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“‘Alliance’ is the mot du jour for all players on the global scripted scene,” says Alice Sommer, Head of Drama at Norwegian network TV2.
She should know — her channel is part of Scandi Alliance, one of several groupings of networks in Europe who’ve teamed to beat the global economics that appear to be stacking against those trying to fund high-end TV drama.
Indeed, heading into the London TV Screenings next week, the global industry faces a scripted cash crisis. U.S. networks have largely retrenched into domestic stories, Europe’s public broadcasters face myriad funding problems and distributors appear only to want low-risk bets. Speaking to Deadline earlier this week, Catch You Later producer Mike Benson from Clapperboard Studios summed up the problem for producers: Traditionally, “Most of your MG [minimum guarantee] is underpinned by a good American sale, and if you don’t have that you’re looking to the rest of the world. It has been a real challenge to get the MGs we’ve needed.”
Meanwhile, some of the biggest projects on the market are stuck at ‘soft greenlight’ stage, where a network commission advance can’t get a production even close to shooting, and though streamers are being far more conservative than in years past, they can still blow local rivals out the water if they decide to back a project. The headaches for legacy TV makers are mounting.
“At TV2 Norway, we have this saying: ‘We are competing in the national league when it comes to entertainment series, but we’re fighting for the World Cup when it comes to scripted series… And not every fourth year, but every day,'” says Sommer.
It is tempting to assume there’s no way for some to compete in the new world order, but a number of players are fighting back. Scandi Alliance — the Egmont-owned TV2 from Norway, state-run namesake TV2 from Denmark and Telia’s TV4 in Sweden — was formed in 2023 as Nordic commercial TV’s first such union. The concept, like European public broadcaster group The Alliance, was to pool resources to finance the types of expensive event series with local sensibilities that few are capable of doing themselves.
“The principal idea behind this partnership is to pursue and co-produce high-end drama that may resonate with a large audience in all three Scandinavian countries,” says Sommer. “It is not to be mistaken for a sales and acquisitions exchange deal. The alliance relies on joint ambition to create original Scandi fiction with a broad relevance and which is organically rooted in our shared ‘pan-Scan’ culture.”
Following an epic pitching contest, Scandi Alliance recently unveiled its first commission: epic period drama Royal Blood. It explores the dramatic power struggles of the Nordic royal houses between 1807 and 1814, a period of geopolitical change as Europe’s great powers collided.
“Out of the 75 different concepts we received, Royal Blood stood out in several respects,” says Sommer. “It dives into our shared history in a way we have never seen before, it is driven by a distinct suspenseful narrative, the production company has a substantial track record, and most importantly: It offers equal relevance to all three countries. This is not an easy task.”
For Scandinavian producers, the establishment of Scandi Alliance is doubly important given the disappearance of Viaplay as a scripted player in 2023. “That was a reset for whole of the Nordics,” says Peter Bose, CEO of Royal Blood‘s Denmark-headquartered producer Miso Film. “It’s not a secret that sometimes Scandi series might not necessarily work everywhere. The call of the Scandi Alliance is a chance to build a project based on the idea three broadcasters will buy into the project. When they decided to go for Royal Blood, they were all behind the show.”
Nice niches
Elsewhere, niche streamers have begun to provide another alternative. Over recent months, BBC Studios-owned ‘best-of-British’ streamer BritBox’s name has constantly been cited by UK producers, who have rarely found it harder to make scripted for terrestrial networks, as a key commissioner. That certainly wasn’t always the case, something Robert Schildhouse, President of BritBox North America and General Manager of BritBox International, acknowledges.
“There was a point in time when getting a legitimate UK producer excited about a production at BritBox was a challenge, but today we present a solution to the marketplace for getting great shows made,” he says. “Given that British television is all we do, we’ve demonstrated that we’re not just a funding source, but can be a great partner leaning into these projects to make them as successful as they can be. Given the scale we’ve reached, we can really get behind these shows. The British creative community is noticing that.”
Broadly, BritBox will seek to play the North American co-producer role, stepping in to finance a key portion of budget to get a show into production — much like AMC, BBC America and others were doing a few years back. However, it is becoming more confident — notably moving first on the Inspector Lynley reboot from Playground and Salt Films, with the BBC joining later as a pre-buyer partner. The streamer has also gone it alone on Italian cuisine-meets-crime procedural Taste For Murder, while other upcoming shows such as ITV’s Rose Ayling-Ellis starrer Code of Silence see BritBox engaged in more traditional co-pro sense.
“We’re mostly interested in a British series with a UK broadcaster already in place,” says Schildhouse. “Once that is established, that’s our preferred model, but that’s not always the case. If we can come in, we tend to get things over the line.”
Almost a year ago, BBC Studios (BBCS) bought ITV out of BritBox International for £255M ($322M) — the BBC’s biggest-ever M&A play — and this has also opened up more avenues to get shows made. For example, it boarded Outrageous, the Mitford sisters drama from Firebird Pictures and for UKTV — both also part of the BBCS stable. While the project first landed at BritBox in the era of former CEO Reemah Sakaan and when the streamer was a JV, Schildhouse says the drama is a “great example of the good side of synergy” with its new sole owner.
Stan and deliver
Another name that’s consistently coming up in meetings between producers and networks around the world is Stan. The Australian streamer owned by Nine Network’s parent company claims to be “the largest commissioner of drama in Australia in the SVOD and pay-TV segment,” per its Chief Content Officer, Cailah Scobie. It has become equally well known in industry circles as an international co-production partner.
This week’s Stan slate announcement, which we broke the news of on Tuesday, included comedy-horror hybrid Gnomes, a co-production with U.S. producer and distributor Happy Accidents. That will sit in a 2025 line-up also including BBC drama Lord of the Flies, which it joined as co-producer in September 2024, and Good Cop/Bad Cop, the American procedural that it ordered alongside The CW and Roku.
Other shows have brought U.S. talent to Australia, where Stan is able to access numerous state and federal screen agency funds to build the budget before engaging with an international distributor. The Ben Feldman-starrer Population 11 and Jungle Entertainment’s Sunny Nights, which launched in Berlin and is headed to the London TV Screenings through Cineflix Rights, are good examples.
“Profitable growth is key to Stan first and foremost. We don’t fully fund content,” says Scobie. “We’re very cognisant when putting things into development to think the whole way through the process.”
It’s notable that BritBox’s Schildhouse says similar things in relation to resource. “We want to be super ambitious, but also have to make sure the return-on-investment makes sense for the business,” he says. “Those are the guardrails we’ve been using and largely that’s worked out very well for us.”
Knowing exactly who their audience is and carefully super-serving them appears to the way forwards for these streaming services.
After nearly two decades writing about the biz, you get to know that no producer — or commissioner, for that matter — gets into TV production to create the perfect financing model, but right now the funding conversation has never been more important. Sustainable investment is what everyone seeks. Back in Europe, Miso’s Bose says the question is now about volume. While he welcomes initiatives such as Scandi Alliance and the New8 (comprising Germany’s ZDF, the Netherlands’ NPO, Belgium’s VRT SVT, Denmark’s DR, Finland’s YLE, Iceland’s RÚV and Norway’s NRK), he wonders, “How many co-productions can they be involved in?”
Finishing her thought on this new world of alliances, TV2’s Sommer says they will only grow in importance and frequency. “There are continuously new conglomerates and constellations popping up – not only by necessity, but also by means of strategic foresight,” she adds. “The old beliefs that we need to ring fence and ‘protect our own’ in order to compete, are being challenged by new partnerships between friends and frenemies alike.”
When did pragmatism become so popular?
