United Media: Drama from SEE to the world

United Media is an integrated media platform, operating in eight countries of South East Europe (SEE). It produces +40,000 hours of original content yearly, news, TV series, sports, entertainment and kids program and distribute it to the 8,5 million households by leading international operators.

The group broadcast 55 channels across the region, including five free to air channels with national coverage: NOVA and Doma in Croatia, Nova in Bulgaria, NOVA M in Montenegro and Nova BH in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ‘Also, we have been investing in our digital presence which keeps growing and our portals are leaders in terms of visits in the countries they operate in. Our portfolio in this moment includes 28 websites’, initiated Aleksandra Subotić, CEO for Pensario.

The executive highlighted the company’s ‘well developed’ digital distribution and its widely recognized addressable advertising platform VIDA. ‘We are also very proud of our in-house original production, which is our strategic base. We managed to build one of the biggest productions in SEE: local fiction, reality and entertainment and of course the daily production of news programs’.

Some of these series are part of LA Virtual Screenings. ‘All of our series are the most watched in the territory and successfully placed on international markets either as a finished product or as a format concept. Our series became popular in the region and you can find them in the prime time on each of the most watched channels in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro as a finished product, but also in Hungary, Ukraine, Greece, Slovakia and other international markets as local adaptations’, added Subotić.

United Media has a very diverse catalogue of TV series, going from edgy content suitable for platforms and Pay TVs to family comedies and romantic dramas fitting the editorial line of generalist channels. The company attend all major markets and our strategy consist in producing the best content from our part of the world and in bringing it to the audiences worldwide.

Just recently we started broadcasting Best Men from Croatia and already made sales for adaptation in several SEE markets. Besides, we are currently producing the S2 of The Devil’s Throat from Bulgaria, and the first one was sold in SEE, USA, UK, Nordics, Brazil, etc. We are also working on exciting coproduction on 2 high-end titles that we will soon be able to share. Our main market remains Europe but we are working hard on expanding in Latin America as we strongly believe our content can be successful there, as Latin America dramas are successful in our countries’, she completed.

Entertainment production is also ‘highly recogonized’ with Grand Stars being Serbia’s most popular regional television music competition organized by Grand Production to find new singing talents. The contestants are aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. Airing primarily in Serbia, it also broadcasts on commercial television throughout the former Yugoslavia for 18 years.

Regarding trends, the executive remarked: ‘Audience is looking for independent news and top entertainment, which includes locally produced TV series, talent shows, but also high-quality foreign TV series, and movies. We are focusing our efforts on maintaining the leading position on the markets and we have the continuous task in setting trends, creating attitudes and creating new values and habits of viewers’.

‘We have always tried to be innovative, creative, original and unique, tried to create and set new trends and generally push the boundaries in the content business and that is what we are aiming for in the future. We are focused on local production and synergy of TV and digital channels in the way we create continually added value for all our stakeholders’, she added.

‘We continue to produce the best possible content for viewers, push the boundaries and strengthen our position as a market leader, not only in the SEE but internationally’, concluded Subotić.