Saturday April 10th 2010 15.00 - 15.30

Conversation With…

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Conversation With… 2

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Conversation With… Moderator: Ove Jensen - Film Consultant + Web Editor – European Documentary Network (EDN) Denmark Speaker: Gaspard Lamunière – Commissioning Editor Documentaries - TSR Swiss Television Rima Nazer – Head of Documentary – Alif Alif Media, Saudi Arabia

Ove Jensen Good afternoon everybody, my name is Ove Jensen and I work for the organisation EDN – European Documentary Network – and we are welcoming you to this afternoon’s session of ‘Conversations With’ and as you have figured out already, we have two commissioning editors with us. One is Rima Nazer from Alif Alif Media in Saudi Arabia, welcome to you, and the other one is Gaspard Lamunière from TSR in Switzerland and of course normally I would be a gentleman and say ladies first, but Gaspard, you are on a pretty tight schedule today, so we‘ll start with you and you will introduce us to TSR in Switzerland and after you have done your presentation, we’ll take some questions from you, if you have any questions to Gaspard; and then afterwards we’ll come to you and hear all about Alif Alif Media. So Gaspard, welcome to you and please tell us about TSR in Switzerland. Gaspard Lamunière Well, Switzerland is a very small country, seven million people live in our country and it’s a strange country because we have three and a half languages, which mean we have channels, our national broadcasting company, public service, is divided in three different channels which do quite different things which each one is influenced by his huge neighbour, which means that

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Gaspard Lamunière (cont) our part, which is the French speaking part of Switzerland, we are very influenced by French TV basically, because everybody in French speaking Switzerland can see the French channels. We as a public broadcaster, we have of course a lot of self production. Every evening starts with a programme which is self production, Monday it’s economy, Tuesday it’s consumption, Wednesday and so on and so on all through the week, and we have 7 to 10 weekly slots for documentaries, which means that we air around 500 different documentaries each year and to do this we have two and a half editorial persons to do this job, which is a very big job for just two and a half persons, so that’s why we can’t everybody when we come to events like this, because our schedules are quite full. Concerning these slots, we have I would say the basic documentary slots that most generalist channels have, of course wildlife, adventure and things like that, but when we come to festivals like this or markets, we hunt more for two of our prime time slots because TSR has two channels. Well, we even consider we have three channels because our website is very, very active and a lot of people come and see the documentaries on our website, because we have a seven days catch up for about 95 per cent of the documentaries that we programme and it is really, really successful, so we consider now that we have three channels; but our prime time slots are on our second channel Sunday evening and Monday evening. Sunday evening is more geo-political and contemporary history slot. It is a very special programme because it’s across old media slot, which means that it’s a slot that we share or that editorially we share with one of the big daily newspapers in Switzerland and with our national radio, which means that the topic that is aired on Sunday evening has five hours of radio programme during the week and a whole page on the Friday newspaper. This is more, as I said, for contemporary history, big geo-political issues; and Monday it’s more, I would say, for social issues, human interest, sometimes documentaries which could be considered as current affairs on other channels, which means that it’s a wide range of topics. The lengths don’t really matter for us. We do, well, not less than 45 minutes, I would say, but from 45 minutes up to 90 minutes. It’s not really a big issue for us, the length of the films. It can even be 67 if deserves to be 67, then it’s ok for us. I mean, we think that films have a proper www.take1.tv

