Local roads to global destinations

The challenge for Netflix’s European unscripted teams in 2023 remains unchanged, namely how do you commission something that resonates with the local subscribers in your territory while also having the potential to feed its service around the world?

Netflix peppers its offering with local versions of formats with strong international potential, such as breakout US/UK show Too Hot to Handle, remade in Brazil and Mexico, or Love is Blind, which has been produced in the US, Brazil, Japan and Sweden.

Local is a key word for Dolores Emile, manager of Netflix’s unscripted content in France, who has overseen a French adaptation of Channel 4 format The Circle and a local remake of US hip hop music format Rhythm & Flow. In the everpopular true crime space, Emile has commissioned a doc series on Monique Olivier, the wife of prolific French serial killer Michel Fourniret.

“We are looking for local, impactful, ambitious stories that have to resonate for our local French audience,” Emile says. “I get a lot of pitches from international production companies but it’s important to reiterate that, for France, and Spain, we’re looking for local stories.

“We want to empower our creative communities, it’s important for us to be impactful for our audience and have stories that can resonate in French culture – stories that have an impact on society, say something

Netflix’s unscripted commissioners in Europe continue to seek out shows that work for local audiences but can also feed the streamer’s global subscriber base.

By Clive Whittingham

about the system we live in and the society we live in at a moment in time.”

“The best ideas on Netflix are the ones that are simple and you can understand them just from the top line. We often find ourselves leaning into the heart and humour. We like an idea that asks a tricky question and has juicy moments, but the best thing is there can be a laugh in there as well.”

For Álvaro Díaz, director of unscripted series in Spain, there are key differences between what’s on offer locally on traditional broadcast television and what Netflix is doing in other European territories.

“In Spain, big formats and reality shows can have three outings a week, and they can be up to four hours in length,” Díaz explains. “On Netflix, you can watch a whole series of one of our shows in the time it takes you to do one of those. So it’s definitely not about replicating. For us, it’s about innovating, keeping our members in mind and the ways they want to consume the content. When a show resonates locally it usually travels, but my main focus is just on Spain.”

Díaz says variety underscores Netflix’s formats and factual originals strategy so far in Spain, where it is seeking to offer “a fresh take on the formats audiences know and love.”

“We want to make the best version of a dating show like Too Hot to Handle, a true crime series like Dónde está Marta?, a competition show like Nailed It!, or a docusoap like Soy Georgina. We are open, and eager, to take bets on new ideas,” says the exec, who adds that Spanish audiences are keen to see reality, competition, relationships and high stakes.

While there have been quite worthy conversations in the unscripted industry about ‘authenticity’ in reality series for some time, Díaz says: “In Spain, we don’t care about the ‘why,’ we care about the juiciness, and the more of it we have the better. I’m not proud but it is like that.”

The back-end of 2022 saw Netflix confirm a move into live broadcasting for the first time with a Chris Rock comedy special. The comedian, writer, director and actor will be the first artist to perform on Netflix in its first live global streaming event, scheduled for March 4.

Díaz and Emile say it is “very early days” for Netflix in the live space, but Daisy Lilley, director of unscripted series in the UK, is in the market for a singing competition show, the likes of which have dominated Saturday night TV in the UK for the last 20 years.

Recent launches out of the UK include Dance Monsters, a talent show with a CGI twist, while an unscripted format version of breakout Korean drama series Squid Game is in the pipeline.

The exact details of Squid Game: The Challenge remain a closely guarded secret, beyond the fact it is being coproduced with UK- and US-based Studio Lambert (The Circle) and that contestants need to be able to speak English and “win or lose, all players will leave unscathed” – which must be a relief for Netflix’s lawyers.

UK-based TriForce worked across three productions spanning three different genres in 2022, namely documentary Handle With Care: Jimmy Akingbola for UK commercial broadcaster ITV; Dead Canny, a sitcom pilot for UKTV-owned Dave; and panel show Sorry, I Didn’t Know, also for ITV.

Renewals are a key pillar of any development slate, but as Fraser Ayres points out, programming fronted by black talent is often less likely to return compared to other kinds of programming. That’s what made making a third season of Sorry, I Didn’t Know in 2022 so satisfying and Ayres is hopeful for a fourth run for the studio format that celebrates black history and achievement.

While a new home is being sought for Dead Canny, which follows a questionable young psychic who has the ability to see dead people, Handle With Care is being developed as a returning format with ITV, reveals Ayres, who as well as being MD and co-founder of TriForce is also an actor, writer and showrunner.

The show began with an episode focusing on Ayres’ fellow TriForce co-founder and actor Jimmy Akingbola, who as well as hosting Sorry, I Didn’t Know, can be seen playing Geoffrey Thompson in Bel-Air, Peacock’s gritty, modern-day reinterpretation of 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The deeply personal film traces the journey of Akingbola, who, at the age of two, was uprooted from his Nigerian family and fostered by a white British family who raised him alongside their birth children.

As the title suggests, Handle With Care aims to approach subjects such as foster care – which in other hands might be framed in a ‘clickbait-y’ way to draw in viewers – with consideration and show them in a more positive light.

The result was a film that the press described as “raw” and “extremely moving,” with ITV now keen to develop the format into a strand of films that focus on the different lived experiences of well-known, diverse figures in a warm and positive way.

“What our content shows is a shift from broadcasters in terms of the kind of content they’re commissioning, which is really positive. Previously, when those kinds of experiences are shown, it’s through the lens of oppression and often not made by the people from those demographics.

“Actually, black people don’t really want to see those stories. They’re important, like Black History Month is important, but I’m tired of seeing people being whipped. I want to see our kings and queens and pioneers. Our success speaks to that shift,” says Ayres.

Crucial to Ayres was that TriForce was allowed to produce these projects on its own, rather than being asked to coproduce with or have its hand held by a prodco with a longer credit list but an inevitably less diverse workforce.

TriForce focuses on developing diversity and inclusivity (D&I) on- and off-camera and, via its notfor-profit arm TriForce Creative Network, is behind