Channel 21 International - Summer 2022

Scary numbers: Netflix eyes ads as subs decline

international Everything about content

Summer 2022

Rola Bauer of MGM delivers for Amazon

Dating shows adapt to reflect LGBTQ romance

PLUS: C21’s Content Business Trends Report | True crime Poland | Česká Televize | Buendía Estudios | Elephant Int’l

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30/05/2022 15:21

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Channel21 International | Summer 2022 | Issue #314

UPFRONT

CONTENTS

LA’s window on the world

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he internationalisation of the television industry is complete. Although they may be called the LA Screenings, a more appropriate name could be the International Screenings, given the number of Australian, British, Spanish and Brazilian projects put in front of buyers in the City of Angels this May. The gradual decline of US programming in the schedules of TV broadcasters in markets including Europe has been a defining feature of the past few years. Local shows, no longer paling in comparison to US imports, have taken pride of place. But what felt different about this year’s LA Screenings was that so much of this non-US programming is now on offer to the world’s buyers via the American studios.

In fact, the most buzzworthy show of this year’s edition – the first to be held in-person since 2019 – was an Australian romantic comedy called Colin From Accounts. Buyers from around the world were charmed by the show, a Foxtel commission for its streaming service Binge that kicked off Paramount’s screenings in May. In years gone by, it would have been the (most likely) inferior US remake of the show on offer, but it looks like US studios have realised quite often you just can’t beat the real thing.

What else has changed in LA over the past three years? Well, Tinseltown has been plunged into a homelessness crisis that highlights the way the

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pandemic has thrown many into economic despair.

Encampments full of unhoused people sit a few blocks away from some of the most upscale shopping neighbourhoods in the world.

Netflix still occupies most of the billboards, although perhaps not to the same extent it did back in 2019.

Meanwhile, a few new words have popped up to add to the dictionary of TV executive-speak.

At C21’s Content LA event in May, Netflix’s Jinny Howe, head of drama series development and content acquisition, said the streamer will be more “intentional” in the programming decisions it is making. Which makes you wonder how many Netflix originals were unintentional.

Elsewhere, an ‘acqui-mission’ – a mix of an acquisition and a commission – appears to be the new term for what we once called a pre-buy, but speaks to the greater involvement of international TV execs in each other’s programming.

Then there’s ‘cli-fi,’ which is not science fiction about people called Clive, but series that deal with the climate emergency and frequently feature dystopian themes and imagery. Like encampments full of unhoused people that sit a few blocks away from some of the most upscale shopping neighbourhoods in the world.

If LA in 2022 is anything to go by, cli-fi is fast becoming the new reality TV. Nico Franks

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THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022 How the sharp drop in Netflix subscribers and its U-turn on ads has raised questions about the streamer’s future.

UK pubcaster Channel 4 turns 40 this year, just as the government is pressing ahead with its controversial sell-off.

The cost of living crisis means SVoD services are feeling the pinch while ad-supported alternatives gain traction.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Rola Bauer MGM’s international TV production chief talks opportunities within Amazon and forging partnerships to find new stories.

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CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Starz Kathryn Busby on the cablenet’s efforts to double down on content for women and underrepresented audiences.

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime Is ‘stranger than fiction’ true crime a genuine trend or will it be limited by a shortage of suitable stories?

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COUNTRYFILE: Poland Production is booming as Netflix zeroes in on Poland in search of subscribers and series with international appeal.

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NEXT BIG THINGS: LGBTQ+ & dating shows LGBTQ+ representation on dating shows is growing but is it happening fast enough to retain younger viewers?

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CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Česká Televize The Czech pubcaster is doubling down on its digital services and related strategy as it seeks younger audiences.

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MY BIG BREAK: Vanessa Coffey Former lawyer Vanessa Coffey on becoming one of the TV industry’s leading intimacy coordinators.

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THREE-YEAR PLAN: Elephant Int’l Sandra Ouaiss discusses the French firm’s projects for global SVoD platforms and its role in the superindie landscape.

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DEVELOPMENT SLATE: Buendía Estudios The Spanish prodco is growing its slate of programming, partly thanks to its deal with Universal International Studios.

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PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: Marjolein Duermeijer The former Endemol Shine Group exec considers why brands, not ads, are the key for Netflix if the streamer wants to stop losing subscribers.

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THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Black mirror N

etflix shares plunged in April on revelations the streamer’s subscriber numbers had dropped for the first time in a decade, while the scale of password sharing meant it was missing out on revenue from 100 million households. A further tumble came in May on news of job cuts.

The dramatic fall in the value of the company wiped out all the gains made during the past five years, including the conversely stellar upswing in business experienced during the pandemic, which has taken it to 222 million paying customers.

In its first-quarter results letter to shareholders, Netflix blamed “the big Covid boost to viewing” for “obscuring the picture” across its business until recently. The company identified four factors leading to “revenue growth headwinds,” namely limited consumer uptake of connected TVs; the password-sharing issue; competition from the new breed of US studio streamers; and the dire macroeconomic outlook amid spiralling inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While the conflict immediately cost Netflix 700,000 customers and a host of original productions when it took the decision to suspend its Russian business in February, critics have been quick to point out management should have been more astute about the other forces at play. Rather than calm investor concern, founder and co-CEO Reed Hasting’s subsequent about-face on the introduction of advertising only served to further dent confidence in the business.

Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund management company founded by billionaire Bill Ackman, immediately bailed, selling off the 3.1 million Netflix shares it acquired in January at a US$400m loss. Meanwhile, another shareholder initiated a class-action lawsuit in California against the streamer, alleging the company “failed to disclose material adverse facts,” causing investors “significant losses and damages.”

Netflix acknowledged in its Q1 shareholder letter that it has been facing “robust” competition from YouTube, Amazon and Hulu for the past 15 years, not to mention linear TV. It went on to note that over the last three, however, this competition has increased as “traditional entertainment companies realised streaming is the future.” That this development should be presented by the company in early 2022 – emerging from its Covid fug – as among the forces acting against it has raised alarm in some sectors.

The C21 Content Business Trends Report, a quarterly outline of the biggest trends in the business, continues in this issue with a look at how the surprise drop in Netflix subscribers and its U-turn on ads has raised deeper questions about the streaming giant’s future. By Jonathan Webdale a

For a long time the studios were accused of being supertankers that took too long to turn, but now that they have they hold advantages in their legacy businesses, which Netflix has yet to develop. As it increasingly loses rights to previously licensed content, the streamer must rely on its own library and has been racing to establish this.

Netflix has, in many ways, kept ahead of the curve.

It points out, for example, that “US entertainment companies have viewed ‘international’ as an export market for US content,” whereas it flipped this idea on its head, with non-English-language titles Squid Game, La Casa de Papel and All of Us Are Dead among its most popular shows of all time. But despite non-US originals, such as Heartstopper, eartstopper, continuing to draw praise, has the infl nflection point come too soon?

While the company gained in terms of subscriptions during the pandemic, c, so did Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and d others, with the former in May beating analysts’ expectations for its second quarter to reach 138 million paying customers. What at Netflix perhaps lost, however, was the pacee and to some degree quality of production, as it tried to navigate its way through the ‘Covid id cloud’ along with everyone else. It is understandable tandable in such circumstances if the clarity of vision that propelled the business to completely mpletely rewrite the Hollywood script may ay have become somewhat compromised.

Chief content officer Ted Sarandos dos was handed co-CEO responsibilities in the summer of 2020 as coronavirus gripped, ed, while Hastings celebrated his 60th birthday ay a few months later. Former Hulu and WarnerMedia nerMedia CEO Jason Kilar (51) is now a free ee agent having left the latter ahead of its US$43bn merger with Discovery, just a few weeks ks before the shock Netflix numbers, and speculation eculation is inevitably swirling about the one-time Amazon exec’s next move. Hastings may well be taking a long, hard look in the mirror. ror.

The bigger concern is surely the extent xtent to

which Netflix has lost its status as a standard bearer for the rest. The root-and-branch reinvention it necessitated and exponentially rising costs of talent and production it precipitated have required enormous investment, with talk of ‘peak TV’ never too far away.

If the industry has lost its peg, particularly amid wider concerns over stock market stability, then a House of Cards may yet reveal itself. Or that series’ distributor, Sony – with no streamer of note of its own but doing well licensing to and producing for others, plus considerable connected TV and gaming interests – may see an opportunity to acquire a category-defining asset at a knock-down price.

THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Netflix originals Black Mirror (left), Heartstopper (below left) and All of Us Are Dead

Reed Hastings, co-CEO, Netflix Those who have followed Netflix know that I have been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription. But as much as I am a fan of that, I am a bigger fan of consumer choice. And allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price, and are advertising-tolerant, get what they want, makes a lot of sense.

Bill Ackman, founder, Pershing Square Capital Management While Netflix’s business is fundamentally simple to understand, in light of recent events, we have lost confidence in our ability to predict the company’s future prospects with a sufficient degree of certainty.

Based on management’s track record, we would not be surprised to see Netflix continue to be a highly successful company and an excellent investment from its current market value. That said, we believe the dispersion of outcomes has widened to a sufficiently large extent that it is challenging for the company to meet our requirements for a core holding.

Michael Nathanson, founding partner, MoffettNathanson This is a hard business. Content is not won because you spend more. Content has to be good.

Netflix had a huge lead over everyone else but eventually the media industry realised they needed to compete and they have advantages like brands, sitcom libraries and ad sales. So when you look at the Netflix forward model, our confidence is so low.

You’re in growth purgatory. Until you see a turn in revenue growth, which is probably 12 to 24 months away, this is dead money, in my view. To me, this is just a giant canary in the coal mine that confirms our view we want to stay away, for now, from this sector.

market is now awash with too many streaming media services chasing too few subscribers. Netflix still remains the benchmark. The company needs to ensure it stays as an indispensable service in people’s homes. Ultimately this can be achieved with blockbuster programming.

Tammy Parker, principal technology analyst, GlobalData Netflix has shied away from acknowledging the changing competitive landscape and avoided looking in the mirror to see where it needs to improve. Netflix’s Q1 earnings letter to shareholders cited external factors that it says are creating growth headwinds, but most of these are far from being new issues and only serve to highlight the company’s own internal weaknesses.

Patrick Morrell, director of strategic publishing and TV development, The Trade Desk Netflix’s quarterly results are increasingly focused on subscriber numbers. After the boom in new joiners during the pandemic lockdowns, the numbers have fizzled.

These results have been particularly impacted by the interruption of its business in Russia and booming inflation across the globe, which is leading many consumers to reassess their monthly outgoings as streaming subscriptions are considered a luxury ‘extra.’ Netflix continues to create and buy a variety of popular content, but the cost of doing so is high and growing, with Netflix feeling the same inflationary squeeze as its subscribers.

Jeff Wlodarczak, principal, Pivotal Research Group After what can only be called a shocking Q1 subscriber miss and weak subscriber and financial guidance, we reduced our subscriber forecasts and pushed back our profitability forecasts substantially. The Netflix flywheel has slowed substantially, and it will take time to get it going again, which is likely to create substantial uncertainty around the name for at least the balance of ‘22.

Paolo Pescatore, TMT analyst, PP Foresight This is not the end of Netflix.

It feels like a reality check for a company that is trying to strike a fine balance of retaining subs while increasing revenue. The

Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director, Kantar, Worldpanel Division Netflix sought to reassure investors by suggesting it will, for the first time, open the door to an advertising-supported model. If Netflix does go down this route, it’s game-changing, not just for Netflix and its ability to generate a very significant new revenue stream, but also for the world of advertising. Netflix has reach close to that of traditional TV in a number of major markets around the world. Its power to enact large-scale change here should not be underestimated.

