HBO moves into Scandi production

HBO miniseries Burning Bush

HBO is moving into production in Scandinavia as the Time Warner-owned premium pay TV provider steps up the activities of its European operations.

HBO Europe, which runs channels in 15 countries and the HBO Nordic OTT service in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, will now seek to produce locally in the latter territories.

The company currently makes around one drama series a year out of production hubs in Prague, Warsaw, Budapest and Bucharest, and is now building on this following the consolidation last month of HBO Europe, HBO Nordic and HBO Netherlands under new CEO Hervé Payan.

“Our production footprint is going to expand and we’re going to do some local production in the Scandinavian region,” said HBO Europe executive VP of original programming and production Antony Root.

“We will be focusing on things that speak to those local audiences, where English-language programming does not speak to them as directly.”

The exec was speaking on a Drama Series Days panel session at the Berlin International Film Festival organised together with the European Film Market and chaired by C21.

Antony Root

“It’s early days, but we’re in the process of looking at scripts and meeting with producers. The Nordic region has had some of the most exceptional programming over the last 10 years, so it makes sense that we should offer that audience something also.”

Root has overseen the development of locally produced originals including Burning Bush in the Czech Republic in 2013, Polish thriller Wataha (The Pack) in 2014 and now Pustina (Wasteland), also set for the Czech Republic.

These are in addition to local adaptations including remakes of Israeli drama In Treatment in Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, a Romanian version of Australian drama Small Time Gangster (Umbre) and Czech and Polish versions of Norwegian crime series Mammon.

The move to produce in Scandinavia, where the company’s OTT service has some 650,000 subscribers, comes as HBO steps up its rivalry with Netflix – recently revealing it will launch an OTT offering in Spain.

That development could well be followed by a similar move into production there as HBO’s international operations seek to increase their local drama output in line with their US parent’s domestic intent.

Additional reporting by Jules Grant.

For a closer look at HBO Europe’s production plans and an in-depth interview with Antony Root, see our recent ScheduleWatch Channel Profile.