The partnership between the UK producer and the Turkish MCN has acquired over 3000 hours of content from the Spanish broadcaster.
The strategic partnership recently established between UK’s Arrested Industries and Turkey’s Merzigo announced that it has concluded its first major deal, acquiring close to 3000 hours from Spanish broadcaster RTVE.
This collaboration between content development, financing, and distribution business Arrested Industries (fka Fugitive) and Merzigo, the rapidly growing, five-year-old international technology business, is headed up out of London by Arrested’s co-CEO Merrily Ross.
RTVE’s 3000 hours come from long-running, popular scripted series such as Central Market (Mercado Central) and Love in Difficult Times (Amar en Tiempos Revueltos), and the deal was concluded by Arrested Industries’ consultant and SVP, Charo Penedo.
Merrily Ross says: “Merzigo has a unique and smart business model, fantastic experience in monetizing a wide range of programming on different AVOD platforms, and a high-tech facility that takes the heavy lifting out of uploading and managing content. When you add in our industry knowledge and network of contacts, we bring a compelling offer to the marketplace, one which is becoming increasingly interesting to content owners looking to optimize revenues. Our early conversations with broadcasters and other rights owners have been extremely well received and this first completed deal with RTVE is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Yigit Dogan Celik, managing director of Merzigo, adds: “We are delighted that our partnership with Arrested Industries has got off to such a strong start, with yet another leading international broadcaster trusting us with high-profile, volume content. Having a new base out of London and working closely with Merrily and Anthony Kimble, we have been able to quickly create fresh, wide-ranging opportunities for our business and we are excited by the prospect of those further deals we can see in our rapidly growing pipeline.”
Currently housing more than 100,000 hours of content, Merzigo is an innovative and market leading business providing a range of monetizing and brand building services, including digital curation, directly for broadcasters, distributors, and producers, including Fox, The Walt Disney Company and KanalD. From its base in Turkey, it has established an international reputation, in both established and untapped markets, for successfully leading its clients to increased revenues and committed online communities for their content. Merzigo’s success can be partly attributed to its leading-edge technology and sophisticated proprietary algorithms which draw viewers to content, but also to its work on cleverly customising channels and providing high-level piracy protection for all its managed content. Merzigo also has the facility to dub content in 16 languages, covering most of the world’s key markets, which makes its services highly attractive.
