Ran Telem, a Primetime Emmy Award-winning producer on “Homeland” and longtime V.P. of programming and content at Israel’s Keshet Broadcasting, has joined Spain’s Mediapro Group in the newly-created post of head of international content development.
Taking up his position this week, he will responsible for furthering the development of original scripted and non-scripted at Mediapro, one of Spain’s biggest TV-film groups, as it turns ever more to international-market content as a strategic growth priority.
Telem’s oversight takes in identifying and developing ideas, whether in-house or from writers, through to international formats, tying in broadcaster partners, tapping writers and working with creatives at Mediapro offices around the world. He will work closely with Mediapro’s international arm, Imagina Intl. Sales (IIS). Telem will be based out of Spain and Israel, he said.
Mediapro’s competitive advantages, Telem said, are “first of all passion. Although it is a huge group the feeling that strikes me is the hunger of a small and ambitious company.”
“On the other hand, the opportunities are vast and the horizons are just infinite. I would like to thank Mediapro Group for giving an Israeli TV person a shot at a worldwide operation.“
Javier Mendez, content head at the Mediapro Group, added: “It’s a honor and a privilege having such a talented person as Ran Telen by our side to strengthen our international content area. We are sure his vast experience will allow us to produce series, programs and formats which will make Mediapro a key player in content production.”
Operating 30 offices in 20 countries, Spain’s biggest rights broker Mediapro is best-known as the co-producer of Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” and “Midnight in Paris” and as a longterm partner with Al Jazeera’s beIN Sports in and outside Spain.
Partnered by Televisa, ad media giant WPP and investor Torreal, Mediapro also holds an 7% stake in Spanish broadcast giant Atresmedia Group. Their joint conglom, in which Mediapro holds a controlling 48% shareholding, posted revenues of €1.509 billion ($1. billion) in 2015, per company sources.
Founded in 1994, and based out of Barcelona and Madrid, it boarded boarded Sky Italy series, “The Young Pope,” starring Jude Law, and co-produced Sky, HBO and Canal Plus, one of Europe’s biggest upcoming TV series. Mediapro’s core business also includes TV services, such as the live events transmission and studios, as well as marketing. But, for the next five years, its major strategic drive will be to power up its content business, especially in TV, Mendez has said.
During his eight years at Keshet, the Israeli production, broadcast and sales group produced some of its greatest hits including “Homeland,” its Israeli original “Prisoners of War,”
Telem’s exec producer credits also take in U.S. trivia game show “Boom!” which premiered on Fox Network and was produced by Keshet Intl. and Dick Clark Productions and based on the same titled Israeli smash hit, and “Rising Star,” 2014’s interactive talent show which underperformed on its U.S. bow, but was widely regarded prior to that as alternative TV’s Next Big Thing.
