Russian formats set for record year

Demand for original Russian programmes appears to be hitting record levels, with new research showing 21 international adaptations of the territory’s formats were produced in the first half of 2014.

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Research firm KVG noted 2011 currently holds the record for the most number of adaptations, 26. Unless demand significantly dies off in H2, 2014 will clearly exceed that number.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine, Estonia, Kazakhstan and Latvia were among territories that have remade six Russian formats in H1 2014, according to KVG, which is part of the Key Vision Group and specialises in research on the Russian media market,.

Poland, Serbia and Turkey also acquired format rights and remade Russian shows for the first time during the period, which KVG defined as up to this month.

This is compared with eight formats being remade a total of 25 times during the entirety of 2013.

KVG’s director of strategy Anastasia Vasilieva said deals for around 20 Russian formats had either closed or were in active negotiation, but were at a pre-production stage.

“The interest in Russian programmes and TV series started from the United States, eastern Europe and Israel. The increasing activity of Russian production companies and TV channels in this direction, as well as the growth of original projects make this market more and more attractive every year.”

Around 160 Russian formats have been produced since What? When? Where? was remade in Armenia for Armenia TV and Israeli for Israel Plus in 2002, according to KVG.

Sixty-eight per cent of these were in CIS countries, while the Baltics provided more than half of the remaining 32%.