As a kudos to the people who could not attend MEDIA PLAY Sofia 2024, CEETV today publishes its CEETV's Hot Picks presentation with insights on the latest trends and forecast for the upcoming developments in the CEE region.

Despite the already established trend of strong local production in Central and Eastern Europe in the form of TV series (both original and adapted) which enjoy high viewership and travel outside their respective territories, major international formats continue to dominate the CEE TV landscape.

In the past year, viewers saw the return of Big Brother in several markets; international juggernauts like Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, The Bachelor, Your Face Sounds Familiar, MasterChef, Kitchen Nightmares, The Farm, The Voice, I Love My Country, Got Talent continue their strong performance. The numerous dating shows and long-running gameshows like The Chase, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Family Feud, Deal or no Deal, etc. are still the predominant ratings-generators in the region.

Local players also produce their own strong quiz formats like BNT’s The Last One Wins, or Estonian Kanal 2’s record breaking 15 Questions which is now attracting heavy international interest, also thanks to CEETV and TVBIZZ.

Our prediction for a relatively new format that will travel to new CEE territories soon is All3Media's The Traitors which has already aired (or will soon air) in Greece, Hungary and most recently - in Poland. The Real Housewives format may also see new adaptations in the region. [We have already seen this forecast taking shape as this week The Traitors was confirmed for Czechia and Slovakia, and there are now rumors that The Real Housewives will be back in Greece].

In terms of trends of local fiction production - period dramas have been on the rise lately, especially in Poland (most notably TVP productions), Czechia (The Golden Swan, First Republic) and Slovakia (Time of Hope, Danube, At Your Service!). Turkey has been a traditional producer and exporter of historical drama series. Crime fiction has always been popular and this trend will continue in the future. Successful examples of such series are BNT's Undercover and Bulgarian Nova's Devil's Throat which returned this spring with a new season called Demon’s Fall,.Czech Nova's The Specialists and CSI Andel (returning after a long hiatus), Prima's On the Waves of the Adriatic, CT's numerous crime series (including period crime series like The 90s), and also in Romania PRO TV's series The Clan is very popular. This series is an adaptation of Turkish series The Insider which brings us to another trend - Turkish series have been popular in CEE (and beyond) for many years but in Romania they are often adapted locally. Examples include Antena 1's remakes of Room 309 and Never Let Go. Turkish fiction format adaptations are also popular in Greece, most notably ANT1’s Trapped, based on Ay Yapim’s Family Secrets.

The Croatian series At the Border (United Media) also enjoyed great success beyond its borders - it has been adapted in Greece, Slovakia, Hungary; it also enjoys strong ratings in Slovenia. Another Croatian format - No Matter What - has been sold in CEE.

In terms of adapted international fiction formats, Paramount Global's Sres. Papis (Dear Daddies) tops the chart in CEE with the highest number of adaptations. Call My Agent has also been very popular with CEE broadcasters lately. Haut Potentiel Intelectuel (HPI) is popular in Czechia and Slovakia and also has seen its adaptations in Greece and Hungary. UK crime and drama series also see adaptations in different countries in the region.

Some public broadcasters in CEE produce popular fiction formats, i.e. TVP in Poland (the pubcaster focuses on original Polish production on its flagship channels), CT in Czechia, STV in Slovakia (its newest period drama Time of Hope scored high ratings this season). Despite its limited budget, Bulgarian pubcaster BNT can also pride itself on a couple of successful projects - its hit crime drama Undercover which has travelled to numerous territories and has been recently renewed for a sixth season as well as its new series Guilt which enjoys strong viewership results.

Examples of successful local non-fiction formats include Fish on the Cake which has been adapted in territories like Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia and Hungary. Another show, Mysteries in the Spotlight, which was "discovered" by our PITCH&PLAY LIVE!, co-organized with NATPE Budapest, traveled from Romania to Ukraine, Hungary and Slovenia.

A trend worth mentioning are the increasing investments into streaming content, i.e. CME's Voyo which produces original shows for its streaming service (both fiction and non-fiction); also Player.pl in Poland; etc. In the Baltics, recently Go3 passed the landmark of half a million subscribers, while CME reached a million subs with Voyo in Czechia and Slovakia.

Big international players like Netflix, HBO Max, SkyShowtime are also increasing their budgets for original productions in CEE. Recently, Warner Bros. Discovery acquired Turkey’s most popular streamer BluTV which is another proof of the big potential of the region.

As a consequence of the war, another big major trend emerging in the region is documentary production with Ukraine leading the way having the biggest volume of produced original documentaries, while interest and investments in the genre are expected to continue to grow in the coming years.