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THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Up 4 sale C

reated by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration in 1982 as an alternative to the BBC and ITV, UK pubcaster Channel 4’s remit was to champion diversity, reach and represent underserved audiences, push creative boundaries, disrupt, entertain and innovate.

C4 splashed on to the scene with ground-breaking series like Brookside, The Big Breakfast, Saturday Live, Desmonds and The Word (not forgetting teatime quizshow staple Countdown), and the organisation was unique among its counterparts in that it was state-owned but funded by advertising – a kind of hybrid between the licence fee-financed BBC and purely commercial ITV. Crucially, it was not allowed to make or own its own shows, rather part of its raison d’être was to stimulate a UK independent production sector by commissioning programmes from small to mediumsized TV companies.

Nadine Dorries, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport Channel 4 rightly holds a cherished place in British life and I want that to remain the case.

I have come to the conclusion that government ownership is holding Channel 4 back from competing against streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon. A change of ownership will give Channel 4 the tools and freedom to flourish and thrive as a public service broadcaster long into the future.

Alex Mahon, CEO, Channel 4 Commercially, financially, creatively, we’re in the best health we’ve ever been, we’ve got more cash on our books

UK public broadcaster Channel 4 will celebrate its 40th anniversary later this year, but the festivities may be somewhat muted in light of the government’s decision to press ahead with its sell-off.

As a result it became a breeding ground for new talent, drama, comedy and formats, responsible for titles like Father Ted, Spaced, The Inbetweeners, This Is England, Skins, Shameless, Queer as Folk, Big Brother, Brass Eye, Grand Designs, Gogglebox, We Are Lady Parts and many more.

The UK’s indie sector boomed as a result, with the producers of such shows able to sell them around the world, both as finished tape and for remakes.

Companies like Wife Swap-originator RDF Media were able to float on the stock exchange, partly fuelled by the value creation C4’s model enshrined.

The Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (Pact) was established alongside this creative

wellspring and this year will celebrate its own 30th anniversary along with the sector it estimates generated over £1.4bn (US$1.8bn) for the UK economy last year (only slightly down on its preCovid performance).

For those outside the UK, C4 has been a major acquirer of US programming, licensing titles like Friends, Sex & the City, The Simpsons, Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Big Bang Theory, Homeland and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And as the world changed it has become a key partner in international coproductions too, series like Humans, The Handmaid’s Tale, The End of the F***ing World and It’s a Sin, made with AMC, Hulu, Netflix and HBO

than we’ve had in a decade. I would say to the people who are doomsayers: this shows we’re in good health, rude health. I’ve got to focus on how I can keep doing that for the next couple of years.

It’s not for me to oppose privatisation. That’s a government decision.

the regions. I regularly get asked by international broadcasters why the UK government has such a destructive agenda against the country’s main television networks. It doesn’t make any business sense, and it’s certainly not patriotic.

Armando Iannucci, screenwriter and VP of the Royal Television Society It’s not the government that owns Channel 4 – we, the public, do.

Over 40 years it’s proven its worth, bringing exciting new and creative voices to UK television, raising our game internationally, committing itself to independent journalism, and launching the growth of independent production and employment across all

Dorothy Byrne, former head of news and current affairs, Channel 4 Instead of Channel 4 being a publicly owned organisation that pumps hundreds of millions of pounds a year into the independent sector, it is being sold off, almost certainly to a giant TV production company, possibly from overseas. It will be in the interests of that company to make as many of its own programmes as it can and retain the rights to them.

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Channel 4’s successful originals include HBO copro It’s a Sin (left), Gogglebox (above) and We Are Lady Parts (right)

respectively. It has also spotlighted nonEnglish-language programming, picking up, for example, French supernatural thriller The Returned and Spanish prison drama Locked Up, and co-founding international scripted streamer Walter Presents.

While overall UK television exports held up well during the pandemic, surprisingly for an ad-supported business, so too did C4. This was thanks to the stewardship of former Shine Group chief Alex Mahon, who became CEO five years ago and has steered through a major relocation of operations outside London in a bid to do more for those elsewhere in the UK. Annual revenue for 2021 is projected to top £1bn for the first time, with a record cash surplus in the region of £100m.

C4 has, at times, been accused of being too commercial and straying away from its remit under Mahon’s predecessor, for example, by outbidding the BBC for rights to The Great British Bake Off, or more recently taking Taskmaster away from UKTV. It too has been subject to market forces, however, with Netflix swooping on its dystopian drama Black Mirror.

But the popular mass audience-pleasing hits

Channel 4 is not there to compete with Netflix and Amazon. It is there to provide public service programming which promotes discussion and debate.

John McVay, CEO, Pact Unlike other broadcasters, Channel 4 makes none of its programmes in-house, but a private owner could shift production away from independent producers to cut costs, with a knock-on impact on the wider industry. Selling it off now risks reducing the opportunities for independent producers, and reducing the amount of programming commissioned outside London. It isn’t too late for the government to think again.

are arguably few and far between and are needed to support loss-leading one-off documentaries and series like Unreported World, or the kind of hardhitting investigative journalism that characterises Channel 4 News. Accused by right-wing rivals of being left-leaning, it is this news provider, according to critics of the proposed sell-off, that the UK’s current Conservative government is keen to silence, while at the same time squeezing the BBC. In moving ahead with the proposal – which was floated a year ago but had been pondered several times before by previous governments – culture secretary Nadine Dorries argued the aim was to give C4 “the freedom” to compete with streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon. Those opposing the move

Jed Mercurio, screenwriter The sale of Channel 4 will inflict huge damage on homegrown creative companies, all to silence a critical news outlet, and, as if it even needs mentioning, make a few quid for their mates while they’re about it.

Philippa Childs, head, Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union This is nothing short of cultural vandalism. Channel 4 supports thousands of jobs and a thriving independent production sector, all at no cost to the taxpayer.

This short-sighted, destructive move deals a major blow to the UK’s creative sector. Make no mistake,

have been quick to point out such an agenda is not part of the broadcaster’s mission.

There is no shortage of outspoken voices attacking the government’s plan, while those in favour are rather harder to find. Prominent among the latter is former Channel 5 chief David Elstein, who points to the sale of that pubcaster to Viacom (now Paramount) eight years ago as proof of a success story.

“Viacom, when it bought Channel 5, enlarged its programme budget and volunteered an expansion of its public service output,” Elstein wrote on openDemocracy.net last summer. “Channel 4’s supporters warn new ownership might jeopardise the independent television production sector, which generates so much value for UK plc. These days, Netflix and Amazon are bigger customers than C4, which accounts for barely 10% of the sector’s turnover. And there is no reason why a new owner would stop commissioning programmes from the sector.”

Elstein at least agrees with critics that ministers should be pressed to explain exactly what they expect to gain from the sell-off, beyond the potential loss of a vital journalistic voice in British culture.

Analysts put the price tag at between £500m and £2bn, with the tightness of any public service broadcasting requirements likely to be a limiting factor. Paramount, Warner Bros Discovery, ITV and Comcast’s Sky have all been tipped as potential buyers.

And while a sale is by no means guaranteed, with the plan still having to make it through strong resistance in parliament, Mahon’s position is also intriguing. The exec last year brushed off questions in a BBC interview about the pay rise she received in the midst of Covid while producers and freelancers were struggling, and recently told the Financial Times she would remain “independent” on the process while at the same time talking up the “rude health” of the organisation. The idea of a management buy-out has also been touted and interest from private equity in such a prized asset can’t be ruled out.

selling off such a profitable network that gives so much to the UK’s broadcasting and independent production sector will have major consequences for the UK broadcasting landscape.

Séamus Dooley, assistant general secretary, National Union of Journalists The government seems hell bent on putting Channel 4 on the market, hoping to secure support by promising to invest proceeds of the sale into the creative industry.

Make no mistake, this is a wanton assault on a valued British institution disguised as a gift to the creative industry. Broadcasting policy should not be determined by an apparent obsession with competing with subscription models.

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THE C21 CONTENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Streaming feels the squeeze M

uch has been made of the shockwaves sent through the industry by Netflix’s recent subscriber slump and subsequent job cuts. The ripple effect will be felt for some time to come across an industry that has been booming for the past decade.

The proliferation of streaming services and staggering array of programme choices available thanks to, until now, soaring investment in original production has prompted some to question whether FX boss John Landgraf’s oft-repeated prediction of ‘peak TV’ may finally have come true.

While Netflix has already begun making its own savings, the company has also cited “macro factors, including sluggish economic growth, increasing inflation and geopolitical events such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” for exerting downward pressure on its business. And it is certainly not alone in feeling the effects.

Soaring food, energy and fuel prices related to lingering Covid-related global supply issues and European instability mean severe recessionary signals for populations already struggling to emerge from the pandemic. Inflation in both the US and UK is reaching heights not seen in 40 years.

While SVoD was a boon for millions during lockdown, there is also the sense that consumers may feel they have had their fill of binge viewing and with the world opening up again – albeit to a state more precarious than pre-Covid – their tightening finances may be put to better use elsewhere.

More than 1.5 million UK households cancelled SVoD services in the first quarter of this year – up from one million the previous quarter and 1.2 million a year ago – with more than half-a-million of these attributed to ‘money saving’ efforts, according to a recent report from market research firm Kantar.

The ‘cost-of-living crisis’ is now a staple phrase in the UK and while chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled measures to tackle the situation for some, critics have said these do not go far enough. His efforts fail to alleviate the pain not only for the worst-off but also for small businesses, such as many of those behind TV shows and the legions of freelancers that crew productions, it has been claimed.

Meanwhile, Netflix execs will have been

With the price of food, energy and fuel soaring globally and consumers tightening their purse strings as a result, subscription video-on-demand streaming services are feeling the pinch while ad-supported alternatives are gaining traction. year bought the remnants of Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi, such players have been growing in popularity and making an ever greater splash in terms of acquisitions and originals.

All this has been happening against a backdrop of Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, NBCUniversal and Paramount either already operating or soon to introduce ad-supported tiers for Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Discovery+, Peacock and Paramount+.

In the UK, broadcaster ITV is following suit, bringing together former subscription offering ITV Hub into a new SVoD/AVoD service dubbed ITVX this autumn.

Global AVoD revenues will reach 1883 from US$70bn in 2027, up from US$33bn last Paramount+ year, according to a study by Digital TV Research, while SVoD revenues – although continuing to claim a bigger slice of the overall pie – will grow at a slower rate, rising

by US$48bn between 2021 and 2027 to a total of US$136bn.

But other analysts downplay the idea of any great SVoD decline. One UKbased outfit, Omdia, claimed in May that despite the nation’s cost-of-living crisis, its consumers are actually making savings on other monthly expenses in order to buy more streaming services.

The picture, of course, varies from offerings that threaten to push monthly bills country to country too. The proportion of US towards the kind of US cable levels OTT streamers households with SVoD services dropped by 0.2 were supposed to usurp, ad-supported VoD has percentage points to 81.4% in the first quarter of 2022, according to Kantar, with AVoD up 2.2% to been on a winning streak.

Prior to the present parlous macro-economic 20.2%, alongside free ad-supported streaming TV situation, ViacomCBS (now Paramount) bet big rising 0.9% points to 25.3%. But even these latter on AVoD with the acquisition of Pluto TV, while gains were lower than seen in the previous three Fox Corp snapped up Tubi just as the pandemic months.

For Kantar, SVoD is more of an “inelastic was beginning to bite. Amazon, best known for its Prime Video subscription service, has been expense” in the US and the real driver behind building ad-supported IMDb TV steadily and cancellations is the quality of content on offer, with recently rebranded it as Freevee, with originals shows like 1883 on Paramount+, Disney+’s The Mandalorian, Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso still capable of such as Australian drama Troppo.

