Armin Luttenberger, Head of International Content Sales at ORF-Enterprise, spoke to ttvnews about the distributor’s new comedy series and factual productions, which they were finally able to present to their clients face-to-face at the past Mipcom in Cannes.
A year and a half ago, ORF-Enterprise was ready to inaugurate a brand new stand at Miptv 2020 to showcase its growing catalog of fiction series and high-end documentaries to the international market, but ultimately the event got canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And now, a year and a half later, the distributor was finally present at Mipcom meet face to face with its clients and colleagues in Cannes.
“We planned to be at Mipcom as a team”, said Armin Luttenberger, Head of International Content Sales at ORF-Enterprise. “We had our own stand with reduced seating and we were eager to see how things turned out”.
The Vienna-based distributor arrived at the event with a full slate of content, ranging from comedy series to films and blue-chip documentaries. “We are a part of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation so we have a very colorful catalog with various genres. We are focused on our brand new TV series and seasons,” the executive explained.
We Are Family
First up is the comedy We Are Family, which premiered at Mipcom, produced by Interspot Film for ORF and based on the format La Famiglia by United Studios of Israel. In addition, the company presented new seasons of its established comedy series, Walking on Sunshine; the sixth and final season of Suburbia – Women on the Edge; and the 20th and final season of Soko Kitzbuehel, which has been a huge success. “Also we talked to some partners about the Soko Linz series, which will premiere in 2022”, the executive revealed.
In addition to fiction series, ORF-Enterprise is offering its well-known nature and history documentaries from its factual catalog for the international market.
Fast Forward
“Everybody who did attend the online edition of Miptv might have joined us for the Universum Nature Showcase, which was an online event we did on our own screening platform to present the brand new lineup of blue-chip and wildlife nature documentaries, and some of them are premiered at Mipcom. For instance, we have a beautiful documentary about Colombia and a fantastic wildlife piece on the Hudson river, plus many others”, he explained. “We will also have the Universum History Showcase after the market, presenting all the new dramas and documentaries from the history genre”, he added.
The Universum Showcases are just one of the many solutions ORF-Enterprise was able to put in place to face the challenges imposed by the pandemic, a period in which it invested in digital alternatives to connect with clients and partners.
Colombia – Wild and Free
“We had to think about new strategies like offering clients new ways of exploring our content,” the executive explained. “We relaunched our screening platform together with our tech partner Mediafellows, which is super convenient to search for content and screen it online. Plus, we set up the online showcase platform where we do live presentations in high quality, and where people can easily interact with our sales team.”
“But being back in the office and seeing everyone is a great feeling, because this is a human-driven business and it’s always good to meet face to face, with that feeling of coming together again as a team and as an industry,” he concluded.
