Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Vito Savino
Content Acquisition Manager
Arvato Mobile SpA
Italy

What are your acquisition strategies?

As part of Bertelsmann group, Arvato Mobile SpA with its consumer brand TJNET,  is the main partner of one of the most important operators for the sector that we love to define "Non Traditional TV", it means Mobile (download, streaming and DVB-H), Web (web sites and web TV) and IP TV. In the territories where Arvato Mobile is located with owner offices (Spain, Portugal, Russia, Brazil and Italy where there is the HQ), we are developing interesting projects based on new digital platforms like WebTV, IP TV and DVBH approaching the opportunities offered by the markets and operators with skills, professionalism and thousands of quality content (HD, exclusive, famous tv series, etc.) Arvato Mobile is always concentrated on all new experimentations and technologies to approach and to guarantee updates, schedules and high quality properties to all the actual partners like MSN, Tiscali, Libero, Fastweb, Alice, TIM, Vodafone, Terra, etc. In addition, Arvato Mobile is looking to open new opportunities with other partners creating entire and original channels (thematic or based on brands, on target...)

What products are you looking for?

To maintain updated the channels of its partners, Arvato Mobile is always in touch with the worldwide producers so, we usually know, in advance on the market, all the new productions trying to realize co- productions (specially on the formats), local versions (dubbing, voice over, text over...) or to work to famous properties. Actually, we are thinking about channels with schedules based on thematic arguments, for instance, family, sport, entertainment, glamour, adult, cartoons... then, we are looking for new interesting TV series (absolutely series), also in High Definition, based on these genres to create the mentioned channels.

What were your key acquisition deals in 2007?

About the last acquisitions done during 2007, I could mention a very important agreement with one of the best worldwide producers from Australia, World Wide Entertainment, with whom we agreed to acquire a large part of their catalogue that included the "time sensitive productions" like Cinema Nouveau, Bejing Dreams based on next Olympic games in Pechino (on which we have the exclusivity for Italy). Another important acquisition that was closed at the end of 2007 was Pucca, the very famous Korean property. We acquired from Vooz, the exclusivity for Italy of the preferred brand by teenagers.

What are your plans for MIPTV?

Arvato Mobile distributes programs mainly for its markets (Italian, Spanish, Russian and Brazilian), and then it would be good to have local productions or localized programs. In fact, usually, our side is more convenient to acquire a product already localized. So, our plan for MIPTV is to look for localized productions to acquire. Obviously, we will be always interested in evaluating acquisitions of original and quality programs, especially if we could have them exclusively for our markets and with the rights covered for all the main platforms (WEB, IP, Mobile, DVBH).  We will acquire programs available in different lengths based on sport, cartoons, TV series and humor productions, and we will evaluate interesting ideas of approach in cooperation with partners, to create the best productions for international markets, and to build new and great opportunities.