Elizabeth Guider Reports Ahead of the L.A. Screenings: Warner Bros.’ Jeffrey Schlesinger

PREMIUM: Jeffrey Schlesinger, the president of Warner Bros. International Television, tells Elizabeth Guider that “Good strong episodic drama with strong central characters” is what’s working best in foreign markets, even when many of those countries are dealing with difficult economies.

“During one of the worst financial downturns in Europe, we have renewed deals for high prices and for long terms in France, Spain, Italy, Australia and Scandinavia, as well as in Germany,” says Schlesinger, describing just how counter-intuitive the international TV business is. Downturn or not, acquisitions are cost-effective and in some cases can help brand a channel.

In as tough a market as Germany, where local shows are the mainstay of the schedules, the top commercial players RTL and ProSieben went up against each other recently in what was described as “frothy bidding” to wrest the latest multiyear package from Warner Bros. (ProSieben will get the deal back from RTL in 2013.)

In the U.S., meanwhile, barring the unforeseen, Warner Bros. is poised to surface yet again as the biggest supplier both of new comedies and of dramas to the five broadcast networks, boasting as it does under the leadership of veteran production topper Peter Roth first-look deals with a number of key creators around town. Schlesinger rattled off the names of several contenders on his lot that he suspects will go to series and will have international appeal. Among them, he notes, is one for The CW called The Selection, which he thinks captures the zeitgeist of the moment; he describes it as a cross between The Hunger Games and The Bachelor.