Posted: Thu., Jan. 22, 2004, 12:50pm PT

ZDF, Nat Geo share clips

Pact gives pubcaster access to 30-years of material

By Christian Koehl

COLOGNE -- ZDF Enterprises has inked a deal with National Geographic covering exclusive marketing rights of clip archives.

The deal gives German pubcaster ZDF access to clips from 25,000 hours of National Geographic material from the last 30 years.

Marketing subsid ZDF Enterprises will also be the contact for other Germany-based producers seeking archive material form National Geographic.

In turn, National Geographic's office in the U.K. will have access to any ZDF material sought by Blighty producers. "With a strategy of partnerships taking advantages of local strengths, we are trying to build a network of the most important markets over the next four years," the company's head of distribution, Fred Burcksen, told Daily Variety.

He noted that large parts of the archives would be digitized to allow online research for producers.