Dealmakers


JENS RICHTER Managing director, Seven One International


CAREER


2004 Joins Seven One International, the worldwide operating distribution arm of ProSiebenSat.1 Media, as managing director 2000 Becomes managing director in charge of the worldwide distribution of free/pay TV, home video and theatrical rights at Beta Film, Munich 1999 Joins Prisma Sports & Media, London, as senior vice-president


Benidorm Bastards G


erman TV group ProSieben- Sat.1 Media still has some way to go if it is to catch rival RTL in


terms of its international strategy. But it has started to build some momentum in the past few years. The acquisition of SBS Broadcasting means it is now in 13 countries as a broadcaster, while its international production unit, Red Arrow, is making its presence felt in Europe, Asia and North America. Within the Red Arrow division, a lot


of the hard graft has been done by distribution arm Seven One Inter- national, launched in 2004 and headed by managing director Jens Richter. Shows like You Deserve It!, Benidorm Bastards and Galileo have put the company on the map. Now that Seven One has picked up international rights to reality show Louie


Spence’s (left) new series Dance Project,


it has become a head-on rival for the UK-based distribution sector. One of the major landmarks for Richter was Seven One’s success in


signing a development deal with Deal Or No Deal creator Dick de Rijk. In January 2011, that partnership bore fruit when De Rijk, working with Seven One and Red Arrow US


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


‘The show doesn’t portray old people as sad and dependent; it


shows them as sassy’ Jens Richter


subsidiary Kinetic Content, sold a pilot for You Deserve It! to ABC US. Roll forward to September 2011 and ABC has greenlit a run of six episodes.


Unlikely hit OAP hidden camera show Benidorm Bastards wasn’t an obvious hit when Richter fi rst told Broadcast about it at MipCom 2010, but it has gone on to have an extremely successful 18 months under the guidance of Seven One – including a Golden Rose of Montreux and a pick-up by BBC1. Richter says it was an immediate


success in Belgium. “After just three episodes, it was performing 284% above the average for the slot.” A friend called Richter and told him he should take a look, which he did. Fol- lowing what he describes as “a week on the telephone with Tim van Aelst”, Seven One closed the deal to represent the format – just slightly too late to promote it ahead of MipCom. Next up was RTL4, the Nether-


lands’ biggest broadcaster, where the


strategy was different. At 8.05pm on a Saturday night, it averaged a 36.8% share, about 250% above the slot average. It won its slot from the fi rst transmission. The show then won a Rose d’Or for


Best Comedy and Best Programme. Richter says that, aside from the intrinsic humour in the sketch show, the other main reason for its popular- ity and success is “the show doesn’t portray old people as sad and depend- ent; rather, it shows them as sassy, clever and young at heart”. He adds: “The important thing to


grasp is that it has been a success every where it has played. And I do mean a success. Not only has it never fl opped, but it has also never been just OK. It has always outperformed its slot average by anything from 50% to 300%.” Shooting a BBC pilot was “like getting a knighthood in comedy”, he adds. Possibly even better, NBC is to air 12


half-hours of its version, Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, featuring the former Golden Girls star. The real icing on Richter’s MipCom


cake is that Seven One will be repping Van Aelst’s new offering What If...? – a show that stops people in the street and asks such truly profound ques- tions as: “What if car mechanics were honest?” and “Could lightning strike twice?”.


30 September 2011 | Broadcast | 51


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