{"id":17260,"date":"2021-11-24T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2021-11-29T09:39:24","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T14:39:24","slug":"zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/","title":{"rendered":"ZDF Enterprises\u2019 Ralf R\u00fcckauer"},"content":{"rendered":"

From cutting-edge science series to insightful history docs and blue-chip wildlife and natural history, ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE) is a preeminent distributor of factual content to the global market. While it certainly does tap into the slate of commissions from its parent company, German pubcaster ZDF, the division has dramatically expanded its lineup over the years by aligning with producers across the globe, boarding projects early and even commissioning its own productions, as it did with Great Inventions<\/em>. In this wide-ranging interview, Ralf R\u00fcckauer, VP ZDFE.unscripted, tells TV Real Weekly<\/em> about ZDF Enterprises\u2019 approach to partnering with talented creatives, its relationship with subsidiary Off the Fence and trends in the doc business today.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> What has been your company\u2019s approach to securing content to sell worldwide?
\nR\u00dcCKAUER:<\/strong> We always look for quality-driven programs. As we\u2019ve been in the market for more than 25 years, we know most of the production companies. For the last ten years, we haven\u2019t just been working with German production companies\u2014we\u2019re also working with British companies, Canadian companies, Australians and so on. We try to choose the best ones. We did it by spending a bit more money than our competitors. But also, there\u2019s a lot of stability and trust in the relationships we have. This is not so much about the channel\u2014as you know, we\u2019re 100 percent owned by the broadcaster ZDF\u2014because it\u2019s not necessarily part of [all of our projects]. We have good working relationships with lots of independents. We have a lot of opportunities\u2014we just have to choose the right ones. To be more precise, we are starting early. We sometimes even encourage producers to come up with ideas and then we can discuss them. Sometimes we do development funding so we can help the producer create a sizzle to present to potential partners. We do that two or three times a year. In addition, we do self-commissioning. We have Great Inventions<\/em>, for example, a 35-part series we completely financed on our own, without any partners attached. We really do early-stage commitments.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> I\u2019m curious about the relationship with Off the Fence, given it\u2019s a well-regarded distributor in its own right.
\nR\u00dcCKAUER:<\/strong> Most people say \u201cmerger\u201d and think 50 percent of the staff will get fired! I\u2019ve been co-CEO at Off the Fence for two years. We had plans to merge the teams, specifically in distribution, but then Ellen Windemuth [the founder of Off the Fence] and I sat down and said, maybe we should keep them separate. It\u2019s a different culture, different personnel, different structures, different partners. So we chose not to. ZDF Enterprises owns the company, and we have a lot of exchanges about the market. Sometimes we get approached by a production company and they offer us a program, and I\u2019ll say it\u2019s not for my catalog, but it might be something for Off the Fence. And vice versa. Sometimes we do deals together. Off the Fence has strengths in certain territories and vice versa. We\u2019re not competing. It\u2019s very comfortable.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> What developments are you seeing in the AVOD space? And how do you determine if you want to do a deal with an emerging platform when revenues are likely to be small at first?
\nR\u00dcCKAUER:<\/strong> There\u2019s huge interest in AVOD at the moment, specifically in FAST channels, because they are lean-back experiences. It\u2019s an exciting area. You can\u2019t make a lot of money, but you can collect money. We\u2019ve always been very active on all platforms. We were a launch partner for iTunes in Germany 15 years ago. Same with Netflix. We started collaborating with Google and YouTube. And we have plans to launch FAST channels. We have partners we license to, but it\u2019s always good to have different areas you\u2019re active in. We license to other AVOD partners, but we also try to do that on our own. Similarly, with SVOD, we\u2019re able to launch an SVOD platform from one day to the other as we have the expertise. We\u2019re trying to be not only a distributor.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> What trends are you seeing in the business today?<\/p>\n

R\u00dcCKAUER:<\/strong> Everyone wants true crime, but it needs to be very local and specific, which doesn\u2019t sell internationally and that\u2019s a problem. German broadcasters want local German crime; the French want French crime. The U.S. crime always translates, but we can\u2019t do that as a German distributor, so we don\u2019t invest in that area. We\u2019ve had a strategy since 2013 to invest in wildlife, science and history only. We are sticking to that plan. We have excellent World War II programming, which is still strong. We are strong in ancient history, wildlife and science. I see another wave coming up that is more intellectual. People are thinking about climate change. My impression is, what is the next step? What will happen after that wave? You don\u2019t want to just watch a climate change doc; you want something different. People are thinking about Covid-19 and what it says about us and our relationship to nature. We\u2019re trying to bring green thinking to the next level. That\u2019s one of my biggest interests. And many clients are asking us for dinosaurs! It\u2019s been years since you saw the big landmark Walking with Dinosaurs<\/em>. Now we have better CGI technology. What would happen if you transferred that technology into a really good dinosaur story? I would love to build up a classic co-production model with three or four partners, maybe public broadcaster-led but not necessarily, possibly in combination with a streamer, to tell the dinosaur story from A to Z again.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> You launched Rescued Chimpanzees of the Congo with Jane Goodall<\/em> at MIPCOM. How important are recognizable names for broadcasters and platforms?
\nR\u00dcCKAUER:<\/strong> It\u2019s great we have Jane Goodall, but it\u2019s not a Jane Goodall show. She\u2019s part of it but not the host\u2014she\u2019s not on-screen all the time. It\u2019s more about what she built at this rescue camp. It\u2019s really about the animals and the people who do the daily work there. They are the real heroes of the program. It\u2019s like a docusoap; you learn about the chimps and the people there and the spirit of Jane Goodall is always in the room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The VP ZDFE.unscripted on ZDF Enterprises approach to partnering with talented creatives, its relationship with subsidiary Off the Fence and trends in the doc business today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":17261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,69],"tags":[3479,537,3480],"class_list":["post-17260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-ralf-ruckauer","tag-zdf-enterprises","tag-zdfe-unscripted","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nZDF Enterprises\u2019 Ralf R\u00fcckauer - TVREAL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ZDF Enterprises\u2019 Ralf R\u00fcckauer - TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The VP ZDFE.unscripted on ZDF Enterprises approach to partnering with talented creatives, its relationship with subsidiary Off the Fence and trends in the doc business today.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-24T13:30:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-29T14:39:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2017\/07\/ralf-rueckauer-1121.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/\",\"name\":\"ZDF Enterprises\u2019 Ralf R\u00fcckauer - TVREAL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-24T13:30:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-29T14:39:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/zdf-enterprises-ralf-ruckauer\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"ZDF Enterprises\u2019 Ralf R\u00fcckauer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\",\"name\":\"TVREAL\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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