Tag Archives: 1864

The world of drama in 2015

December 18, 2015Hit & Miss1864, 1992, Acquitted, De Fractie, Deutschland 83, Dueños Del Paraiso, False Flag, Gallipoli, Jordskott, Los Nuestros, Resurrection, The Book of Negroes, The Journey of Flower, The Producers, Witnesses, Wolf HallAndy Fry

The US still dominates drama exports, but in the last Hit & Miss column of the year we take a look at some of the new shows from other countries that have punched above their weight in 2015.

Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald has just named Gallipoli as the best Aussie drama of the year – and they’ve probably got it just about right. Although the lavish WW1 epic rated badly on Nine Network, it was a strongly scripted and well-acted show that has had some profile internationally thanks to Endemol Shine International. Gallipoli’s Aussie rivals this year included biopic Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door, multicultural drama The Principal and undead series Glitch. But probably the best of the bunch outside Gallipoli was The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment’s adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel.

Canada
2015 was a decent year for Canadian-backed drama. The high point was epic miniseries The Book of Negroes, which was back by public broadcaster CBC and BET in the US. The story of escaped slaves returning to Africa via Nova Scotia pulled in 1.7 million viewers for the first episode, making it the highest-rated original drama for CBC since 1990. Another strong debutante in 2015 was sitcom Schitt’s Creek, which also aired on CBC. This show was sold internationally by ITV Studios Global Entertainment to countries including New Zealand.

China
Top of the pile in China this year has been The Journey of Flower, a love story based on the fantasy novel by Fresh Guo Guo. Broadcast from June to August, it told the story of Hu Qian Gu, a girl born with magical powers. At age 16, she becomes the disciple of Bai Zihua, an immortal in charge of a magical realm – and promptly falls in love with him. The series has aired internationally in markets such as Vietnam.

1864_jens-saetter-lassen_foto_arnesen — 1864

Denmark
At the forefront of the Nordic drama explosion, Denmark public broadcaster DR gave us series like The Killing and Borgen. In 2014/2015, it added the period drama 1864, which has sold to broadcasters including RTÉ Ireland, TV4 Sweden and Arte (France/Germany). Next up is Follow the Money, a thriller set in the world of economic crime. The show has been heavily trailed in 2015 but finally airs in early 2016. It has been picked up by BBC4 in the UK – a big fan of Scandinavian TV drama.

France
After the success of Spiral and The Returned, it was the turn of Witnesses to catch the international market’s attention. A noir thriller set in Northern France, the France 2 show was picked up by Channel 4 in the UK, NRK in Norway, RTBF in Belgium and RTL Crime in Germany. The series was produced by Paris-based Cinétévé and written and directed by Hervé Hadmar and Marc Hernoux, who were behind Les Oubliées (Forgotten Girls) for France 3 and Pigalle La Nuit for Canal+.

Germany
In terms of German drama, it’s impossible to look beyond UFA’s Cold War coming-of-age story Deutschland 83. The show aired on RTL in its domestic market and has been sold internationally to more than 20 territories by Fremantle Media International. Buyers have included Sundance in the US, Channel One Russia, TV4 in Scandinavia and Stan in Australia. UK VoD platform Walter Presents has also picked up the title.

False Flag

Israel
Israeli spy series False Flag is continuing the good work done by previous drama titles such as Prisoners of War and In Treatment. In June 2015, the show was picked up by Fox International Channels for use in 127 countries worldwide. Fox is also adapting the series into English.

Italy
After Gomorrah forced the world to reappraise Italian drama, Wildside’s 1992 proved it was no fluke. The 10×60’ story of Italian corruption in the 1990s aired on Sky Italia before being picked up by the likes of Orange France, Canal Spain and Superchannel in Canada. In September, the show was also sold to Netflix by distributor Beta Film.

