Natpe’s role as an international marketplace has evolved throughout the nineties, gradually attracting more European buyers, sellers, producers and programmers, and gaining a significant rise in the number of Latin American and Asian attendees. Canadians are also on the increase at the Jan. 22-25 television program executives convention in Las Vegas, and their strategies are about as diverse as the programs and pitches they’re taking with them.

Once known primarily as a syndication market that boasted a bevy of u.s. network execs, natpe is now considered a key market to attend, whether you’re after a potential French coproducer or an American syndicator.

From Toronto-based Atlantis Releasing, president Ted Riley’s point of view: ‘There is some selling going on because there is the Latin American component, but the primary business of this market is getting shows into syndication.’

When that’s your aim, the routine is to arrive at the event with a program that has about 10% to 20% clearance in the syndication market and plan to nail down up to 70% at natpe. Once the 70% clearance is in place, then national advertisers will consider committing to the program.

Riley has been attending the market for a decade, and this year he is taking a new tack. Armed with the company’s entire foreign sales staff, Atlantis is showcasing three action/adventure programs. PSI Factor, a dramatic series on the paranormal, will be hosted by Dan Aykroyd. Sinbad is a special effects-heavy family series created by Ed Naha (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), and Otaku Patrol Group (Otaku is Japanese for geek) is a drama for kids and young adults about a group of San Francisco techno-punks who explore the city in search of fun.

Key to Atlantis’ strategy at natpe this year is maintaining all or most international rights for these programs.

Although Atlantis is still relatively new to syndication – with TekWar and The Outer Limits as its flagship shows – Riley sees greater potential for success than in the network circle.

‘The fail rate in network is much greater than in syndication,’ he says, estimating the ratio to bomb as about seven to one in syndication and about 50 to one in network development.

‘Also, the thing about syndication is you’re generally guaranteed to get a minimum order of at least 13 and in network they often order only six. But it’s still a crapshoot,’ he adds.

Toronto’s Skyvision Entertainment broke into the syndication market at natpe three years ago with Robocop, a shining promise that died but may yet experience rebirth.

Interim president Howard Rosen says the experience ‘has been for the most part good, a good education into the fickleness of the syndication market and how that ties into not only the difficulties of getting clearances for the major markets but also in terms of trying to get some sort of standardization of time slots.’

Rosen says Skyvision has a number of projects he plans to spring at the market including the two-hour pilot for f/x (based on the feature films f/x and f/x2 about a special effects wiz who uses his expertise to solve crimes) and the action/adventure hit Land’s End.

The key to making a show fly at natpe is a bit elusive, says Riley, although high production values are a must and the action/adventure and game and talk show genres are definitely a popular fit.

He pegs the difference between a cable show and a syndication program as ‘almost a feel. Look at the shows coming out in syndication – hard-edged, very commercial, very strong action. You don’t get a lot of white picket fences in syndication. Those are more network fare where they can go more soft or more female-skewed.’

natpe has been instrumental from the outset of Catalyst Entertainment’s five-year history. ‘It was important because we began to build our business there selling to u.s. markets,’ says Earl Weiner, director of marketing and development.

Today, the Toronto-based distributor/producer is taking a two-tiered plan to the convention. First, says Weiner, natpe is a means to ‘relaunch and reintroduce’ Catalyst product into the Latin American market because ‘they all come: all the new Latin channels that are launching as well as the American channels that are launching in Latin America’ (such as Fox Latin America, hbo’s ole, and the Travel Channel’s Latin American station).

There are a number of projects traveling with Weiner’s troupe, including Hi-Tech Culture, a 52-part magazine series about the digital revolution produced by Vancouver’s Omni Films; Time Exposures, 26 half-hours of fantasy drama for tweens; Reel Entertainment, an Entertainment Tonight-style magazine series; and On the Loose, a video verite series shot in South Africa.

Also, Catalyst is approaching natpe as a coproducer, looking to generate interest in One Minute to Air, a pilot for a sketch comedy series starring Shawn Thompson, made by mca, cbc and Catalyst.

As part of its recent expansion into tv programming, Toronto producer/distributor Norstar Entertainment is taking on a bigger role at natpe, joining the Telefilm Canada umbrella stand and pitching a number of series.

From an international tv perspective, Milt Avruskin, vp of television, evaluates the market as number three after mip-tv and mipcom, and says because it is so heavily attended by foreign delegates, it is valuable. ‘Much of our time at natpe will be spent with non-North Americans partly because we don’t need natpe necessarily to meet with the North Americans,’ he says.

natpe has become a conveniently timed market between the two mips of spring and autumn.

The near-universal interest in cracking the American market is reason enough for the European presence, and Kevin Sullivan, president of his eponymous production company, believes ‘a lot of Europeans go almost out of curiosity, hoping to see ways of accessing the American market.’

Sullivan also notes an increased interest in natpe while attendance at Monte Carlo in February has declined. ‘Monte Carlo may be in its twilight,’ he says. ‘I can see it possibly being eliminated by a number of people in favor of natpe since its (success is) totally based on attendance and on frequence of buyers.’

