Walter Presents has inked a two-year deal with Scandinavian streaming service C More to launch a curated selection of international scripted series across Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Walter Presents, which specializes in premium foreign-language programming, will initially launch on C More with an 80-hour collection comprising eight first-run and exclusive series, including the Dutch psychological thriller “The Blood Pact”; Italian crime thrillers “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “Ice Cold Murders: Rocco Schiavone” (pictured); and the French crime dramas “Vanished by the Lake” and “The Other Mother,” and the gripping Belgian political action thriller “Blackout.” The company’s goal is to expand its offer on C More to 500 hours over the next two years.
A key streaming service in the Nordics, C More has been investing in local drama productions and has a large portfolio of popular reality and TV shows, on top of exclusive broadcasting rights for major sports leagues. C More’s original series “Sthlm Requiem” was the most watched show at Walter Presents in 2020.
Walter Presents has significantly expanded its global footprint within the last several years and the C More deal will make the brand available in a total of 13 countries around the world. The service launched in the U.K. five years ago on Channel 4 and its AVOD streaming service All4, and is available in the U.S. and Canada on PBS Masterpiece SVOD Amazon Channel. The service also has linear slots on both PBS’s regional stations and national schedule, and is available on Comcast’s Xfinity SVOD platform and on the Roku Channel in the U.S.
In addition, the Walter Presents curated collection is available in Australia on SVOD platform Stan; New Zealand on AVOD service TVNZ on demand; Belgium on SVOD service StreamZ; Italy on SVOD platform Discovery Plus; Russia on SVOD platform Start; and Latin America on DMD’s streaming service Cinde.
“This is a significant milestone for Walter Presents and I am hugely proud to be working with a fantastic platform like C More to bring the very best of world drama to viewers in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland,” said Walter Iuzzolino, founder and curator of Walter Presents.
Iuzzolino pointed out that “Scandinavia has been at the forefront of the global drama revolution and made the rest of the world fall in love with premium subtitled drama.”
“In just a handful of years, that cultural revolution has truly come full circle, and giant global audiences are now enjoying series made all over the world in record numbers,” Iuzzolino added.
Karin Lindström, C More’s head of acquisitions, said the launch of Walter Presents on its streaming platform will provide customers “with high quality drama from all over the world” and is “the perfect complement to (its) Nordic C More original series.”
“We see a growing interest in international and non-English-speaking drama, and I believe this is an opportunity for our audience to find some new favorites they might have never heard of otherwise,” said Lindström.
Anna Chrona, head of C More OTT, said “the challenge for today’s users isn’t to find something to watch – but to find the gems that you didn’t know you were looking for” due to the fact that “almost all digital services are using algorithm-driven recommendation systems to push specific titles to the user.”
“With Walter Presents we are the first streaming platform in the Nordics to bring a curated collection of hand-picked drama titles to our audience. It’s like having a personal shopper but for high-quality drama,” quipped Chrona.