Korea
We looked at Korean drama a few months ago here. With the year over, the top show still looks like KBS’s The Producers, which aired in May and June. The story focuses on a group of young producers working in the variety department at KBS. It has sold to China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Kazakhstan, while digital streaming rights have been licensed to parts of Europe, the Middle East and North America. China’s online network Sohu paid US$2.4m for the show’s rights.

Latin America/Hispanic US
One of the hottest telenovelas of the year was Dueños Del Paraiso, starring Kate del Castillo, Adriana Barraza and Jorge Zabaleta. Created by Telemundo and TVN Chile, it tells the story of a woman who lives in poverty and whose ambition leads her to use drug trafficking as a means to become one of the most powerful women of her time.

de_fractie_2_carousel_missed-1420808754 — De Fractie

Netherlands
The Netherlands is better known for its entertainment format exports than its drama. But it has given birth to series like Penoza, which was remade in the US as Red Widow. One of this year’s more interesting dramas was public broadcaster VPRO’s De Fractie, a politics-based series that combined fiction and current events. It did this by working as a fast turnaround production so that it could include new developments from the real world. A success at home, it’s the kind of project that could lend itself to international formatting.

Norway
Norway is starting to rival Sweden and Denmark when it comes to Nordic Noir series. This year’s big hit was Miso Films’ Acquitted, which tells the story of a man returning to his home town after a long absence – having been acquitted of murdering his girlfriend. A big hit for TV2, the show is distributed internationally by FremantleMedia International.

Spain
Spanish drama is going through its own golden age at the moment, with titles such as Grand Hotel, Velvet and The Time In Between. All of the above are period dramas, but this year the Spanish have shown that they are also pretty adept at making contemporary thrillers. A good example is Mediaset Espana’s miniseries Los Nuestros (Our Guys), which follows a mission to save two Spanish children kidnapped by a terrorist group while on holiday in Mali. Attracting 3.7 million viewers, it was one of the year’s strong performers and there is talk of a follow-up series. Another strong performer was Atresmedia’s Under Suspicion, in which a seven-year-old girl disappears from a small community, while Hierro won the copro series pitching competition at Berlinale. The latter will air in early 2016.

Sweden
If we were talking about returning series, then pick of the bunch would undoubtedly be the third season of The Bridge. But among new titles, ITV Studios Global Entertainment-distributed Jordskott is the year’s standout. A supernatural thriller from Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT, the show has been sold to ITV Encore in the UK and to broadcasters across Scandinavia. TV4’s Modus, distributed by FMI, is another new title that looks set to do well abroad.

Turkey
Turkey is such a prolific producer of drama that it’s hard to single out a particular title. But one show that merits a mention is Dirilis Ertugrul, better known as Resurrection. A period drama set in the 13th century, this was public broadcaster TRT’s response to fellow huge period hit Magnificent Century (aired on Show TV and Star TV). Resurrection (which debuted on December 10, 2014 and ran through 2015) did extremely well for TRT1, delivering ratings well ahead of the channel’s average. It has also been sold internationally to more than 20 territories. Also of note in 2015 was the launch of Magnificent Century sequel Kosem Sultan, which rated particularly well with the AB demographic.

UK
The Brits produced a lot of good drama this year but it’s hard to look beyond Golden Globe nominee Wolf Hall for the country’s outstanding scripted show of the year. Based on Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed novel, the show was a success for BBC2 in the UK and also aired on PBS in the US and Arte France, among others. Wolf Hall also sold in Scandinavia and features on BBC Worldwide channels in markets such as Australia.

tagged in: 1864, 1992, Acquitted, De Fractie, Deutschland 83, Dueños Del Paraiso, False Flag, Gallipoli, Jordskott, Los Nuestros, Resurrection, The Book of Negroes, The Journey of Flower, The Producers, Witnesses, Wolf Hall

BBC4 beats language barrier

November 27, 2015Hit & Miss1864, Arne Dahl, BBC3, BBC4, Blindspot, Capital, DR, Fox, Ratings, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, Spiral, The Bridge, The Last PanthersAndy Fry

The Bridge stars Sofia Helin as Saga Norén — The Bridge performs strongly on BBC4

This week, the BBC formally approved the closure of its youth-oriented television channel BBC3. Despite plenty of protest, the channel will move online from March 2016 as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

As yet, no one really has a clue what that will mean for the 925,000 viewers who tune in to the channel. The best guess is that many of them will be lost to the corporation for good.

