[Independent]

The company sees some big growth opportunities in Brazil and India. Ian Burrell meets Discovery president David Zaslav

….  Two UK 3D shows are in production and a new format Curiosity, which features presenters from Stephen Hawking to Morgan Spurlock trying to answer “the big questions”, launched in the US last month and arrives in the UK in November. Crucial to Discovery’s position, Mr Zaslav says, is its library of “high-quality evergreen content” that has retained its value for not having been posted for free on the internet, a tactic followed by other networks. “We didn’t see the consumer demand for the content on the web,” he says.  …

But now that there is an appetite for watching programmes on devices other than TVs, he is concerned the conditions must be right. Companies such as Apple should not be so restrictive of broadcast brands and offer content listed only under the name of a show, he says.

“We are fighting for a branding environment,” he says. “If our content is going to be on platforms it’s much more advantageous for us and users if the brand can be connected to that content and we think we should have advertising. Any time you see a platform that has just the list of shows in alphabetical order without branding and without advertising, that really commoditises our content, so we are much more cautious.”

He says Apple is not the only player in the game and big names, such as Netflix, Amazon, Google and Comcast, Time Warner’s TV Everywhere internet television initiative, are creating fresh platform opportunities for content creators.  …

Discovery has 33 offices outside the US, to help ensure the strength of local content, and runs its international business from four major hubs in London, Warsaw, Singapore and Miami (which oversees Latin America). “It’s run locally and that’s been one of the keys to our success,” says Mr Hollinger. An office has opened in Moscow with another planned in Bulgaria to serve the “big growth area” of central and eastern Europe.

Mr Zaslav says Brazil is “only 20 per cent pay-TV penetrated” and along with India, Russia and Turkey these markets look much like the UK and the US did 10 or 15 years ago.  …

See the full story here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/discovery-tv-seeks-global-adventures-2356300.html