Alongside streaming specialist Roku, which last driving sign-ups. perturbed to hear UK culture secretary Nadine Dorries admit that she is among the 100 million customers worldwide depriving it of revenue through password-sharing. Such “revenue growth headwinds” have forced the company into a volteface on the introduction of advertising.

The proportion of UK consumers planning to cancel SVoD services and stating the primary reason as ‘wanting to save money’ has risen to its highest ever level at 38%, says Kantar, up from 29% in the fourth quarter of last year.

Amid cost-cutting and a glut of subscription

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THE EC C21 C2 21 C CO CONTENT ON NT TENT BUSINESS TRENDS REPORT: Summer 2022

Freevee’s original Australian drama Troppo

Dominic Sunnebo, global strategic insights director, Kantar With many streaming services having witnessed significant revenue growth during the height of Covid, the evidence suggests British households are now proactively looking for ways to save, and the SVoD market is already seeing the effects of this. In times of financial uncertainty, services need to be indispensable in subscribers’ minds.

Richard Broughton, research director, Ampere Analysis People were stuck at home and even those with their finances under pressure found home entertainment a must-have.

But now there is a cost-of-living crunch on the horizon. With so many pay TV and streaming products, we will see consumers seriously assessing their monthly outgoings. It will be about winning that battle to be seen as essential entertainment.

Brian Fuhrer, senior VP, product strategy, Nielsen We’ve entered the next phase of streaming. We’ve moved from infancy into adolescence, and all the complexities that one would expect at that point. It’s not just that streaming is increasing year over

year. Now consumers want access simplified and the explosion of services has renewed discussions around bundling and aggregation.

Adam Lewinson, chief content officer, Tubi If you look at the history of television, the vast majority of consumption has been with ads. AVoD has overtaken SVoD in terms of consumption and things are reverting to the historical norm. The adsupported tier is going to be the dominant form of consumption, whether over linear or digital.

Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown ITVX, the free ad-supported streaming service due to come online soon, may be a more attractive option for costconscious consumers in the current environment.

Getting any sign-ups at all will require having an excellent slate of content – good is no longer good enough for today’s discerning binge-watching audiences.

Dave Castell, general manager, inventory and partnerships, EMEA, The Trade Desk Free content is increasingly resonating with consumers

worldwide. With purse strings tightening on this side of the Atlantic, it begs the question of how soon changes in the US will inevitably follow in Europe. We’ve already seen Discovery announce the expansion of its hybrid offering, ‘Ad-Lite,’ in the UK and Ireland, as well as ITV launch ITVX. It’s only a matter of time before other major broadcasters and streamers kick into gear.

Hannah Avery, client manager, ComTech, worldpanel division, Kantar Cancellation of a streaming platform in order to save money remains the single largest driver, but this is unchanged versus the fourth quarter. While the rising costs of goods across the globe are leading to cost-cutting, streaming is more of an inelastic expense in the US. The US may have reached a point of content saturation instead.

Caroline Norbury, CEO, Creative UK The chancellor is right to respond with urgency to the cost-of-living crisis, but once again, creative freelancers, entrepreneurs and those early in their careers will be among the hardest hit by the impacts of inflation. Critical steps must be taken if we are to truly unleash the potential of the UK’s creative industries and ensure opportunities are open to all.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Rola Bauer

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

On a Rola M

GM International Television Productions has MGM’s Rola Bauer talks post2020, when covered a lot of ground since June 2020 acquisition opportunities with Amazon, president.

Rola Bauer was tapped as its new pre industry still building its international TV slate Her appointment came with the global TV indus and forging new, sometimes struggling to reeling from the onset of the pandemic and strugg make sense of whether or not production would be able to controversial partnerships to co resume before the end of that year. unearth un untold stories. founding Munich-based Bauer, who was formerly the fo

By Jordan Pinto partner p rtner of Tandem and MD of StudioCanal TV, pa T was brought brought in by the chairman of MGM Television Group, Mark M rk Burnett, with a mandate to expand the iconic with Amazon on the Italian crime drama ZeroZeroZero, Ma which gave her a window into what Amazon is looking for, MGM brand with a slate of globally sourced s both in a partner and a project. series.

There remain many question marks around how Amazon Over the past two years, the label has built a slate of seven scripted titles, including Harlan will choose to use MGM’s assets, and how things will shake Coben’s Shelter, Billy The Kid d from Vikings out at the personnel level remains to be seen. Nowhere was that clearer than with the departure of film heads Michael creator Michael Hirst and Spanish-language Spanish-lan De Luca and Pam Abdy, who recently drama El fin del amor. revealed they will step down from their As the name of the division If someone says roles in the summer. might suggest, producing to me, ‘Oh, this is But while questions linger, Amazon international television shows and MGM are forging ahead with plans was always part of the plan. a great story that’s in to collaborate.

What was harder to predict was that the zeitgeist’ I turn off, “It’s been business as usual,” says Amazon would swoop in to acquire because I think, ‘Wait a Bauer, adding that the teams are the company and its assets, including minute, it’s going to take 4,000 film titles, 17,000 TV episodes a year-and-a-half to two beginning to shape new strategies that will define the next chapter of MGM’s and co-ownership of the James Bond international TV business. franchise for a whopping US$8.45bn. years before it’s going to The synergies between the tech giant After spending 10 months awaiting air.’ We have to develop and legacy studio go far beyond simply regulatory approval, the mega-deal for tomorrow. creating new shows and mining existing officially closed in March.

IP. As Bauer tells it, the collaboration While much of the Rola Bauer has the potential to connect the MGM early conversation MGM brand with a vast and very digitally revolved around savvy audience.

Amazon’s interest in co-owning coBauer highlights Amazon Echo, the smart speakers that the James Bond franchise – franc and, indeed, that likely drove have become increasingly popular in homes around the globe, as one potential avenue for MGM to innovate within a large portion of the valuation va – the talk has since shifted to the broader Amazon umbrella. sh “If you look at all the businesses they have – from Echo how the tech giant’s b backing will supercharge MGM’s to Twitch to Audible to Wondery – these are things that, if you have the right narrative, you could build a language television business.

At a time when all studios around your programme and support it in different ways. are galloping toward towards the That’s a very powerful marketing machine but also another global marketplace, the form of communication,” she says.

“We, as programmers, are coming with content. It will Amazon deal plugs MGM be fun to see how we can dive into that and work with the International Television Tel Productions into new capital, teams [at Amazon Studios and Amazon Prime Video].”

Outside of big-picture discussions about evolving the tech expertise and vast MGM brand within its new parent company, the international scale. television division has enjoyed a creatively fruitful two International production prod is a sphere that Bau Bauer has years. But it hasn’t been without a litany of productionbeen playing in for years. related obstacles.

Chief among these has been the rising challenge of Indeed, during her time at t securing crews. While investment in original content X StudioCanal, Bauer worked w

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Rola Bauer

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

MGM Television’s originals include Billy The Kid (left) and sci-fi horror series From (above)

continues to be at an all-time high, the so-called crew international projects. Under the deal, projects will air crunch continues to be an issue felt across the board, with exclusively on MBC Group-owned streamer Shahid VIP heads of departments and below-the-line talent in short throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, with MGM handling coproduction and distribution for the rest of the supply in relation to the vast demand.

“We can’t crew up as fast as we would like, and we can’t world.

Asked whether partnering with a company owned always find the locations, but the money is there in terms of by the Saudi Arabian government could be viewed finding coproducing partners and finding streamer deals.”

Bauer cites drama series Last Light, which was shot in as a controversial move, Bauer says that MGM has Prague, London, Paris and Abu Dhabi under strict Covid a “responsibility” to uncover untold stories that are protocols, as a “huge undertaking.” The project, produced “provocative but at the same time accessible.”

“I’m excited that [MBC Group is] embracing the ideas that

by MGM International Television in association with Viaplay, we have been discussing,” she says, Stan and MBC, explores what would We, as adding that MGM hopes to play a role happen if something were to disrupt in giving a platform to storytellers from the world’s oil supply and questions our programmers, are the region. dependency on this precious natural coming with content. It Over the course of the pandemic, resource. will be fun to see how cultural discourses have arguably Other shows developed and produced evolved at a faster rate than any over the past two years include sci-fi we can dive into that horror From for MGM-owned network and work with the teams other time in human history. In this environment, content producers and Epix. The project, from MGM, Epix [at Amazon Studios and commissioners are being forced, more Studios, AGBO and Midnight Radio, Amazon Prime Video]. than ever, to predict the future and unravels the mystery of a nightmarish develop shows that they believe will town that traps all those who enter.

Rola Bauer resonate when they are eventually Also on its slate is Harlan Coben’s MGM released.

Shelter, produced by MGM, about a “Our job is not to develop for today. If someone says to high school junior who struggles to navigate his new life with a mother in rehab, a dead father, an annoying aunt, me, ‘Oh, this is a great story that’s in the zeitgeist’ I turn off, and a new school in New Jersey with a camel as its mascot. because I think, ‘Wait a minute, it’s going to take a yearOne key point to note about the slate is that all seven and-a-half to two years before it’s going to air.’ We have to projects are original series and Bauer’s team has not yet develop for tomorrow,” says Bauer.

Of course, that is easier said than done, and Bauer’s dipped into the MGM intellectual property library.

As it searches for new IP, MGM International Television advice is “reading, smelling, talking and understanding who Productions has been striking international coproduction you are developing for.”

As it becomes more integrated within the Amazon pacts. These include a multi-year deal with Nordic Entertainment (NENT) Group to develop and coproduce ecosystem, MGM will be able to take its investments in IP, six English-language original series for NENT-owned talent and production to another level, says Bauer, who is undaunted by what might lie over the horizon. streaming service Viaplay.

“In the future, with the support of Amazon, our challenges The label also agreed a partnership with MBC Group in the Middle East to develop and coproduce a slate of are going to be fun ones,” she says.

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CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Starz

Kathryn Busby

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Swagger like Starz

J

ust a few months into the job, Kathryn Busby wowed delegates at C21’s Content LA event in May with a bullish demonstration of how Starz is seeking to become the boldest destination for premium drama around.

While Starz’s competition attempts to be “more things to more people,” Busby said the Lionsgateowned US cablenet is doubling down on its programming mandate committed to narratives for, by and about women and underrepresented audiences.

It was this mandate that attracted Busby to join Starz late last year from Sony Pictures Television, where she had spent the previous eight years. “A network where the mandate is for, by and about women and underrepresented voices. That’s literally why I got into the business,” Busby told delegates at the first in-person Content LA since 2019.

“The growth of the streamers feels like an opportunity for Starz because they want to grow in scale and be more things to more people. We think that leaves a white space for us to double down on edgier, more provocative, bolder, auteur-driven shows.”

The he exec leads Starz’s programming and development elopment team and has more than 25 years’ experience erience developing and producing content thatt has helped move the needle when it comes to greater ater diversity and inclusion.

During uring her time at Sony, Busby was involved in projects jects including Apple TV+’s murder-mystery comedy medy series The Afterparty, a show based on Kirsten sten Chen’s upcoming novel Counterfeit and a series based on Malcolm X’s daughter Illyasah asah Shabazz’s books X: A Novel and The Awakening akening of Malcolm X. Before efore that, Busby was senior VP of development evelopment at Sony, where she sat on the Sony Pictures Action Council, uncil, which implemented the studio’s racial equity and inclusion usion initiatives.

Prior rior to joining Sony, Busby by was VP of original programming at US gramming network work TBS, where she partnered with The Blacklistt creator Franklin Leonard nklin

Kath Kathryn Busby, president of original programming at Starz, discusses the cablenet’s efforts to double down on content for disc women and underrepresented audiences. By Nico Franks wom

We’ve had enormous success with the female audience and with the black audience. But when you talk about underrepresented voices, it’s about a lot more than that.

