The first panel of the second day of NEM Zagreb 2024 put the focus on alliances and partnerships in the region, with all speakers agreeing that shooting successful co-productions in the region is becoming increasingly difficult.

Alliances: Join Forces for a Stronger Future was moderated by CEETV's VP of Research Yako Molhov who was joined on the stage by Rahela Štefanović, Editor in Chief, Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT); Natalija Gorščak, President of the Management Board, RTV Slovenia; Bartosz Witak General Manager, SVP of CEE, MENA and Turkey, BBC Studios and Lenka Szántó, Creative Producer, TV Nova/VOYO, Czech Republic.

Gorščak noted that the biggest issues public broadcasters in CEE are facing now are securing stable financing and the polarization of the political landscape, there is political pressure on pubcasters. RTV Slovenia is relying on good alliances with independent producers in the country and also co-producing with other countries, which has become increasingly difficult because of the legal framework, i.e. the pubcaster can co-produce only thru independent producers.

Štefanović agreed that the legal framework is sometimes a major obstacle for alliances and for coproductions. HRT, as a broadcaster member of the EBU (The European Broadcasting Union), is used to making all the alliances regarding content, especially kids content "where we have been co-producing for years in documentaries and dramas and it is something that we would like to do much more in EBU framework and also with independent productions, but it's very hard."

For BBC Studios in CEE the challenges are more or less the same, namely financing and budgets as the market is getting more crowded and competition is fiercer, just the business model and the role of the company is slightly different, not only representing one country, Witak explained.

Szántó noted that the most valuable partnerships are within Central European Media Enterprises, the company that owns TV Nova and broadcasters in five other CEE territories, with Slovak Markiza being "the closest friend of ours". The companies share some capacities and departments and this works but in terms of content creation "we are really like brothers and the languages are almost the same, very similar, we can understand each other, but still the cultural differences are there and the expectations of the audience are different from the content we create but it doesn't always work when we do content 50/50".

In terms of co-productions, Štefanović underlined the difference between pubcasters and commercial broadcasters: "We are impact-driven, and the things are different definitely in that area. We are not so successful in co-productions, and we don't have so many successful stories. We have two drama series, the one that we are expecting next year, Greater Adria, and The Silence, which were produced by Drugi Plan, and I hope that now we will enter one documentary co-production, it's always much more complicated maybe that it should be... We are trying with our legal framework to do some improvements, but we are not dedicated enough maybe to this subject, of course, and I talked about this last year, the language is the main problem, because we would all like to have something from the co-productions that it's in our language. That means that we should focus on this area, this region, and I think that in the future we should do more of this, but I'm not very optimistic about it."

As far as the question of whether common history, similar languages could help the success of co-productions, Gorščak commented that "culturally, it works but we shouldn't limit on that. There are some things which are quite universal, for example all of Europe has a problem with the war in Ukraine, migration is also a common theme, aging of the population." The executive also highlighted the copyright issues, for example with clearing music rights and technology and all the new distribution platforms extend the timing of the rights issue which is an obstacle for co-productions.

TV Nova's Creative Producer commented that the most-important element for a successful co-production is "a common narrative language that you can share on the project... I can't think of any example when the co-production on a big drama series, on a drama project, really worked in the domestic markets. Maybe the way how to try that is for the cost not to be the main priority but rather the audience you already have, don't disappoint them with some compromising on the content." Szántó elaborated that co-productions could work with less mainstream genres, i.e. fairytales, horror series, animation series.

Witak noted that BBC Studios is quite new to this game in CEE, "we haven't produced anything yet here in this part of the world at BBC and this is what we have absolutely massive ambition and appetite for". The BBC senior executive noted, however, that "I'm a little less optimistic when it comes to how content can easily travel across this part of the world... From our experiences, seeing how content travels, it's much easier to think about non-scripted documentary factual that becoming more interesting to some audiences in other territories, because it's about the story that in most of the cases really happened. And it's pretty much documenting some situations, some events, whether they are like joyful stories or just very unfortunate and tragic. But that, for some reason, works better in terms of traveling."

HRT's Editor in Chief added: "I know that inside the EBU, the TV committee and the expert group from drama and documentaries are really trying so hard to make as many co-productions as they can. And I know that inside the drama, it's very hard. They are trying, they are pitching to each other, but because of the legal framework most of the time, and because of the stories and the languages, this is not going so well. For documentaries it's much simpler and we are hoping now that we are entering one of those co-productions, there are positive examples. We also had a few years ago, EBU co-productions in the children's department regarding drama and documentaries but now most of the big countries are not interested. The smaller countries are much more in a problem because France, England, or the Nordic countries, they are not so keen to co-produce with the smaller countries, they are making their own circles.

Regarding the role of international streamers in CEE, with many of them ramping investments, particularly in Poland, Gorščak rhetorically asked: "Do you think that Netflix would be interesting in co-producing with Slovenia? Two million possible viewers, but basically the possibility is 800.000 viewers, or even less. They are investing in Poland, they are investing in Germany, they are investing in the big countries, and they don't care about us. This neglecting was also seen, because for a long time they didn't have subtitles in our languages. So, they just need money, and they don't care about the market. And people who are stupid enough to pay 9.9 euros for Netflix in Slovenia, while the license fee for RTV Slovenia for three online channels, two regional channels, online services and everything, is 12.75... And I think we, as small countries, we can be only frightened. The problem is that we are not taking care of our media landscape, and the question is strategic. The flood of series in the last period of time has really put a lot of pressure on the local markets, especially on the small markets. And small markets are in danger, and this is the big point, and that's why we need to see how we can work together, just somehow protecting our culture, our language."

BBC Studios' Witak acknowledged the role of streamers like Netflix for the Polish market, in terms of creating new jobs and investing in content in the country but shared that they would like to make partnerships "with smaller, more local streamers where we have our own streaming platform that we are simply embedding into someone's services by still keeping that very much branded. This is our priority, for me and my team to make sure that the content that we are producing is traveling with the brand, no matter the way we provide it, whether it's traditional television, whether it's streaming service, whether it's anything else like content sales, right, or digital platform. So probably we have slightly different priorities, but at the same time, we know that the brand for us is the most important, therefore the streaming platforms do not provide us with the opportunity to, among the others, promote our brand the way we would like to build it going forward. Occasionally, we work with them and produce with them, but at the same time, we are competitors to some extent."

Szántó commented that the international streamers are competitors to Voyo which, as CEETV recently reported, has reached 950.000 paying subscribers in Czechia and Slovakia ahead of planned and the only way to fight them is by becoming significant yourself and the company has a strong investor in the face of CME.

In terms of how technology is affecting alliances, the panelists commented that it has affected the media landscape and how viewers are consuming content. Witak noted that technology is helping BBC Studios' fully branded solution, working with OTT platforms, it is another way of distributing content and the brand. Szántó commented that technology how we perceive things, how the audience uses content and how pricing will be determined, the technology allows to share capacities within CME. There is also a huge potential in partnerships with social media and digital players, especially YouTube in promoting series, producing additional content for digital media and also being present on all platforms, especially social media, is now crucial for broadcasters.