Programming Profile

With drama continuing to entice worldwide audiences, what will be the next global hit like Squid Game? Executives from companies including Banijay and ITV Studios share their thoughts on the latest trends in scripted.

The golden age of television drama doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon judging by the past year, with many broadcasters and platforms seeing their scripted offerings break records.

Among these was Line of Duty producer World Productions’ submarine-set drama Vigil, which was UK pubcaster the BBC’s most-watched show in three years. Then of course there’s that barely discussed South Korean survival drama Squid Game, viewed by 142 million subscribers in its first four weeks, becoming the most-viewed Netflix show in history. But what is the next big hit in drama?

Crime dramas are here to stay but not in their usual format, according to executives. Counteracting grisly investigations focused on gruesome murders will be crime series that are irreverent or comedic.

Examples of these include HBO’s dark-comedy murder series The Flight Attendant, which stars The Big Bang Theory actor Kaley Cuoco and is produced by Cuoco’s Yes, Norman Productions, Warner Bros Television and Berlanti Productions, and Disney+’s Only Murders in the Building. Produced by Disney Television Studios’ 20th Television, the latter comedy, which stars Selena Gomez and Steve Martin, centres on three strangers who share an obsession with true crime and who suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one when a murder occurs in their New York apartment building.

Emmanuelle Guilbart, joint-CEO and founder of Paris-based producer and distributor About Premium Content (APC), agrees that humorous crime stories are on the up. As a seller, she says that The Unusual Suspects, an Australian female-led comedy crime series she describes as “Desperate Housewives staging a heist,” has been popular among buyers. The Aquarius Films-produced title has been sold to broadcasters including Hulu for the US, Bell Media for Canada, Rialto in New Zealand, OCS in France, Filmin in Spain, AMC Networks International Southern Europe in Spain and Portugal and Streamz and Proximus in Belgium. APC handles sales around the world.

Meanwhile, Jeff Cooke, who as VP of international programming at Starz oversees content on the Lionsgate-owned firm’s direct-to-consumer service StarzPlay, is on the hunt for a crime caper series in the style of Rian Johnson’s hit whodunnit movie Knives Out.

“I don’t think that genre has been perfected in a way yet on television, where there is a mix of big stars and a great story, as well as a mix of drama and comedy,” he explains. “Nordic Noir has been done over and over again, and while it’s a well-loved genre and is still often produced very well, a comedic crime story like Knives Out told in a longer format could be excellent. We’re definitely seeking a show in that vein.”

Outside of the comedy, there is a growing appetite for shows that tackle societal issues, such as the environment and diversity, according to Lars Blomgren, head of scripted at Banijay. The trend has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, which provided a prolonged period of introspection for people to examine flaws at the heart of society.

An example of such a show is Banijay Nordic-owned prodco Rubicon’s Norwegian series Countrymen, a coproduction between local pubcaster NRK and French cultural broadcaster Arte. The eight-part series sees four Muslim men move to a farm in rural Norway where they set up the country’s first halal cheesemaking business. “It’s a story about inclusion,” Blomgren says. “It’s about the men adapting to a completely different world in a warm and funny way.”

Rodrigo Herrera Ibarguengoytia, senior acquisitions and coproduction manager at Red Arrow Studios International, agrees that social upheaval will be covered more on screen. He says that shows structured like William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies are gaining traction.

“Shows that explore how an event alters sociopolitical dynamics in the long term are becoming more popular as they’re very much at the forefront of audiences’ minds,” Ibarguengoytia adds. In this space, Red Arrow shops German-language thriller Blackout – Tomorrow Is Too Late, based on Marc Elsberg’s bestselling novel. Produced by W&B Television (The Lives of Others, Dark), the drama sees the past catch up with a former hacker when a sudden blackout plunges Europe into darkness.

In recent years, Israeli dramas such as Homeland (Prisoners of War) and Canadian comedies like Schitt’s Creek have burst on the world stage, winning over critics and audiences alike. But now the hunt is on for the next territory for a breakout hit. There is talk in some quarters of Central and Eastern European producers being the ones to watch. Already CEE production companies such as Croatia’s Drugi Plan have secured commissions with global players.

