He also broke down Beta’s business model which takes elements which hark back to the past – a powerful, ultra connected territory-by-territory international sales apparatus – combined with Beta’s biggest pivot in recent years: a move from picking up and selling finished shows into far larger production involvement, be its financial support or early upstream input on maximising a project’s international potential.
The Beta Group, as a sizzle model shown at Series Mania underscored, has been involved in some of the biggest European series productions of recent years: “Gomorrah,” “Berlin Babylon,” “The Pier,” “Sisi” and now “The Swarm.” The model has always made sense on titles with large sales potential.
Its model reflects pressing market needs, Kruedener argued. “We all face a situation of increasing costs and public and private broadcasters’ decreasing budgets. There are also far less opportunities to go with one partner which takes worldwide on a show. You have to combine resources in part by crossing borders, which creates a need to make more international shows than in the past,” he added.
As for the story, Kruedener cited the case of “Estonia,” about Europe’s worst civil maritime disaster, the sinking of the MS Estonia off the shores of Finland on Sept. 28, 1994, which left over 850 people dead.