The closure now raises questions over the future of BBC4 as a TV service. Although the BBC has not yet threatened to take the axe to the channel, neither has it guaranteed its future. If the BBC is faced with further cuts (likely under the current Conservative government), BBC4 could suffer the same fate as BBC3.

If that happens, it will be a blow to fans of non-English language drama. Over the past few years, BBC4 has played a pivotal role in introducing such shows to the international market. This week, for example, it has started airing season three of acclaimed Danish/Swedish drama The Bridge, showing the first two episodes as a double-header.

Picking up where season two left off, The Bridge attracted an audience of 1.2 million for episode one and 925,000 for episode two. The first of these two figures is a record for the channel, beating the 1.1 million who tuned into the second to last episode of the previous season.

While The Bridge is an exceptionally strong performer, BBC4 has had repeated success with non-English-language scripted series. Another Scandi show that has been airing in recent weeks is Arne Dahl, which has been picking up audiences of 600,000 to 700,000 consistently on Saturday evenings. Prior to that came Beck, a series of feature-length TV films based on the novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Again, ratings were in the region of 600,000 to 650,000.

asdasd — Arne Dahl is also doing well on BBC4

And while Danish period drama 1864 didn’t manage to hold its audience as well as some of the contemporary Scandi shows (954,000, 687,000, 530,000, 495,000 over four consecutive episodes), this still rates as a decent performance compared with the channel average.

It also attracted good reviews, with The Telegraph saying 1864 “oozed ambition, quality and an epic, cinematic scope. The latest offering from DR, the powerhouse Danish broadcaster that brought us Borgen and The Killing, has taken a key moment in their nation’s history and made it as compelling as any noir drama.”

Although Scandi shows are BBC4’s hottest property, the channel has also shown that people who are willing to watch foreign drama are not overly fussy about where it comes from. Over spring and summer, Italian detective drama The Young Montalbano regularly attracted between 600,000 and 700,000 despite having to contend with lower audiences in the warmer months (it’s noticeable actually that the show dropped a bit in June/July).

Prior to that, the year opened with a storming performance from French drama Spiral (a winner at this week’s International Emmys). Having kicked off with an audience over just over one million, the show stayed rock steady throughout January and February – bringing in audiences of around 850,000 to 900,000.

So what would happen to this kind of drama if BBC4 did disappear at some point in the next couple of years? Well, it would take away an important high-profile platform for such shows. But the truth is the channel has done its job so well that non-English-language drama would probably still find other homes.

1864 has pulled in fewer viewers but is a hit among critics

Platforms like Netflix and Channel 4-backed Walter Presents are both buyers of such shows. And it’s even possible that BBC4 sister channel BBC2 might decide Scandi drama is worth investing in. In the meantime, though, expect The Bridge to keep doing well on BBC4.

Still in the UK, this week saw BBC1 launch Capital, a three-part drama from Kudos that stars Toby Jones. Jones, who is one of the stars of the upcoming Dad’s Army movie, helped the show to 3.8 million, which is OK but not spectacular. Scheduling didn’t help, with Capital up against ITV’s entertainment juggernaut I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. So it will be interesting to see if the show picks up significantly in terms of time-shifted viewing.

The issue of how we judge the success or failure of a drama is an ongoing debate these days. At Fox in the US, for example, senior management recently decided they will no longer have anything to do with Live + Same Day ratings.