“

Kathryn Busby Starz

to create a joint initiative to identify diverse new writing talent for blind script deals and staffing consideration.

Her arrival at Starz, therefore, brings together two forces pushing for change in the industry, with the cablenet’s #TakeTheLead initiative, and its various transparency talks, partnerships and diversity data helping to hold it to account.

For Busby, she feels Starz is known as being the place for “people that walk the walk,” rather than just pay lip service to inclusivity, and this is borne out in Starz’s programming line-up with

Gaslit stars Julia Roberts

shows such as P-Valley, which is set in a strip club in the Mississippi Delta.

Moreover, Busby added that Starz walks the walk with a certain swagger that is “adult, edgy, bold and provocative. Any Starz show has to pass that test.”

But the exec isn’t one to rest on her laurels.

“We’ve had enormous success with the female audience and with the black audience. But when you talk about underrepresented voices, it’s about a lot more than that. We want to do everything in that world, with all kinds of voices,” said Busby.

“We really feel that the world now wants to hear from everybody and we want to be the place where everybody can come.”

The exec pointed to its diverse development slate, which features projects from Latin American, East Asian, Native American, gay and disabled talent, and said she is still looking for more projects from such groups.

“We don’t have enough Latin American or Asian shows. That’s That a focus for us on our development slate,” said B Busby, who also discussed the romantic drama it is developing with Ava DuVernay and actors Joshua Joshu Jackson and Lauren Ridloff, who is deaf.

The as-yet-untitled project has a script-to-series as-yet commitment for three seasons and 18 episodes.

It foll follows two people with polar-opposite personalities who become intertwined pe in a love affair that turns their worlds – and those of everyone around them – upside down. up Busby said Ridloff, who has starred in Eternals and The Walking Dead, is a “force of nature” and that the show is an “fo opportunity to tackle “class, race, love and opp ability. It speaks to doubling down on what abili think we do well and growing it.” we th Busby added that Starz is hoping its Bu prequel to long-running historical drama prequ Outlander can help extend the franchise Outla the cablenet, while it remains on the on th lookout for other shows that can start a new lookou franchise, be they epic love stories or heirs franchi

CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Starz

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Strip club-set drama P-Valley

Comedy horror Shining Vale

to Power, the crime drama series that spawned multiple spin-offs.

Meanwhile, Busby said Starz is also on the lookout for bingeable thrillers “in the vein of Big Little Lies or The Night Of,” as competition for originals in the US remains incredibly high.

Busby admitted to having “Bridgerton envy” when discussing shows she admires at her rivals, using it as an example of a show that incorporates “diversity in the best possible way, which is what Starz is all about,” while appealing to female fans of historical period dramas.

Another project it is developing is Lovesong, a drama created, written and executive produced by

playwright and television writer Tanya Saracho, creator and showrunner of Starz’s groundbreaking series Vida.

The half-hour drama comes from UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and Lionsgate Television. It will follow two Mexican American childhood friends living in London as they both become entangled in a torturous love triangle with the same captivating singer-songwriter.

One show already on air that Busby feels has that definitive Starz swagger is Gaslit, the anthology series about the Watergate scandal starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn.

From showrunner Robbie Pickering and

adapted from the first season of Slate’s podcast Slow Burn, it tells the untold true story of Martha Mitchell (Roberts), the wife of former US attorney general John N Mitchell (Penn), and her role in exposing the Watergate scandal.

The show “represents so much of what our mission is and what my mission is,” said Busby, because of the way it features A-list talent in front of and behind the camera, as Starz looks to go toe to toe with its fellow premium content providers.

“It has the swagger of telling a story that we all thought we knew but from a different perspective.

It ticks so many boxes for us and it also speaks to the next level that we want to achieve. We feel that we can and should compete with the premiums and we want premium programming,” said Busby. Penn already wants to develop one of his next projects at Starz, according to Busby, who added that being an A-lister is not a prerequisite to getting a show off the ground with Starz.

“We are very open to new voices, as they might have the freshest, newest ideas. If we find something we like, we’re going to make sure that new voice is surrounded by people who can guarantee delivery of that,” said Busby.

Meanwhile, the ownership structure at Starz remains somewhat up in the air after Lionsgate confirmed late last year that it was exploring the full or partial sale of its stake in Starz, five years after it picked it up for US$4.4bn.

Since then, Roku and Apollo Global Management have emerged as bidders for a minority stake, but a deal is yet to have been confirmed at the time of writing. The Starz is working eventual buyer could also on a drama with get their hands on StarzPlay, Lauren Ridloff (top) the international streaming and Ava DuVernay version of Starz, which is now available in 63 countries, having launched in 2018.

A Starz original does not always equal a StarzPlay original, and vice versa, due to the intricacies of international rights deals, but they do share some shows, such as the dark comedy horror Shining Vale, in which Courteney Cox plays a woman who can’t figure out if she’s depressed, or possessed.

Moreover, Busby says Starz’s international presence is impacting its domestic strategy.

Among the upcoming originals Starz and StarzPlay are set to share are a trio of period dramas: Becoming Elizabeth, which follows the younger years of Queen Elizabeth I; The Serpent Queen, which revolves around the life of Catherine de’ Medici; and Dangerous Liaisons, the latest screen adaptation of the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses

by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

“We try to programme globally. The pandemic showed that there’s amazing programming happening all over the world that can work in the States,” said Busby.

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AHEAD AH A HEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Stranger things Woodcut Media’s Murdered at First Sight

T

rue crime has been a fix-all for the unscripted business. It skews slightly female but appeals to a broad demographic. It’s so popular and moreish that it’s capable of reversing even the supposedly irreversible decline in US cable viewing. It has long been the genre that creates the most buzz for Netflix, outside of drama.

Recently the genre has evolved from the self-contained, one-hour Wives With Knives-style series that proved such a boon for Discovery’s Investigation Discovery (ID), A+E Networks’ Crime+Investigation and NBCUniversal’s Oxygen towards a more exclusive, serialised, page-turner approach led by Netflix and its hit show Making a Murderer.

With pandemic-weary audiences perhaps tiring of murders – particularly as so many of them are perpetrated against women – the dial has been turned again.

The marketing-friendly, watercooler element in this genre now comes in the form of ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ tales that twist and turn through up to half-a-dozen episodes, presenting a story so outrageous nobody would believe it were it not true. The Imposter, Three Identical Strangers, Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer and The Tinder Swindler have led the way, and although they’ve landed in three different places – A+E/Film 4, CNN Films and the last two on Netflix – they’re all from one production company.

“There are things that make all true stories successful,” says Dimitri Doganis, MD of All3Media-owned Raw TV, the London-based firm behind the docs. “A critical part of that is some degree of relatability to the protagonist, even if they’re an anti-hero. There needs to be a focus on the emotional journeys of the people eople rather than just an analysis of the crime itself.

One of the things that make documentaries of this nature successful is their implausibility. They are often stories that are only redeemed by being true.

“

Dimitri Doganis Raw TV

Is ‘stranger than fiction’ the latest turn of the true crime dial, or does the scarcity of suitable stories mean it’s simply a niche successfully th ex exploited by just one streamer and one production company?

By Clive Whittingham “Tinder Swindler is an amazing example of how, even though people make decisions or choices that you may not agree with, there is something in that experience that you can identify with – in that case an understandable and legitimate desire for love and quest for romance. And then, of course, the critical element is the unexpected twist and turns you would get from a scripted narrative.

“One of the things that make documentaries of this nature successful is their implausibility. They are unbelievable, which makes the scripted versions of them problematic because they’re not believable. They are often stories that are only redeemed by being true.”

Doganis promises “you can expect more from us,” but the stories, by their very nature, are rare. Does Raw risk becoming a victim of its own success? By Doganis’s own admission, every time a book, an article or a story of this kind emerges now there is a rush of production companies trying to grab it. This has meant some projects have missed the mark.

Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel was roundly criticised for dragging out the tragic death of student Elisa Lam over four episodes, which felt horribly exploitative, while the second season of Making a Murderer (10 episodes) and another Netflix project, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Seria Killer (four episodes), were so long they gave the audience the feeling of watching rushes au rather than a finished, edited piece.

Less is more, says Doganis, adding: “I am m noticing a huge number of stories that are being hu found, brought broug to us or proposed to us that are not quite goo good enough or don’t quite meet our bar for the number of beats and the journeys those num characters are a going to go on, but they are twothirds of the way w there. I suspect a lot of those will – not by us but I’m sure some of end up being made m made. them will get mad successes, ours and other people’s, X “Recent succ

Anne Morrison of Nevision

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Discovery’s four-parter Anni: The Honeymoon Murder and (below) Children of the Cult

Anna Hall of Candour TV

have demonstrated you don’t need to be sensationalist or salacious to garner great audiences or have a great impact.

To revert to the most sensationalist telling demonstrates a weakness in the story or a weakness in the storytelling. It’s just unnecessary.”

As VP of commissioning for entertainment at Discovery in the UK, Charlotte Reid has gone from ordering selfcontained linear hours to complement the content she gets from ID to broadening out into more limited true crime with the launch of Discovery+. That will surely only increase now HBO and HBO Max fall within the merged Warner Bros Discovery family.

“We’ve been making crime for a while because we have an ID pipeline and get a lot from the US, and have been making it for linear for a long time on Quest Red, then more recently for Discovery+,” Reid says. “They’re slightly different shows – more returning formats for the linear channels and bigger pieces or limited series for the streamer. There is also quite a lot of crossover for what works on the various platforms so it’s a really interesting genre for us.

“Discovery+ is much more likely to do a limited series of three or four parts. Stuff we’ve done there includes Children of the Cult, a five-parter with Mentorn Media, which we did because they had three women who wanted to talk about the experience of being in that cult, the abuse they suffered, and they had access to archive they’d smuggled out of it.

Then you’re providing a platform for people who want to tell, are brave enough to tell, a really important story.

“Anni: The Honeymoon Murder was a four-part limited series, and one of the things about them is you can go into forensic and granular detail in a way you never could before. It was motivated by the 10-year anniversary [of the case] and the frustration of the family to have their day in court. It gives you a reason to do it, it’s not gratuitous.

“We’re motivated by why you go back and look at a crime story. We often get pitched, ‘Do you want to go back and look at the [James] Bulger case?’, but I don’t think you should ever do stuff just because it happens to be a big crime story. You have to have a reason to go back and look at it, be it new analysis or different archive, because underneath there is an awful tragedy, victims and families.

“There has to be a compelling reason to do it, particularly if it’s a recent and high-profile case. We did The Murder of Grace Millane: A Faking It Special last year. You make sure you speak to the family directly or through the police and they know it’s happening. We have something in development now and part of the family involved don’t want it to happen so I don’t think we’ll go ahead with it. If they’re not comfortable I don’t think we can justify doing it.”

So will Discovery+ and HBO Max be heading in the stranger-than-fiction direction following Raw and Netflix’s recent success?

“We think about it a lot. In that box-set space there was a serial killer wave, we’re currently in a com-crime wave and we’re wondering where we go next. Is it towards lighter crime and slightly less victim and tragedy? We’ve wondered about a caper-crime wave, where people have got into a spot of bother and come up with absolute fuckwit ways of getting out of it. We have got one like that, it bridges linear and SVoD exactly in that space – people doing things where you think, ‘How did you ever make that decision?’”

Mark Procter, CEO of Big Little Fish Television, which makes Married to a Psychopath for Channel 4, says Raw’s success raises the bar for the rest of the production industry. “For the last five years, low-cost/high-volume titles have dominated the true-crime market. Whilst there’s still clearly a global need for this kind of content we are seeing evidence that channels, and viewers alike, are demanding more sophistication from the genre,” he explains.

