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If a packed Nem crowd wanted the low-down on what the Warner Bros. Discovery split means for the international biz, it was slim pickings as Wbd execs took the stage. There was, however, clarity on the rollout and programming strategy for HBO Max.

Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting into two publicly traded entities, Streaming & Studios and Global Networks. Here at the Nem confab in Dubrovnik, meanwhile, Wbd execs were keen to focus on the HBO Max international rollout and programming strategy. They announced that HBO Max will launch in a dozen more countries in July, including in Cyprus and several in the Baltics, meaning it will be in 89 territories.

Jamie Cooke, EVP & Gm Central Eastern Europe, Mea, Warner Bros. Discovery noted a partnership deal with Osn in the Middle East and said teaming up with pay-tv operators and telcos is increasingly important as the streamer launches in cluttered international markets.

Max Goes Live In Turkey, Vows Originals Spend

Warner Bros Discovery has officially launched streamer Max in Turkey. The service replaces Wbd’s existing streamer, BluTV, and will debut with a trio of new local originals such as Anatomy of Chaos, Jasmin and Feride alongside premiering U.S. shows including The Last of Us Season 2 and the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, and movies including Barbie, the Harry Potter franchise and the Dune films. At a press launch today in Turkey, Wbd unveiled the TV originals and gave first looks at the upcoming Turkish series First Göktürk, Prince Season 3 and Çekiç ve Gül: Bir Behzat Ç. Hikayesi Season 3. For a limited period, subscribers will also get access to Eurosport. “Bringing Max to Türkiye is a key milestone for Warner Bros. Discovery and marks the completion of the successful integration of BluTV into our portfolio,” said Jamie Cooke, General Manager Cee,...

Warner Bros. Discovery’s transition of its streaming service BluTV to Max in Turkey is official and live as of today Tuesday, as the Hollywood giant underlined its “commitment to increasing its investment in local content” and “bringing a compelling slate of new local stories” to its streamer in the country.

“Existing direct subscribers in Türkiye can sign in to the advanced global platform with enhanced features and functionality to watch thousands more hours and hundreds more titles than previously available on BluTV,” the company said. Among them are the second season The Last of Us and the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, both premiering on the service on Tuesday.

Also coming to Max in the country “soon” are three new Turkish originals unveiled during a Tuesday launch event: Anatomy of Chaos, a corruption revenge drama, Jasmin (Jasmine in Turkish), a drama about a young woman living between extremes,...

Warner Bros. Discovery will take a minority stake in Dubai-based Osn Streaming Limited as part of a push to grow its footprint in the Middle Eastern entertainment market.

The deal, which will be completed in stages and is subject to regulatory approval, will see Wbd pay $57 million for a 30% stake.

“It’s our goal to tell the greatest stories, whilst innovating our products and distribution channels. Osn has been a great partner and custodian of our content, making this union partnership a natural step for Wbd,” Jamie Cooke, Wbd’s executive vice president and managing director of Central Europe, Turkey and the Middle East, said in a statement.

Cooke added that both Wbd and Osn will invest in ” high-quality, locally produced content, ensuring a richer and more diverse offering for viewers.”

Osn Group, which owns a majority stake in Arab music streaming service Anghami Inc., struck an exclusive deal with...

The logo of Warner Bros Discovery-owned Max.

Warner Bros Discovery (Wbd) announced on Tuesday it will replace its streaming service Blu TV with its cornerstone service Max in Turkey.

The switch will occur on April 15, at which point streamers in Turkey will have access to Max’s catalog of TV shows and films, as well as live content from Eurosport and CNN International.

“Max is the streaming home of Warner Bros. Discovery and offers subscribers an incredible breadth and depth of culture-defining entertainment from our services, networks and studios, all in one place,” Jamie Cooke, the General Manager of Wbd’s business in Turkey and other regions, said in a statement.

“Turkey is a key market as we take Max global, and we’re thrilled to make it available to everyone in the country on April 15th,” Cooke continued. “By combining the best of Blu TV’s content together...

