R u s s i a R e p o r t The Three Musketeers Of Russkoe Televidenie Eastern Europe Focus In Russia, local production continues to account for 90 percent of primetime television. However, the opportunities for producers and distributors are still vast. The largest local players are AMEDIA, Central Partnership and Star Media, the latter two of which rely more on original development, although AMEDIA is also moving in this direction. One of the main reasons Russian production companies have, for years, acquired formats from abroad was due to a lack of writers who could develop long-running dramas and sitcoms. Recently Argentina’s Telefe developed a telenovela with Channel Russia called Tango de a tres (Tango by Three) that takes place in both Russia and Argentina with characters from both continents. AMEDIA adapted The Nanny, Who’s the Boss and Betty La Fea for CTC in association with Sony Pictures Television International. AMEDIA also has two long-running dramas on First Channel: L is for Love, a Russian adaptation of Myak Milocz, a popular Polish series that airs on TVP 2, set to run for over 400 episodes — making it the longest-running series to date in Russia — andTatiana’s Day, an adaptation of Colombia-based Caracol’s War of the Rose, which is now running over 100 episodes on First Channel. Central Partnership specializes in adaptations of classics like Master and Margarita, Doctor Zhivago and the upcoming Brother’s Karamazov, in addition to its feature film activities, which includes Wolfhound, a movie that generated over $20 million at the Russian box office and has spawned a spin-off miniseries. Star Media is the fastest-growing production company in Russia. Turnover has increased from U.S.$28 million to U.S.$75 million in the past year alone. Star Media produces telenovela Guardian Angel for Channel Russia andBlood Brothers, which ran on primetime on First Channel. Star is currently co-producing a crime series with CME and developing a World War II story in Poland. It is the first Russian production company to actively and successfully produce TV movies, and they are set to develop 20 more TV movies for the main networks. Sony’s involvement in the Russian market has continued as well. The studio acquired local production outfit LEAN, which rose to prominence with Soldaty on Ren TV and Kadetsvo on CTC. They are now producing a telenovela called Mothers and Daughters for CTC. This adapted novela is achieving the station average share for the channel. But the original success rate of series such as Betty La Fea have not be maintained and there have been casualties — Russian adaptations of The Roldans andPedro the Great among them. Nevertheless, sitcoms and telenovelas are still fruitful opportunities for distributors in Russia. The fact that they are stripped daily means the demand is constant. AMEDIA most recently adapted Warner Bros’ Suddenly Susan for CTC following local versions of Perfect Strangers for Ren TV and Grace Under Fire for CTC. LEAN has successfully adapted Sony’s Married with Children for TNT, where it achieves a 12 percent share, which is significantly higher than the station average. A local version of Disney’s Home Improvement was also produced for CTC. AMEDIA’s next projects are Sony’s I Dream of Jeannie for TNT andWarner’s Full House for CTC. TNT in particular is increasingly receptive to foreign formats, and Cinemotion Group recently licensed Mile High to produce a local adaptation of the series that airs on Sky in the U.K. There are increased opportunities to license formats for vertical one-hour dramas in Russia. NBC Universal licensed the format of bothLaw & Order: Criminal Intent andLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit to television production company 2V for broadcast on NTV. Both series have now been renewed for a further 24 episodes each and they have achived a 25-30 percent share in the male demographic. First Channel has also commissioned Telefe’s vertical drama The Pretenders to be produced by AMEDIA. A new area of opportunity in Russia for producers and distributors involves feature film production. Twentieth Century Fox has already acquired U.S. and international distribution to the Night Watch, Day Watch and Dusk Watch trilogy directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who is now helming his first Englishlanguage film for Universal Pictures, Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. AMEDIA is also making its first foray into feature films with a full-length 3D animated film calledKrakatuk. Universal has acquired distribution rights in Russia and the CIS, and international rights are also being discussed. Filmmaker Alexander Rodnyansky and CTC are in pre-production on the $30 million Russian sci-fi bestseller Forbidden Islandwith supposed interest from Hollywood studios. TH CHAMPAGNEAND CAVIAR FOR NOUVEAU RICHE MARKET Leonard Yanovsky first became involved with the Russian TV industry in 1992, after recognizing the opportunities opening up in his home country. Yanovsky was familiar with the TV business, having already started his own U.S.-based cable TV engineering company, Yanovsky Associates. At first, he provided purely religious programming from American Christian Television to Russia for free. Then in 1997, he, along with partners, started another company: Costa Mesa, California-based Intra Communications. In the beginning, Intra distributed telenovelas and dubbed programming. But starting in 2002, the company began producing its own shows. Its first miniseries, Time to Love, was sold to Channel One in Russia. Now it supplies miniseries, series, films and dubbing services to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). VideoAge sat down with this expert on the Russian TV industry to see what’s in store for that region. VAI: How has the Russian TV business changed since your company started in 1997? LY: It has become the fourth largest TV market in Europe in terms of advertising revenue after England, France and Germany. Now — as in other territories all over the world — there is growth in cable TV channels, and an appearance of IPTV platforms. But the purchasing budget is still small, so the majority of distributors still want to get onto the free-toair networks. The CIS countries with the largest TV markets aside from Russia are Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, and all of those countries have appetites for Russian programs. VAI: What opportunities are available to foreign distributors in Russia? LY: Like any country, it’s just too expensive for Russia to generate all of its own programming. So there is a need for quality foreign programming, specifically cartoons (since Russia doesn’t produce many of its own), documentaries and movies. VAI: Are foreign programs ever shown in primetime on free-toair channels? When Channel One started broadcasting Lost, they did it in primetime. It showed that a quality foreign series can succeed in primetime if it is dubbed. VAI: Are most shows dubbed or subtitled? LY: All foreign-language shows are dubbed, either through the cheaper and more popular route of voice-overs or [the more expensive] lip-synching. VAI: Is Russian programming still censored? LY: No. The TV channels — and no-longer the government — control their own programming. Perhaps, there may still be censorship in news, but not in fiction. Today, one doesn’t have to send programs to the Kremlin for approval. Channels work under government guidelines that limit advertising during kids’ programming, nudity and bad language. But Russia’s restrictions are almost the same as Europe’s, and are looser than in the U.S. [The Sopranos, for example, which was relegated to a pay-TV channel in the U.S, was shown late at night on a free-to-air channel in Russia]. Group Zeta is Intra’s most recent production, airing on Channel One (Continued on Page 62) V I D E O • A G E OC T O B E R 2 0 0 7 60
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