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Gaspard Lamunière (cont) length which some directors don’t really understand – some producers don’t either but a lot of distributors at least know that the films have to have the proper length. The way we commission is, I would say that we are now around a thousand projects that we receive each year, because there is a natural path from the French producers to TSR, of course, so that means that most of the projects that are proposed to the French channels come to us too. I am just talking to you about the international level because of course for the Swiss productions it’s very different, and usually we do not co-produce on an international level. It’s a very complicated system for co-productions, it’s basically for feature length and theatrical release and it has to be a minority/majority reciprocity, so it’s very complicated, so don’t really count on us for co-productions but nevertheless we are quite active on pre-sales. That’s basically what we do, we do an average of about a hundred pre-buys a year. Most of them are, I would say, tactical pre-buys. It’s because in the pre-buy contract we get to air prior to the other channels and that’s especially interesting for us when it’s a French channel that’s the main coproducer because if it has been shown on RT or France Television or I don't know what, then it’s considered dead for us because our audience has had already the opportunity to watch it on a French channel, but we also do of course quite a few other pre-buys, whether it’s no French speaking channel involved but because we think that they are important films to support, even with our little money. Just about the commissioning process still, of course we are like all the other channels – it takes quite a bit of time. The piles are so high that, you know, we have so much we have to screen, we have to do everything so sometimes it takes a little time for the projects to be read and a decision to be taken. About the money, usually, well it’s not usually, I mean, it’s 99.9 times the case, it’s 100 Euros a minute, which is of course little money. That’s why we always say to producers if they don’t have a main involvement, the big money from some other channel, then we don’t waste our time to read the projects because the films might not be made, so it’s just a waste of time for us; and in acquisitions, it’s a little less. It’s something like 80 Euros a minute. It depends about the ratio of the Swiss Franc with the Euro, but it’s roughly something like that, so of course it’s not a lot of money but we network quite a little bit with other French channels, with the Belgians, with the Canadians, to try to get them join us in the good projects, what we think the good projects www.take1.tv

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Gaspard Lamunière (cont) are, so if you add 5,000, 5,000, 5,000, 5,000 you can get to about 20,000 which starts to get a bit more interesting. Ove Jensen One question to you Gaspard is, in terms of you being the French broadcaster, how important is it for you that the content of the things you are acquiring have a French angle, you could say, or a French topic? Gaspard Lamunière Well, when it’s too Frenchy we don’t get in. I mean, you know, when it’s like a human interest issue and it’s only seen through a French angle with the French laws and society, of course it’s not so interesting for us, then usually it’s our own current affairs slot who does the film. But we do French versions, we get involved not only in French speaking films, of course, we do two French versions per month which is not much but it still exists and, for example, there’s a lot of projects we get involved in where we know that there will not be a French version or it will be just hell to have it because it’s going to be through Arte, then it’s going to be French and German and it’s a huge job to do a really strictly French version, but we do versions, yes. Ove Jensen Yes. So you have to be a little French but not too French to get in on TSR? Gaspard Lamunière No, I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't say that. No. We’re very open. I mean, we can’t go to every market, every festival, every pitching, of course, because we’d just spend our time there, but we try to go to the main events, like most small channels I believe, and that’s usually where we also widen our contacts with what I call the, I like these soccer comparisons, it’s like the Champions’ League. The national and the local leagues are more difficult to get through to us. Ove Jensen Ok. In terms of your upcoming programming schedule for 2011 and 2012, anything particular you’re looking for or how does the future look for TSR? www.take1.tv

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Gaspard Lamunière Well, I think we’re in the same situation as most of the public broadcasters in Europe and public broadcasters who have, I don't know how you say, if you say that in English, a generalist channel. Well that means that we have series, films and everything, children and sports and everything, and as probably you all know, these kind of channels are having quite hard times. There are more and more specialised channels available and people really know how to go and pick up what they really want to see, so that’s one part of the problem and the second aspect is that we are in a process of making a fusion with our radio and it’s a hell of a story. It’s really very complicated and we don’t want to work with them and they don’t want to work with us, so we’re going through, I mean, it’s a little storm that’s going on and it’s happening to all of our channels in the country. That means that the Swiss Germans and the Swiss Italians are through the same process and of course the idea is that these kinds of fusions is to get some money out of it so that we don’t have to touch the programming, but it’s tough. Ove Jensen Yes. So in the future, it will be an advantage as a producer if they can deliver something for TSR which is both for broadcasting and radio? Gaspard Lamunière Well, we will extend probably collaborations with the radio, especially on the documentaries because it’s quite easy to have some aspects of a film developed on radio and so on. We are also very involved in all the new kind of programmes like webdocs and things like that, but we’re going on the tip of our toes because for the moment we don’t have a legal authorisation for these kind of programmes, we have to deal it from case to case with our kind of national authority who deals with all the broadcasters and things like that, but we’re experiencing right now the concept of Havana Miami, I don't know if you've heard about it from Alegria Productions. We’re doing that with Arte. Ove Jensen Havana Miami is a straight to internet documentary series that is running right now and you plan to do more of that in the future, straight to internet documentaries, or will it also acquire www.take1.tv

