
Patrick Vien and Youngsun Soh. Image: A+E Global Media
EXCLUSIVE: A+E Global Media is leaning into the “extraordinary power” of K-pop, and has been for some time.
International boss Patrick Vien and Korea chief Youngsun Soh detailed a strategy that taps into the popularity of K-pop stars from those first breaking through at local agencies to when they become global success stories.
They were speaking with Deadline as A+E, which recently rebranded from Networks to Global Media to reflect its worldwide reach, soon turns 10 in Korea, having launched the History and Lifetime channels there in 2017.
“There are different buckets to what we do but the extraordinary power of K-pop plays a very important creative role in the kinds of shows we make and the casting choices we make, which influences our success,” said Vien. “To me that’s one of the most interesting aspects of our story. We used to live in one Hollywood and now we live in several, and Korea is one of them.”
Soh summarized: “If there is a recognizable K-pop idol talent in a show, this title will have great potential.”
When Deadline chats with the pair on the eve of MIPCOM, where A+E will once again have a big presence on the Croisette, Vien and Soh come with receipts.
Of the 14 original Korean drama series A+E has made since 2017, the vast majority have featured K-pop talent. These include Astro singer Cha Eun-woo, who has 46 million Instagram followers and starred in A Good Day to Be a Dog, Got7’s Park Jin-young (10 million Instagram followers) from A+E’s The Witch, and, most recently, CNBLUE’s Jung Yong-hwa, who is leading new Lifetime series Oh! My Guard alongside rising star Hong Seung-hee. The romance series follows a melodramatic star with a devastating secret, and a woman who, after an accident, comes to believe she is the heroine of his drama.
“We have this expertise and area of specialty to build mainstream, K-pop-backed scripted shows that work on big network television in Korea, can work on Lifetime, and can work on streaming platforms like Hulu,” said Vien.
A+E has a “solid relationship with the local community” and this helps with talent relations, according to Soh. While sometimes A+E will attract a K-pop star once they are already established, A+E is also working closely with the local Korean management companies that blood the next generation such as Fantagio, FNC Entertainment and BH Entertainment in order to spot them early.
Another way to spotlight this talent is via digital. Alongside its 14 dramas and 72 unscripted shows, A+E has now made 47 YouTube series, the company said, while in the days leading up to MIPCOM it revealed a push into microdrama, an exploding trend that started life in Asia.
One YouTube standout, which also features K-pop stars, is Nego King. Now into its eighth season, Soh reveals this one has amassed more than 200 million total YouTube views, which is four times Korea’s population.
In the long-running web series, hosts interview everyday consumers on the street and then negotiate massive product discounts directly with company bosses, securing bargains for contestants.
“This has become a proven concept where people can enjoy the creative behind the show but at the same time buy stuff through the show,” added Soh.
Being “independent from the streaming world”

Patrick Vien and Youngsun Soh. Image: A+E Global Media
A+E was talking up its K-pop chops just over a year after Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters nearly broke the internet and tore up the streamer’s viewing charts, while Disney has been seeking the next big K-pop hit via a 10-project deal plus culture fund with Kakao Entertainment.
When it comes to Korea, Vien says A+E is “very much competitive against the natural other players in the marketplace” but can also take advantage of “having an independent status from the streaming world.”
“In order to make this vision manifest it needs to engage in all kinds of partnership,” he explained.
A+E therefore co-produces with local Korean broadcasters but has also built up relationships with streamers around the world including in the States. Hit rom-com series Love in Sync, for example, airs on Hulu in the U.S. plus Disney+ in Japan and Korea. “Big global streaming platforms are our distributon partners; we work with them,” added Soh.
In this vein, the pair say they can continue taking an agnostic approach to content in one of the most exciting regions of the world, sometimes airing their content in Korea via their own networks but also pairing with local or global streamers.
As MIPCOM starts in earnest, Vien says A+E is enthused by the “extraordinary internationalization” of taste not just in Korea but in places like Latin America and Turkey, where shows are selling fluidly between territories.
“We’re very lucky that Youngsun and her team have demonstrated so much success and built such extraordinary partnerships in markets like Korea because that’s vital,” he added. “We’re very focused on finding all the ‘Hollywoods’ and building business plans that allow us to invest locally and find secondary success globally.”
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The BBC is planning to examine the life and career of J.K. Rowling in a two-part documentary that is likely to spark significant scrutiny.
The UK broadcaster has commissioned Rogan Productions (Grenfell: Uncovered) to produce J.K. Rowling (working title), exploring the author’s dramatic rise, cultural influence, and contested legacy.
The first episode will spotlight the creation of Harry Potter and the stratospheric success of the wizarding universe created by Rowling.
The second episode will examine her interventions on Scottish independence, feminism, free speech and gender identity, which place her at the heart of increasingly bitter online exchanges.