Max’s launch in Turkey has been confirmed for April 15, and there will be more cash on the table for original investment.

The streamer will replace BluTV, the Turkish streamer that Warner Bros Discovery owns. A sizzle for the new service has now been released.

Among the content highlights will be the final two episodes of drama series Magarsus, which premieres on Thursday (March 6) on BluTV, landing on Max on April 17 and 24. A Magarsus family portrait has been commissioned by Turkish artist Ethem Onur Bilgiç and was seen at a screening in Istanbul today.

The service will also include HBO and Max Originals, upcoming seasons of BluTV local productions such as Prince and Bezhat Ç., new Turkish originals, movies from Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios, sport from Eurosport, kids content from Cartoon Network and Cartoonito, and live news from CNN International.

Wbd said it was “committed to increasing its investment in local productions,...

Warner Bros. Discovery said on Tuesday that its streaming service Max will launch in Turkey on April 15 as streamer BluTV, which it acquired at the end of 2023, “will evolve into Max, an advanced global platform with enhanced features and functionality, leveraging BluTV’s local storytelling power and combining it with an even richer lineup of content.” It reiterated that it will increase its investment in local productions.

Turkey becomes the 77th Max territory and “marks a significant moment in the globalization of Wbd’s streaming service that now has 116.9 million subscribers after adding 6.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024,” Wbd said. “As one of the most populous countries in the Emea region, with more people than Germany, U.K., or France, the launch in Türkiye presents a major opportunity to entertain and engage millions of new fans with high-quality content across film and television from Wbd’s world-class studios.”

The...

Deniz Şaşmaz Oflaz Named Wbd Turkey Content Chief

Deniz Şaşmaz Oflaz has been named Warner Bros Discovery’s Vice President of Local Original Productions, Local Channels and Streaming Operations Lead for Turkey. Oflaz was previously CEO of streamer BluTV, which Wbd acquired at the end of last year. She will remain in charge of the service, while taking on channel management for TLC and Dmax, plus development and production of local Turkish content. Grigory Lavrov, Vice President of Marketing, Local Brands & Franchise Management, Central & Eastern Europe (Cee) and the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (Menat), who had led TLC and Dmax since 2020, will continue to lead the trade marketing teams across Cee and Menat and take on new responsibilities outside of Turkey. In an interview with Oflaz and Wbd General Manager for Cee, the Baltics, Middle East, Mediterranean and Turkey Jamie Cooke, we reported on how BluTV has become...

Good afternoon Insiders. We’ve been all over Europe this week, so here’s Max Goldbart, back in the London-shaped saddle, to walk you through the major stories of the past seven days. Scroll on. And sign up here.

Animation Nation

Annecy proves its place: The weather may have been unseasonably chilly and drizzly at France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival this past week, but spirits weren’t dampened. With Despicable Me 4, which made its French premiere at the festival on Thursday night ahead of its July 3 launch in the U.S., predicted to hit a $100 million opening, animation is one of the bright spots at an ailing global box office right now. Annecy’s 16,000 attendees were treated to sneak peaks of some of the most anticipated animated studio movies and series of the year including Transformers One, The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim and Moana 2,...

The streaming war is over, but we are now in a streaming cold war as players work out which alliances they want to make and how to adapt to the new landscape, Warner Bros. Discovery international exec Jamie Cooke said during his keynote at the ongoing Nem Dubrovnik event in Croatia.

Cooke is Group SVP and Gm for Cee, North Africa and Turkey at Wbd. His Nem interview, moderated by Deadline, was titled The Streaming War Isn’t Over. He was quizzed on whether, per that wording, conflict is ongoing between SVODs.

“If you think about the last four or five years and we’re talking from a global perspective, you can see that there was a de-aggregation of services with this perception that you could create a really niche product for different consumer groups, with heavy content investment,” he said. “I think that phase of the war is over.