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that producers deliver something for broadcasting? Or how does it look…? Gaspard Lamunière For the moment, there has to be a documentary that can be broadcasted, otherwise it’s not legal for us to do that for the moment, but we’re experiencing things and we’re planning to develop it as soon as we get an authorisation. Ove Jensen Any questions for Gaspard? Delegate Question Gaspard Lamunière Well no, well there’s very few things that we do in common. I’m in charge of doing things concerning, I would say, patrimonial series, like we’ve done our best architects, our best photographers, our best designers, our best scientists and things like that, which is one of the rare things we do in common. What we do is we acquire programmes from each other, the Swiss Germans are quite good in documentary series like, you know, stuff in the mountains with, you know, there’s people come to save people who are in danger and things like that, they do that quite well, honestly, and so we take them and we do a French version and these kind of programmes, we can programme it quite easily on our first channel, prime time. It works quite well. But otherwise, collaborations are not very, well, in documentaries yes, but on the other programmes, there’s not very much that we do together. For instance, the Swiss Germans don’t really have a culture of documentary directors. It’s usually journalists who do the things by themselves. That’s a typical example of why these kind of collaborations are not very common. Ove Jensen In terms of what you’re looking for here at the market, any specific topics or any trends you want to address in your programming? Gaspard Lamunière Just the best. www.take1.tv

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Ove Jensen That’s a good choice, I think. Anyone else with questions for Gaspard? Delegate Question Ove Jensen Do you subtitle? Gaspard Lamunière Well, it’s not our policy, it’s a channel policy which means if I tell you that to introduce my answer, it’s that you’ve understood that we have to dub for prime time but we have some late night slots, there’s maybe one I could talk to you about very shortly, it’s a slot called [FOREIGN DIALOGUE] which is, the name is linked to a festival that’s just after MIP it’s in Nyon each year, it’s a documentary festival more for, I would say, creative documentaries, author type documentaries and this slot we have with this festival where we pick the 12 best films we think they have each year, usually as it’s a night slot, it’s around 11pm, then of course we subtitle. But, I mean, you know, the films can be a mix of dubbing and subtitling because of course if you have, I don't know what, Obama speaking, making a speech, you won’t dub Obama, you will subtitle Obama. Ove Jensen So if you have anybody else than Obama, you know, otherwise you’ll… ok. So anybody else with a question to Gaspard? Over there. Delegate Do you have a separate budget for webdocs or is it the money that comes from the documentary unit for television? Gaspard Lamunière For the moment, we pay for the documentary that goes with the webdoc and the cost of the webdoc is shared between us and the website, our web guys, but it’s for the moment. You www.take1.tv

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Gaspard Lamunière (cont) know, the whole economy of webdocs is still to invent. Arte has a model for the moment but, I mean, there might be other ways, we don’t know. Of course, we can’t do any advertising on our website, which is totally illegal in Switzerland, which makes of course the money problem important. Ove Jensen Ok, Gaspard, we are running out of time but thank you very much for coming. Gaspard Lamunière Thank you for coming. Ove Jensen Please give Gaspard a hand. And if you want an overview of the different slots that Gaspard is running and buying documentaries for, you can take a look in this book that we release at EDN called the EDN Financing Guide. There you have detailed information on the different length and the different themes that each broadcaster around Europe is looking for, so definitely a tool that you want to look into. Gaspard Lamunière And I will advertise for the EDN catalogue – it’s very well made, it’s renewed each year, the information is really updated and sometimes we get mails or phone calls from producers who should have read maybe the TSR profile in the EDN catalogue before phoning. Ove Jensen Because one thing you don’t want to do is address the wrong bias with the wrong kind of programmes, so good advice I think. Gaspard Lamunière So thank you very much, I’m going to run back to the screening room.

