Markets

The second day of NEM Zagreb 2022 began with breakfast hosted by Adriatic Luxury Hotels, a long-standing partner of NEM Dubrovnik, in the NEM Lounge. After a delightful beginning, the event participants moved to the Panel Room for the Co-production Business Practice presentation with leading television professionals, including
• Frank Spotnitz, CEO & Executive Producer, Big Light Productions, and
• Marike Muselaers, Chief Content and Partnerships Officer, Lumière Group.
Sharing inspirational insights into their long-standing experience with co-productions, the speakers stressed that coproduction has been the winning competitive formula for countries outside the region.

Leadership challenges were another interesting topic at Day 2 of NEM Zagreb 2022. Today, when production costs tend to grow and budgeting tends to include cutting costs, when new technologies and processes are implemented in an effort to keep up with trends, encouraging employee productivity is by no means an easy task. The Biggest Challenges One Can Face in a Leadership Role panel was hosted by Maria Rua Aguete, Executive Director, Technology Fellow, Omdia, and the speakers who shared the secrets of their leadership skills included
• Matthias Settele, General Director TV Markíza and Member of the Editorial Board of CME, and
• Emil Koshlukov, Director General, Bulgarian National Television.

Content Showcase showcased the power and creativity of the region and Europe in the television industry
The next key event of the day was the Content Showcase dedicated to the presentation of the most recent projects in the region and Europe. During the two-hour presentation, 16 speakers from six successful companies presented information on over 30 intriguing new projects, including
• Firefly Productions, with an presentation of their international projects,
• Joomboos introducing projects they are currently in development and announcing new projects developed by their creative team after the extremely popular teen series Outsiders and Tea’s Diaries,
• Viaplay Group introducing their Viaplay Select content that is to become exclusively available in the region via Pickbox NOW streaming from December 1st,
• RTV Slovenia presentation about their acclaimed crime series favoured by both viewers and critics, announcing new show seasons,
• CineLink Drama introducing three drama series from Southeast Europe they are currently developing,
• BH Telecom introducing as many as seven new series and confirming at NEM Zagreb 2022 their important new role in the production of television drama series.

The projects and co-productions announced during the presentation were an intriguing topic at the Co-production Networking Lunch with a number of independent producers and representatives of production and television companies. This private event has been designed as a great networking opportunity for NEM Zagreb 2022 participants interested in the co-production business.

Global trends, popular genres and formats
True-story based content is extremely popular, but is this description at all accurate? This was an important subject of discussions at the How To Approach True Stories? panel, which had speakers commenting on the standards content needs to meet to be categorized as “based on a true story“.
Richard Middleton, Managing Editor, TBI, hosted an extremely interesting discussion with intriguing panel participants including
• Frank Spotnitz, CEO & Executive Producer, Big Light Productions,
• Michael Iskas, Chief Executive Officer, Antenna Studios,
• Larry Bass, CEO & Executive Producer, ShinAwiL Productions,
• Ryta Grebenchikova, Head of Film Production, Producer, UPHub (Ukrainian Producers Hub), and
• Dariusz Jablonski, Founder, CEO, Producer, Director, Apple Film Production.
„The responsibility of telling true stories is very important. The more I researched for my last project, the more I realized how important it is to take details into account. Every detail can play a main role, but sometimes you shouldn't go detail by detail, you have to be credible by finding the essence of the story. To tell the truth, it doesn't mean you have to say everything that happened. You have to find your own path“, said Darius Jablonski.

Global media trends have always been a focus point in all NEM editions, including NEM Zagreb 2022. The worth of global media is anticipated to exceed one trillion US dollars by 2027, with 42 percent of the income coming from online video streaming. It is also anticipated that online advertising will generate more than 331 billion US dollars over the next five years. What is the role of TikTok, Meta and YouTube? Maria Rua Aguete, Executive Director, Technology Fellow, Omdia, presented a case study of Global Trends in the Media and shared important information on the subject during a one-to-one interview with Daniel Friedlaender, Sky's European Affairs Director, Head of Sky EU Office.

As part of the interesting discussions at the Scandinavian Co-Production Model in the Adriatic Region panel, the speakers talked about the options of implementing the successful Scandinavian production model within the different culture of the Adriatic region, sharing their views on what it would take to make this model work in this area too. The panellists included
• Marike Muselaers, Chief Content and Partnerships Officer, Lumière,
• Boban Jevtić, Head of Content Strategy and Development, Firefly Productions,
• Vanda Rapti, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer for North America and Viaplay Select, Viaplay Group
“You need something that appeals to other countries. For example, Nordic Noir wasn't even something that was completely made up in the Nordic region, but it became a quality stamp. There was this idea, like with nordic books, fashion, or design, that these shows were good, it was a whole wave. Everything from the Nordic region suddenly had this quality stamp, so the question is also is there something from the region that you could use to promote the shows? Also, what we've been seeing is that when the global streaming went into the new territories, the local players were also much more willing to work together”, said Marike Muselaers.

The second successful day of NEM Zagreb 2022 was closed with a grand Christmas Party by Pickbox with friends and collaborators of Pickbox TV channel and Pickbox NOW streaming.