FEW people could have guessed that Bulgarians have a fetish for British history — specifically, Henry VIII. One person who did was Justin Bodle, the founder and chairman of Power Television, a television investment and distribution company that specialises in selling programmes to Central Europe.
When Power sold the ITV-produced Henry VIII to Bulgaria last year, it broke records by taking a 68 per cent audience share. Bodle has recently turned that shrewdness to investing, and in the coming year will help to finance drama, budgeted at more than £60 million, that is being filmed in locations including Britain, Canada and Australia.
Bodle began his career in sales at Thames Television in 1983, before moving to Henson International Television, where he sold Fraggle Rock. He then joined Carat, the media buying agency, as chief executive of programming, before launching out on his own. His break came in 1994 when he devised a popular World Cup sponsorship campaign for Unilever that was sold to Hungary.
Two years later, Bodle formed the group that has evolved into the present-day Power.