People

At Series Mania (Lille, March 24-28, 2025), we had the pleasure of meeting Eric Muller, Original Content and Coproductions International Sales Manager at United Media, who shared with us the incredible journey of a format that is gaining traction across Europe and beyond.

"I'm basically covering both the distribution and production side for United Media,” Eric explained. “We produce around 40,000 hours of content a year. Not all of it is meant for international distribution, but a significant part definitely is. Besides fulfilling our own broadcasting needs, we also sell formats to international buyers.”

One standout success story is the daytime drama format At The Border—a compelling and uniquely Balkan tale that’s already been picked up by major broadcasters including RTL, ERT, Joi, and Nova. According to Eric, it’s a format that could resonate very well with Italian audiences.

The storyline is as bold as it is entertaining: An elderly widow, well into her seventies, runs the largest smuggling operation in her village, situated right at the border. Tough, savvy, and still calling all the shots, she wants to retire—but there’s no one she trusts to take over.

Enter her granddaughter: beautiful, smart, but completely naive about the family business. The grandmother agrees to teach her the ropes, but with one condition—she must find a husband. That quest takes the young woman back to her first love, a charming man she met as a teenager during summer visits to her grandmother. Romance rekindles… but there’s a catch. He’s now an undercover cop, investigating the very smuggling ring she’s about to inherit.

“It’s a long-running romance saga,” Eric told us. “It’s perfect for daytime slots—emotional, suspenseful, with a strong female lead and a plot that mixes humor, danger, and family dynamics. And because we own it and produce it in-house, we can offer both the finished episodes and the format for local adaptation.”

United Media: A Sleeping Giant of the Balkans
Eric also shed light on United Media's lesser-known but significant reach: “We’re part of a large telco group, owning networks across the Balkans. We produce for our own channels, always for prime time, and our productions star the top talent in countries like Bulgaria, Greece, and Slovenia. The quality is there, the ratings are there, and most importantly, there’s a massive diaspora audience in countries like Germany, Italy, and Switzerland—we just need people to get to know us.”

Indeed, while United Media might be under the radar for some, their growing slate of original content—backed by strong narratives and local relevance—positions them as a key player in the evolving landscape of European television formats.