Drugi Plan’s drama The Paper, about political corruption, crime and betrayal and set in the office of a daily newspaper, was sold to Netflix by distributor Keshet International. Nebojša Taraba, producer and partner at Drugi Plan, reveals there were also discussions about a US remake of The Paper, with NBCUniversal ordering a pilot script. However, the show didn’t get the green light during pilot season.

Elsewhere, the Zagreb-based company produced drama Success, HBO Europe’s first Adriatic original series. Shortly after the commission, Germany-based prodco and distributor Beta Film acquired a majority stake in Drugi Plan, in February 2020, supporting its rise as a well-regarded producer.

Executives also point to Poland as a potential major producer of drama, with Netflix naming it as one of the top 10 countries whose content was most popular among its US subscribers over the past year. Polish successes on the global streamer include romantic comedy film Squared Love, produced by Banijay’s Endemol Shine Polska. It was watched by 31 million households in the first quarter alone this year, according to figures from Netflix.

“Poland has a fantastic tradition of storytelling and cinema which translates well into high-end drama, and Polish producers are used to working with big budgets to a high quality,” Banijay’s Blomgren says of the appeal of Polish programming.

The only slight bump in the road is that books, widely regarded as one of the strongest sources of IP for series, from CEE countries do not have the same international recognition – and therefore appeal – as, say, the next novel by Normal People writer Sally Rooney. That’s the opinion of Gábor Krigler, a former HBO Europe producer who founded his own prodco, Budapest-based Joyrider Television, in 2019.

“In bigger territories, books and movies sell well,” he explains, “But in countries like Hungary, movies do not travel, aside from arthouse ones, and novels are not widely read elsewhere.” It means that the exec prefers and largely produces projects based on original IP.

In the US, however, buyers are commissioning more programming based on news articles, such as Amazon’s anthology series Modern Love, born out of the long-running New York Times column of the same name, according to Sandra Ouaiss, MD and executive producer at French firm Elephant International. But she adds that article IP hasn’t taken off in Europe, where local remakes are instead highly sought-after.

In France, for example, a local version of ITV crime drama Marcella, titled Rebecca, has been commissioned by TF1, where it is being produced by Elephant. “There will always be demand for good stories told in a local way with local talent,” Ouaiss explains.

While global audiences have long had an interest non-English-language dramas – it is VoD platform Walter Presents’ raison d’être, for example – an emerging trend is for programmes to be produced in two or more languages. ITV Studios (ITVS)-owned Italian prodco Cattleya made drug-trafficking drama ZeroZeroZero, which takes place across three continents and six countries and features six languages.

Lisa Perrin, MD of international production at ITVS, says multilingual programmes feel more authentic. “It’s exciting and feels more real as the drama has more complexity. We’re going to see more multilingual drama,” she predicts.

But for Starz’s Cooke, some multilingual projects can feel forced; an unnatural product of serving multiple international coproducers. In other words, it could spell the return of Europudding content. “It’s a growing trend and a lot of it is driven by economics because the only way to fund a production is through finding coproduction partners,” he says. “It can be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen or a box-ticking exercise to satisfy all the partners at the cost of the integrity of the show.” As a result, Cooke says that Starz will only work with one other coproducer.

Elsewhere in the world of coproductions, companies are increasingly forging unusual alliances. This includes rival players teaming up, such as Netflix and Peacock on Australia-set crime Irreverent and StarzPlay and Canal+ jointly commissioning French comedy drama All Those Things We Never Said. The secret to success when sleeping with the enemy is to remain open-minded about windowing.

Starz’s Cooke says Canal+ has the first window in France with All Those Things We Never Said, while StarzPlay has the first window for the rest of the world. “When we’re working with a partner that’s complementary, we don’t think it’s cannibalistic if they go first and we go second,” he says.

ITVS’s Perrin says that smaller broadcasters will have to team up with major players as they are unable to stump up the same vast budgets. Competition, instead, will focus around windowing strategy. “The windowing of who takes the premiere, where the show lives and who buys the long tail will become increasingly important,” Perrin says.

But, like Starz’s Cooke, Perrin doesn’t believe taking the second window impacts business, because viewers are largely platform-agnostic. “If audiences have missed a show the first time around, they’ll happily binge-watch it over another week on a different platform,” she adds.