‘What’s interesting at natpe,’ says Avruskin, ‘is the Europeans have followed the example created by Canada with the umbrella stands and now the greatest areas of growth are on the international side and in the infomercial pavilion.’

On Norstar’s slate are a number of series including Life After Death, 10 half-hours about the great beyond based on the work of theologian Tom Harper, which will be accompanied by a short demo reel. Also traveling to Vegas with Avruskin is Sherlock Holmes, a four-part drama series of 90-minute features looking for a European coproducer and an American home.

Jacques Bouchard, president of Montreal-based The Multimedia Group of Canada, says a key goal at this year’s natpe is to advance u.s. broadcast sales for series such as The Big Garage and Unforgettable Romances, two programs which have already secured international financing and distribution. Another main objective for the financing/export company is to develop derivative and merchandising programs, primarily for Multimedia’s children’s fare in the u.s.

In all, 26 episodes of Romances are being produced for January 1997. Bouchard says delivering a finished product to a u.s. cable network or broadcaster was deemed preferable to a presale, for both creative and earnings reasons, even if the original rights to Romances were acquired from Columbia House and Bellon Enterprises.

As for new opportunities, Bouchard says markets are opening up for programs like Kitty Cats as its u.s. broadcaster, The Learning Channel, internationalizes. As such, a South American version of tlc means ‘parallel opportunities’ for Multimedia sales in that market, he says.

For Montreal exporter Filmoption International, natpe represents a chance to source new product and focus on South American buyers, not always present at the European mips.

In terms of product highlights for both natpe and Monte Carlo, Filmoption has high hopes for a Spanish version of Alys, The Broken Dream, a four-hour miniseries and mow broadcast on the TVA Television Network in Quebec and Bravo! in Canada, the one-hour nature doc Falconry, and the four-hour public affairs series The Human Race, a Cindy (u.s. educational) award-winner in the international tv category.

Filmoption will also be selling ET & Me, a new one-hour documentary from Corevideocom on extraterrestrial phenomena which premiered this month on Discovery in Canada.

Muriel Rosilio, a sales executive with Filmoption, says the company will be searching out presales for Child’s Dreams, a new short-form kiddies animation series.

Toronto-based Alliance Communications will show up this year with a 10-person team, including chairman Robert Lantos.

The product lineup is long, with three potential series at the top of the list: Once a Thief, the Fox action/adventure pilot featuring notable Hong Kong director John Woo; Beast Wars, a new development with ReBoot maker BLT Productions of Vancouver and based on Hasbro’s Transformer toys; and one mow, The Lady is a Teamster, a drama about a Teamster driver who battled corruption within the union.

None of these programs are first-run syndication material, so why the sizable presence?

Todd Leavitt, chairman of Alliance Television, says although the company pursues u.s. domestic activity through a combination of direct-to-network and cable sales for new productions and some off-net and off-cable sales in an after-market sense, natpe is redundant for these dealings.

‘That’s done one-on-one with buyers and we don’t need to go and spend money in a convention milieu to accomplish that,’ says Los Angeles-based Leavitt. The reason for attending is the ‘significant buyer representation from around the world and, as importantly, the (decision-making) level of those buyers.’

At natpe, he says, you can get access to the people who make commitments and decisions. ‘Since those people are there, there’s also an opportunity for a company like Alliance to engage in all sorts of ongoing discussion regarding coproduction activities and other strategic opportunities that you can only do in a market.’

Since 1979, Leavitt has attended about 15 natpes and he can remember when Canada’s entire representation was sctv. This year, he notes that four talk shows being showcased at natpe feature Canadian talent. Although he says the nationality of the hosts is not only a non-issue but veritably ‘transparent,’ he finds it striking ‘that the Canadian broadcasting industry is becoming fertile ground for what is the genre of the moment, the talk show.’

Sullivan has attended natpe for the past 11 years, but not with syndication in mind. It’s a ‘meet and greet’ venue, he says, with a wide base of international clientele. This year, Sullivan is taking the seventh and final season of Road to Avonlea, Under the Piano, the family drama movie starring Amanda Plummer and Megan Follows, and the Depression-era family series Wind at My Back.

‘There are a lot of ad agency people that I will meet with, and I’m also organizing meetings with foreign producers to talk coproduction,’ he says.

New at Sullivan at this year’s natpeis an aggressive foray into acquisitions, something its president says makes the market ‘more significant for us.’

Atlantis’ Riley says of the natpe he first saw in the eighties, ‘It was a very idiosyncratic market.’ It has changed dramatically since then, he says, and like a snowball rolling downhill, it keeps gaining momentum.

‘People cluster in this business. If five important people are going to be there they will draw 20 more. Furthermore, the programming that comes out of the American market is the most important programming in terms of foreign acquisitions to broadcasters outside the u.s. They want to be there at the beginning, when programming is being developed.’