A Dynamic approach to financing international scripted

Dynamic Television founder Dan March explains how leaning into international incentives has helped the LA-based indie studio build its busiest production and distribution slate to-date, and how it is adapting amid the reality that “content values are decreasing.”

In the midst of a sustained industry downturn characterised by fewer green lights, strategic paralysis among buyers, never-ending job cuts and independents being forced to shut up shop, LA-based Dynamic Television is enjoying the best run in its 12-year history.

The company, led by founder and managing partner Dan March, is currently producing, coproducing or distributing 12 series across eight countries. They include Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia, Peacock’s Revival, Apple TV+’s Drops of God, Hallmark’s The Twelve Dates of Christmas and Acorn TV’s Art Detective and Harry Wild, as well as Ms X for New Zealand’s Three and The Sommerdahl Murders from Germany’s ZDF and Denmark’s TV2.

The purple patch is due, in part, to the market shift that has seen streamers and studios adopting a less rigid approach to rights, according to March, in the wake of the dual Hollywood strikes in 2023 and the end of so-called peak TV.

“Ironically, we’ve been able to capitalise on the pullback from studios and/or streamers wanting to own shows globally,” he tells C21. “An opportunity from that pullback is that specific channels are looking to spread some of their investment around a little bit, where they only have to own certain rights, and therefore we can come in and co-finance and produce shows at slightly lower costs.”

However, Dynamic’s recent success is also down to hard-won expertise working with international tax credits, which has become a survival requirement for drama producers in today’s landscape. Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia have all become key territories for Dynamic Television as the market has contracted.

“All these territories have very robust, critical incentives, and if it weren’t for those programmes, we would not be able to finance these series,” he says.

In Australia, Dynamic last year launched a scripted development scheme for local producers and writers in partnership with federal funding agency Screen Australia, with Easy Tiger Productions’ original comedy project How to Kill a Client landing funding earlier this year.

The company also made its first moves into the Spanish-language market earlier this year, partnering with Spanish prodco Plana a Plano on the drama series Innate. Netflix picked up the exclusive rights to the project in Spain, with Dynamic handling distribution in the rest of the world.

March says Dynamic would like to do more in the Spanish and Latin American markets, though that is easier said than done. The company has been trying to crack Brazil market but has hit a roadblock with financing.

“We developed an amazing show but we have not yet been successful in getting it financed, in part because there are fewer commissioners in Brazil. So we don’t have success in every territory we try to produce or coproduce in. Ultimately, it has to be dictated by the quality of the partner, and that the creative can travel globally,” he explains.

Regardless of territory, money continues to be tight, forcing independent studios like Dynamic to lean heavily on tax credits and other incentives.

“There remains tremendous pressure on budgets when you’re producing shows outside of the high-value streamer ecosystem,” says March. “We have partners who want a certain product at a certain price point, and it’s our job to deliver that. Incentives and soft money have never been more important in terms of being able to round out budgets at a time when content values are declining.”

Asked to unpack why he feels the value of content is in decline, March frames it in two ways. First, and most logically, linear audiences are shrinking and therefore the advertising dollars that are placed against that content are drying up.

Second is a phenomenon that March describes as the “commoditisation” of content, whereby series are valued primarily by the number of subscribers they attract and retain, compared with the windowing model.

“Studios and streamers have taken the content they used to monetise through transactions – whether you’re selling movie tickets, windows, advertising – and moved all that content behind paywalls, and in doing so we’ve shifted the monetisation of content from a transactional model to a commoditisation model,” he says.

“That big macroeconomic shift has made the value of content a commodity, and that’s been a challenge that studios have to this day – and even independents like Dynamic are dealing with that challenge as well.

“Think about it this way: 10 or 15 years ago, if ABC made a TV show, they had the US rights, the studio had backend/worldwide rights, they would sell off-network, sell to broadcasters all over the world, and then windows would come in and out. They were trying to build high-value assets with those investments by trying to transact on those shows for as long as possible, building big libraries.

“Today, they make an investment in that product, and what does it do? It sits behind a streaming service for the next 15 years, not generating any additional value, which obviously creates angst around upside, but also doesn’t generate any specific value in relation to the exploitation of that product, because that product is used strictly to try to sell subscribers.”

March believes the challenges around making profitable series is what is driving the reinvestment in film, where there are more potential avenues to monetisation after a movie plays in theatres. “There’s a lot more upside now in film than in TV,” he claims.

“With content values declining, and cost always creeping up, incentives are instrumental in almost every show – if not every show – we produce.”

While there is certainly “angst around upside” in TV, Dynamic has fought hard to retain rights in an era when it has been very difficult to do so, particularly for independents.

The company started out as a distributor before branching into production, so rights ownership is in some ways part of its DNA. Aside from Ginny & Georgia and Drops of God, it has distributed all of the shows it produces or executive produces. That focus on rights retention has given the company an advantage as it has looked to build long-term value.

It is, however, a case of balancing the two things, with March noting that Dynamic prefers to own and distribute its own shows but also likes working with global streamers that typically fully finance the programme and hold on to the IP.

“Would we like to produce more shows for streamers? Who wouldn’t? The economics can be attractive, the budgets can be larger, but we do trade that off against producing it in an independent model, where we are able to retain IP and ultimately build some asset value,” says March.

Against such a challenging industry backdrop, international producers have been forced to think long and hard about developing projects that meet the needs of buyers. For many, including Dynamic, that has meant refocusing on projects with clearly demonstrable commercial appeal and putting [other] genres, for example, ambitious or big-budget sci-fi, on the backburner.

“We’ve experimented a lot but a couple of years ago we realised that, as the market constricts, we need to lean into shows that are commercial and can really travel. Every buyer in the world, whether you’re a streamer or broadcaster, has a challenge of being able to attract audiences to content, and it’s easier to attract audiences to commercial, mainstream, broad genres like crime thrillers, suspense and mystery, and romcom can work as well,” says March.

“And as we leaned back into those commercial genres, we saw our slate getting a few more green lights. Those commercial genres reach the broadest audience and in a tough market, it’s a good strategy to focus on them.”

Upcoming projects include the second season of Drops of God and Brooke Shields-led crime drama Allie & Andi (Acorn TV), with March noting that Dynamic has several other titles that appear, at this stage at least, to be “moving to a fast green light for early 2026.”

Having forged a wide network of contacts among creators, coproducers and buyers globally, Dynamic has been able to fine-tune its development process to give itself the best chance of success. Of course, everything is contingent on the strength of the project being pitched, says March, but the company has built meaningful expertise in knowing where it can tap into international incentives that can create a financing plan that makes sense.

“We really like to develop shows with specific partners in mind. So, oftentimes broadcasters will articulate a specific need for us, and then, as we try to develop for that need, we have a good sense of what budget we’re trying to develop for and where that story might take place, whether it’s a North American, European or Australian story,” he says.