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3 months ago
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Sony‘s Wayne Garvie has urged the European industry to echo counterparts in the U.S. by turning TV shows into franchises.
“Once the Americans have a successful returning series they do something we Europeans seem to be incapable of – turn them into franchises,” the boss of The Crown outfit’s international productions said this morning.
Turning to his native UK, Garvie said the local industry has been “brilliant at creating non-scripted franchises but really poor in drama,” floating that Doctor Who, which is co-produced by Sony-owned Bad Wolf, is “the only example I can think of.” In the U.S., on the other hand, he flagged Sony franchises such as Cobra Kai, Breaking Bad and The Boys.
“It is obviously not easy to do and you must start with initial success but once we have that why aren’t we thinking more about how to build that world out?,” Garvie said at the AVPSummit in south Italy. “The only challenge is to our own creativity. Our TV [in Europe] stands tall but in business terms our next step is to be better at exploiting our creations for sustainable profitability.”
He criticized European TV producers for “making six seasons and then letting [a show] die.” “You only have limited time to build things in your career so if you’ve got a success, why not build it?,” he added.
Franchises “don’t have to be the biggest budget or have lots of action,” Garvie went on to say, floating the likes of Netflix’s Sex Education, also made by a Sony indie, which is the “one show producers and audiences all around the world want to talk to me about.”
Turning to the Italian audience, he said the nation’s producers are “not brave enough,” urging the industry to be “creative entrepreneurs, being out there, making contacts, because that is the way you will build those stories and global partnerships.” “There are more ways to sell a drama now than at any time in your history,” he added.
While budgets have dipped of late, Garvie queried the notion that the golden age of TV is over, pointing to drama “being at the heart of every free-to-air broadcasting channel” along with there being “a dozen local platforms commissioning drama from every country in the world.”
“Peak TV may be over but ‘plateaued TV’ is better than anything else we have ever known,” he added.
He cited “rich Italian stories” being retold in some form by Americans and Brits, such as Netflix’s The Decameron, which dropped trailer yesterday, and the upcoming adaptation of The Leopard.