The Warner Bros Studios logo is seen on a building along Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles, California on May 28, 2007. (Photo: Flickr user abgpt)

Orbit Showtime Network (Osn) has signed an exclusive multi-year distribution deal for content from Warner Bros Discovery’s (Wbd) film unit Warner Bros Pictures.

The deal will give Osn rights to films like “Barbie,” “Wonka,” “Dune: Part 1,” “Dune: Part 2” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” along with some Max originals like “Dune: Prophecy” and “The Penguin” in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena).

The agreement also includes some CW Network originals as well as shows from Warner Bros Network like “Rescue: Hi-surf” and “Emperor of Ocean Park,” which will be available to subscribers of Osn TV and Osn Plus in Mena.

“Today we strengthen our longstanding partnership with Warner Bros Discovery with yet another exclusive deal that will further expand Osn Plus and Osn...

Nem Dubrovnik is the international TV event that the industry told Sanja Božić-Ljubičić would never work… but which quickly established itself as a diary date for buyers, sellers and senior execs.

“There are a lot of festivals and markets and my business friends and colleagues said this will never fly,” recalls Božić-Ljubičić, CEO of Mediavision, which created Nem Dubrovnik and runs the event. “I wanted it because I think this region is highly neglected. It started as a something that would somehow unite all the people from the region, but from year one, it became about Europe and the States and beyond.”

Certainly, the location helps. Dubrovnik in June is a nice place to be: “The location is really something special, it’s a gem that the world has recognized,” says Božić-Ljubičić. A beautiful setting alone, however, does not attract 1,000-plus industry folk, although it does lend the event its convivial atmosphere.

Exclusive: When BluTV CEO Deniz Şaşmaz Oflaz recently travelled to Miami for a conference, she was spoken to by border security. Not because the guard at passport control had any issues, but because his mother was watching a Turkish TV show and he was thrilled to be meeting one of the main players behind the country’s content boom.

Turkey has long been a hotbed of production and regional tastemaker in the Middle East and North Africa region, and it still ranks as one of the world’s top TV program exporters. Warner Bros Discovery’s (Wbd) recent acquisition of Oflaz’s BluTV therefore serves as a marker of how importantly the major U.S. studios view the country and its content.

In fact, Wbd is using BluTV as a testbed for further streaming initiatives in the Mena region, according to Jamie Cooke, the studio’s General Manager for Central and Eastern Europe,...

Warner Bros. Discovery has acquired Turkish streaming service BluTV, the company announced on Friday.

For the past three years, Warner Bros. Discovery and BluTV — Turkey’s first local SVOD service — have had a partnership that made Wbd a 35% shareholder in BluTV. Since its 2016 launch, BluTV has shown rapid growth both in original content and its content library, leading to the launch of Discovery+ on the platform in 2021. In February, HBO content and kids channels were added to BluTV, giving viewers access to channels like Cartoon Network and Cartoonito, as well as award-winning shows like “The Last of Us,” “Game of Thrones” and “Sex and the City.”

“We are very excited for this new chapter,” Jamie Cooke, Gm Cee of Middle East and Turkey at Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. “Turkey has been an important investment territory for us for over 20 years and the acquisition of BluTV brings Turkey...

Warner Bros. Discovery has acquired BluTV, a subscription video-on-demand service in Turkey, the company said Friday. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

“The announcement follows three years of extensive partnership, which started in 2021 with the launch of Discovery+ on BluTV and an investment by Discovery Inc. that made the company a 35 percent shareholder of BluTV,” Wbd said. “One of the components of the partnership was the option to invest further in BluTV, which has now resulted in the acquisition of the rapidly growing SVOD service.”

BluTV launched in Turkey in 2016 and then in the Middle East and Northern Africa (Mena) region in 2018. It is also available globally to Turkish- and Arabic-speaking audiences.

The streamer offers premium BluTV originals, Turkish TV series and movies, as well as Hollywood and international series and films. “BluTV offers more than 10,000 hours of on-demand premium content and live channels to BluTV subscribers,” the company says. Its...

