Viewpoints: sales strategies

Christian Gockel
Vice President Sales & Acquisitions
BETA FILM GmbH
Germany

Can you tell us about your sales strategies?

Beta Film being one of the big players in production and distribution, we are very proud with our last years performance. Just to name some of them we can count on an Oscar nomination for the movie "Downfall" in 2005, Oscar for "Life of the Others" for the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year 2007, three foreign Oscar nominations this year ending with the Oscar award for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2008 for "Counterfeiters"

Apart from our characteristic activities in distribution, production, financer, and project developer, we will extend our business in the new media sector. With more than 15.000 hours in our catalogue we are a big player for the expansion and launching of channels trough the new digital media wolrd.

We will act as content provider, but also as a reliable associate or channel provider, as we are in Germany, Spain and Italy with the UNITEL Classic Music Channel "CLASSICA"

What countries are the most important for your sales?

Traditional key territories for Beta are Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but also Poland and Russia are getting more and more relevant for us. Also in terms of acquisitions we know that excellent projects are coming out from these territories. We are looking forward to find good projects which we might co- finance or offer our 50. year's distribution experience. "Mongol" a German -Kazakhstan -Russian Blockbuster or the Polish Oscar nomination "Katyn" are some examples.

We are also very much established in many other territories. We have a Beta office in Chile handling Latin America since 15 years and over 25 years a key person in Japan. Together with other solid structures we are one of the best choices for any producer who is in need of a distribution arm.

What are your key deals on TV Channels in 2007?

In 2007 we concluded deals within all main territories and with all main Networks.

Our Property "REX the cops best friend "is still one of the most successful series worldwide and has capture the heard of millions. We are right now producing season 10 and the new season 9 which we co produced with RAI in 2007, performed amazingly in Italy last month with over 6,0 million viewers per episode. We sold the MiniSeries "Dresden the Inferno", which is one of the most watched fiction programs in German TV-History worldwide. Being a non English speaking Production, particularly the sales to Channel 4 in UK and History Channel US, confirmed the extreme high quality of Beta productions.

What countries do you target on MIPTV 2008? What TV Channels do you target on MIPTV?

In 2008 we will keep on going to bring the best European content to the world like the Event MiniSeries "Ten Umbra Mortis" a mystery, thriller in the tradition of the successful movie "Seven", or the family feature film "The Three Investigators", Also as we did in the past, with series like JAG, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Baywatch, Rom, etc.. we will provide European Networks with American content. For sure with the new – on air - crime series "BORDER" a mix between JAG and CSI, with first season produced and second in production and with the very unique family series "HERATLAND" a story of a modern times "Little House on the Prairie"

with more than 30 episodes, we can consider Beta as an European Major. We might have the solution for stressed buyers and programmers, looking after the right content and suffering because of the long author strike in Hollywood.

What are your new titles for MIPTV 2008?

Among others we have in our MIPTV 2008 line up brand new US - National Lampoon Comedies,

"Bag Boy" a Romantic Comedy starring Brook Shields and Dennise Farina, "Homo Erectus" the comedy-answer to "10.000 BC" with David Carradine. Both movies ready for delivery and "301" a amazing funny homage to the most successful sandal-movies "Gladiator", "Troy" and "300"and "Ratko" a film in the line of the comedy "Coming to Amerika with Eddy Murrphy, both in production.

Being strong in Fiction Programs since years, we further expanding in the Family and Kids segment investing in big animation productions like "The Princesse Lillifee" or the 7 million animation project "Chi Rho"

For 2008 we hope to keep our Theatrical Awards successes and we keep on working on breathtaking, wonderful astonishing Prime Time Event Stories.