New Terms of Trade agreed for television productions commissioned by ARD stations

The German Producers‘ Alliance – Film & Television and the ARD (first public television channel in Germany) announced today that after three years of difficult negotiations new Terms of Trade have been agreed for television productions commissioned by ARD and its regional stations. The new terms provide for (i) more realistic guidelines for the calculation of production costs including the acceptance of additional budget items that could not be calculated in the past, (ii) a mechanism to evaluate a number of secondary (including online rights) and ancillary rights which can be retained by the production company in case ARD does not cover the full budget as calculated according to the new terms and (iii) a bonus system for productions that have been particularly successful (as evidenced by prizes received or number of reruns) which will allow the respective producer to invest in the development of a new program. Whilst the new Terms of Trade are probably more flexible than those introduced in the UK a number of years ago they can still be seen as an important improvement for producers commissioned by ARD and its regional stations which will enable them to retain and to exploit commercially viable secondary rights. At least in the medium term an interesting market for secondary rights may now develop in Germany as well (for more details please contact Mathias Schwarz at m.schwarz@skwschwarz.de)