The end that Peak TV has long predicted may be imminent, as studios and streaming companies — adjusting to a new world of inflation, rising interest rates and slowing share prices and subscriber numbers — cut costs and reassess strategies. As a result, whether it’s at Warner Bros. Discovery (which has written down $3.5 billion in content and canceled several planned or in-progress series) or at the BBC (which needs to cut more than $12 If savings targets are to be met, a deduction of $1 million from the original budget) would mean less money for producers and, it has been argued, less money for commissioned shows reduce.
Unscripted content, which is cheaper and easier to add to fill programming gaps, will be the most obvious beneficiary of this belt-tightening, with the upcoming MIPTV Market for less glamorous but often more lucrative reality TV, “shining floor” entertainment (à la The Voice) and game display.
Cathy Payne, CEO of Banijay Rights, noted: “Unscripted businesses have historically funded scripted businesses.”
Market for Original Scripted and Premium Documentary Series It’s not going away, however, and as the big players’ output dwindles, platforms and networks will turn to independent marketplaces for lower-cost licensing alternatives. Fortunately, as THR‘s annual MIPTV hit list shows, this year’s global drama sources are as rich and diverse as ever.
Cheap goods
BUZZ Squid Game
Proves that Korean High Concept Thriller film’s appeal, and this hit producer Byun Seung Min (BP, The Cursed)’s series has a jump-off that should lead to buyers calling out: When an earthquake traps criminals and victims alike, innocent bystanders find themselves trapped in underground auction houses for human organ trafficking, sparking a Battle for survival.
Sales Paramount Worldwide Content Distribution
Country of Origin Korea
Carthage
BUZZ
may appeal to streamers and niche platforms looking for something different This uncategorizable new Israeli series takes place in Carthage, a British POW camp, at was built in Sudan to house Nazi spies and Jewish “terrorists” fighting against the colonial rule of Palestine. Combining comedy, history and extreme violence, the show’s tale of a Jewish comedian teaming up with a British-born Nazi spy to break out of prison is stranger than fiction.
Sales Ehud Bleiberg, UTA
Country of Origin Israel
Concordia
BUZZ This near-future crime thriller from Powers Game Producer Frank Doelger, set in a small town built on supposedly safe AI technology that is destroyed by an “impossible” hack and subsequent murder shake. It hit MIPTV just as ChatGPT-driven anxiety about the dangers of said technology reached fever pitch.
Sales ZDF Studios, Beta Film
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN GERMANY
FORT
BUZZ This anti Winner of Best Screenplay at this year’s SeriesMania Film Festival, the utopian sci-fi drama is an apt mix of genre thrills and political messages about a wealthy country (literally) isolating itself from the rest of the world . But when the pandemic hit, residents of the closed country found themselves trapped in the fortresses they had built to protect themselves.
SALES TrustNordisk
Country of Origin Norway
Disappeared
BUZZ complement transnational crime stories such as The Bridge and The Missing, this Irish – New Zealand series, co-created by Karl Zohrab and Our Flags Mean Death
Writer Simone Nathan thinks the Irish Police ( Richard Flood of Grey’s Anatomy and Maori Detective ( Mr Corman ‘s Acushla-Tara Kupe) team up to find an Irish couple who disappeared from their rural New Zealand town. The community fears the disappearance could be linked to a string of historic murders.
SALES Red Arrow Studios INTERNATIONAL
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
New Zealand/Ireland
Spinning Mills
BUZZ This action/adult drama features Cantona James (Arendsvlei
) Involved as a young man in the brutal gang life of Cape Town’s shantytowns, he found escape through his talents in extreme motorsports, where The driver spins the vehicle at high speed while performing life-defying stunts both inside and outside the car. The creative premise, built in an established crime genre, should appeal to premium streaming and pay-TV buyers for this new original from South African pay-TV group Showmax and France’s Canal+.
Sales StudioCanal
Country of Origin South Africa
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BUZZ This anti Winner of Best Screenplay at this year’s SeriesMania Film Festival, the utopian sci-fi drama is an apt mix of genre thrills and political messages about a wealthy country (literally) isolating itself from the rest of the world . But when the pandemic hit, residents of the closed country found themselves trapped in the fortresses they had built to protect themselves.
SALES TrustNordisk
Country of Origin Norway
Disappeared
BUZZ complement transnational crime stories such as The Bridge and The Missing, this Irish – New Zealand series, co-created by Karl Zohrab and Our Flags Mean Death
Writer Simone Nathan thinks the Irish Police ( Richard Flood of Grey’s Anatomy and Maori Detective ( Mr Corman ‘s Acushla-Tara Kupe) team up to find an Irish couple who disappeared from their rural New Zealand town. The community fears the disappearance could be linked to a string of historic murders.
BUZZ This action/adult drama features Cantona James (Arendsvlei
) Involved as a young man in the brutal gang life of Cape Town’s shantytowns, he found escape through his talents in extreme motorsports, where The driver spins the vehicle at high speed while performing life-defying stunts both inside and outside the car. The creative premise, built in an established crime genre, should appeal to premium streaming and pay-TV buyers for this new original from South African pay-TV group Showmax and France’s Canal+.
