Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Dragan Marinkovic
Producer
DTV Production
Serbia

What are your acquisition strategies?

Strategy is not something you plan, but is something you develop during the battle. The most important thing is to recognize a good TV program, and for that, you should not believe the commercial screeners. Program s ought to be observed carefully.

Since TV stations have already developed their taste for a program, you can't rely on strategy - purchase something on good terms and later sell it expensively. Therefore, it is much better to buy program intentionally, with concrete TV station in mind.

Extensive buying is also useless, because it is hard to find buyers. Since the majors are already booked, small distributors are always full of surprises, because they offer outstanding program, but only in small and limited portions. Hope for real change lays in the broader, international exchange of the European program. Unfortunately, audience s are not inclined to watch what they did not ask for.

What programs are you looking for?

Now, I find the Australian production the most attractive one, both their documentary program and their series. For me, their production is testimony of culture and life in this faraway nation. Here, in Serbia, we easily recognize their spirit and sense of humor. Australian movies bring us subculture stories, freed from European everyday problems and American crudeness.

What foreign programs did you buy this year?

This year we have purchased a lot, from Russia and Great Britain to the USA. From Russia, we are traditionally buying their documentary program s with obscure thematic, but done in style. From Great Britain, we bought TV series and documentaries about the animal world. This year we have acquired for the first time, documentary program s from American producers. However, the Russian documentaries are still our most wanted and most popular program.

What national programs did you buy this year?

We have not been distributing national program neither this nor last year. I am certain we are not going to sell it next year also, because here we do it differently, in co-productions.

What are your acquisition plans?

Our plan is to expend acquisition on this region, particularly on smaller territories, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Many small and medium TV stations, with small or medium audiences, have their broadcasting agendas and they need good and high quality program. That includes series, movies, documentaries, sometimes program for young audience.

Second part of the plan is focused on making connections with new distributors from Europe, Australia and North America, and that will give me the opportunity to choose more quality contents instead of buying more hours of cheap TV program.