LONDON SCREENINGS: Here we catch up with senior programming executives from broadcasters in Norway and Iceland to hear how their content strategies and development slates are evolving, the impact of the economy and the trends they see in the market.

Marianne Furevold-Boland
Head of drama, NRK, Norway

What have been the biggest changes in the Nordic TV industry over the past year?
The major streaming services, like Viaplay and HBO, which previously invested heavily in Nordic drama, chose to shift their drama strategy, highlighting our vulnerability as an industry in an ever-changing media landscape. It’s disheartening for the audience, talent and the industry that there is currently a drop in drama commissions. However, this provides us with momentum to explore new structures for production, budgeting and financing, ensuring the quality of storytelling, and working even more closely with the industry to discover the series our shared audience deserves.

How has the economic situation impacted your commissioning?
Over the past year we have had to postpone the broadcast period for some series. This means the bottleneck is a bit tighter in the coming years, which will have consequences for the volume of orders. However, this does not mean we will not continue to develop and, together with the industry, excel in selecting the best projects for our audience. We adhere to a long-term budget and NRK’s strategic priorities.

Love story So Long, Marianne was inspired by the Leonard Cohen song

How is your coproduction strategy evolving?
It is evident we have much to gain from coproduction with our colleagues beyond our borders. This has been done with great success through the Nordic public broadcaster collaboration, N12, for several years. In addition to having close relationships and coproductions with public broadcasters in Europe, we are now also launching New8, a collaboration with the Nordic countries as well as broadcasters from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

NRK’s mandate is to strengthen and develop our democracy. We believe in the power of drama as a tool to convey deep emotions, ideas and societal critique. Together with European pubcasters, we can create stories that make a difference. These collaborations are not only an economic relationship; through coproduction we can create quality content for audiences across borders. There are many learning points in such a community, and together we can enhance drama production and nurture talent.

What projects do you have in development?
We have many interesting projects in development. So Long, Marianne is a drama series about the love story that inspired Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s iconic song. Heajastallan is a dark comedy series about a dysfunctional family coming together to host a traditional Sámi wedding in Kautokeino. Foreigners follows a young Pakistani engineer who struggles to secure a job in his home country, but fate grants him a ticket to Norway. Furthermore, Peacekeepers is set during the civil war in Bosnia and follows a 21-year-old Norwegian medical officer tasked with the evacuation of a handful of children.

Heajastallan centres on a dysfunctional family hosting a Sámi wedding

What are your company’s plans, priorities and developments for 2024?
We will continue to gather and engage everyone living in Norway, and hopefully inspire with content that no one else creates. Through our drama series we aim to challenge our audience to see the world from different perspectives, open their minds to new ideas and ask questions that can change their view of the world.

We will continue to be daring and take risks, in our stories, with our formats and with talents. It’s only by being proactive we can move forward and create surprising and relevant content. In a world that is becoming increasingly polarised and challenging, we can, with our stories, contribute to creating spaces for reflection, conversations and hope. It is a task I approach with the utmost humility.

Skarphéðinn Guðmundsson
Head of TV, RUV, Iceland

What have been the biggest changes in the Nordic TV industry over the past year?
Thankfully, there’s no lack of stories or talent, but our ongoing challenges are to finance and distribute content in such a ‘foreign’ language. We’ve seen a breakthrough in audience willingness to try new things, but interesting stories – taking place in a different location with subtitles – are still up against conservative and hesitant broadcasters and streamers, mainly because of the fear of failing and limited capacity and support to take chances.

How is your company responding to these challenges?
We’re focusing even more on our uniqueness and local identity instead of trying to adapt and appeal too much to the international market. We do this by focusing even more on finding stories, original local stories, hoping they might have a broader appeal.

How has the growth of AVoD and FAST impacted your company?
It really has enabled us to put more emphasis on our obligations and special position as a public broadcaster. We will never be able to compete on their terms, and this is fine, since so much of what they do has never been part of public broadcasting. We are not a VoD service but primarily a provider of new, original, current, daring and, hopefully, groundbreaking local and international content, which we then strive to put into further context by offering a selection of similar older titles. By implementing and focusing even more on this strategy we have managed to strengthen our position and our identity as a public broadcaster with different and more important responsibilities than other content providers.

How has the state of the economy affected your commissioning?
Just as our budget has decreased or remained unchanged, production costs have increased drastically, making commissioning, producing and financing even more challenging than before.

RUV is involved in a sequel to Icelandic period drama Blackport

How is your coproduction strategy evolving?
Being the public broadcaster operating in the smallest market of all the N12 and now the New8 alliance [companies], we have had to take the most drastic measures to adapt to these collaborations, and our coproduction strategy is, in the most part, based on this.

What projects do you have in development?
As a coproducer, we are developing sequels to highly successful series Balls, Happily Never After and Blackport. Furthermore, Vigdis is an eight-part biopic about Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the world’s first democratically elected female president, and Felix & Klara is a comedy-drama about an estranged couple moving into a retirement home.

What are your company’s priorities for 2024?
We are maintaining our strategy of focusing on original local content: drama, factual and current affairs, as well as innovative European drama and documentaries. The Minister season two will be our big drama in 2024.

What will be the biggest challenges and opportunities for TV in 2024?
Living up to the high expectations and demand for original, innovative stories in an ever-changing and increasingly challenging business – especially for smaller and local markets.