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Oscar-winning French actor Marion Cotillard has been unveiled as the jury president for the 23rd edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Under her guidance, the jury will determine the winner of the Festival’s Étoile d’Or from among the first and second feature films selected for this year’s international competition.
“I have been fortunate enough to attend the Marrakech International Film Festival since its very beginnings; I’ve had wonderful experiences there and met some truly remarkable people. Supporting filmmakers as they take their first steps is a vital part of what this festival is all about—it’s in its DNA—and it is a great joy for me to chair the jury this year” said Cotillard in response to the honor.
Born in Paris and trained at the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique, Cotillard first made a name for herself in Taxi, then cemented her presence on the world stage in Pretty Things, Love Me If You Dare, and A Very Long Engagement, for which she won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose brought her international fame, and in 2008 she became the second French winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, and the first to win an acting Oscar for a role performed in French. The role also earned her the César, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA for Best Actress.
She went on to portray deeply intense characters in Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone and James Gray’s The Immigrant. Her role in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night earned her a second Oscar nomination for Best Actress in 2015.
Cotillard’s filmography has seen her collaborate with filmmakers with a wide variety of styles. She starred in Tim Burton’s Big Fish, Ridley Scott’s A Good Year, Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, and Rob Marshall’s musical Nine. She went on to work with Christopher Nolan on Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, Steven Soderbergh on Contagion, Woody Allen on Midnight in Paris, Justin Kurzel on Macbeth, and Robert Zemeckis on Allied.
Her recent choices continue this trajectory. In Annette, Leos Carax’s 2021 Cannes award-winning musical, she starred alongside Adam Driver. She appeared in the unique world of Mona Achache’s Little Girl Blue before starring opposite Kate Winslet in Lee Miller. In 2025, she joined Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon in the fourth season of The Morning Show and played an actor in Lucile Hadžihalilović’s The Ice Tower. She will soon appear in Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica, Guillaume Canet’s Karma, and Nicole Garcia’s Milo. She is currently filming The Enraged by Emmanuelle Bercot.
Cotillard is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The 23rd Marrakech International Film Festival will run from November 20 to 28, 2026.
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Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue went into an “obsessive level of detail” when reconstructing the UK Prime Minister’s 10 Downing Street home for buzzy Channel 4 series Number 10.
The storied showrunner and producer talked Deadline through how the reconstruction for the Rafe Spall-starring series stretched all the way to “the right door handles, the right flower pots, the paintings on the correct walls, the precise colours – everything.”
Channel 4’s Number 10 is one of the big shows being sold by ITV Studios at MIPCOM this year and follows a fictional UK Prime Minister doing his day job behind one of the most famous doors in the country. Jenna Coleman and Katherine Kelly also star. Hartswood Films is producing.
The Prime Minister’s home was recreated at Bray Studios for the interior shots but Vertue revealed that exterior shots were taken outside the actual building itself in Central London, with filming taking place across a weekend when the Prime Minister, his family and staff were away.
“The first five minutes [of the show] involve the Prime Minister walking down Downing Street and through the front door,” said Vertue. “I said, ‘Leave it with me’. We didn’t know until the day itself whether something might happen and the filming would be stopped. Obviously we didn’t have access to the most sensitive security areas, but it was still an amazing opportunity.”
The rest of the interior scenes were shot with an “obsessive level of detail,” Moffat explained, including commissioning the person who had originally made the Number 10 fireplace to reconstruct another. The reconstruction was made trickier, however, by the fact that the crew weren’t allowed to take photographs inside Downing Street and there aren’t diagrams online.
“But if you’re selling a show on the idea that audiences will see what happens behind that door, then you have to get what’s behind it right,” added Moffat.
A Number 10 trailer was shown to press and buyers yesterday, spotlighting a tone that seems to sit somewhere in between iconic British comedy The Thick of It and a high-end thriller, with plenty of “gallows humor,” Moffat said. He is a huge fan of political biographies and said his research process was obsessive, although he is keeping schtum on which political bigwigs he spoke with when putting together the scripts.
‘Number 10’ is “ultimately an office comedy”
The UK has had seven Prime Ministers in a decade during a time of political turmoil but Moffat said he wants his show to humanize not demonize, hence why he deliberately doesn’t name the fictional Prime Minister’s party or allegiance.
“It’s a monstrous job,” he added. “If Prime Ministers were simply lazy, ineffective or dishonest, why do they all appear to age 20 years while they’re in office? Look at what the job did to Tony Blair. He still looks haunted.”
Number 10 has already sold to European buyers and Moffat and Vertue are now hopeful a U.S. deal can be brokered.
“Americans tend to like things that are distinctly British,” added Moffat. “Sherlock and Doctor Who are two of the most British shows ever made, and they travelled very well. This is a political show, but ultimately it’s also an office comedy—or perhaps an office comedy-drama. I think that gives it broad appeal.”
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