As the major streamers tighten their belts amid a threatening recessionary climate and a new focus on profitability, major TV makers got down to talking about more cost-effective programming at the Banff Media World Festival on its opening day.
“How do we play it safe, while still keeping unique points of view on the production side? I guess budgets matter again, in using dollars,” Juan Ponce, senior vp and general manager at Telemundo Streaming Studios, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, told a panel on industry trends.
TV business execs noted demand for content worldwide was still growing as the industry comes through pandemic-related disruption and changes and a racial reckoning and is now beset by the WGA strike and threat of an actors strike in Hollywood.
“For me, I’ve got clients who were on a strong growth trajectory and their forecast has halved this year. Some scripted producers have been hit very hard,” Anthony Fraser, managing director at the ACF Investment Bank, argued.
Patrick Vien, group managing director, international at A&E Networks, which grew up around unscripted programming, noted the media player has gotten into scripted series in recent times. “Obviously, scripted productions are impacted at this time. But no one views this as a long-term hurdle,” he added as the industry looks to get back to work after the current labor disruption.
Streamers may be a new door to knock on for TV series sales beyond broadcast networks. But the traditional 22-episode order from broadcasters has been replaced by slimmed-down orders from streamers, with vastly changed deal points that get to the crux of negotiations by screenwriters as part of their Hollywood walkout.
Vien added the global TV industry had passed peak TV in terms of volume, but not standards. “I think it’s safe to say as an industry that we probably hit a level of volume that was too high. The last time I read about it, the average consumer was spending over 50 hours a year just trying to figure out what to watch,” he told the Banff panel.
Other Banff panelists passed on addressing the impact of the WGA strike directly, preferring instead to focus on how they were creating global series with worldwide impact, rather than just focus on the U.S. market as a traditional launchpad for global fare.
Odetta Watkins, head of drama series at Amazon Studios, pointed to the Russo brothers’ Citadel global spy thriller spinning off local-language formats in Italy, Mexico and elsewhere internationally as part of a sprawling TV franchise that spans installments in various countries, all of which build back to an interconnected storyline.
“As we produce shows, we do produce for our domestic audience, but we’re really looking more towards the world audience, what can we be produced that also travels to other countries that is inclusive of other countries, so that it feels like authentic storytelling,” Watkins said.
At the same time, Citadel has been slower to stick with U.S. audiences, compared to the international market, where the spy thriller has conquered market after market. Watkins pointed to that as a victory as Citadel was designed to travel widely around the world.
“Every show is not going to hit in every place on the same level. But as the franchise grows, I feel like the numbers will grow, including domestically,” she argued.
