Viewpoints: Acquisition strategies
Hans-Stefan Heyne
Head of International Acquisitions
Studio Hamburg Distribution & Marketing
Germany
What are your acquisition strategies?
As we are acquiring television rights for public television amongst others in the country and, in particular, for ARD's third biggest TV station NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Northern Germany, we would, firstly, always have to comply with a high-level mandate to bring to the audience widespread information on international as well as European, national and also regional aspects of life in our society and, secondly, also have to keep an eye on the highly competitive TV landscape in Germany. However, it is also Northern Germany and its great variety in culture, regional languages and customs that will have to be particularly focused at simultaneously. In this respect, the main objective and challenge for us must be to find programs and projects that are having a high level of journalistic importance on the one hand and are attractive to viewers on the other. In the light of the foregoing and seen the interest of the audience (according to the market shares, etc.) we think that contemporary German stories – or such with a strong German link – would be the best for this time to search for. All this can be acquired as simple acquisition, pre-sale or even co-production that we are also open for.
What products are you looking for?
Given the impost of the previously mentioned strategies, we are for the time being mainly looking for documentaries but also for children's programs. Any product or project we would then be interested in with respect to the acquisition of TV rights should meet, without limitation, the following criteria: good story telling; high quality in picture and sound (HD!), attractive to the German viewers.
We are not looking for education, entertainment and sport.
Of interest are also products for home video, DVD, video-on-demand-online and any other new media exploitation.
Can you name the most successful titles that you acquired this year?
"Smeshariki" (German title: "Kikoriki"), an animated Russian series for pre-schoolers being produced in St. Petersburg and having also been very successful so far in many other European countries and in the US. "Apocalypse", a stunning 6-part history documentary on WWII, commissioned by France 2 and produced by CC&C. This documentary is telling history by archive footage never seen before and now all colorized by CC&C. A very strong link (evidently) to the German viewer.
What products will be in demand during MIPCOM 2009?
High-end quality in natural history (like NDR's extremely successful six-part documentary "Wild Russia" produced by Studio Hamburg Productions), discovery (nice places around the globe to accompany the viewer to), history, human touch, adventure, marine stories (like NDR's successful long-running serial "Mare").
Hoping that this is what you have been looking for, please let me know if you would like to have some more detailed information on Studio Hamburg's entire activities because, as you know, we do not only have this acquisitions arm, but also any and all kind of creative, technical and logistic capacities to produce almost any kind of films needed in the business.
Studio Hamburg is one of the two biggest production houses in Germany.
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