LA Screenings 2024 -till last week in Los Angeles, USA- is the event where Hollywood studios introduced their new series and films to worldwide buyers. PRENSARIO has attended 3 ‘independent’ days for Latin America and then 5 ‘major’ journeys for all the regions. The final sensation? Content has two axles of evolution: one progressive, because digital, multiple-screens, social media, on demand, live streaming, IA, came for ever; but too, other pendular, because business often returns to traditional pillars, in genres (procedurals) in partners (free TV) incomes (advertisement) and business models: the ‘major’ international distribution is firmly back (vs. OTT exclusivity). Who knows to move better among these twists, will make difference.

This year there have not been big announcements of product openings. Just Paramount stressed in its screening, that top series as Kevin Costner’s ‘Yellowstone’ or Harrison Ford’s ‘1923’ have been moved from Paramount+’s exclusivity to distribution. Amazon MGM has reached already 60 Amazon Originals available for distribution, half movies and half series; these, from 16 titles in May 2023 and 32 in last October.

About WBD and Disney, the referents in exclusivity, it was more important what they’ve connotated than said. Disney organized back last Tuesday a party for buyers for the first time since Disney+ launch, and gave distribution the central role it had years ago: ‘Our product moves through windows from platforms to Pay TV and free TV’, it was told during its screenings as if it was an obvious thing.

More highlights from the global screenings? It was noted this year the lack of product due to the writers strike, but the studios managed quite well to present a good slate of contents. Also, it is evident nowadays the international factor: if years ago every series was produced by Hollywood for U.S. networks, now two from three screened products, are an international coproduction with a big market (UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia) or they are regional series, used as local product and to travel abroad, very well received by buyers looking for fresh/different contents.

In genres, it is sensible the focus on ‘procedurals’ and ‘crime dramas’, as soon as the ‘True Crime’ wave. The series chosen by the buyers PRENSARIO interviewed at every major screening, are almost always of these segments: ‘Happy Face’ at Paramount, ‘The Hunting Wives’ at Lionsgate, ‘The day of the Jackal’ at NBCUniversal, ‘Emperor of Ocean Park’ at WBD, ‘Dope Girls’ at Sony, ‘High Potential’ at Disney. But in the last three studios, especially in strong production regions, the local productions compete and even win the podium. This will happen more and more in the future.

With the global reduction of SVOD original productions, free TV has recovered space as stable partner of the studios, for big projects. And this is checked with the rise of procedurals and other free TV alike contents, vs. the past when most of the releases were for digital. Other genre news? The supernatural stories continue on top, especially ‘The Good Doctor’ approach, but now there are more Horror series. The female main roles go on, but now we see +40 years old protagonists. And there are 2-3 studios experiencing with adult animation.

Buyer testimonials? Andre Beraud, Radio Canada: ‘We see more product than expected due to the strike, and we like very much the international touch, because we could find good series for instance from Brazil, not only USA. And we like that more procedurals are produced by the studios’. Claudia Ruehl, SevenOne Germany: ‘We look for True Crime, from 10 to 20 episodes, episodic format, with a simple but good plot, very free TV alike’. Xavier Gandon, TF1 France: ‘We need procedural dramas, and we see more than in the past’.

Jonathan Melber, Apple TV, USA: ‘We come to LA to see everything, and to be very selective from there. We prefer fresh, look-liked series above all’. Jennifer Brisco, Hulu, USA: ‘We look for mainstream product for digital, to gain relevance from others’. Peter Chalupa, Markiza Eslovakia: ‘We need longer series than streamer ones, with many episodes or many seasons. We program the series daily in free or Pay TV, so if not, they finish too soon’. Emma Ayech, UK TV: ‘We look for crime dramas, and we love that we see more product alike at the studios’.

Nicolás Smirnoff y Francisco Ferreyra

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