Warner Bros. Discovery (Wbd) has acquired Turkish streamer BluTV.

The U.S. media giant already had a 35% stake in the eight-year-old streamer along with content deals in place, and has upped stake to 100%. Today’s news builds on Wbd boss David Zaslav’s declaration during the company’s Q3 results call that it would be allocating capital towards growth initiatives around the world.

BluTV launched in 2016 in Turkey, expanded to Mena in 2018 and in 2021 partnered with Discovery+ as Discovery (prior to the Wbd merger) took a 35% stake. That partnership deepened earlier this year when HBO content such as Game of Thrones and The Last Of Us, and kids channels Cartoon Network and Cartoonito were added to BluTV.

Jamie Cooke, Wbd’s General Manager overseeing Turkey, the Middle East and Cee, said Turkey had “been an important investment territory for us for over 20 years.”

“The acquisition of BluTV brings Turkey’s...

Ryadh-based media conglomerate Srmg has partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery to launch Asharq Discovery, a free-to-view pan-Arabic-language platform with a lineup that includes shows that have never been seen for free in Arabic before.

These include international dating reality TV series “90 Day Fiancé” (pictured), reality shows “Gold Rush” and “Wheeler Dealers” and the Morgan Freeman-hosted science docs program “Through the Wormhole.”

Warner Bros. Discovery’s offerings span a range of genres and comprise thousands of hours of premium content from outlets such as Animal Planet, TLC, Investigation Discovery, HGTV and Food Network as well as from Middle Eastern food and lifestyle television channel Fatafeat. The content has been fully adapted and tailored with Arabic voiceovers and graphics.

Significantly, the partnership also includes some regional content acquisitions and the co-production of up to 30 hours per year of original shows inspired by stories out of the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

Welcome to your Friday rundown, Insiders. Max Goldbart here to take you through the top international film and TV stories filling your inbox over the past seven days. And don’t forget to sign up to the newsletter here.

Wbd & Paramount Forge International Path

End of the exodus?: It doesn’t feel five minutes ago that Gerhard Zeiler was setting his first post-wbd merger international unit, and yet he was at it again on Thursday. This was following a spate of exits that has seen Emea boss Priya Dogra, international distribution head Robert Blair, Germany lead Hannes Heyelmann and, most recently, France chief Pierre Branco announce departures over the past weeks. This mini-exodus has been the talk of international confabs of late but Zeiler appeared to stem the flow with an all-staff email yesterday announcing another rejig, in which he acknowledged that “change can be unsettling and we have...

Move follows spate of senior departures in recent weeks

Warner Bros Discovery president of international Gerhard Zeiler has announced his new leadership team following a series of departures in recent weeks.

The appointments follow the exits of Emea president Priya Dogra, head of international TV distribution Robert Blair, Germany boss Hannes Heyelmann and French general manager Pierre Branco.

Clement Schwebig, who has managed India, Southeast Asia and Korea (Inseak) since 2020, will now have responsibility for Gsa, France, Benelux and Africa which will be brought together into a single Western Europe & Africa market cluster.

James Gibbons, president and managing director for Australia,...

Warner Bros. Discovery international boss Gerhard Zeiler has unveiled a new international leadership structure for the company following various executive departures and restructurings.

“Following my recent announcements about the departure of Priya Dogra, Robert Blair, Hannes Heyelmann and Pierre Branco, I have been working with the leadership across the international business to create a new International structure that best leverages the strengths of our businesses, while empowering all of us to drive the future growth and success of the company,” he said in a memo. “After many discussions I am now pleased to share with you the new international leadership team, who will report into me.”

As far as key regions go, Latin America will continue to be led by Fernando Medin.

Meanwhile, in the Asia Pacific area, the India, Southeast Asia and Korea (Inseak) and Western Pacific regions will be united into a single Apac region under the leadership of James Gibbons.

Warner Bros. Discovery international boss Gerhard Zeiler has set a new leadership structure for his team following a spate of exits in the past few weeks.

