Streaming Giants Embrace Cheaper TV

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International series do not lack scale and ambition.

The lineup for this year’s Series Mania, a TV festival and industry event held in Lille, France from March 28, features a variety of captivating shows. Among them are historical epics such as Joe Wright’s biopic on Mussolini titled “Mussolini: Son of The Century“, the gripping real-life action thriller “Kabul” which depicts the city’s fall to the Taliban in 2021, and Liongate’s spy drama “The German“, created by the minds behind “Fauda” and “Tehran“. This series revolves around Holocaust survivors who were recruited to hunt down Nazi war criminals.

Also included in the mix are screenings at the festival’s kickoff gathering, which took place on March 24th, specifically designed for high-level buyers to preview upcoming international television series. The lineup of 10 shows presented during this event includes the German epic fantasy War of the Kingdoms, the Korean sci-fi series S Line, and the Swiss thriller The Deal, starring Veerle Baetens from The Broken Circle Breakdown, as she portrays a diplomat in her final attempts to negotiate nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Although the production has been quite successful, there are challenges on the international series side. Changes in viewing patterns among global streaming services, accompanied by rising production expenses and shrinking acquisition budgets from conventional broadcasters, are creating financial pressures for expensive series.

According to Guy Bisson from Ampere Analysis, a television market research group, the amount spent on new scripted series is declining and is expected to remain low. Bisson predicts that we won’t return to the record-breaking levels of “Peak TV.” Instead, streaming platforms are reallocating their budgets by investing more in sports rights, unscripted television, and traditional genres such as crime shows. This shift means fewer resources for high-end premium series.

Bisson refers to this trend as “broadcasting-style streaming,” where major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ – after achieving significant reach in various regions – begin to operate similarly to traditional free-to-air broadcast networks, with the addition of ad-supported options to their subscription services.

There’s been a significant increase in the production of crime dramas, a genre we’ve traditionally considered as the staple content for television networks. As it turns out, an astonishing 45% of all scripted programming investments in streaming services across Western Europe last year were dedicated to crime shows.

According to Frederic Balmary, chief business officer at Banijay, a well-known independent production company, we’re witnessing a significant shift in the market. He emphasizes that it’s becoming increasingly challenging to fund large-scale productions. The French culinary drama Carême, starring Benjamin Voisin from the film Summer of ’85, opened the festival on Friday, serving as an example of such a production.

Streamers like AppleTV+ and Netflix haven’t given up on high-quality TV productions entirely. For instance, “Carême,” premiering on AppleTV+ on April 30, boasts rich period details and impressive production quality. Similarly, Netflix has gone all out for the latest season of its popular British series “Bridgerton” as well as their Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw spy thriller, “Black Doves.

According to Bisson, while high-end dramas aren’t being abandoned entirely, they’re clearly losing some significance. Global spending on these productions, not just from streamers but overall, remains largely unchanged. However, production costs are increasing, which means we’re seeing fewer shows for the same budget.

According to Sabine de Mardt, head of Gaumont productions in Germany, major streaming platforms are prepared to invest whatever necessary to acquire a show they desire. However, the process of reaching an agreement is proving to be more time-consuming than anticipated. Productions under their belt include ‘Interpreter of Silence’, available on Disney+/Hulu, ‘Barbarians’ for Netflix, and the upcoming ‘Parallel Me’ for Paramount+.

In the U.K., an increase in high-end TV production driven by streaming services has resulted in a significant surge in costs. This trend poses a unique problem: big-budget shows are becoming too expensive for traditional broadcasters like the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, who collectively produce most of Britain’s original series.

The rise in high-end TV production due to streaming services has caused costs to skyrocket, making big-budget shows unaffordable for traditional broadcasters like the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, who make most British TV shows.

Jane Featherstone, producer of Black Doves, expressed during her speech at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards in London on March 20th, that the disparity between the funds allocated for programming currently and what’s available is too vast. She cautioned that if we don’t address this issue, we could potentially lose the unique narratives that shape our identity.

