More than 820,000 people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia already pay for access to the Voyo streaming app. This puts Nova TV significantly closer to its desired goal of one million subscribers by the end of 2025. In order to boost user interest, it is investing in filming more exclusive formats for online launch. These are often crime-themed, but documentaries are not avoided either.
The authors and actors working with Nova are not the kind of people you would associate with commercial television at first sight. "At first it was difficult to convince the best filmmakers that we were serious. Later, viewers were convinced that they would find stories with us that didn't underestimate them, that were about their lives and that stood by them," said TV Nova's head of development Michal Reitler. He returned to Nova some time ago from Czech Television, where many award-winning shows bore his signature.
Now the expert juries are also taking notice of productions for Voyo. The miniseries Mathematics of Crime won the Czech Lion and the Slovak Film Award Sun in the Net. The series Metoda Markovič: Hojer won the award for the best series of Central and Eastern Europe at the Serial Killer festival. The jury of the Finale Plzeň festival singled out the historical drama The King of Sumava.
"I am glad that the first series was appreciated by both the professional and the wider public. It is, of course, a commitment for us to meet - and perhaps even exceed - the audience's expectations in the second series," commented Tomáš Hruška, producer of Metoda Markovič. The second series will focus on another successfully solved case of criminalist Jiří Markovič. It will be the capture and conviction of the so-called Spartakiad killer Jiří Straka.
Video: Method Markovic: Hojer
"We had tremendous support and creative freedom from the management of Nova, which I think is evident in the result. And I'm glad that it gives back to us and to Jiří Markovič's family the amount of energy that we put into the whole project," said Jaroslav Hruška, the scriptwriter of both series. Petr Lněnička will reprise the title role of the investigator, while Sarah Haváčová, Václav Neužil, Adam Mišík, David Prachař and Michal Isteník will also return.
Another true crime case inspired the six-part series directed by Tereza Kopáčová. In 1968, a house with a garden burned down in Vonoklasy, Central Bohemia, where investigators found the corpse of a woman and a drowned man in a well. The shaken, injured son told the detectives the story of the family tragedy. Later, the theme was developed by the authors of the series Thirty Cases of Major Zeman in an episode called The Well.
Source: TV NovaThe same title will also be given to the drama in development for Voyo, but the fate of the Jelinek family will be told in its entirety. Writers Miro Šifra and Kristina Májová want to describe what preceded the tragedy, what followed it and what were the motives and motivations of all the actors. David Švehlík and Johana Matoušková will play the roles of the Jelíneks, while Filip Červenka (in the opening image of the article) will play their son.
Slovaks will also see a programme based on true crimes, but this time it will be a documentary series. Screenwriter Jakub Režný and director Peter Bebjak were attracted by the serial killer Ondrej Rigo, who killed nine people, two of them abroad. Rigo was the first murderer in the former Czechoslovakia to be convicted on the basis of a profile created by a forensic psychologist and DNA analysis. The documentary series will not only show police procedures and step-by-step investigations, but the creators also promise that viewers will feel the atmosphere of the 1990s, when all the crimes were committed.
A more light-hearted crime drama will be offered by the series Bulldog of Poděbrady. It is being created under the guidance of creative producer Tomáš Baldýnský, who has returned to Nova after several years. The bulldog of the title is the character of a choleric policewoman who is fed up with having to deal with two insufferable teenagers and an ex-husband across the street. She'll be played by Sabina Remund. In the eight episodes of the comedy crime drama, she will solve "cases the likes of which Poděbrady cannot remember", only she has to put up with her pedantic boss. Tomáš Baldýnský wrote the script together with Tomáš Chvala, and Jan Haluza directs.
"Detective stories that will make you feel good" are produced under the title Murders in the Region and under the direction of the fresh Czech Lion winner Tomáš Pavlíček. Ondřej Sokol plays a colonel who, after twenty years in the Prague crime lab, would quite like to relax in the countryside and take up beekeeping. But he is wrong.
"Anyone who likes to guess what happens and who is behind it will be delighted, because Murders in the Country hides two puzzles in each episode. First, we get plenty of time to get to know the community or family the episode will be about and guess what crime is likely to befall these people. Then when the crime happens, we can work with Colonel Kuchera to figure out who committed it and why," says creative producer Lenka Szántó.
Director Marta Ferencová is preparing an eight-part comedy series Millionaires. What happens when five colleagues from a small factory win a fabulous amount of money in the lottery? "They say that money spoils character. When you have character, the good that's in you is only strengthened by big money. But what if you don't have it? What would a big win do to you? Millionaires will be about friendship, family ties about the better in us," development director Michal Reitler explained. The series will have a star-studded cast, including Pavel Liška, Zlata Adamovská, Miroslav Táborský and Eva Holubová.
Family comedies are also in the pipeline. The series The Fall of the Koller House, written by Natálie Kocábová and directed by Jan Hřebejk, will look into the life of an atypical family. "I've wanted to write a comedy about what can and does happen when you take your aging and increasingly dominant parents home for a long time," said the scriptwriter.
"For one thing, there were a lot of stories like this swarming around me, and for another, I noticed that it wasn't being filmed or written about that much," she added. The director cast Slovak acting legend Božidara Turzonova as the peculiar mother of the family.
The second season will be given to the successful Sex O'Clock project, this time set in the Christmassy Zlín. "Everything revolves around the most stressful period, i.e. Christmas and New Year," said director and screenwriter Karolina Zalabáková. "But don't expect candy-coloured Christmas kitsch from us. There will be romance, healthy cynicism, rough jokes in which we all recognize ourselves, and there will be sex at any age. Even at the most advanced age, and we will visit a cemetery or a gynaecologist's office with our characters," she summarised.
Source: TV NovaNova is also behind the upcoming documentary Virtual Girlfriends by director Barbara Chalupova about the phenomenon of OnlyFans. In four stories, the film will reveal the motivations of the stars of this adult social network and will also give the perspective of their loyal fans. And the five-part documentary series Kauza Kramný (The Kramný Case) focuses on the case of Petr Kramný, convicted of murdering his wife and daughter in Egypt. A documentary series with the working title Lebo Bear, about all aspects of coexistence with the brown bear in the Slovakian Poľana, is nearing completion.
"I see it as a huge achievement that Voyo has surpassed the eight hundred thousand subscription mark in just three years since the reboot. Voyo is thus the strongest local streaming service and can now easily compete with the strongest global players in our market," says Daniel Grunt, CEO of Nova. Voyo's average usage time is 15 hours per week.
Source: lupa.cz
