Kicking off its second season, Beta Film has announced the wide international sales scope of “Rex – Vienna Calling,” the latest installment of the three-decade-old “Rex – A Cop’s Best Friend” series.
The series was sold to SBS in Australia, Rai in Italy and TV 2 in Denmark. Buyers elsewhere in Europe include Alpha TV in Greece, HRT in Croatia, Planet TV in Slovenia, STVR in Slovakia, Nova in Bulgaria and TVR in Romania, while Duo Media Networks in Estonia, SIA Tet in Latvia and LNK in Lithuania are getting Baltic deals.
Action Channel in Japan and SHANT TV in Armenia are also involved in the project, and negotiations for further sales are ongoing.
The deals come as evergreen IP continues to gain traction in the increasingly in-demand television market. Audience analytics firm PlumResearch notes that mature streaming markets are moving “from hits to habits,” with viewing occurring in the long tail rather than just concentrating on new releases.
The longevity of “Rex” is a case in point. Throughout its 30-year history, the police dog series has seen many local adaptations. Another long-running Beta game, Canadian production “Hudson & Rex,” was recently renewed for a tenth season.
“Rex – Vienna Calling” stars Maximilian Brückner (“War Horse,” “Cherry Blossoms”) as detective Max Steiner, who teams up with German Shepherd Rex to solve cases in Vienna. Six new feature-length episodes are currently being shot in some of the Austrian capital’s most well-known locations.
The first season opened to almost 1.6 million viewers on Germany’s SAT.1, earning a 7% share overall and a 9.9% share among 14-49s. In Austria, the six feature-length episodes averaged 701,000 viewers and a 27% share on ORF, while the Italian premiere on Rai 2 attracted more than 750,000 viewers and a 5.6% share, rising to over one million when on-demand and intermission viewing were included.
Produced by MR Film in co-production with SAT.1 and ORF, “Rex – Vienna Calling” is distributed worldwide by Beta Film. The series is supported by FISAplus, the Austrian Television Fund and the state of Lower Austria.