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Ove Jensen Thank you Gaspard. So onto you, Rima, welcome to you. Ove Jensen From the brand new channel, you could say, Alif Alif, not even broadcasting yet, so now we have the opportunity to actually talk to you and hear what you are looking for in the future and producers actually have a chance to feed documentaries into a channel which is looking for a lot of content at the moment because you haven’t started broadcasting yet but you will do so in a year. Rima Nazer In first quarter of 2011 hopefully. Ove Jensen Ok. So welcome to you and tell us everything about Alif Alif. Rima Nazer Ok, so my name is Rima Nazer, I’m head of documentaries at Alif Alif TV. We are a 24 hour free to air local Saudi channel, general entertainment and news channel. We broadcast entirely in Arabic. The plan is, as we said, to start hopefully to broadcast in the first quarter of 2011 so I’ll speak only about documentaries here because this is my bit. We’re looking into commissioning, co-producing and acquiring documentaries from regionally and internationally, mainly the acquisition is basically international. We’re looking into commissioning entirely and co-producing with local regional, like, agent, I mean GCC countries and the Arab world and with international production companies, broadcasters, you know, it depends. We’re looking into stories within Saudi Arabia because we think people don’t really know what Saudi Arabia is about. So I’m looking into producing documentaries that has to do with the culture, with the heritage, with the arts, wildlife, you know, any kind of story that might be interesting for us. www.take1.tv

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Rima Nazer (cont) The way we are being approached now is people are sending me ideas they’d like to produce in Saudi Arabia. If we’re interested in that, we ask them for a more developed treatment and then once we think we’re interested in that, we discuss the budget and stuff. Regarding budget, we have an allocated budget to produce a good number of documentaries throughout the year, but the budget really depends on the scope of the documentary, is it a one off documentary or is it a series, you know, it depends. We’re looking into prime time, showing documentaries prime time on our channel which is a very interesting thing in the Arab world to have. Ove Jensen And how far are you with the programming schedule? Do you already have specific slots that you are going to work with? How does it look at this point? Rima Nazer Well, we’re still working on that. We decided already about the slots and about the re-runs and stuff but this could change, depending on, you know, many, many things because we’re not on air yet so we’re still working on that. The plan was to start with deciding, like, on that day to work with formatted, like, decide this day we’re showing wildlife, the other day we’re showing, but then we thought it might be a bit, we just left it open. It would help us get more ideas, you know, to show, to produce, to commission. Ove Jensen Yes. So in terms of getting, you say you want content from the region, but could you also imagine working with international producers, so to say shooting stories placed in your region? And would that be a co-production then? Rima Nazer Yes, I’ve kind of commissioned two documentaries already with international production companies. Yes, we’re open to, you know, anybody who comes to us with a interesting idea,

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Rima Nazer (cont) you know, we’ll discuss, it doesn’t matter if it’s regional person, regional company or international company. So yes, we’re open. Ove Jensen A dream situation for producers. Rima Nazer I think so. Ove Jensen They can come with anything to you and you’ll take a look at it. Rima Nazer Yes, I’ll take a look at it. Ove Jensen Fantastic. Rima Nazer Well, we’re not on air yet so I think I still have time to look at, well, we look at everything really, we look at everything, you know? Ove Jensen In terms of looking forward, the prime time documentaries, the ones that you want probably on the more mainstream side, you would say, to broadcast prime time, would that be feature length documentaries? Rima Nazer All the slots are one hour documentary, so it’s one hour, well, it’s between 48, 49 and 54, 55 minutes, 60 minutes maximum but all the slots are one hour documentary, one hour TV documentary. www.take1.tv

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Ove Jensen And who will your main target group be? What kind of audience are you looking for? Rima Nazer Well, the main target is the Saudi audience but then, because we’re a satellite free to air channel, so we’re covering all of the Arab world, so the main target’s Saudi Arabia then we go to GCC and the Arab world. Ove Jensen Any specific demographics in terms of age? Rima Nazer It’s a very interesting question because when we first started with the idea of starting this channel, we did detailed research especially for documentaries. When I first started, like, I’d never been to Saudi Arabia before starting with this channel so I was interested in knowing what would the audience be interested in, in regard to documentaries, and we did detailed research about viewing habits and about, you know, what kind of stories they’re interested in watching and I thought they’re not interested in documentaries. I was totally wrong because they really watch a lot of documentaries. They watch National Geographic, they watch The Discovery Channel so we thought we need to be producing local content, like locally or internationally, but there are a lot of stories that people don’t know about Saudi Arabia, social, cultural, heritage, architecture. So I think the age we’re targeting is between 25 and 40 years old and just so you know, the Saudi people are really young in age. There’s a big chunk of Saudi young, like, they’re really, really young so, I mean, they fall out of our scope, starting with 25 and 40, 44, but still we need to capture them as audience as well, so we’re looking into all kind of ages but specifically between 25 and 44. Ove Jensen Ok. And you are a commercial broadcaster, you would say?