“Rather than a simple tabloid retelling, more appealing now are stories that are crafted across two or three parts and have PR’able new evidence, new details, new voices or new lines of inquiry.

“On our development slate we do have a couple of nonviolent stranger-than-fiction true crime titles. There are actually more stories like this around than you might think.”

Endeavor Content’s director of content, Liz Tang, X

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

says factual content, and true crime in particular, are really box-set series for Sky Documentaries and a Discovery+ project that retells the story of an historic UK crime with having a moment right now.

“Budgets and audiences are bigger than ever, and what never-before-heard audio footage of the killer. Hall believes we’re seeing is drama-level, premium productions, but podcasts are an underestimated force driving the genre’s rooted in non-fiction. There are still homes for the high- evolution.

“Audiences are becoming much more sophisticated,” she volume, cost-efficient true crime anthology shows that so many broadcasters’ schedules rely on. However, there’s an says. “They want detail and authenticity. Podcasts have appetite alongside this now for tentpole serialised pieces, helped with this, in that the audience love the level of detail found in podcasts. Series like Making a with one case or overarching story told Rather than a Murderer have paved the way to allow across three or four episodes, or as a producers to tell stories in more than 45 feature doc – often with a resolve, so the simple tabloid viewer can play armchair detective. retelling, more appealing minutes. Sometimes that’s not always “Stranger-than-fiction is a trend, now are stories that are necessary but having the ability to really dig deep presents the opportunity to ask but we are in a world more digitally questions and raise themes that aren’t connected than ever, so it’s unsurprising crafted across two or always possible in a commercial hour.” wild stories like this are emerging more three parts and have Few UK producers have made the and more. What’s really interesting PR’able new evidence, about Don’t F**k With Cats and Tinder new details, new genre their own quite like Woodcut Media. It is about to deliver a second Swindler is the global narrative integral voices or new season of Surviving a Serial Killer to to both cases. These are locally lines of inquiry.

Channel 4 and Murdered At First Sight specific crimes, solved through an to Sky Crime, with another 40 hours in international lens, incredibly dark tales Mark Procter various stages of production. where people’s lives are destroyed with Big Little Fish Television Koulla Anastasi, who crossed the seemingly no justice. That is, until online communities unite across oceans to take down the villains.” divide from commissioning true crime for A+E Networks UK Anne Morrison, creative director for factual at London- to developing it as commercial director at Woodcut, says based indie Nevision, says: “True crime in drama and buyers are broadening their scope. “For years, we have documentary form has never had such a boom as in the last stuck to the grisly brief that only homicide or serious violent few years. There can hardly be a high-profile murder in the crime will cut through. But recent hits, such as HBO’s UK or US that has not been explored in one form or another. McMillions, have demonstrated that an incredible ‘good We need to be conscious of how societal attitudes shape guy/bad guy’ story will always resonate,” she says.

“I don’t believe that framing it in those terms these narratives and the idea of the ‘perfect victim’ who is white, female and ideally middle class and attractive. There oversimplifies the genre. A villain with varying degrees of is also an emphasis on ‘stranger danger’ while the most extreme behaviour is at the heart of these stories, whether dangerous place for women remains their own homes, with it’s a billion-dollar conglomerate [see also The Crime of 58% of female murder victims worldwide being killed by a the Century about the Sackler/Oxycontin crisis] or a good old-fashioned conman. The phenomenal success of these partner or family member.

“On the other hand, women are often the audience for docs and what we’re hearing from commissioners, that true crime stories, and for most, the psychological aspects they are actively seeking true crime beyond homicide, are more fascinating than the gory detail. We wonder, suggests that the trend will continue for some time yet.

‘Would I have spotted him as a serial killer?’ or speculate These unbelievable stories have always been there, and what techniques we would use to survive if kidnapped. For will continue to arise, it’s just that we weren’t necessarily these reasons and others, I don’t think true crime will ever seeking them out previously.”

They may not have been seeking them out previously, lose its appeal.

“However, over the last year, our interest seems to have but you better believe producers are now. moved from murder to fraud as there is now a slew of programmes about conmen and women, from Tinder Swindler to Inventing Anna to The Dropout. These are often jaw-dropping tales and again there is the unspoken question of whether we ourselves would have been taken in.

“The trend is bound to expand its scope into stranger-than-fiction tales which no writer would dare make up because they are too outlandish. I have two of these on my current slate at Nevision, both true stories. One will be a factual drama and the other a blend of drama and documentary, and both are perfectly true yet strain credibility to the max. I’ve always felt the truth is stranger than fiction and it looks like TV audiences agree.”

Anna Hall, director and exec producer at the UK’s Candour TV, has produced the Catching a Killer strand for Channel 4 and is currently working on a three-part

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

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Netflix’s Don’t F**k With Cats offers a “global narrative”

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26

COUNTRYFILE: Poland

M

ost content producers around the world would agree that the advent of streaming has provided them with myriad new opportunities, and there are few places where this is truer than Poland.

As Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max penetrate the global market, they are obliged to meet local original content quotas in many of the countries in which they operate, which has accentuated the need for domestic programming.

“Streaming has affected Poland’s TV business enormously because all of a sudden the market started growing beyond the limits we could anticipate. We’ve never had so many productions running,” says Andrzej Muszynski, CEO of Polish production company ATM Grupa, which has produced series including Harlan Coben adaptations Hold Tight (Zachowaj Spokój) and The Woods (W Głębi Lasu) for Netflix.

“The streamers have concentrated on scripted so far, but we also see a growing number of briefs with regards to unscripted programmes, for both documentaries and entertainment. Unscripted was the domain of terrestrial television, but it is having a problem over here because advertising budgets are shrinking, so I sense the streamers have noticed that and are taking it as an opportunity,” he adds.

Poland is one of the most developed markets in terms of OTT services in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), according to Tony Maroulis, principal p p analyst y at UK firm Ampere p Analysis, whose research found that, as of the end of 2021, 28% of Polish households subscribed to at least one OTT service. This figure is the highest in the region.

In the first quarter of 2022, there were a total of around six million OTT subscriptions in Poland, up Sexify

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Going to the Poles Polish production is booming as Netflix zeroes in on the country in search of new subscribers and series with cou international appeal, allowing local producers to int branch out. By Karolina Kaminska br from around four million in the same period two years before. Maroulis expects that figure to increase to around nine million subscriptions by 2026.

“Netflix has invested in Polish content more than any other global streaming company,” Maroulis says.

“It commissioned 13 Polish titles last year, split evenly between movies and TV shows. Netflix has also licensed a decent a slate of local content and, as of March 2022, originals make up around 10% of its local content.

“Viaplay has also invested in Polish content,, although g to a lesser extent commissioned than Netflix, having commiss sio ione n d four TV shows to date. It has, s, however, only launched in n Poland within the last year and has plans to continue to build that business.

“To a large extent, other global streaming companies

have not yet committed to Polish content or the Polish market, although new studio-led services, such as Disney+ and SkyShowtime, have Poland in their crosshairs for their next international expansion.”

According to Maroulis, the volume of Polish content on Netflix in Poland increased to 576 hours this March from 462 hours in March Streaming has 2021. Of those, original hours tripled affected Poland’s to 57 hours from 19 hours. Netflix exclusives – content that was not TV business enormously produced by the streamer but to because all of a sudden which it holds exclusive distribution the market started rights – increased to 36 hours from growing beyond g 26, while licensed content rose the limits we could slightly to 482 hours from 462.

“Poland is a strong anticipate. We’ve never focus for Netflix and had so many productions is becoming a running. stronger focus for other Andrzej Muszynski global OTT ATM Grupa

“

COUNTRYFILE: CO C OUNTRYFILE: Poland

Channel21 International al | S al Summer umm u um mme mm err 20 2 2022 022

players,” Maroulis says. “Poland remains a growth market for Netflix and we expect it to continue investing in Polish content.”

Maroulis’s comments are reflected

by Netflix’s announcement in March that it will open a regional office in Poland’s capital Warsaw this year and plans to launch 18 new Polish films and series this year and next.

“Poland has become a key market for Netflix in the CEE region and we are strongly involved in local production,” says Anna Nagler, Netflix’s director of local language series for CEE. “Our investment includes supporting existing titles and buying licences, as well as working on new titles together with Polish creators.

“We commission Polish production companies and film professionals to create great series and films, but we also stay in close cooperation with the Polish Producer Alliance and Łódź Film School to foster a new generation of young talent.”

In addition to the recently announced nine films and nine series scheduled for 2022/23, the streamer is currently working on three Polish drama series for release in the coming months: Queen, High Water and the second season of comedy Sexify, the first season of which debuted on Netflix last year.

“The Polish TV entertainment market is where talent and bold ideas meet,” Nagler says. “Polish viewers appreciate multithreaded stories that span a longer time, as this gives them a chance to bond and identify with the characters, as well as universal problems raised by series such as Sexify and Hold Tight.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, we also noticed a rise in popularity of content that transported viewers to a parallel reality and gave them a break from the difficult times. Evidence of

Netflix’s Polish Harlan Coben adaptations Hold Tight (above) and The Woods (left). Below: Anna Nagler

this is the fact that titles like [PolishUS fantasy series] The Witcher and [Polish film] Into the Wind have hit the Netflix top 10 list in Poland.

“Poland is an interesting place for series creators and filmmakers thanks to its rich culture and traditions. The country is home to many recognised authors and a lot of the best plotlines are inspired by modern Polish literature, for example, novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski, Remigiusz Mróz and Jakub Żulczyk. Poland’s natural landscapes also make for beautiful shooting locations,” continues Nagler.

But the popularity of Netflix’s Polish content isn’t restricted to Poland, Nagler says, noting that Hold Tight has, at the time of writing, remained on the global top 10 list for two weeks in the non-Englishlanguage series category since its debut in April.

Additionally, Sexify hit the top 10 list in more than 80 countries and ranked number one in 20 countries after its premiere, while action film Furioza has, at the time of writing, remained on the global top 10 list for two weeks in the non-Englishlanguage movies category since its debut, ranking number one in Brazil, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Spain and Morocco.

“A couple of years back, if we were aiming to give a movie or series international appeal, we would probably have had to shoot it in English or at least in German or French,” ATM Grupa’s Muszynski says. “Today, the only thing we care about is the storytelling and quality.

That’s a great achievement of Netflix as a pioneer but also the other streamers who have followed suit.

“As long as we are able to show something which is typically Polish but executed in a proper way so it appeals to international audiences, that’s the best we can achieve. Polish cinema has a very good tradition of doing so, starting from the Polish Film School just after the war to recent movies like Zimna Wojna [Cold War] or Boże Ciało [Corpus Christi]. There are a lot of stories and they resonate universally.”

Muszynski says the most popular genre in Poland is crime, which stems from the fact that crime series have always been more affordable for terrestrial channels than action movies or fantasy shows. The influx of streaming platforms has, however, allowed producers to branch out into a wider range of genres that attract broader audiences.

“Terrestrial television always targeted audiences aged 16-49, but all of a sudden we have a huge change

because the streamers are very open to any kind of niche audiences as they want to attract subscribers from all over the world. So if we have a good project, I don’t have to worry that it won’t fit somewhere. What I have to worry about is finding good talent, and that’s it,” the exec says.

The demand for local content in Poland doesn’t come without its challenges, however, according to Muszynski, who stresses that the “very small” Polish production sector needs to expand in order to meet this demand, including everything from producers, to scriptwriters and department heads, to directors and actors.

While streaming has broadened the Polish TV market and helped local series gain international recognition, linear TV still plays a very important part for both Polish producers and viewers, creating a rounded offering in an expanding market.

