ZDF Enterprises Racks Up Record MIPTV Sales

CANNES, April 10:
Germany’s ZDF Enterprises has inked a raft of international sales at MIPTV,
spanning kids’ programming, documentaries, crime series and TV movies.

In the kids’ category,
following its recent sale to Nickelodeon in the U.S., the live-action series H2O—Just
Add Water has been sold into
France (France 2), Italy (RAI Sat), Canada (Vrak.TV) and Spain (Antena 3 and
Universal Pictures). Meanwhile, Lost Treasure of Fiji, another production from H2O—Just Add
Water creator Jonathan M. Shiff,
has been acquired by RAI Sat in Italy and RTV in Slovenia. ZDF has also sold Martin
Morning into Poland (SDT Film),
Spain and Portugal (Motion Pictures).

A slate of China-themed
documentaries from ZDF Enterprises’ subsidiary, Gruppe 5, has also found some
international buyers at the market. For example, titles such as The Great
Wall, The Forbidden City, The Chinese Armada and The First Emperor have been acquired by Russia’s Kultura TV, the
Smithsonian Network in the U.S., Poland’s Canal+, National Geographic Channel
U.S., MediaCorp in Singapore and O3 Productions in the Middle East. In time for
the European Football Championship 2008, Sweden’s SVT and Poland’s TVP have
picked up the documentary The History of Football. Documentary packages with a diverse range of
titles have also been licensed to HRT in Croatia, Canal+ in Poland, Barrandov
in the Czech Republic, TV2 in Bulgaria and the Chimei Culture Foundation in
Taiwan.

In the German-speaking
territories, the two-part mini-series The Final Voyage of the Gustloff was sold to The History Channel Germany and the
second season of Final Days of an Icon was picked up by The Biography Channel Germany. Additionally, RTL
Crime secured four episodes of the Wall to Wall production Underworld
Histories, while RTL Living
snatched up the series In the Wild.
ZDF also sold documentary packages to German broadcasters like n-tv (including
the six-part series Ultimate Factories) and Planet, as well as Austria’s ORF and Switzerland’s AF.

On the fiction front,
French broadcaster TF1 and Belgium’s RTBF have purchased two seasons of the
family canine-detective series Here Comes Kalle. Crime series such as The Old Fox, Siska,
Notruf Hafenkante and KDD were sold to Italy (RTI, Mediaset), France (TF1),
Spain and Portugal (AXN), Finland (YLE), Sweden (SVT) and Croatia (HRT). TF1
also acquired the broadcast rights to three new TV movies from the Inga
Lindström and Dream Voyage collections, as well as to the three-part cycle Voyage
Into Cloud Nine. Packages
containing new romantic TV movies and series were acquired by Switzerland’s SF,
RTBF in Belgium, Kanal 2 in Estonia, TV Markiza in Slovakia and Prorom in
Romania.

Alexander Coridass, the
president and CEO of ZDF Enterprises, commented: “With our varied portfolio,
our sales department can satisfy all of our clients’ requests for high-quality
programming in every genre—from our proven, time slot-winning ZDF programs
to our co-productions and to sales mandates of renowned production companies.
We’re recording growing sales in all genres.”

—By Irene Lew