Armin Luttenberger: "The diversity of our programs has always been an asset"

Austrian distributor ORF-Enterprise has had a huge success in the last years, even with a global pandemic. Armin Luttenberger, Head of Content Sales International, explained to Señal News how they achieved their goals.

ORF Enterprise is promoting a huge amount of titles this year, documentaries, history titles, detectives series and comedies. Which are your favourites and why?

"It’s difficult to choose the favorite title – for me, there is a perfect match for every mood and situation in our colorful catalog. The diversity of our range of programs has always been an asset, spearheaded by award-winning blue-chip documentaries and entertaining ORF original movies and series. For me personally, our crime-movie strand 'Tatort' (a brand we share with German and Swiss broadcasters) with two extremely charismatic lead actors dealing with topical issues of our real world (mostly the real city of Vienna) stands out. In times, where travelling was challenging or not even possible, ORF’s Universum strand made it possible to travel virtually: seeing the most spectacular places in the world with 'Universum Nature' and even travelling in time with 'Universum History'. We are proud to say that ORF will continue the commitment to an increasing output of blue-chip documentaries in the following seasons."

As a distribution company, do you believe that is there any new distribution trend that the pandemic has created?

"In the early stages of the pandemic, we have been forced to move our touchpoints to the digital world, to improve our asset management as well as the findability of our content. After having relaunched our screening platform contentsales.ORF.at, we decided to produce interactive showcases for our blue-chip line-up ORF Universum in times, where we still don’t have the chance to meet all of our dear colleagues from the industry in person. On November 8, we are hosting another ORF Universum (History) showcase where we will present some of our newest history-docs as well as giving the participants the chance to interact with the filmmakers and editors on a dedicated platform."

What are the main current demands do you observe from your clients?

"Our sales team and sales representatives around the world have been overwhelmed by the demand for original productions from Austria. The success of the latest seasons of our TV-series is proof for the high quality of original stories that continue to entertain audiences all over the world. The long-running crime series 'Soko Kitzbuehel' is only one of the examples, followed by the best-selling products 'Fast Forward' and 'Four Women and a Funeral' with strong female leads."

Last year everybody was talking about the huge demand for content that the pandemic generated. How do you analyse the landscape now?  Has that demand been decreased?

"We certainly observe stabilization on a high level in the linear markets in particular. But after an impressive sales record in the year of 2020, we are happy to have proven that content made in Austria achieved a high level of acceptance among viewers world-wide. We are thus looking forward to offering even more titles from our catalog such as the comedy series 'Walking on Sunshine' (which has been another favorite of mine), 'Suburbia – Women on the Edge', 'Last Will', the brand-new series 'We are Family' which we just launched at MIPCOM as well as the upcoming 'Soko Linz' expected in early 2022."

What are your main goals for 2022?

"We find ourselves in a situation where we can look back to extremely successful years – even in challenging times. So I would like to take the opportunity to thank our long-standing friends as well as all new partners who have put their trust in us. In the end, we are nothing without the great creative minds who produce all the wonderful pieces of factual, fictional, musical content that we are proud to represent in the world. Our thanks also go out to the filmmakers, editors and co-production/financing partners who bring life to the screens. We look forward to continuing bringing our diverse catalog to audiences all over the world in all media: linear, non-linear, stationary and mobile – some might even spot ORF content on their next journey by plane,".

By Romina Rodríguez