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A special report from our correspondent in Toledo:Lühr-Martin Lemkau

Last week more than 1,000 TV professionals from 33 countries met in Toledo at the eight edition of Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, to discuss the latest TV industry developments with a focus on co-production and collaboration. 30% of the participants came from Latin America, which was one of the focal points of the conference, especially as Brazil was focus country, beside Portugal.

Executives of big streams like Amazon Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, and YouTube held keynotes and joined panels, highlighting their strategies in Spain and Latin America, and presented their latest original productions.
Disney’s Leonardo Aranguibel, Head of Production Operations & Strategy LATAM stated, that productions for the streamer need to be “culturally relevant, connecting to the soul of our viewers” and “local, but globally relevant”.
The recent launch of MAX in Spain and Latin America was discussed by Mariano Cesar, SVP of General Entertainment Content & Programming Strategy LATAM at Warner Bros. Discovery. Beside the well-known HBO shows and “37,000 hours” available in Latin America, Cesar emphasized the importance of local production and IP, to not start from scratch. “Big topics don’t change, but the narrative does change.” Cesar stated, “we don’t have a recipe, we have a strategy” and stressed “to learn from the data, what is relevant”.
“We believe we have a seat at the table.” Kai Finke, Chief Content Officer of SkyShowtime, underlined the ambition of the NBCUniversal-Paramount-Joint-Venture. He shared that SkyShowtime is looking for “very commercial“ content and that it’s “not about travelability, the local performance is important.”

In various pitching sessions, commissioners shared their expectations as well as producers and showrunners presented their projects, looking for co-pro partners, with dedicated sessions for music series and feelgood formats. “We want to be part of the revival of the blue sky shows” emphasized Georgina González, VP Global Scripted Series at Universal International Studios.
Michele Zatta, Commissioning Editor in Charge of International Co-productions at RAI FICTION, summarized the pubcasters strategy to concentrate on YA shows to increase viewership as follows: “If the parents find out that the youngsters like the show, the parents will be keen to find out, what the youngsters watch.” Referring to the success of “Mare fouri”. And adding on the challenges of international co-production “Particular to Italy: one hour is one hour – not like Germany, where they say, the show is one hour and then you find out, that it’s only 43 minutes.”

The challenges and chances of co-productions were discussed in different panels. Peter Nadermann, GM Nadcon Film, claimed co-production as the “medicine for the crisis”. Many panelists stressed their openness to co-production, the importance of human connections and markets like Conecta, to come together and connect. As well it was stressed several times, that successful co-productions need “to feel organic” and not constructed in a way, that the storylines seem unauthentic.

In fiction, co-production is a proven way to raise additional funds, especially in drama with various examples of crime shows. A showcase highlighted the first co-production of Spanish pubcaster RTVE and Germany’s public channel ZDF, with commercial daughter company ZDF Studios handling world sales: Weiss & Morales, starring world-renowned Spanish actor Miguel Ángel Silvestre (Sense 8, Velvet), is a 4 x 90 light crime series, set on the Canary Islands, where a German and a Spanish cop join forces to solve crimes. Executive producer Nadermann shared about the production process, that two episodes were written by Spanish authors and two by German authors. In the next step, the scripts were exchanged, and the German writes edited the scripts of the Spanish writers and vice versa, to ensure, that cultural differences and dialogs perfectly match the national characteristics. First images of the series were shown, of which the shooting started in April and will continue until August.

In entertainment, formats might travel very well, but co-production is still the exception. Talpa Studios CEO Maarten Meijs highlighted the extraordinary position of the Netherlands in the international format market and suggested, that this development started a quarter of a century ago with Big Brother. The small country holds a 15% share of the global formats export market, according to figures from K7 Media, which Meijs shared. This makes the Netherland the third-biggest player, following the UK and the US.
In a case study Meijs shared insights about “The Quiz with Balls”, where contestants must collaborate in teams and answer questions, but each wrong answer gets them knocked into a swimming pool by a massive ball. Originally “De Kwis met Ballen” was develop for SBS6 in the Netherlands in 2023, the show was adapted for Fox in the US, as “Juego de pelotas” for Antena 3/Atresmedia in Spain, and for RTL Germany, with a celebrity edition titled “Splash”. For the latter two, recording took place as central hub production in the Netherlands.

In a different panel Renato Martine, VP, Content & Acquisitions, EndemolShine Brasil, shared, that Brazil is “in love with reality TV” and the only country worldwide, in which “Big Brother” never was taken off air, as season 24 started this year. Martine shared, how the Brazilian Banijay dependence diversified revenue streams using the example of the windowing strategy for “MasterChef”, with a linear premiere, followed by a YouTube and a pay TV exploitation – all within one week for each episode.
He expressed his hope for co-productions for entertainment formats and referred to worldwide competitions “maybe next trend?”

Paloma Mora, Producer & CEO of Spanish TV ON Producciones stressed - as participants of many panels - the importance of regional and national as well as European funds. “Having regional production doesn’t mean it can’t travel” and asked the audience who would speak Korean, hinting on the massive success of Korean shows.

Compared to other conferences, AI and FAST did not take so much space at Toledo.
According to Pola Hempowicz, CEO, Content Monarchy, FAST “still test the waters” in Brazil and Portugal and growth comes from mixed channels, not via single IP channel, which drive the growth in the more developed markets.
“FAST channels are not fully understood by creatives, and it is crucial to address this lack of awareness soon.” was also one of the conclusions of the “Conecta THINK TANK” comprising of 55 delegates, who debated on the present and future challenges of the audiovisual industry.

During an awards ceremony, Conecta has honored 19 projects among the 37 finalists that participated in its 6 pitching categories: the biggest price went to Macedonian producers receiving the Council of Europe Series Co-production Development Award, worth EUR 50,000, for the project "The adventures of a turbo-folk princess". The jury decided in favor of this title because “through its uniqueness, bravery, and freshness, gives a voice to underrepresented stories”.

This year’s focus countries have been Brazil and Portugal, which was reflected in numerous speakers and sessions dedicated to territories. Some attendees mentioned that Conecta gathered more of their Brazilian contacts than they met at conferences in Brazil.

The eighth edition of Conecta FICTION & ENTERTAINMENT was held in the beautiful old town of Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, between June 18th and 21st, 2024. The organizers of the conference tried to create multiple occasions for the participants to meet, which reached from street meetings and yoga in the morning to cocktails and parties at stunning locations at night. Unlike last year, the temperatures were not as high – “naturally airconditioned” as Géraldine Gonard, Director of Conecta and Fiction Entertainment named it.