ETV: Estonian drama for the world

Recently, GoQuest Media has confirmed the adding of two Estonian dramas to its catalogue, the spy thriller Traitor and Divorce in Peace. Prensario wanted to know more about this Nordic country, so it interviewed ETV’s head of program, Marje Tõemäe about the dynamic of the local TV market, as well as the plans for drama production and international expansion.

 

‘This is my first experience working with a distribution partner outside of Europe so I am curious to widen our horizons. My initial impression is inspiring: we have a mutual understanding of the goals and working processes, so I am delighted that we are working together with GoQuest Media. The European market is full of high-level drama, so it is great to discover what the potential is outside of Europe for our drama series and they are the perfect partner to tap into this knowledge with their wealth of experience’, she indicated. 

 

About international sales expectations, she added: ‘I am intrigued to see what the international potential is for these kinds of dramas and then to take this knowledge to create new content. We are a small country with one million native Estonian speakers, so it is important to see and discover what our niche would be in this market. We are happy to reach out and working with GoQuest Media allows us to establish a presence and be an integral part of the global TV landscape’. 

 

Tõemäe said that those dramas are not the only ones produced by the pubcaste: ‘We have a couple of long-running dramas such us Luck 13, a social weekly drama which has been running for 28 seasons or the comedy USSR, which takes us back to the ’80s and ‘90s and to the period when we were a part of the Soviet Union. Both are very popular but our new dramas such as Traitor and Divorce in Peace, distributed by GoQuest, have been very welcomed and a hit with our audiences’.

 

About the local TV market and own productions, the executive explained: ‘We see that linear has more power in reflecting present events, with the “here and now” element. It also plays an immense role in broadcasting large events which can bring people together. But on the other hand, we are also seeing that the younger generation do not have tv-sets anymore, they are therefore totally different media users’.

 

And she underlined: ‘New VOD platforms and catch-up services continue to be game players, and thus we are more and more influenced by global platforms like Netflix, Prime, HBO, NENT etc. The fact is that the media landscape is moving very fast, and we are constantly searching for new content and ways to communicate with people and with society’.

 

Tõemäe concludes: ‘We have established a good base for our in-house productions, but we are also focusing on co-productions with local partners, with international shows coming in as acquisitions. We are very happy about our own formats such as Rocket69, which discovers up and coming science stars and Stars of Classics, the show promotes classical music. We have also acquired the format Celebrity Identity, a Danish lifestyle series that takes us into the homes of celebrities and looks at the way we live. It is hosted by a culture expert, an architect, and a lifestyle expert who give their professional advice to widen our knowledge about the things we have in our homes. They also visit the homes of celebrities to try and guess who lives there from what they find’.