When Europeans complain about American cultural imperialism, what they usually have in mind is McDonald's taking business from the local boulangerie or U.S. moguls vying to wire the Continent for cable TV. But an American entertainment executive named Sam Davis has a subtler method of infiltration: he introduced Germany to the made-for-TV movie nine years ago and liked the place so much, he decided to stay.
Davis, 37, has built a thriving business out of adapting to Germany the sort of fare familiar to viewers of Lifetime and other women's cable channels in the U.S. Consider The Woman, Her Friend and...