“We will not acknowledge them for any programming other than live events,” said joint chairmen/CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman. Instead, the emphasis will be on Live+3, Live+7 and multi-platform data – all of which provide a more holistic view of the audience.

Fox’s decision is understandable and follows the lead of many cable channels. In essence, it allows a measured judgement once all of the time-shifted/non-standard viewing data has come in. Still, it would be a mistake to regard Live + Same Day as irrelevant to the ratings discourse. In the same way that the movie industry places so much emphasis on opening-weekend box-office figures, Live + Same Day figures provide a valuable insight into whether a TV network has got its pre-launch publicity right, and whether it has found an editorial formula that excites the audience.

Toby Jones in BBC1's Capital — Toby Jones in BBC1’s Capital

It’s also a guide to whether a show has been scheduled correctly. There is a risk, for example, in putting an expensive drama up against a show that demands live viewing – such as Capital vs I’m a Celebrity.

If viewers don’t come to a drama on its opening night, it might mean they’re saving it up for a special moment. But it might also mean that it is regarded as back-up viewing, a second-best alternative. Or it might mean there is a schism within the family – the men want to watch but the women or children don’t, for example.

You could argue that none of this matters as long as word of mouth supports the show and the audience comes to it eventually. But any good sales executive will tell you to try to clinch the sale straightaway rather than let the punter go away and think about it.

In my house, many dramas get saved for later and then deleted or forgotten about. Any delay in viewing means a window is opened up to non-viewing or viewing via piracy or via SVoD, both of which change the economic return on a show.

On the subject of how we should assess ratings, the opening episode of Sky Atlantic’s six-part heist drama The Last Panthers saw its UK audience rise from 228,000 to 696,000 once non-live figures were added in. But episode two’s live numbers dropped to 112,000.

NBC has ordered a second season of Blindspot

This is a classic example of the mixed messages broadcasters have to deal with these days, though with an IMDb rating of 7.2 the message seems to be that the show hasn’t quite captured the audience’s imagination as yet. By about episode four, however, we should have a clearer picture of whether the show has gained enough support to merit a renewal.

Elsewhere in the Sky family of channels, US drama Blindspot debuted on Sky Living with an audience of 383,000, a healthy start. In the US, the show is the top-rated new series of the season and has been renewed for a second run by NBC. As such, it should settle in nicely on Sky Living and do a good job for at least a couple of seasons.

tagged in: 1864, Arne Dahl, BBC3, BBC4, Blindspot, Capital, DR, Fox, Ratings, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, Spiral, The Bridge, The Last Panthers

Miso tells war stories

June 25, 2015In production1864, Christoffer Boe, Denmark, Deutschland 83, DR, Jonas Allen, Miso Film, TV2, WarriorMichael Pickard

Jonas Allen says Warrior will tackle issues new to Denmark

Television schedules are no strangers to stories of war. From BBC1’s The Crimson Field, which was produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War last year, to RTL’s Cold War spy thriller Deutschland 83, conflicts continue to provide scriptwriters with a host of compelling stories.

Fresh from producing historical epic 1864, which is set against the backdrop of one of Europe’s bloodiest ever battles, Denmark’s Miso Film is now turning its attention to a drama that will examine issues that are new to the country.

The prodco has partnered with writer/director Christoffer Boe for six-part series Warrior (fka Prospect), which is based on an idea from Boe and is being developed with Simon Pasternak.

It tells the story of a former soldier who struggles to find his way back into society after returning home from war. When he learns that a friend and fellow former soldier has committed suicide, he sets out to learn the truth behind his death.

Miso Film co-founder Jonas Allen says Warrior confronts a topic that is still very new for people in Denmark. He explains: “Christoffer is a very talented director so we wanted to work with him – but we really liked the story. It’s about a soldier coming back from war in Afghanistan. This is new in Denmark – having veterans coming back, having people in service and Denmark stepping into a war in present times.