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Conversation With… 16

Rima Nazer We are, yes. We’re private company and, yes, we’re commercial so stepping into producing local documentaries with our money is kind of a big thing because I don't know if you know a bit about the Arab world but a documentary is not something really established well other than Al Jazeera channel, because they have their own documentary channel, but documentary is not that established in the Arab world and the quality of documentaries, people don’t believe that documentaries would make money so they don’t put a lot of money in producing documentaries. We think differently. We think differently for many reasons. First because it could be money generating after some time, once you prove yourself as an entity and then on the other side, I think producing your own stories with your own eyes is something totally different than letting other people doing your own production. Ove Jensen In terms of the content you’re looking for, you would say, how big of the percentage would you say would be on the side of creative documentaries and how big would you say the amount of hours you’re looking for are on the more formatted, factual content side? Rima Nazer Interesting question, because most of the ideas that I’m getting now are about wildlife in Saudi Arabia and archaeology in Saudi Arabia and I’ve met with a lot of companies already, national and international, and I’m asking for creative documentary, you know, something that has to do with arts, with music, out of the stereotype idea about the Arab world and about the Gulf states in particular. The problem is I don’t have a lot of time but what I’m doing now is I’m asking people to do documentary about this idea because they only thinking about wildlife. You know, it’s the main thing for them about Saudi Arabia, and I don’t blame anybody, I don’t think people know what Saudi Arabia is about. I’m an Arab person and I don't know about that, but it’s open. I mean, some research would do, a visit to the country would always help you come up with ideas. So yes, artistic documentary is something we’re really considering because the kind of production we’re planning to do is to show it nationally and sell it for international broadcasters hopefully.

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Ove Jensen And when you go into a co-production with Alif Alif, are you taking the worldwide satellite rights? Or what are the deals you’re negotiating? Rima Nazer It depends. It really depends. It depends on the idea, it depends on how much, it depends, I don't know, it depends on each idea I think. There’s nothing final for now. We didn’t decide on that yet. It depends. It depends how much we’re paying, how much the other party is paying, and the story is interesting for us only for the our territory or we want to be part of it in the international rights as well? It really depends. Ove Jensen Hopefully we have a room with producers full of Arab related programmes. Rima Nazer One thing to add – we’re a media group, so we’re a TV channel, we just got the licence for a radio channel as well and we have a newspaper that’s been there for the last 10 years. Ove Jensen And is that something of importance when you deliver something to you? Rima Nazer I think because what he was discussing a while ago about, you know, the relation between radio and TV, we might be looking into that. This is something I might be considering myself as well when I received documentary ideas, so just so you know. Ove Jensen And also, since you are targeting a rather young audience also… Rima Nazer Yes.

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Conversation With… 18

Ove Jensen …stuff for the online world and the mobile phones. Rima Nazer Yes. Ove Jensen Ok. Anybody with question? There’s a question here. Delegate Language? Rima Nazer Arabic. For the acquisition, I don’t think we’re subtitling. I don’t think, especially for documentaries, I can say I think because dub, well, Arabic is Arabic, for the people to understand their own language, they can understand their own language, but for the subtitling, I think it asks them for more effort so it might put them off so I think it would be dubbed into Arabic, the international production. Ove Jensen There’s a question here, yes. Delegate When I watch TV, I would like to sometimes watch something about Saudi Arabia so are you sure that Saudi Arabians wouldn't like to know more about the outside world? Are you sure they want to see themselves? Would they be interested in showing them films or something else about Europe or about America or about other places? Rima Nazer Yes, I think I started by saying when we were doing the research in Saudi Arabia, the people watch National Geographic, they watch, you know, Discovery Channel, well Al Jazeera, of course… www.take1.tv

