Rick Barker, Director of Sales at DCD Rights, spoke to ttvnews about the distributor’s new catalog, which includes series from Spain and Chile, and is ready for new representation opportunities.

British distributor DCD Rights has made variety a specialty. The company started 2021 with a catalog made “for all tastes” with fiction content, unscripted titles and factual television.

“We have a wide variety of new programming for Miptv, with female drama content, male and female factual shows and music content,” said Rick Barker, Director of Sales for DCD Rights in an interview with ttvnews.

He highlighted the arrival of the fourth season of Canadian series Frankie Drake Mysteries, which is ideal for female audiences. “Season 4 is currently airing on CBC; the series has worked very well for us so far,” commented the executive.

Something similar happens with My Life Is Murder, whose second season is filming in New Zealand and will air on Acorn TV, UK TV and TVNZ.

Also within the female target is The Secret She Keeps, which has been the sixth most popular content of all 2020 on the BBC iPlayer, with 17 million views. “We are very proud of this series,” said Barker, who also highlighted unscripted female titles, such as The Wonderful Bridezillas from We TV in the US, already in season 16, and Marriage Bootcamp.

As for male viewers, the executive listed titles such as Australia’s Outback Car Hunters, in which a duo of experts travel the country in search of cars to restore and sell; and Fast Justice from the UK, which follows a police team that disrupts criminal networks and drug traffickers by analyzing traffic and license plates in real time with special software. “It’s a very fast action series. Police content always sells very well,” said the executive.

“In the men’s line, I would like to finally highlight Aussie Gold Hunters that has been around for six seasons and continues to work in an incredible way.”

“All this, in addition to our new musical content such as Great Songwriters, which works very well for us in Latin America and is already in production for its third season,” he explained. “And also culinary content, which we always sell well to countries like Spain or regions like Latin America,” he added.

SERIES IN SPANISH

DCD Rights is now working with a new division destined to distributing series in “European languages”. In this sense, over a year ago the company added two titles in Spanish: the Spain-Portugal co-production Auga Seca (Dry Water) and the Chilean series La cacería (distributed internationally as Inspector Rojas).

“Both have really worked very well, we are very pleased. We are just starting with the distribution of series in other European languages, but we are very happy so far with the reaction that these two titles have achieved,” he said.

“Auga Seca is a Portocabo production and has a brilliant team behind it, so we knew it was going to be a success, as well as being a crime drama, a popular genre around the world,” he added.

According to the executive, Auga Seca has been sold to countries such as Australia and New Zealand, in addition to its agreement for Spain and Portugal with HBO. “We are also having negotiations for the series in Latin America,” he assured.

La cacería (Inspector Rojas), meanwhile, was sold to “virtually everyone, from Canada to New Zealand,” he detailed.

And is the company looking for more series in Spanish? According to Rick Barker, without a doubt.

“We have a very active acquisitions team that is constantly looking for opportunities, reading scripts, developments and offering comments, casting suggestions, treatments… We are working a lot in that area and hopefully soon we can make some announcements,” he explained.

DCD’s goal, he added, is to enter the series in very early stages where they can contribute monetarily as co-producers and bring other pre-sale partners closer.

“It is very unusual these days for programs to be funded by a single broadcaster, so multiple partners are needed at the top of the table and that is something that we at DCD have been doing for the last five or six years.”

“A good example is My Life is Murder. We were able to not only be one of the main investors, but we brought together several partners to make the second season possible,” he added.