Viewpoints: Acquisition strategies
Matthias Pfeffer
Managing Director and Editor-in-chief
FOCUS TV Production Company
Germany
What are your acquisition strategies?
In times of financial crises we keep investing in a variety of high quality programs for our Pay-TV-Channel FOCUS GESUNDHEIT (FOCUS Health Channel), which is aired on the channel Sky in Germany.
What products are you looking for?
FOCUS GESUNDHEIT concentrates on topics about life as an adventure. So I ' m interested in high quality features, documentaries, event-documentaries and documentary series about the human being and the miracle of life, for example series about daily life in an emergency room or documentaries about extraordinary stories of ordinary people. We are also looking for award-winning documentaries, which will be shown as television premieres in Germany on FOCUS GESUNDHEIT. Over the last years, for example we have shown Michael Moore's " Sicko " or the controversial film " Right to Die " for the first time on German television. And I ' m also looking for travel formats, which are part of our programs as well.
Can you name the most successful titles that you acquired this year?
We will air the German TV premiere of "Farrahs Story", the incredible and highly emotional documentary of the last months in the life of the well-known actress Farrah Fawcett. We have also acquired some episodes of the award winning series "The Secret Millionaire" and "Holiday Showdown", produced and distributed by RDF Media Group.
What products will be in demand during MIPCOM 2009?
Facing dwindling advertising revenues, broadcasters will minimize the risk and concentrate on variations of already successful formats. Costs and profit will definitely be considered closely. |
