Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Panos Kouanis
Programming Director
Hellenic Parliament Television Channel
Greece

What are your acquisition strategies? What programs are you looking for?

The Hellenic Parliament Television Channel is a free to air digital terrestrial and satellite thematic channel broadcasting, apart from the parliamentary proceedings, cultural programming such as classic films, documentaries, opera, music and theatre. We broadcast all over Greece and acquire programs from all over the world that may be of interest to the Greek audience with high production values both from the majors and independent companies. 

What foreign programs did you buy this year?

Currently, we have acquisitions deals with companies such as BBC, ZDF, France Television, TF1, MK2, NBD, ORF, Channel 4, Fremantle Media and Europe Images to name a few. Regarding documentaries, we acquire mostly biographies, series related to ancient and modern world history and politics as well as arts and sciences ("Alexander the Great", "World War II", "Renaissance", "Picasso", environment, human nature etc.)

What national programs did you buy this year?

Our acquisitions in Greece focus mainly on historical and cultural documentaries related to both ancient and modern Greece, as well as classic films from directors such as Theo Angelopoulos, Pandelis Voulgaris and Nikos Koundouros.  

What are your acquisition plans?

As we are pretty much set up for this season I will be attending all the major markets looking for programs for next year (season 2008-2009) as well as try to fill some gaps that may arise during the running period...