VideoAge International October 2018

42 October 2018 V I D E O A G E (Continued from Cover) The CEE-CIS Mess and Maze part of the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) group, while Georgia and Ukraine are supposed to be CIS associates. But considering their conflict with Russia, it’s probably safe not to include Ukraine among the CIS countries. This is similar to the situation with Georgia, which wants to join NATO. Patrick Zuchowicki of Basic Lead, who created and organized the Budapest TV market before selling it to NATPE in 2011, said that to define Eastern Europe it’s best to use the list from Europe’s Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development, which includes Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Then, there is a more complex Eastern Europe definition given by Wikipedia, which includes classifications from the World Factbook (compiled by the CIA) and Eurovoc (an E.U. publication used by some U.S. studios). Indeed, each studio looks at Eastern Europe a little differently with regards to territories. To Lionsgate’s Peter Iacono, for TV sales rights purposes, there is no “Central Europe” anymore (only Western Europe), and since it is no longer “politically correct” to refer to Eastern Europe as such, he uses the acronym CEE (which means Central and Eastern Europe, but has less of a negative connotation), instead. Iacono’s view is echoed by Tim Horan, CEO of London-based TV Tomorrow, who spent many years in Moscow and said: “Almost all of the Central European countries do not like to be referred to as ‘Eastern Europe’ anymore because of the historical links to the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain, with the possible exception of Bulgaria. Therefore, Central Europe would be the following: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania.” GRB Entertainment’s Melanie Torres places the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia in Central Europe, while Bulgaria, Romania, and former Yugoslavian countries (like Serbia, Albania and Bosnia) belong in Eastern Europe. Curiously, the Travel magazine of the London Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, while the Middle East has Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Yemen, and Djibouti. But Loni Farhi, president of SPI, doesn’t put Turkey in the MENA region, “Turkey is alone as the language is Turkish,” he stated. He sees other “problems in the MENA region.” Farhi, who has offices in the U.S., Turkey, Israel, and Poland, considers “the above countries part of the Middle East, and French-language content distributors include these countries on a non- exclusive basis for French-speaking rights, as well as some other West African countries, where French is still the language.” According to Farhi, “Now, platforms from En- glish-speaking Africa (such as MultiChoice, Kwe- se, and StarTimes) are expanding into French- speaking and Portuguese-speaking Africa, and when they are buying, would like to have these language rights as well, which is creating a chao- tic time in Africa.” “These days,” continued Farhi, “it is becoming necessary to consider selling language rights (rather than territorial rights), or we have to make sure that the core country (such as France) should be the only one able to buy French- language rights on an exclusive basis for their country, while the rest of the countries should be on a non-exclusive basis.” Sunday Times places both Slovenia and Bulgaria in Eastern Europe. In the CIS zone, Mehmet Gunduz, also of Los Angeles-based GRB, also included Georgia, but treated Ukraine as a separate territory. For Berk Uziyel, the Istanbul-based managing director of SPI International, “CEE is Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia, while CIS is Russia andUkraine.” Multicom’s Jesse Baritz has other European categories to consider, such as GAS (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), Benelux (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), and Iberia (Portugal, Spain, and select territories). The CEE region is further convoluted by the fact that it also encompasses the Baltics and the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bul- garia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia). With regards to television rights, Multicom’s Baritz said that, for him, “Baltics” refers only to Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), and not to countries that have shorelines along the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Swe- den). Baritz’s consideration is also shared by Ebru Mercan, from Turkey’s Calinos. Finally, ignoring political considerations, to some TV content distributors the CIS countries are those that speak the Russian language: Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. To further complicate matters for IP rights for international sellers, there is also MENA (Middle East and North Africa) to consider. MENA is even more complex than CEE/CIS because, even though North Africa is a Muslim region, some countries are in the French-language sphere (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) and are technically in the French-language rights domain. But those countries typically want to acquire English rights as well. In MENA, GRB generally sells the rights to French and English content separately. While there is no standardized list of which countries are included in the MENA region, North Africa usually consists of Morocco, Algeria, GRB Entertainment’s Melanie Torres TV Tomorrow’s Tim Horan SPI International’s Berk Uziyel Multicom Entertainment’s Jesse Baritz