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Ove Jensen Al Jazeera, of course. Of course they do, yes. Rima Nazer No, I mean, I’m talking about international, different language. Delegate We have 500 Arabic channels; it’s not just one channel, so the Saudis would know from NBC, from Al Jazeera, a lot of things. Rima Nazer No, are you asking if the Saudi audience would be interested in watching stories from different… Ove Jensen International stories, yes. Rima Nazer Yes, yes, yes, of course yes and I’m looking into co-production as well. Co-production could be stories in Saudi Arabia and related to other continents. It doesn’t have to be only Saudi Arabia. Delegate When you did your research, you said you looked into, what were the high subject areas? Which areas – wildlife or history or what areas are people interested in? Rima Nazer Are you asking me to reveal our information for free for you? Ove Jensen It requires at least one very good programme proposal before you get that kind of information.

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Conversation With… 20

Rima Nazer Exactly. No, I think the social issues were very, very high because, you know, in the segmentation you have different interests and different kind of audience and a different time of the day, they’re mothers, they’re young girls, they’re babies, they’re whatever so in most of the categories, you see the social going in all the segments. That’s why I’m very interested now in making documentaries about social issues in Saudi Arabia. Delegate We are Media Insight from Saudi Arabia, we specialise in documentary production also. Just out of curiosity, how much of all the programme that you will be broadcasting is for documentaries? How much is the percentage of documentaries work that you’ll be broadcasting? Rima Nazer The idea is to have, well, this is not final basically but the idea is to have eight hours newly produced or acquired per week. But, you know, we’re a new channel so this is kind of changing because after the research that we did, we’re changing a bit, you know, to please our audience. It depends on the viewership, it all depends, but the idea is around eight new hours per week, which is good. Prime time, some of them. Ove Jensen Can you talk about money? Rima Nazer Well yes, it really depends on the project. There is a good sum of money allocated to produce and acquire documentaries, but it depends on the project. It depends on the company that is, you know, sending us ideas, it depends – is it a one hour or a series? It really depends. There’s no, like, I’m not going to say I have, I don't know, 200,000 per hour for documentary. It really depends on a lot of things.

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Conversation With… 21

Rima Nazer He has a last question. Ove Jensen There’s one question. Delegate One more question. Yes, filming standards that you ask. Some companies ask for HD film materials, yes. Rima Nazer We’re looking at HD. Ove Jensen HD delivery. Delegate Production partnerships also entail that, you know, you can get support when you’re bringing a story related to the Arab culture and you bring it in, would we be able to get, not necessarily all producers are interested in all the money, you may be able to put up half the money or maybe even more, but we’re very interested in working with partners or would you have people on your board who could help us produce in the Kingdom, get the right permissions? Because that’s very difficult. Rima Nazer Yes of course yes. We know it’s not very easy to film in Saudi Arabia. Yes, of course. Delegate How much editorial freedom will you have in covering the social issues in Saudi Arabia? Rima Nazer Is Al Jazeera asking me this question? www.take1.tv

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Conversation With… 22

Delegate Of course. Rima Nazer Well, I mean, are you really asking this question? You know the market. Well, you know the Arab world, so it really depends. I mean, each station has its own, you know, rules and it’s Saudi Arabia. What I’m trying to do really is I’m creating this documentary department in Saudi Arabia which is a big challenge to start with so, I mean, I’m not going to start with a big scandal on a Saudi private channel, you know, like I don't know what kind of issues we’ll be covering, just to make them ask us to stop, you know, broadcasting. I mean, you have to understand the culture and know how to play your game without being, like, really… Delegate I wanted to know how much the government of Saudi Arabia will ask you to be kind of an ambassador by showing… Ove Jensen Oh, sorry, I asked for a short question. I don’t think, I mean, we’re running out of time so we can’t really… Rima Nazer No, we have nothing to do with the government. No, no, it’s a total 100 per cent private channel. Ove Jensen Ok. We have to stop here before we get into this whole discussion, but thank you very much for coming.

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Conversation With… 23

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