Zeiler sent an all-staff email out this morning in which he laid out how the team will work now that Emea boss Priya Dogra, international distribution head Robert Blair, Germany lead Hannes Heyelmann and France chief Pierre Branco have departed. There have been no layoffs as part of the restructure, Deadline understands.

James Gibbons has been promoted from Asia Pacific, Inseak and Western Pacific boss to run all of Apac, while Clement Schwebig, who has managed Inseak since 2020, will now have responsibility for Gsa, France, Benelux and Africa, which will be brought together into a single Western Europe & Africa market cluster under his leadership.

You can see the full structure at the bottom of this article laid out in Zeiler’s email.

Zeiler said...

More change at Warner Bros. Discovery (Wbd), with UK and Ireland boss Antonio Ruiz having exited to be replaced by Andrew Georgiou.

Ruiz quietly left some months ago to return to Spain, while Georgiou has had his role expanded. He remains Managing Director of Wbd Sports Europe, which operates both Eurosport across Europe and newly-rebranded TNT Sports in the UK and Ireland.

The news comes just days after Emea boss Priya Dogra announced her exit and several weeks after long-serving TV distribution boss Robert Blair did the same.

Georgiou joined then-Discovery as President of Eurosport in 2019 from Lagardère Sports and Entertainment, where he was CEO, and has risen up the ranks.

He will helm the company in the crucial region with multiple TV channel brands including Discovery, TLC, Quest, Quest Red, Really, Cartoon Network, Eurosport and the newly launched TNT Sports as well as streamer Discovery+. He also has responsibility for consumer products,...

Warner Bros. Discovery Emea boss Priya Dogra is exiting the company after 14 years in post and her role is being closed.

Dogra has been serving as President & Managing Director, Emea since the high-profile merger of Warner Media and Discovery. In an email to staff in the past few minutes, her boss Gerhard Zeiler said the pair had “mutually agreed” that she will leave at the end of this year. Zeiler’s full email, which was obtained by Deadline, can be read below.

Going forwards, the Emea team will report to Zeiler and Dogra will not be replaced. The Emea team is split into regions with the likes of Antonio Ruiz running UK and Ireland, Christina Sulebakk overseeing Nordics and Jamie Cooke looking after the Baltics, Middle East, Mediterranean and Turkey.

Zeiler said the news “will come as a surprise to many, especially because Priya has been a key partner to...

Warner Bros. Discovery’s (Wbd) Jamie Cooke is supercharging “original documentaries that push the boundaries” from his Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Turkey region by greenlighting around 10 docs per year.

Cooke took charge of the vast territory following the WarnerMedia/Discovery mega-merger and was speaking to Deadline prior to a Nem keynote as he nears one year in post.

While Wbd is taking a light-touch approach to ordering original content from the region, especially prior to the launch of the rebranded Max streamer, Cooke said it is documentaries where he is most looking to make an impact.

“Pushing the boundaries and shining a light on topics that are challenging is really important for me,” he told Deadline. “We need to be measured and cautious in the investments we are making right now and the focus for me is really on the docs side.”

The Discovery vet, who is...

Middle East satellite and streaming platform Osn Group has extended its relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery forging a new multi-year licensing deal under which it will become the exclusive home for HBO content in the region.

In addition to HBO shows, such as “Succession,” the renewed agreement has been expanded to cover additional content and channel offerings from Warner Bros. giving Osn premium access to recent blockbuster movie hits such as “The Batman,” “Dune,” “The Matrix Resurrections,” and “The Suicide Squad.”

The deal was announced in Dubai with “Succession” star Brian Cox on hand.

The deal also follows similar renewals in Australia with pay-tv and streaming group Foxtel and in Japan with local streaming platform U-Next.

Dubai-based Osn, which in March 2022 launched the premium streaming service Osn+, lost some momentum after Disney+ withdrew its content from the platform and in June 2022 started operating as a standalone platform across the Middle East.