28 For the fourth consecutive year, NATPE Europe will open its doors to the major U.S. studios, allowing them to use the marketplace for one of their road trip stops across various countries. The screenings will showcase the pilots of the newU.S. TV season to CEE buyers who did not attend last month’s L.A. Screenings (see related front cover story about NATPE Europe). When the screenings started at NATPE Europe (originally the market was called DISCOP and later NATPE Budapest), some exhibiting indies resented the “intrusion,” reasoning that the studios would syphon off buyers from the market floor, since the screenings were held outside the trade show facilities. And because of that some exhibitors vowed not to return. To solve that problem, NATPE Europe organizers have arranged to hold some of the screenings inside the Hilton Prague Hotel — NATPE Europe’s official venue —with only two studios (CBSSI and Warner Bros.) screening outside at a local theater. Disney and Sony Pictures Television will exhibit but will not screen. Warner Bros. will hold screenings on Monday, June 23, the day before the market’s official opening day. The screenings will continue on Tuesday with CBSSI, NBCUniversal and Twentieth Century Fox Television. CBSSI, Fox and NBCUniversal will also rent suites at the Hilton Prague Hotel. CBSSI will be showing about nine new pilots on the morning of Tuesday, June 24 at the Atlas Cinemas, a five-minute walk from the Hilton, the same theater in which Warner Bros. will be screening on June 23. Also on the 24, on the opening day of exhibition (which starts at 10 a.m.), NBCUniversal will be screening in three rooms of the hotel’s Market Level: the Roma, Vienna and Madrid, which can each accommodate up to 50 people. Fox will be screening in the Amsterdam room on the Lobby Level — one floor above the Market Level — which can also accommodate up to 50 people. Today, the studio screenings are mostly seen as a magnet to attract more buyers to the market. In this regard, Rod Perth, president and CEO of the Los Angeles-based NATPE, said, “It’s a huge advantage for buyers in Romania or the Czech Republic who work for a company interested in screening the Hollywood shows, when the size of the business doesn’t allow them to get to the L.A. Screenings. We offer the first look at those studio shows and content for those buyers.” Tess Charman of Entertainment One Television International finds that the “studio screenings allow indies to gauge upcoming trends and the next big hits. They are an imperative part of our business.” However, Cesar Diaz of Cisneros Media Distribution said, “Frankly, I feel there’s a bit of a lack of synergy between the studios and the organizers; that has proven to be a hindrance for the indies. Let’s hope for better things to come, especially at this upcoming market.” On the other hand, road trips such as, for instance, the one to London after the L.A. Screenings or to Prague for NATPE Europe, are important for the American studios to showcase the new U.S. TV season to buyers who did not attend the screenings in Hollywood, especially executives from Eastern Europe and the Balkans , thus making the Prague event very important to both studios and buyers alike. Another consideration is that, this year, the studios had enormous new content requests from the U.S. TV networks (a total of 67 new pilots among the six majors, plus Lionsgate and HBO) to the point of requiring extended screenings for buyers in Los Angeles, which caused some split-scheduling problems and resulted in a few missed screenings among buyers. A list of all 115 pilots (not all viewed during the L.A. Screenings) can be found in VideoAge’s L.A. Screenings 2014 Guide. New U.S. TV Season Pilots Screened For CEE Buyers Now Seen as a Plus June/July 2014 U.S. Studios at NATPE Europe L. to. r.: Lori McCreary and Morgan Freeman, executive producers of CBSSI’s Madam Secretary, Armando Nuñez, CBS Global Distribution Group president and CEO, with the stars of the new series, Téa Leoni and Tim Daly during the L.A. Screenings Sony Pictures TV International’s Keith Le Goy and Alexander Marin, with the cast of the seriesEn la boca del loboandSeñorita Pólvoraduring the L.A. Screenings At the L.A. Screenings NBCUniversal’s Belinda Menendez with (l. to r.) Monte Carlo TV’s Carlos Novaro, Unitel’s Ernesto Monasterio and Alberto Wichtendahl This year, both NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures TV Int’l provided blankets to keep buyers warm inside their very cold screening rooms at the L.A. Screenings
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