The country may be facing a squeeze on its production resources but there’s no shortage of demand for local content, with the typical Pole watching over four hours of television per day in 2021, according to local audience research body KRRiT. “Unlike several Western European markets, linear TV is still strong in Poland and has remained resilient,” Ampere’s Maroulis says.

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NEXT BIG THINGS: LGBTQ+ & dating s shows ho h ows

Channel21 International | Summer er 2 er 202 20 2022 022 02

The Bi-Life

Off the straight and narrow D

I wouldn’t make a show that couldn’t be representative of the whole rainbow that we are in this country. If we realised that we couldn’t be inclusive I would walk away from it. There’s no excuse to not have LGBTQ+ people in the mix.

“

Mel Crawford Goat Films

ating has been one of the go-to genres for viewers looking for a bit of escapism during the pandemic, be they intimacy-starved singletons or coasting couples wondering what life is like on the other side.

Broadcasters and streamers have accordingly moved quickly to quench audiences’ thirst for dating shows, with Netflix in particular doubling down on reality shows in which contestants are all looking for love… or sometimes just a cash prize.

While it is now refreshingly commonplace to see samesex couples in ads on TV, the belief that heterosexuality is the default and therefore the preferred expression of sexuality still pervades around the world. Look no further than the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known by critics as the Don’t Say Gay Bill, in the US to see examples of LGBTQ+ rights being eroded, not advanced.

Perhaps it is only natural that in a heteronormative society, most dating shows will therefore be heteronormative. But in a world where a large proportion of young adults say they’re not straight – nearly one in five in the US – the belief that sexuality is a spectrum is growing more and more prevalent, especially among young people.

The fact is most dating shows are failing to acknowledge and celebrate LGBTQ+ communities, something which makes those behind them look increasingly out of touch.

Indeed, criticism has been levelled at some of the biggest hits in the genre, from Love Island to Love is Blind, for ignoring LGBTQ+ participants and, as a result, viewers.

Exceptions do exist, with First Dates, the Channel 4 hit that began airing in 2013, frequently heralded as one of the leading examples of an authentically inclusive dating

LGBTQ+ representation on mainstream dating shows is far from the norm, but while wh inroads are being made, is it happening fast enough to keep ke hold of younger viewers?

By Nico Franks show for featuring plenty of participants from all walks of life. The mechanics of First Dates make featuring potential couples from across the sexuality spectrum a relative doddle compared to competition-style dating formats that all too often rely on all participants having compatible sexual preferences.

Mel Crawford, MD of Goat Films, developed and made the First Dates pilot and says creating a format that would exclude people from the LGBTQ+ community taking part would be contrary to her aims at Goat Films, which she set up in 2020 with the aim of creating a producer that operated differently to most other prodcos.

“I wouldn’t make a show that couldn’t be representative of the whole rainbow that we are in this country. If we realised that we couldn’t be inclusive I would walk away from it. There’s no excuse to not have LGBTQ+ people in the mix, it’s just not right,” says Crawford, who adds she is enjoying the freedom that running her own company allows.

This is demonstrated by Goat Films’ dating format Romeo & Duet, a Saturday primetime shiny-floor show for UK commercial broadcaster ITV that fuses dating with

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

NEXT BIG THINGS: LGBTQ+ & dating shows

Left: Dating Unlocked for OUTtv. Below: Laura Amure of Gramafilm

singing and has recently featured a mix of straight, gay, lesbian and bisexual participants.

“The format allows for us to cast whoever we want from any gender identity or sexuality anywhere on the spectrum.

Bisexuality on a Saturday night might be hard for an ITV audience to grab, but the channel has never been anything other than supportive about our approach,” says Crawford.

Crawford adds the viewing figures speak for themselves, with the show helping to bring in the 16-24 crowd that she believes public service broadcasters need to attract if they want to remain relevant. “The people who don’t catch up are going to be left behind,” she warns.

“It’s important that representation is there behind the camera as well and the entire team was very diverse in terms of gender, sexuality and race. More than half of the casting team, I would say, identified as non-heteronormative,” says Crawford.

Diversity and inclusion initiatives mean companies big and small have pledged to be more representative of minority groups, including those from the LGBTQ+ community. Banijay Rights is among them, which was one of the reasons the TV giant acquired the global distribution rights to Romeo & Duet in April.

Simon Cox, executive VP of acquisitions at Banijay Rights, says the success of the Drag Race format, which has now been remade in multiple territories around the world, has helped to demonstrate to buyers how accessible LGBTQ+ content can be.

Cox adds Banijay would push for any international versions of Romeo & Duet to be just as inclusive as the UK original. “It’s front and centre of our pitch, but we can’t enforce it and it will vary from country to country and broadcasting regulations, depending on where you are in the world,” he says. “Europe and the US are the big focus for this show as those territories will adopt more LGBTQ+ participants.”

Crawford, who would sit as an executive producer on any remakes, says inclusivity is a key part of the format and any “big format changes” would need to be cleared with Goat.

Then again, to what extent does the LGBTQ+ community want to take part in, or watch, shows inevitably dominated by straight people? OUTtv, the Canada-based channel and streamer has multiple dating shows bursting at the seams with LGBTQ+ participants, from Group Sext to Dating Unlocked to Zaddy Island (working title), which is in development at OUTtv, along with four or five other dating shows.

Philip Webb, chief operating officer at OUTtv, says he is all for more mainstream broadcasters and platforms featuring people from the LGBTQ+ community in their dating shows, as long as it isn’t exploitative. But they sure as hell won’t be as fun or authentic as the ones on OUTtv, he adds, partly because its are LGBTQ+ shows made by LGBTQ+ people.

Meanwhile, Webb confirms OUTtv, which is also available as a streamer in markets such as the US, Australia, the UK and Ireland, is working with a US network to co-develop a dating show together. But working with international streamers or broadcasters isn’t necessarily OUTtv’s priority, given it has ambitious expansion plans to serve LGBTQ+ communities in countries such as South Africa and therefore wants to hold on to worldwide rights to its shows. Moreover, OUTtv isn’t likely to start trying to appeal to more mainstream audiences any time soon.

“We’re not trying to serve a broad audience, we’re trying to serve our audience. I’m not fantastically interested in including straight people in our shows because there are already plenty of shows made for straight people,” says Webb.

For Fenton Bailey, co-founder at World of Wonder, both the cynicism of mixing g dating g with monetaryy rewards and lack of LGBTQ+ representation esentation in the genre highlight how it can be shaken haken up to ensure viewers don’t lose interest.

The Drag Race producer cer is preparing Vanjie: 24 Hours of Love, e, a format that promises to rejig the heteronormative world of dating shows. The he show follows Vanessa ‘Vanjie’ Mateo ass she tries to find herself a special someone and is set to debut on the company’s streaming ng service WOW Presents Plus.

“I can tell you that ourr show is not heteronormative, and it really is about love. I love dating shows but they are not always really about love, and love rarely comes out at the other end. This his isn’t that,” says Bailey.

Laura Amure, a development elopment executive at UK-based producer Gramafilm says the rise of heavily formatted, “gamified” dating ng shows often restricts the options ns for X

We wanted w to be bo bolder and offer more meaningful content, s so that’s why we ca came up with Bromance. We want the show to deliver messages key mess about L LGBTQ+ accep acceptance, divers diversity and love witho without gender, and w we have had a spectacular s re response.

“

Bani Tan B Pops Worldwide Po

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NEXT XT TB BIG IG T IG THINGS: HIN HI HIN NG GS: S: L LGBTQ+ GBT GB TQ Q+ & da dating d attiing sh shows ho h ows

Pops’ unscripted reality format Bromance

Simon Cox of Banijay Rights (above) and Border2Border Entertainment founder Charlie Lubiniecki

participants, which in turn means most shows tend to focus on the well-worn scenario of a single woman trying to find a boyfriend.

As a development producer at Monkey Kingdom, Amure worked on The Bi-Life on E!, which was an attempt to avoid the token inclusion of LGBTQ+ participants in dating shows and was heralded by UK newspaper The Guardian as the first “queer-friendly” dating show. Since joining Gramafilm in April last year, Amure is keen to continue to developing formats that will help push things forward.

“We definitely understand on a business level it is more complicated and often more expensive to make your dating format inclusive. But for us, on a moral level, it’s unacceptable not to. So we’re either going to be developing shows that are incredibly inclusive and accept that it’s going to be more expensive figuring out the maths or the matches, or we’re not going to do it,” says Amure.

Elsewhere, South-East Asian digital entertainment company Pops Worldwide is on the hunt for what it refers to as ‘boy love’ and LGBTQ+ content for its streamer in Thailand to differentiate itself from global streamers.

Bani Tan, Pops Worldwide’s regional director for Thailand, says the AVoD platform had decided to focus on boy love, a term for programming centred on queer male love stories, to carve out a niche in an increasingly competitive market.

“We are concentrating on anime and boy love because other players already have lots of programming in other genres. We are not Netflix or Disney and we don’t have their resources, so we realised the best way to compete with them was to pick one or two genres and do them very well,” he says.

Pops is behind unscripted reality format Bromance, which claims to be the first ever male-to-male romance reality show in Asian entertainment. In the format, an allmale cast compete for their shot at romance, with 16 single men facing off against each other to win the attention and love of a local model.

“We wanted to be bolder and offer more meaningful content, so that’s why we came up with Bromance,” Tan says. “We want the show to deliver key messages about LGBTQ+ acceptance, diversity and love without gender, and we have had a spectacular response.”

Meanwhile, Charlie Lubiniecki, founder of Border2Border Entertainment, believes that although dating and relationship shows do include more queer people now, representation remains as it was back in the 1990s, when LGBTQ+ people were included merely as a spectacle.

“I still rub up against the idea that we still have a lot of straight producers and directors who are formulating those stories and putting them out into the world, so it’s still through a straight lens of what the queer experience is like,” he says.

Channel21 21 In 21 International ntte ernationall | S Summer ummer 2022 um

Goat Films’ Romeo & Duet

“For this group of people, who for so long have not been invited to the table in media to tell our stories, it feels like the time to take those opportunities for ourselves.”

Toronto-based Border2Border almost exclusively produces LGBTQ+ content, by and for the LGBTQ+ community, including Dating Unlocked for OUTtv, which features a cast that includes trans, gay, pansexual, nonbinary, polyamorous and queer people. Pronoun pins were worn on set to reduce the possibility of mis-gendering and encourage a safe and welcoming space, says Lubiniecki.

The actor, writer, director and producer urges any well-meaning producer looking to feature more LGBTQ+ participants in their dating shows to make sure there are “recognisable allies” on both sides of the screen. Also, consent is key in the high-pressure world of reality TV, which has historically not always been respected in the hunt for ratings.

“We worked really hard on communication and consent.

Everyone went through an intimacy and consent training period before we went on set. Asking for consent is sexy and it needs to be normalised, especially on reality shows,” says Lubiniecki.

Clearly, a lot can be learnt from those who specialise in making LGBTQ+ programming for an LGBTQ+ audience.

Meanwhile, societal changes mean such shows are only going to become more and more relevant.

Couple the industry’s desire for younger viewers with its wider ambitions to be more inclusive and the addition of more LGBTQ+ participants in mainstream dating shows could well be a match made in heaven.

BY THE INDUSTRY, FOR THE INDUSTRY

WE ARE y t i n u m m o c ur

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WHERE THE ENTERTAINMENT AND TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY REUNITE Join us | show.ibc.org

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32

CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Česká Televize

Leading Czech pubcaster Česká Televize is doubling down on its di digital services and related c commissioning strategy as it seeks younger audiences.

By Gün Akyuz

A

dominant player in the Czech television landscape, public broadcaster Česká Televize (ČT, Czech Television) continues to attract a 30%-plus share of linear viewing, a lead it has held for some time despite its 14-year licence fee funding freeze.

