New German VOD net buys NRK drama

A new German VOD platform, Canal+’s SVOD service in France and Channel 4’s Walter Presents have bought an NRK drama about three young women struggling to live adult lives.

The deals are the first three distributor About Premium Content has secured for Nordic drama Young and Promising, and highlight the growing buying status of on-demand services for millennial audiences.

The German agreement, secured through APC’s local buyer, Studio Hamburg Distribution and Marketing, hands ARD/ZDF’s new youth service FUNK rights to the 12x30mins series.

APC said show would be a “flagship title for the launch” of FUNK, and that the deal includes free-to-air rights for ARD channel One.

In the UK, Channel will play it on the Walter Presents foreign content on-demand service Walter Presents, while France’s Canal+ will distribute it locally through its owned-and-operated SVOD service Canalplay.

Norwegian pubcaster NRK commissioned local prodco Monster to produce Young and Promising, with APC taking international distribution rights.

It follows a trio of girls who try their best to break into their chosen careers and adulthood in the city, only to find no-one in their lives has a clue what they’re actually doing.

Laurent Boissel, joint CEO and co-founder at APC, said: “VOD platforms and broadcasters all over the world continue to look for quality drama targeted at millennials. With its strong female leads and a tone that resonates with our time, Young and Promising will appeal to this very coveted audience.

“It is exciting for us as a company involved in international productions that dramas filmed in non-English language are now starting to find their home on a global stage.”

“Young and Promising is everything you wouldn’t expect from a Scandi show – it combines the warmth and anarchic humour of Girls with the originality and emotional honest of the very best Nordic fare,” said Walter Iuzzolino, curator of Walter Presents.