Off the Fence inks raft of German deals

Off the Fence has concluded a raft of sales to German broadcasters including ZDF and RTL, TBIvision understands. The sales, totalling over 100 hours, come after the company set up Off the Fence Deutschland last year, recruiting ex-ZDF commissioner Ralf Blasius to run its German office.

The German deals include a 70 hour package to public broadcaster ZDF’s ZDF Neo channel. Titles include four seasons of Most Extreme, two seasons of Monkey Thieves and Raising Babies and Nature’s Babies.

Germany is one of the biggest-earning territories for Off the Fence and director of sales, Bo Stehmeier says that the fact it offers German broadcasters versions of its shows specifically reversioned for the German market puts it at an advantage.

“We make and retain German versions of our shows and don’t pass on that cost to our clients as we’re confident the local versions have a long shelf-life and we will be able to sell them later to other broadcasters,” Stehmeier says. “We’re thinking about turning more of our library into German and looking at doing German versions of shows even when we do not have a customer to hand.”

Aside from ZDF, Off the Fence’s other German deals include selling primetime series Stan Lee’s Superhumans, in which the comic book legend looks for new superheroes, to RTL2. It is the first time the broadcaster has acquired a series from Off the Fence.

Elsewhere, Red Bull Media has acquired two seasons of Storm Surfers, news channel NTV has bought Toughest Carrier Jobs and 3Sat has bought one-off doc Iceman. Austrian free-to-air broadcaster ORF has taken one-offs Super Mole and Icy Killers.