without Borders, Among Wolves and Nile, and China's CCTV taking Nile, Wild Canada, Leap of the Lynx and Hummingbirds.

"Series are this market's top sellers, be they three- or up to five-part productions," stated Sabine Holzer, the head of TV at Terra Mater Factual Studios. "Nature, science or history: all of our genres appeal to the most different markets. Quality comes with a price, though—however, over the last couple of years we have managed to secure stable and mutually rewarding business relationships with big channels such as National Geographic or PBS in the U.S., France Télévisions in France or NDR in Germany. All of them are today some of our most reliable co-production partners, and that's an outright must-have for being able to guarantee the realization of blue-chip docs at the absolute top level of quality for which we're known."