“We have been a leader in the linear TV market, above 30%, for several years now in the 15-plus target group,” says Jan Maxa, director of content and new media. The country’s other dominant players are TV Nova and TV Prima, who battle it out on the commercial front.

Next year, however, ČT faces serious cutbacks to its on-screen services and channels, following the decision by the country’s recently elected coalition government not to carry out its preelection pledge to increase funding for public service broadcasting.

“We’re now having very serious management discussions about reducing costs and level of service. We still have money to produce original content and it’s not the end of Czech TV, but we may have to switch off certain channels or certain channels will have to become much more acquisition- and archive-focused,” says Maxa. ČT’s portfolio currently spans seven linear channels and an array of digital offerings. They include flagship mainstream net ČT1; its more highbrow sibling ČT2, for documentaries and quality drama acquisitions; archive–driven ČT3, launched in 2020 during the pandemic and attracting predominantly older audiences; news and sports channels ČT24 and ČT Sport; daytime kids’ channel ČT:D, targeting 4-12s; and arts and culture channel ČT Art, which takes over on the same frequency in the evenings.

The broadcaster’s free digital services include streaming and catch-up player iVysílání, plus the popular ČT Edu website, carrying a range of educational content including ČT’s own productions.

Maxa, who has been 10 years in the job, oversees all original content commissioning and development, including coproductions and pre-buys but excluding news, sports and acquisitions. Digital activities were added to his remit in April 2020. ČT faces the same challenges as other pubcasters when it comes to attracting younger teen and adult demos, and its new digital strategy is focused on strengthening its presence in those audiences, particularly 12-30s, says Maxa.

The pubcaster’s digital content strategy and the addition of digital-only content to its player have

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Czech points

Marie Terezie

We’re pretty open to talk about anything, as long as, in the Czech territory, we can present the content as something which is ours and done for Czech viewers.

“

Jan Maxa Česká Televize

been its most significant development of the past two years, according to Maxa.

To future-proof ČT it will be crucial to get the transition to digital right over the next three years.

This will mean significant developments to ČT’s digital strategy in 2022 and 2023, which will be “really transformational for our digital products,” Maxa says.

Despite its funding challenges, high-end scripted has remained a key differentiator for ČT. TV Nova offers some local competition with high-quality local drama productions on its VoD platform, but its reach is limited for now. Elsewhere, ČT’s linear commercial rivals focus on “cheaper” soaps or crime series, although this will change in the coming years, concedes Maxa. ČT commissions around 100 hours of drama annually for five slots in the ČT1 schedule. Its biggest drama hit in Q1 this year was crime drama Devadesátky (The 90s), an in-house production based on real events from that decade. ČT1’s Sunday slot is home to a broad range of high-end miniseries and TV movies, from crime to historical events, and a number of coproductions, including the historical Czech-Austrian copro Maria Theresia (locally Marie Terezie). Serialised in five parts, the drama launched in 2018 and

CONTENT CONFIDENTIAL: Česká Televize CO

Channel21 Ch Cha C hann ha nn ne ell21 l2 211 IIn 2 International nte te ter errn na nat attiion a io on o nal | Summer 2022

Left: Silk Films’ docuseries RapStory looks at the Czech rap scene. Below left: Thriller Ultimátum was coproduced with Slovakia’s Joj TV. Below right: Peče celá země (Bake Off) is now in its second season

concluded with a final episode on January 1 this year. ČT’s coproduction partners on this fifth instalment included ORF, ZDF-Arte and BetaFilm.

Airing in the slot since early March has been Czech Slovak thriller Ultimátum, a copro with Slovakia’s Joj TV and producer KFS Production.

A popular Monday night crime slot typically airs procedurals and episodic series. “Czechs love crime,” says Maxa. Also successful is a ČT1 slot on Fridays, home to feel-good family comedies or relationship dramas. Last year’s hit Kukačky (Cuckoos) attracted a 35.5% share of viewing. The 13x52’ series, from prodco Dramedy International, follows two families whose children were swapped at birth.

One of Maxa’s missions from day one was to develop ČT’s coproduction strategy. “Finding ways to partner with others and produce content with high production values, which at the same time is relevant to our viewers in a way that maybe acquired content wouldn’t be, is a very necessary part of our strategy,” he says.

As well as Germany’s Kika and its partners on Maria Theresia, ČT partnered on Euro drama The Pleasure Principle, which was produced by Poland’s Apple Film Production with Canal+ Poland and Ukraine’s Star Media, plus BetaFilm for international distribution and Arte as a buyer.

Lined up for ČT1’s Sunday slot thiss fall is the recently completed crime movie To New Shores, a coproduction with ORF and Arte. The Lotus Film production is set on the Czech-Austrian h-Austrian border and involves police from both countries, which made the project a “very natural coproduction,” says Maxa. ČT is also holding talks with regional egional German pubcaster MDR and iss codeveloping a range of dramas with h other

partners, such as BetaFilm and MR Film. “There’s a lot in development and we’re about to have a joint cross-pitching session with MDR,” says Maxa. ČT is open to copros outside its regional and German-language partners, says Maxa. “The question is where to look, because the further you get, the more difficult it is to find something that works organically. It’s easier to stay in the central European narrative space,” he adds.

In particular, ČT works regularly with neighbouring Slovakia, although funding opportunities are limited. “We do coproductions both with public and private broadcasters,” says Maxa, highlighting political thriller Ultimátum, coproduced with Joj TV. Another copro with Joj has been approved, this time a mystery crime series.

Maxa says Netflix has also approached ČT, with a view to “looking at the next tier of smaller territories with strange languages,” although this would mean ČT giving up its exclusive online licence.

“We’re pretty open to talk about anything, as long as, in the Czech territory, we can present the content as something that is ours and done for Teen drama TBH

Czech viewers, because that is the rationale of the participation of the public broadcaster,” says Maxa.

One area ČT wants to address is kids’ drama. “We very rarely inhabit this area for lack of money,” says Maxa. “When we do it, it’s very successful, but finding the financing is not easy.”

Potential partnerships are now being discussed with KiKa, building on their copro work on ČT’s hugely popular Christmas fairytale dramas.

While Maxa says ČT is covering its scripted bases pretty well, he adds: “With more money we could always do more content and maybe take more risks.” ČT’s digital player is where some of that risktaking is now taking place, with smaller, lower-cost drama. “It’s certainly a very welcome space for experiments,” says Maxa, citing ČT’s in-house teen series TBH (10x15’), inspired by the Norwegian series Skam.

For now, the focus of ČT’s digital commissions is shortform episodes of up to 15 minutes in drama and other genres, says Maxa. However, with no strict rules to follow, other lengths are being tested.

As well as strengthening its share of younger audiences, an important goal for the player is to attract new users with its original content, Maxa says. This includes docuseries RapStory (10×10’), about the Czech rap scene, produced by Silk Films.

Elsewhere in the unscripted space, ČT also adapts international formats, such as Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars) and Bake Off for ČT1. However, Maxa offers some specific advice: “The Czech market is very unforgiving towards entertainment formats, and many things that worked everywhere else didn’t work in the Czech market.” In particular, pure talent shows and flashy gameshows tend to have a very short lifespan.

“Especially on ČT, viewers have very strict ideas about abo what the public broadcaster should do in terms term of entertainment. They love it when quizshows that are not too funny or too we do qu entertaining. And they love Strictly Come Dancing, entertain which we do every one or two years. We are now season of Bake Off [Peče celá země], doing a second se which is aalso very successful.”

“The other way to make a successful entertainment format in our tough market is to entertain give iit a fairytale-ish quality,” says Maxa, citing Strictly Come Dancing’s more ‘Cinderella’ Stric with the competition element. feel compared c Off has the same warmness in it,” he “ “Bake also highlighting TV Nova’s long-running adds, al success with talent show Your Face Sounds su Familiar.

F

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Channel21 International | Summer 2022

My Big Break Vanessa Coffey Starting out as a lawyer has given Australian actor Vanessa Coffey the best tools to become one of the industry’s leading intimacy coordinators. By Nico Franks

O

riginally a lawyer, Vanessa Coffey retrained to become a ‘buffer’ between actors and directors working on intimate scenes in theatre, film and television, an on-set role that has been thrown into the spotlight by the emergence of the #MeToo and Times Up movements.

Coffey’s unusual route into the industry began when, with a background in corporate law, she retrained as an actor at Glasgow’s prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

It’s in Glasgow where Coffey now serves as an acting lecturer whilst working professionally as a movement director and actor, alongside her role as an intimacy coordinator on productions such as I Hate Suzie and Outlander.

Coffey collaborates with creatives to craft and choreograph intimate scenes in the same way dance or fight sequences have been orchestrated for decades, helping actors to feel safe in consensual environments on set, which has not always been the case – to the industry’s shame.

Having an intimacy coordinator involved in a production that features intimate scenes has quickly become the norm in the UK over the past two years, says Coffey, who has racked up 20 credits to her name in that time. But she adds that the approaches differ elsewhere in Europe, although other countries are catching up.

“The impression people had two years ago in the UK was that the intimacy coordinator was the fun police who would come in and put a stop to things happening,” she says. “But once people have experienced it and seen how collaborative it is, how it gets a really good, authentic product as well as keeping actors’ boundaries in place, they see the benefit of it.”

Coffey’s big break came when she was working as a lecturer and some of her ex-students, knowing she had a background in law, approached her to see if she would look at the section of their contracts that

Outlander

I’m seeing acceptance of the role and a real recognition from people that it isn’t just about boundaries. It’s also about authenticity.

“

Vanessa Coffey outline the parameters of nudity or simulated sex, otherwise known as ‘nudity riders.’

“We would sit down and talk about those sorts of things and then sometimes people would say, ‘I’ve got a simulated sex scene. Can you help me with the choreography? What are the boundaries? Can I talk to somebody about that?’” says Coffey.

This led her to join one of her former students on set to make sure everything went as it should. “So I kind of fell into the job in a way, by accident, just by doing things for friends or colleagues,” says Coffey.

An encounter with Scottish actor, producer, author and entrepreneur Sam Heughan led Coffey on to the set of Outlander, which she feels has particularly helped raise awareness around the role of the intimacy coordinator.

So too did a sketch on Saturday Night Live last year that sent up the role of intimacy coordinators, played by Pete Davidson and Mikey Day, on the set of Netflix’s Bridgerton during the pandemic.

“I actually really enjoyed that sketch. It took the mickey in a very fun way, but also kind of identified that there is a process in place that we do put there for safety and security, and that when the wrong person does it, that’s the result,” says Coffey, who contributed to the Directors UK guidelines on intimacy in the time of Covid-19.

Starz’s Outlander, along with Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla, have understandably kept Coffey busy over the past few years, given the steamy nature of the historical dramas.

“People feel more comfortable writing scenes when they know an intimacy coordinator is a possibility, because they feel confident that it will be dealt with appropriately,” says Coffey, who adds another reason our screens are getting steamier could be because viewers were starved of contact at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

Meanwhile, Coffey says the scope of what is deemed ‘intimate’ on-set is expanding, with actors now requesting a coordinator on set for scenes that involve recreations of torture, for example, and other potentially traumatic or emotionally sensitive scenes.

“I’m seeing acceptance of the role and a real recognition from people that it isn’t just about boundaries. It’s also about authenticity and what we can do as intimacy coordinators to help the scene look more beautiful and authentic,” she says.

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Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Above: Sandra Ouaiss. Right: Caro Nostra

E

lephant International is the latest addition to French producer Elephant, which makes shows such as La Stagiaire (The Intern) and Caro Nostra for France Télévisions and also counts documentary-focused Elephant Doc and Elephant Africa among its subsidiaries.