“This story is about a soldier returning and trying to cope, but he can’t really find his place in society. I think that’s very interesting in the time we’re in right now.”

Warrior is set to go into production in spring 2016, and will air on TV2 in Denmark.

Meanwhile, 1864 was recently nominated for Best Drama at the Golden Nymph Awards, which took place earlier this month at the Monte Carlo TV Festival (though the prize was won by UK/US copro The Missing). The show’s stars Jens Setter-Lassen and Sarah-Sofie Boussnina were also nominated, for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively.

The eight-part series tells the story of two brothers who sign up for the army when war breaks out between Denmark and Prussia, and follows the love triangle they become embroiled in during a brutal conflict.

Allen says: “1864 aired last fall on DR. We were very pleased – we had one of the greatest openings. I think it was about 1.8 million viewers or 67% audience share. Our average was 1.4 million viewers, which was great.

“You look forward to the premiere and the reaction, and then it came out on BBC Four. It’s overwhelming that people really loved the show. It’s a great launch for the international market, and it also just premiered on Arte in France.”

Miso Film is also preparing to begin shooting the third season of its TV2 crime drama Dicte, which is based on Elsebeth Egholm’s novels. Production will get underway in September.

tagged in: 1864, Christoffer Boe, Denmark, Deutschland 83, DR, Jonas Allen, Miso Film, TV2, Warrior

Wayward Pines, Clarke fantasy debut

May 22, 2015Hit & Miss1864, DR1, Follow The Money, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Poldark, Sky1, Sue Deeks, The Casual Vacancy, The Enfield Haunting, Wayward PinesAndy Fry

This week, BBC1 in the UK launched Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a seven-part drama based on the period fantasy novel by Susanna Clarke. Scheduled at 21.00 on Sunday evenings, the first episode attracted 4.5 million viewers. While it is highly likely that this number will be boosted once time-shifted viewing is included, the live audience is probably at the lower end of expectations.

strangenorrell — Innovative period drama Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell received a mixed reception

It is lower, for example, than Poldark and The Casual Vacancy – both of which previously occupied this slot. And it’s also less than the slot average for the last 12 months (which is just over five million).

UK newspapers were divided over the appeal of the show. The upmarket titles were generally upbeat, with The Independent calling it “a real treat” and The Daily Telegraph describing it as “a brilliant adaptation of the novel.” However, The Daily Mail was not impressed, acerbically noting that: “If your idea of a racy evening is chit-chat in the dons’ common room at an Oxbridge college, then perhaps you found this entertaining. For the rest of us, it was so deathly dry it might as well have been dehydrated.”

The Spectator, meanwhile, hedged its bets, concluding that: “In theory, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is to be congratulated on its bold rejection of Sunday-night convention. In practice, it hasn’t yet banished the feeling that it might end up seeming a bit silly.”

As a public broadcaster, the BBC is not compelled to chase ratings. But it seems likely that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell suffered from the fact that there was no compelling PR hook on which to hang its launch. The Casual Vacancy benefited from the fact it was based on a book by JK Rowling (who takes Harry Potter fans with her whereever she goes), while Poldark had two things going for it. Firstly, it was a remake (thus appealing to older audiences). Secondly, there was a lot of media interest in lead actor Aidan Turner’s six-pack (thus appealing to younger female audiences). Having failed to ignite audience interest for episode one, JS & Mr N is now in a fragile position and the BBC will need to hope that The Daily Mail’s assessment is wide of the mark. If so, it may regain momentum from word of mouth/social media.

Of course, all of the above might prove to be overly pessimistic if the show does pick up a lot of additional viewing via time-shifting technologies. In this respect, there is encouragement from the US this week, where Wayward Pines has just recorded the highest ever percentage increase of any Fox debut show as a result of time-shifted viewing. Having debuted on May 14 with around 3.75 million viewers, live plus-three ratings surged by 65% to 6.2 million.

