Telepool

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Telepool
legal form GmbH
founding 1963
Seat Munich
Branch media

The Tele Pool GmbH is a 1963 founded media company located in Munich (head office), Zurich , Leipzig and Los Angeles .

description

Telepool was founded on April 19, 1963 by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (BR), the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and the Swiss Radio and Television Company ( SRG) as a film and television trading company for the marketing of its own productions and the acquisition of third-party productions in Munich.

In June 2018, the American actor and producer Will Smith and director Marc Forster jointly took over Telepool GmbH from the previous owners BR, MDR , SWR and SRG. At this point in time, the Telepool was considered to be chronically opaque and deficient. At the same time, the market for film rights changed to the complete marketing of license packages, for example for computer games, which was seen as difficult to reconcile with the interstate broadcasting agreement . On the other hand, filmmakers like Smith and Foster tried this way to gain more control and greater participation in the further marketing chains of their productions. By joining production at an early stage, the company tries to gain additional access to rights and thus to gain control over a complex rights environment. At the same time, the productions should benefit from the company's expertise in many business areas, although the company does not claim to always carry out these implementations itself. This shift to a one-stop-shop model was illustrated in 2019 with a development agreement for three film productions with Smith's family business Westbrook. The first productions after the move included Ironbark , The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard , Ooops! 2 - The Adventure Continues and the Will Smith production King Richard .

Company structure

Telepool operates its core business in German-speaking Europe; this describes them as follows:

  • Acquisition, distribution and marketing of programs in the areas of cinema, video, TV and video on demand,
  • Merchandising , licensing of publishing rights,
  • Licensing of section rights,
  • Marketing of radio productions,
  • DVD and Blu-ray rental via the Internet,
  • Operation of video-on-demand portals,
  • Services for others.

Telepool operates some of its business activities through 100% subsidiaries. She mentions on her website.

  • International sales via Global Screen GmbH
  • Home entertainment via EuroVideo Medien GmbH
  • Computer game development through Wild River Games
  • The online video library Video Buster (videobuster.de) is operated by the Telepool subsidiary Netleih Verwaltungs GmbH .

Eurovideo

Eurovideo was founded in 1979. It mainly markets films, TV productions and documentaries in stores , historically also as distribution titles in video stores . In addition, she developed a mainstay in the computer game market over time, as a distributor for other companies and later increasingly as a publisher, until the division was spun off as Wild River Games.

In September 2013 Telepool took over a 50% stake in Eurovideo Bildprogramm GmbH from Piccolofilm and thus became the second shareholder alongside Bavaria Film . With this takeover Telepool wanted to expand its home entertainment segment and the games area. Among other things, Eurovideo took over the marketing of the Telepool portfolio. In the following month the company renamed Eurovideo Medien GmbH. In March 2017, Bavaria Film announced the withdrawal from the joint venture, sold its shares in Eurovideo and Global Screen to Telepool and took over the marketing of its own productions again independently. With this unbundling of the two companies, some of which had the same shareholders, the sale of Telepool was prepared for the following year.

Wild River Games

Wild River Games emerged from the computer game activities of Eurovideo. In the 2010s, Eurovideo took over the stationary distribution of various titles for the German game developers Daedalic Entertainment and King Art . The company brought titles such as Ostwind , Halo Wars 2 , Everspace , Black Mirror , Ori and the Blind Forest , The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 , Die Zwerge and Battle Worlds: Kronos to retail stores.

In October 2017, Eurovideo hired the former developer and manager Marc Wardenga (including Software 2000 , CDV ) as the new head of the games division . With Wardenga in charge, their own label called Wild River Games was launched in February 2018, and during the same period Eurovideo agreed a distribution cooperation with the British publisher Wired Productions (XXX). Part of the strategy was to enter the mobile game market. The first release under the new label was the Kickstarter-funded platform game Fox n Forrests in May 2018 . The mobile title Pretzel Games was published in September 2018 . Another sales cooperation was concluded with Merge Games in July 2019.

In October 2019 Telepool took over the Munich game developer Diviad and renamed it Wild River Games. The previous games division was thus removed from Eurovideo and henceforth continued as an independent business division under the management of Marc Wardenga and Ralf Gronwald. With the takeover of the developer, more own development capacities were to be created in order to generate synergies with the other business areas of Telepool, such as the marketing of computer game products accompanying its own film productions such as Bayala . In this constellation, Eurovideo was supposed to take over the stationary sales and the Global Screen the worldwide marketing and licensing.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Chronicle of the ARD | TELEPOOL founded. In: ARD.de. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
  2. Rüdiger Steinmetz: The study program of the Bavarian radio: Origin and development of the third television program in Bavaria, 1961-1970 (=  communication audiovisual . No. 8 ). Ölschläger, 1984, p. 224 .
  3. ^ A b Hans-Peter Siebenhaar: Telepool: Hollywood star Will Smith buys ARD's deficit film rights company. In: Handelsblatt . June 26, 2018, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  4. ^ A b c Christian Meier: Telepool: Why Will Smith buys a German film company . In: THE WORLD . June 26, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed May 18, 2020]).
  5. ^ A b c Barbara Schuster: Telepool: "Leaning back was yesterday". In: Blickpunkt Film. February 6, 2020, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  6. ^ A b Thomas Lückerath: Development deal in a bag: Will Smith's plans with Telepool. In: DWDL.de. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
  7. About us. Telepool GmbH, accessed on June 26, 2018 (German).
  8. DWDL de GmbH: Telepool takes over Global Screen completely. March 27, 2017, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  9. Games economy: Eurovideo: Marc Wardenga is responsible for games expansion. In: GamesWirtschaft.de. October 9, 2017, accessed on May 18, 2020 (German).
  10. Games economy: Wild River: The new games label from EuroVideo. In: GamesWirtschaft.de. January 26, 2018, accessed on May 18, 2020 (German).
  11. Gameswirtschaft: EuroVideo takes over distribution for Wired Productions. In: GamesWirtschaft.de. February 8, 2018, accessed on May 18, 2020 (German).
  12. James Batchelor: German distributor EuroVideo Medien enters mobile games market. In: Gamesindustry.biz. February 28, 2018, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  13. ^ Roman Raschke: The first wild river game "Fox n Forests" comes in mid-May. In: Gamesmarkt. April 24, 2018, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  14. Gameswirtschaft: "Pretzel Land" opens just in time for the Oktoberfest. In: GamesWirtschaft.de. September 3, 2018, accessed on May 18, 2020 (German).
  15. Wild River and Merge enter into sales cooperation. In: Gamesmarkt. July 11, 2019, accessed May 18, 2020 .
  16. DWDL de GmbH: Telepool takes over Munich-based games manufacturer Diviad. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .