Telecinco stocks up on U.S. shows

'NCIS: Los Angeles' among U.S. acquisitions

By EMILIANO DE PABLOS

CBS’ ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ is one of the series acquired by Telecinco to strengthen digital terrestrial TV services in Spain.

Spanish broadcaster Telecinco has acquired a raft of new U.S. series and TV movies, led by CBS hot rookie skein “NCIS: Los Angeles,” including some shows that have been canceled in the States.

Move is to strengthen the programming of Telecinco digital terrestrial TV services in Spain.

Along with the CW’s “Melrose Place” remake and comedy “Worst Week,” which the Eye dropped last season, the “NCIS” spinoff reaches Telecinco as part of a strategic agreement signed with CBS-Paramount three years ago.

Tapping into a long-term volume deal closed last spring with NBC-Universal, Telecinco has picked up medical series “Mercy” and “Trauma,” USA Network’s comedy “Royal Pains” and Brooke Shields starrer “Lipstick Jungle,” which the Peacock canceled last season.

Telecinco inked a deal with Robert Halmi’s RHI Entertainment over the summer for eight miniseries and 10 TV movies.

Titles negotiated under the RHI deal were miniseries “Alice,” “Everything She Ever Wanted” and “Seven Deadly Sins,” and TV movies “Too Late to Say Goodbye,” “Sorority Wars,” “Double Wedding” and “Cinderella Pact.”

Telecinco’s bullish acquisitions policy underscores the leading role that U.S. fiction is playing in the fast-growing digital terrestrial TV (DTT) Spanish market.

Scheduled for April, as digital terrestrial TV’s switch-on approaches, DTT channels’ aud share is pulling away from Spanish analog services (47.1 share vs. 31.5 share in October), underscoring TV audience fragmentation.

With the recession slashing programming budgets, Spanish DTT operators are prioritizing external production rather than producing their own programming. And U.S. fiction is seen by Spanish TV execs as a cost-effective product that benefits from audience fragmentation.

The Mediaset-controlled Telecinco operates three DTT services in Spain: the digital version of analog web Telecinco, which led DTT audience ranking in October with a 14.1 share, and dedicated DTT channels La Siete (1.8 share) and FDF (1.3 share).