NHK Enterprises, Inc. (NEP), the business arm of NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, has acquired rights to NTV Russia’s period drama Noble Detective to be aired on AXN Mystery in Japan. The channel will air Noble Detective in February 2021.

Also, Trans World Associates, a major Japanese distributor, has bought VOD rights to NTV’s hit thriller Schubert. While this is the first time an Asian market player acquires the rights to Noble Detective, Schubert has landed its second acquisition. Earlier, it was acquired by BiliBili, China’s biggest online platform.

Asian audiences are already familiar with NTV’s TV shows. Indian content distributor GoQuest Media purchased the international rights to action-packed NTV shows Paper Pusher and The Policeman’s Wife in 2019. Thanks to Arait Multimedia, Vietnamese TV viewers have an opportunity to watch the drama series Countdown. PPTV (Thailand) is set to run The Road to Calvary series.

Timur Weinstein, NTV General Producer: “It’s been four years since we have been vigorously promoting our projects in the international markets. Asia is one of the most important markets for us. Few Russian TV shows have been aired on Asian channels so far but we can see the growing interest for Russian content, especially action-packed crime stories and period dramas, from Asian players and TV viewers. We, like no one else in Russia, are successful in producing TV shows like that. I am sure the company will be expanding its presence on Asian markets.”

In turn, NTV actively purchases Asian content. This spring, the Russian adaptation of hit South Korean format The King of Mask Singer aired on NTV. The show became the key broadcasting event of 2020 (the share of the final episode was 28.5%, with 10.7 TVR), the best entertainment show on Russian television since early 2017 and the best music TV show in the last 7 years. NTV has also acquired the popular Asian TV series formats Innocent Defendant, Hidden Identity and Strangers.

Apart from Asia, NTV content is in high demand on other international markets. The channel’s projects are available in dozens of countries on the largest global streaming services and channels, in international distributor’s catalogues and on various VOD services including BiliBili, Amazon Prime Video, and TenTime. In 2018, The Road to Calvary series was added to the Netflix library becoming the first commercial deal of a Russian TV channel with one of the world’s high-profile streaming services. The series was also successfully launched on ERT3 (Greece). Quite recently, the Hungarian RTL and the Polish group of companies Wirtualna Polska have acquired the rights to the Shepherd TV show. Previously, the series was aired on Kazakhstan’s KTK with great success. Global Agency, a major global market player, has bought the rights to Aria of the Doomed, period action-packed drama. The Secret for a Million entertainment format is distributed by Banijay Group. Recently, the TV show’s adaptation has been successfully aired on ARB TV in Azerbaijan.