Christian Franckenstein
-The public production group Bavaria Film acquires all shares in the German companies of the Story House Group, i.e. Story House Productions GmbH in Berlin and Story House Pictures GmbH in Unterföhring, through the wholly owned subsidiary Bavaria Film Content. “The German production market is characterized by a sustained wave of consolidation. With this takeover, Bavaria Film is underlining its claim to actively participate in this consolidation process,” says Bavaria Film CEO Christian Franckenstein about the decision.
The “strategically intended expansion into the genres of documentation and docutainment” succeeds. The existing production activities of Bavaria Film in the genres of fiction, entertainment and corporate video would be “usefully completed”.
© Story House-Under the leadership of its partners Carsten Obländer, Andreas Gutzeit and Jens Afflerbach, Story House has developed into a documentation and docutainment provider since it was founded in 1999, but has also recently realized its first fictional projects. The well-known program brands include series such as “Terra X – Ein Tag in …” or “Der große Lebensmittelreport” with star chef Nelson Müller for ZDF as well as productions such as “Galileo Plus” (ProSieben), “Reeperbahn privat” (RTLzwei) , “Trucker Babes” (Cable One) or “King of Trucks” (DMAX). In the fictional area, the German-Chilean miniseries “Dignity” was realized for Joyn, among others. Story House Pictures is currently producing the “Sisi” series for TVNow.
“We are very happy that our colleagues Obländer, Gutzeit and Afflerbach have placed their trust in us as new shareholders to take over the Story House companies they founded. Together with them as future managing directors, we want to continue the successful development of the past”, says Bavaria Film CEO Franckenstein. “We are doing everything in our power to maintain our long-term market position among the top 5 providers in Germany, which we have built up over decades. The expansion of our portfolio to include the growing genres of documentation and docutainment should still allow us as a content provider for our clients, broadcasters and platforms make it more attractive. “
Carsten Obländer, CEO of Story House, speaks of a “strategic and content-related win-win situation” and, as part of Bavaria Film, sees “completely different possibilities to ensure the development, production and marketing of premium content as best as possible.” For CCO Andreas Gutzeit, the first twenty years of Story House were just the beginning: According to Bavaria Film, he, Obländer and Chief Executive Producer Jens Afflerbach will stay with the company in the long term.
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