As is the way these days (to avoid piracy), Fox made Wayward Pines available to the international market as soon as possible after the US launch. It then pumped out a series of figures that suggest the show has been well received. In Australia, says Fox, the show “increased the performance in its primetime slot by 683% and outperformed The Walking Dead’s season five premiere.” In Germany, meanwhile, the show increased its slot average by 158%. As for Norway, the Wayward Pines premiere is the best series premiere for a new show ever for Fox Norway among viewers aged 12-plus. Portugal also tuned in. Here, the premiere was the most watched show of the day on pay TV.

Channels around the world debate endlessly about the relative merits of local versus international TV. The orthodox view is that audiences prefer local content because it better reflects their own life experience. One area where this thesis seems to break down, however, is in the world of scripted series. Here, there are still plenty of examples of US shows outperforming local rivals.

One case in point is UK pay TV channel Sky Living, which recently saw its origination budget cut for exactly this reason. In this case, the origination budget has been handed to sister channel Sky1 (so it can fund more ambitious projects), while Sky Living will place its emphasis on acquired shows. This decision makes a lot of sense when you see how Sky Living’s US dramas fare compared with its home-grown shows. Typically, US dramas like Bones and The Blacklist pull audiences of around one million-plus on the channel. By contrast, a recent showing of Eleven Films’ original three-parter The Enfield Haunting pulled in around 676,000.

This is actually a pretty good audience when compared with the channel’s slot average. And there’s no question it was a great piece of television. With a superb cast headed by Timothy Spall, Matthew Macfadyen and Juliet Stevenson, The Guardian called it “an outstanding chiller, beautifully directed and packed with big scares and superb performances.” Presumably, however, the problem lies squarely with the economics of pay TV. Acquiring a US show is usually cheaper than making a domestic original. And it typically offers a lot more episodes. Limited-run dramas like The Enfield Haunting require a lot of pre-transmission marketing and have limited amortisation value afterwards. Overall they are better-suited to free-to-air channels which are able to mobilise big audiences more easily. Having said all that, however, hats off to Eleven for a great piece of TV. All eyes will now be on Nazareth, which the company is reportedly developing for Fox in the US.

Still in the UK, BBC4 has become an important staging post for non-English-language dramas hoping to establish a presence in English-speaking markets. Titles to have aired on the channel include Wallander, Spiral, Borgen, The Killing, Inspector Montalbano, The Bridge, Salamander and Hostages. The basic rule is that if a foreign-language show can rate well on BBC4, it stands a chance of selling into the US as either a completed series or a format. And if that happens, it may then pick up interest from other markets that wouldn’t have considered it prior to a US deal. In some ways, BBC4 has become a victim of its own success, because it is now experiencing competition for this category of shows from UK and US pay TV channels (such as E4 and Sundance) and SVOD platforms. But it remains an important player.

All of which brings us to 1864, a Danish drama that has just debuted on the channel with an audience of 642,000 at 21.00 – well ahead of the slot average. An eight-part series that originally aired on DR1 in Denmark, 1864 tells the story of a war between Denmark and the German Confederation (as it then was). The show is significant for the Danes, which are trying to demonstrate to the world that the breadth of their storytelling skills goes well beyond spooky police procedurals. Borgen went some way to proving that point, but 1864 shows a new side to Denmark’s production prowess. Also look out for Follow The Money, another DR series that has been acquired by BBC4. Coming soon, this is billed as “the story of speculators, swindlers and corporate princes and the crimes they commit in the pursuit of wealth.”

Sue Deeks, the BBC’s head of programme acquisition, says: “Follow The Money is a stylish, intelligent, thought-provoking and complex multi-stranded drama. We are delighted to have another superb series from DR on BBC Four.”

tagged in: 1864, DR1, Follow The Money, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Poldark, Sky1, Sue Deeks, The Casual Vacancy, The Enfield Haunting, Wayward Pines