Programming Profile

With classic drama series providing much-needed comfort to audiences under lockdown during the pandemic, how much longevity does this trend have? Oli Hammett talks to distribution execs to find out how the pandemic has changed demand for library content.

Classic drama series like Breaking Bad, Spooks and The Sopranos were in high demand last year as productions all over the world were forced to stop. The celebrated HBO mafia drama, for instance, was named as the hottest show of 2020 by GQ magazine despite concluding way back in 2007.

With fewer new shows slated, 2020 was dubbed “the year of the re-watch” as broadcasters and streamers turned to award-winning hits in the hope they would appeal to new, younger audiences as well as the people who saw them when they originally aired.

“Broadcasters were left with huge holes in their schedules and at ITV Studios we are very fortunate to have such a wealth of titles at our disposal,” says Julie Meldal-Johnsen, executive VP of global content at the producer and distributor.

“We’ve seen buyers coming to us about shows they may not have bought before, and we’ve been through a number of stages since lockdown began. Early on, news and documentary content was in high demand as people looked for guidance and answers, but shows that enable escapism, with comforting or familiar characters, have since grown in popularity.”

As well as increased demand for classic dramas, there was also an upturn in collective viewing as people banded together with their families and housemates in the face of uncertainty, seeking out content they could all enjoy. This, according to All3Media’s executive VP of EMEA, Stephen Driscoll, drove demand for classic series among streamers in particular.

“Consumption of content went up in general during lockdown, as it was the year that supercharged SVoD platforms,” he says. “People suddenly weren’t wanting to watch the news every night and they wanted something comforting. We saw an increase in demand for shows of ours like Midsomer Murders and All Creatures Great & Small, for that view of a bucolic England.

“We saw several international buyers relicensing those shows, especially our traditional buyers who were looking to build out their catch-up services. They needed to expand to offer something else to their housebound viewers who were wanting more than one episode of something.”

And it wasn’t just VoD platforms wanting classic shows, with distributors everywhere noting high demand from traditional buyers to fill empty schedules. According to Jack Davison of media analysis firm 3Vision, this is still very much the case.

“Anecdotal evidence from broadcasters tells me that classic dramas have never been in such high demand, especially among the traditional buyers,” he says. “Previously, SVoD buyers were very happy to take shows in their second window, as you would always have an audience that hadn’t seen it. Now, though, platforms promote the first window so heavily that there’s no value in local broadcasters having the show afterwards.

“If SVT in Sweden buys a show, Netflix will still retain the newest season plus all the original ones, so people will finish it there. Buyers are actually being pushed commercially to open their eyes to slightly older shows, because they will do better for them.”

Buyers old and new are seeking out the next untapped gem in classic drama, and one of the most impressive things about the genre is how wide its appeal is. Whether a detective procedural like Midsomer Murders or a high-octane rollercoaster like Breaking Bad, there is as much appeal in these series for those who have never seen them before as there is for those who watched them first time around.

According to Claire Jago, executive VP of EMEA sales and acquisitions at global distributor Banijay Rights, young viewers have been the biggest new audience for classic drama series.

“People last year were watching TV at a different time of day than they normally would,” she says. “Young people were suddenly watching in the middle of the afternoon, but schedulers were never going to take viewing away from older people who might have been feeling lonely.

“This led to young people discovering shows they never would have done before, like our show A Place to Call Home, which is an Australian period drama. It’s not too taxing or horrific and it’s something nice to embed yourself in.”

Whatever caused the boom in classic content, execs agree it’s here to stay. Most say that it was an important part of their slate pre-pandemic, and that Covid didn’t necessarily affect the amount of this content buyers acquired last year. However, the popularity of these series definitely increased. Indeed, the popularity of older, more comforting shows could give buyers and commissioners a whole new demographic to target.

“As well as younger people, buyers are after older audiences,” says Davison. “Some digital services’ memberships are plateauing or even struggling to maintain subscribers, and to grow further they need to reach older audiences too. Classic drama could be a very effective way of doing that.

“You can never be sure what will happen with your classic archive – look at Norman Wisdom in Albania. He became the king of TV there, as it was one of the only Western shows allowed to be watched behind the Iron Curtain. Streamers could tap into a whole new audience through classic drama, and that’s arguably why traditional broadcasters are focusing more on reality and entertainment. It’s a new genre, and something more difficult for Netflix to compete with.”

With the production industry now opening up again, where does classic IP go from here? Will it ever have its moment in the sun again? Jago thinks so, as there is an ever-growing source of classic content.

“Classic IP is incredibly important to us,” she says. “We have a lot of foreign-language drama, which was another phenomenon seen last year. It’s not just Nordic noir anymore – Italy, France and others are making high-quality shows. Not being able to film here and there meant we had to fill in some gaps, and that broadened people’s horizons.

“We also saw an upswing in demand for series of ours like The Fall, which was rediscovered by so many people, along with Broadchurch. Broadchurch stars Olivia Colman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Jodie Whittaker, who were all relatively unknown then. It’s nice for viewers to have that realisation too, as they feel like they’re discovering actors early.”

ITV Studios is also continuing to experience strong demand for its catalogue shows. “There has been no drop-off in demand at all in the last 12 months,” says Meldal-Johnsen. “We have ‘whodunnit’ series like Poirot and Miss Marple that have been sold in over 100 countries each.

“Apart from that, crime shows like Line of Duty and Bodyguard have been highly sought-after as the global crime trend continues. In the Asia-Pacific region, we’ve seen sales of dramas like Rosemary & Thyme, Cracker and detective show A Touch of Frost. It’s not just UK content, either – we sell shows from all over the world, and classic catalogue content is very popular.”

Classic drama is something that has traditionally been housed on local platforms. But with its value increasing, many execs believe it’s only a matter of time before global SVoD services like Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max start investing in more catalogue content and pricing local buyers out of the classic TV market. As previously mentioned, this may lead to linear broadcasters focusing on factual and entertainment.

According to Davison, these streamers could then use classic drama to hook in new viewers for their high-end series. “SVoDs have all sorts of ways to drive viewers to their platforms,” he says. “One is through classic drama. Once people are on the service, they’ll have a look around, and instead of promoting new high-budget dramas, buyers sometimes find more value in the meme culture surrounding shows like Friends or the US version of The Office, as opposed to a new actor in a relatively unknown series. Sometimes they’ll just use social media to draw people in with something they’ve already seen, as that has a bigger pull.”

Even if it is used to that end, Jago doesn’t see it as a bad thing. Indeed, she says classic English-language drama is just the start. “It’s an exciting time going forward for classic drama with the emergence of new SVoD platforms, all of which want a piece of the action,” she says.

“BritBox is moving into the non-English-speaking world for the first time, so that means a whole new society gets the chance to watch Spooks and Hustle, which is a lot of content. Those are going to be valuable clients for us, as they give audiences the time to discover or rediscover those shows.”