Launched in 2019 and headed by MD and executive producer Sandra Ouaiss, Elephant International is dedicated to the production of international series and coproductions, with a particular focus on projects for major SVoD platforms that are expanding into French originals.

Among them is Disney+, which commissioned its first French original series, comedy show Weekend Family, from Elephant International. A second season of the show, which follows the exploits of a chaotic, endearing “super-blended” family, has recently been commissioned by the streamer.

Ouaiss, who was previously a top executive at pay TV broadcaster Canal+, where she was drama acquisitions chief, says the second season of Weekend Family will make a big impact when it is made available in 2023.

“We are hoping that it will warm audiences and make them laugh like the first season did. The feelgood nature of the first season was good timing with audiences enjoying it due to the difficult couple of years with the pandemic and we hope to supply them with even more entertainment for season two,” she adds.

Spy thriller series Unit 8200, coproduced with Israeli firm Keshet, is another project Ouaiss predicts will make waves over the next three years.

The French-, English- and Hebrew-language series is an adaptation of the book of the same name by former Israeli spy Dov Alfon.

“It is very different from what is usually done in this genre as it’s filled with humour and characters with a lot of humanity. Prestigious casting will be announced later this year,” Ouaiss says.

Other upcoming projects include a series about masculinity adapted from a book by a “bestselling French author” that Elephant International is currently discussing with a platform and a drama

Three-Year Plan

Elephant Int’l MD and executive producer Sandra Ouaiss discusses the French firm’s upcoming projects for global SVoD services, as well as its role in the evolving superindie landscape. By Ruth Lawes titled Brigitte based on an unsolved case, a show Ouaiss compares to True Detective.

The company is determined to continue to “push the envelope in terms of both shape and form” when it comes to its content, says Ouaiss. In particular, the executive wants to expand its offering of femaleoriented thrillers, modern takes on comedy and bold human dramas in new arenas. On this slate is thriller Reset, a series in which a technology-related catastrophe disrupts the world.

As for coproductions, Ouaiss says there is not a “specific strategy” in place for the next three years.

Instead, Elephant works with partners based on “the love of a project or a story and the general feeling we have of the partners, because a coproduction is a long process,” she adds.

However, Ouaiss does hope to replicate the success achieved by its coproductions with US producer Veritas Entertainment Group and Spanish firm Brutal Media. With the former, Elephant International is coproducing an English-language drama based on a book by Stéphanie des Horts, while the latter has joined the production and development of Reset.

France is now arguably the home of the superindie, with the likes of Banijay Group and Federation headquartered in the country. As they

continue to snap up media firms left, right and centre and show no signs of slowing down, it could pose a threat to other French companies, but Ouaiss says that Elephant is not in competition with them.

“We are an independent production company which has grown in strength because of our multidiverse storytelling across fiction, documentary and branded content,” she explains.

“We are also a big team of producers and development executives where everyone brings their network, their tastes and their knowledge. This allows us to have a rich slate. The only thing that differentiates us from Banijay or Federation is that we don’t have a distribution subsidiary. But we play with this synergy with the other departments.”

This “synergy” comes into play in the documentary series Soprano: Sing or Die, which is produced by Breath Film, part of Elephant, for Disney+, according to Ouaiss The 6x45’ music series uses “traditional narrative fiction techniques within the documentary format” to follow one of France’s most popular recording artists, Soprano, as he and his crew get ready for a massive stadium tour this summer.

This provides another example of how the US streamers are engaging with local talent – a strategy only set to increase over the coming years.

BACKEND

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

Spanish production company Buendía Estudios is growing its slate of programming, partly thanks to a recently agreed deal with Universal International Studios. By Ruth Lawes

Development Slate

Buendía Estudios

M

adrid-based production company Buendía Estudios was launched by telecoms operator Telefónica and broadcaster Atresmedia in 2020, with both Spanish firms holding a 50% share.

Buendía’s aim is to create and produce content in Spanish targeted at the Spanish, Latin American and US Hispanic markets across a wide range of genres. “We produce drama, crime, comedy, period, young-adult, biopic, musical and we’re also seeing a trend for a return to melodrama,” sums up Sonia Martínez, its editorial director of series.

Content is produced for a broad portfolio of buyers, rather than for its owners, Telefónica and Atresmedia, which own pay TV network Movistar+ and SVoD platform AtresPlayer Premium respectively. “They do not have first-option rights.

We work independently in that sense and work on tailor-made projects for our clients,” Martínez says.

Broadcasters and streamers that have commissioned programming from Buendía include Warner Bros Discovery-owned SVoD platform HBO Max, which greenlit adult animation series Poor Devil. Created by Miguel Esteban, Joaquín Reyes and Ernesto Sevilla, the series centres on an ordinary boy who also happens to be the Antichrist.

Buendía also caught the eye of another USheadquartered firm, Universal International Studios, and signed a partnership with the NBCUniversal (NBCU)-owned producer in March. Under the deal, the two firms will co-develop and coproduce original Spanish-language series, in addition to adapting NBCU formats for the Spanish market.

“They are great partners, particularly for largescale projects that would be too big for us to make independently or for projects that are very international and aimed at the global market,” Laura Miñarro, VP of international coproduction at Buendía, says of the alliance.

Currently, Buendía has more than 30 projects in different stages of development and production.

Among them are Apagón (Offworld) for Movistar Plus+ and Las noches de Tefía (The Nights of Tefía) for AtresPlayer Premium.

Apagón (5x50’) follows five different characters who are struggling to adapt to a world without electricity, telecommunications or means of transportation following a solar storm that caused a widespread blackout. Spanish directors Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Raúl Arévalo, Isa Campo, Alberto Rodríguez and Isaki Lacuesta each direct an episode.

Set inside a Francoist labour camp, Las noches de Tefía follows prisoners as they escape into stories shared by a bunkmate of El Tindaya, an imagined cabaret where each one of the prisoners has an alter ego. The drama was created by screenwriter Miguel del Arco

Apagón (Offworld)

The focus is not on countries but on stories and character building. Just because a story is local doesn’t mean it can’t be of global interest, because in the end we are always talking about feelings and emotions that are shared on a human level.

“

Sonia Martínez (The Furies), who wrote the script with Antonio Rojano. Del Arco also serves as director alongside Rómulo Aguillaume.

Camilo Superstar is another recently commissioned drama, made by Atresmedia Televisión in collaboration with Buendía for Atresplayer Premium. Based on the real life of Spanish music star Camilo Sesto, the series is set in the mid-1970s when the singer put his meteoric

Laura Miñarro

Sonia Martínez

career on hold to produce and star in Jesus Christ Superstar in Spain, after seeing the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in London.

Producing and developing projects that appeal simultaneously to the Spanish, Latin American and US Hispanic markets is all down to characters and stories, according to Martínez.

“A quality programme with protagonists whose motivations and emotions are well developed has the potential to travel and resonate with audiences in any market. The focus is not on countries but on stories and character building. Just because a story is local doesn’t mean it can’t be of global interest, because in the end we are always talking about feelings and emotions that are shared on a human level,” she adds.

Similarly, Miñarro says Buendía’s approach to international coproductions is based on the stories, as well as talent, being relevant to all partners involved. “A coproduction shouldn’t just happen for the sake of it, it should be the consequence of the needs of a specific project, and we would never coproduce purely for the sake of finance,” she adds, saying that the main draw of a coproduction is the resources to produce more ambitious projects.

Buendía, which will be attending Conecta Fiction & Entertainment in Toledo in June, tends to coproduce with other European countries because of “the cultural proximity and the similarities in the approach to storytelling,” as well as Spanish-speaking territories, according to Miñarro.

“But it’s not always as simple as it seems because although we may speak the same language, different countries have different ways of approaching content,” she says.

37

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PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: Marjolein Duermeijer

How to fix Netflix T

hud. Screech. Squish. That was the Former Endemol sound of a stock drop, a collective Shine Group exec executive yelp and the ensuing beltMarjolein Duermeijer tightening we’ve seen at Netflix after it suggests why announced it could lose two million subscribers between April and June. The ideas it has to brands, not ads, are key for stop the bleeding aren’t going to save it, but a Netflix if the streamer wants to return to its innovative roots might. stop leaking subscribers.

Everybody has an opinion on what Netflix’s problem is. CNN pointed to inflation and tightening budgets; the New York Times pharmaceutical ads that are, honestly, an even ponders the viability of too many streaming worse experience than ads on network TV. And options. Netflix, in its letter to shareholders, if you have the nerve to run ads and charge for put the blame on a convergence of issues that the experience, you will lose people. Why not include too many homes without connected create something audiences not only tolerate TVs or broadband; password sharing that but may even enjoy?

Product placement already has a foothold in leaves money from 100 million households on the table; competition; and the dropping of Netflix’s world, but it is logistically challenging and can’t scale to the millions of content 700,000 Russian subscribers.

The Street thinks it has too many shows minutes Netflix has. It also limits the brands and not enough of them are great. There’s that can participate – not everyone has the something to that, especially now the studios budget of a Coke or an Apple. We are on are competing with their own streaming the precipice of personalised, customised platforms and aren’t exactly looking to help digital product placement, a viable solution for Netflix out. Also, let’s mention inefficiencies – creators, brands and audiences alike and the for example, Stranger Things reportedly costs evolution of including a sponsored product. For example, our hero could be US$30m per episode, Netflix must drinking Mountain Dew in which makes me worry the differentiate itself. the States and Orangina company’s accountants in France. There’s no are on extended holiday.

But merely offering new disruption to the story.

Is Netflix on course to ways to search content Netflix likes to say it become the next Kodak? I isn’t enough. It’s time for knows everything about don’t think so, but I know its subscribers, but that’s the answer isn’t a return to Netflix to passionately 1950s advertising models court its fickle audiences. not quite true. It knows everything about what or cracking down on password sharers, which will just alienate its they watch, but not what they buy. Of all the users more. It has to do what every streamer streamers, only Amazon (and maybe Apple) has to do to be competitive: create a better have that data built in. But Netflix can connect experience and increase revenue streams, viewing and buying habits via social listening because users are loyal to shows and stars, and other means. What else are Bridgerton fans interested in? Just follow the hashtags. not the platforms. Not yet.

That’s important because not all Consumers are being hit hard by staggering inflation upping the cost of their groceries, opportunities happen on screen. When I transportation and other necessities. Raising consulted for the show Peaky Blinders, a the price of a subscription now (as well as drama set in early 20th century England, limiting password-sharing options) will only we certainly weren’t going to see any Beatz headphones casually wrapped around drive customer sentiment into the ground.

But how to pay for rising costs without Thomas Shelby’s neck. But tweedy fashion took off and suddenly everyone wanted a natty gouging consumers?

Netflix must differentiate itself from the vest and cap.

There’s lots of room for brand affinity when competition. But merely offering new ways to search content isn’t enough. It’s time for Netflix and where it’s appropriate to the story. The same can go for music, set dressing, books – to passionately court its fickle audiences.

What about a loyalty programme that the list is endless, and each purchase through rewards users with exclusive content, a QR code or link counts as quantifiable data.

Creative advertising through digital discounts and perhaps even prizes? HBO Max successfully rolled out a half-price subscription placement is also a boon for producers who for life in parts of Europe – a helpful deterrent may not have the backing of a big studio. It’s to ‘churn,’ or the act of quitting the service a renewable resource that can help elevate revenue and attract talent. once a favourite show’s season is over.

It’s a win all around. Because nobody, and Elsewhere, brands will be key to Netflix’s survival, just as they are to almost every other I mean nobody, anywhere in the entire world streamer. But streamers have defaulted to wants to see that itchy-skin commercial four linear TV advertising. Think endless, repetitive times in an hour.

“

Channel21 International | Summer 2022

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