Video Age International April 2016

I N T E R N A T I O N A L www.V i deoAge.org THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF FILM, BROADCASTING, BROADBAND, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION April 2016 - VOL. 36 NO. 3 - $9.75 “Well, all the balls are in our court!” S ports on television is big business worldwide. It has the most complex license fee structure of all TV content. Sports TV licensing is going through a structural change because of the second screen. And sports is considered the lifeline for FTA. For this reason, sports leaguesare leveragingthis strengthby increasing license fees. For example, in Italy the Serie A football league’s annual budget of 2.4 billion euro is 54 percent covered by TV rights. The figures attached to this form of programming are mind- boggling. According to the World Sports Encyclopedia, around the world there are 3,000 sports, but the Summer Olympics have only 28 sports and the Winter 15 (some of them with multiple disciplines). Yet, there are just 10 top sports on TV: Football (soccer) with 3.5 billion followers, cricket (2.5 billion), field hockey (2 billion), tennis (1 billion), volleyball (900million), table tennis Sports in All Television Forms is Going Through A Change $50 BillionWorth of Change (Continued on Page 32) My2¢: Pity buyers who have split personalities as a job requirement Italian TV after Netflix is more of the same traditional TV Reiner Moritz into the Int’l TV Distribution Hall of Fame MIP-TV Preview: Business talk wins over floor business Page 38 Page 28 Page 20 Page 12 T he international television business was founded on the sale of U.S. dramas — initially feature films, but primetime TV drama quickly followed. So, it is no surprise that, from the very early days, U.S. series dominated international TV drama sales. But that is no longer the case — new European Fiction Is BecomingAn AmericanDrama (Continued on Page 34) (Continued on Page 35) I t is, perhaps, a revealing testament to the true nature of the television business that, despite the refusal of courts on either side of the Atlantic and Pacific to recognize their existence in matters of legal protection — formats have become one of the biggest and fastest growing industry sectors. So, why is the format so loved and what makes a great format? There aren’t many “hard facts” about the format business, but one Formats:Unloved ByTheLaw, LovedByViewers