News and documentaries for all audiences

Petra Schneider
Director of Distribution
Deutsche Welle
Germany

What are your sales strategies in 2009?

Deutsche Welle has been known for its quality news and infotainment for years. This year, we are offering even more excellent documentaries covering a wide range of topics. In addition, our co-productions with partners guarantee tailored content for special regions. This has been an area of focus as it is one of the best ways to create content that is relevant to each individual region and market. Along with traditional television distribution, we are also looking to expand into other areas of new media – like IPTV, Internet and mobile platforms. These will be increasingly important for distribution in the next few years.

What countries are most important for your sales?

Our sales activities are concentrated mostly on the Asian, Latin American and African markets. We had a lot of success in these regions in 2008 and sold more than 2,000 hours worth of programming. For Middle and Eastern Europe, our sales results have been especially good in Romania, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.

Can you name your titles that performed well on international TV Channels in 2008?

Last year, our best-selling program was the lifestyle series "euromaxx", which covers topics like architecture, design, fashion, gourmet food, trendy sports and music. Magazines in the areas of nature and the environment, science and technology also did well. The science magazine "IQ" did especially well in this area.

euromaxx

What novelties will you offer buyers on MIPTV?

2009 marks the 20 th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and we will celebrate this with a series of productions to go along with "Promise of the West" – an eight-part series that premiered last fall. All of these will provide interesting insights and background information into the fall of the Berlin Wall and what life was like in this era.

We have some great new programming in the area of science, technology and medicine. We are offering a brand new series called "Feel Fine", which covers wellness, beauty, nutrition and health and another called "Any Time at All" which looks at everything dealing with time itself. We will also be offering the new third season of the popular show "Totally Phenomenal", which shows viewers the exciting phenomena that exist in everyday life.

For those interested in the environment, we will also be showcasing "Guardians of Nature". It's a series that follows people who are dedicated to preserving our planet's biodiversity for the future. And "Food for Everyone – A Losing Battle" looks at hunger and the global agricultural crisis involving food production and flawed distribution.

For sports fans, we will be offering a new series that looks behind the scenes of the soccer world. "Soccer Stories" highlights everything about the sport – from the recreational aspects to its role as a professional pastime.