As production expenses increase, overseas sales are decreasing, particularly in difficult materials. Notably, recent grand series such as Fremantle’s “Mussolini: Son of the Century” and “War of the Kingdoms”, Sony Pictures Television’s Australian WW2 drama “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” starring Jacob Elordi, and Thomas Vinterberg’s climate change disaster tale “Families Like Ours”, including “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” starring Jacob Elordi, the German fantasy epic “War of the Kingdoms”, and “Families Like Ours”, produced by Thomas Vinterberg, are all still seeking a U.S. distributor despite being marketed globally by StudioCanal.

Balmary points out that securing U.S. pre-sales is a significant hurdle in financing these productions. In essence, without these pre-sales, such large-scale shows simply cannot be maintained financially.

In the U.S., advance sales for upcoming shows continue. For instance, Banijay has obtained a second season for their opulent period piece “Marie Antoinette,” a joint production between France’s Canal+ and the BBC, due to an advance sale to PBS in the U.S. Similarly, Showtime has pre-purchased “Gomorrah: The Origin” from Beta Film, which played a crucial role in greenlighting the prequel series to the popular Naples mafia drama, originally produced by European studios Sky Studios and Cattleya, with ITV ownership.

However, the disparity between the expenses of these global epics and the amount commissioners are prepared to spend is expanding increasingly. Even streaming platforms are growing more budget-oriented, offering local rates for local content, frequently transferring rights for specific territories rather than the comprehensive worldwide deals that were previously standard. Amazon will debut The Narrow Road to the Deep North in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada on April 18, but Sony has sold off rights to a variety of broadcasters, both public and commercial, in most of the remaining world, including the BBC in Britain, Sky and Max in Europe, and NBCUniversal in Latin America.

Balmary notes that while some shows are still sought globally by streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon, or Disney, many are now only desired for a single country or a few. This is beneficial for us as we can keep ownership of the intellectual property (IP), which we value greatly. However, it also means the funding gap expands, and we must devise innovative methods to bridge it.

In today’s financially challenging times, co-production has emerged as a popular financing method. This approach involves multiple networks or streaming platforms collaborating to fund a production and sharing rights. Co-production partnerships are becoming increasingly complex, with projects like “Kabul,” which Mediawan Rights/Entourage Media is marketing globally, being produced by New8 – a collaboration between 8 public broadcasters from Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. These partnerships often bridge the gap between public and commercial entities, as well as traditional broadcasting and streaming platforms. For instance, Swiss public broadcaster SRF and commercial streamer RTL+ are working together on a reboot of the Alpine family classic “Heidi,” which is being produced by Gaumont. The financing for Beta Film’s upcoming sci-fi disaster series “The Swarm” (2023) was arranged through a mix of European public broadcasters (ZDF, France Télévisions, Italy’s RAI) and commercial streamers such as Viaplay Group in Scandinavia and Hulu Japan. The project was then sold to CW for the U.S. market before production even began.

According to Oliver Bachert, the chief distribution officer at Beta Film, it’s essential to secure more collaborators and potentially new ones than in the past for these productions. This implies initiating conversations with potential partners earlier and developing more innovative partnership strategies.

More frequently, these models incorporate intricate and innovative timeframes for exclusive rights: Granting temporary licenses only to local television networks and streaming platforms within a specific region, enabling multiple licensing agreements for the same show in one territory. For instance, Beta’s Berlin hospital drama “Krank” (known as “Berlin ER”) has worldwide first-window rights exclusively on AppleTV+, but it is released in its second window on the German public broadcaster ZDFNeo. Similarly, Beta’s royal romance series “Maxima” follows a similar pattern, initially airing on RTL+ before moving to ZDFNeo during its second window in Germany.

Bisson notes that nowadays, both content creators and streamers are more willing to license content in quick timeframes for additional airings, extending its lifespan. Previously, most of the top 10 dramas on Netflix were exclusive originals. However, this trend has shifted significantly. Today, a large proportion of these popular dramas are licensed shows, indicating that Netflix is actively seeking to fill gaps in their content by licensing high-quality dramas that have already been successful elsewhere.

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2025-03-24 12:25