A European Television Fiction Renaissance

A European Television

Fiction Renaissance

This book maps the landscape of contemporary European premium

television fiction, offering a detailed overview of both the changes in the

digital production and distribution and the emergence of specific national

and transnational case histories.

Combining a media p roduction approach with a textual and audience

analysis, the volume offers a complex, stratified, systemic view of ongo￾ing aesthetic, sociocultural and industrial developments in contemporary

European TV. With contributions from leading experts in the field, the

book first offers an overview of the industrial, policy and cultural con￾text for the renaissance of European television drama over the past decade,

based on original comparative research. This research is then supported by

case study chapters from the key contexts within which quality European

television is being produced, offering a complex and complete picture of

the industry’s strengths and limitations, its traditions and trends, its con￾straints and future perspectives.

A European Television Fiction Renaissance is a must- read book for TV

scholars working across Europe and beyond in the areas of media stud￾ies, international communications and television studies, media industries

studies, production studies, European studies, and media policy studies as

well as for those with an interest in television drama, Netflix, globalisation,

pay TV and on demand.

Luca Barra is Associate Professor of Television and Digital Media at

Università di Bologna, Italy.

Massimo Scaglioni is Full Professor of Media Economics and History at

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan.

Routledge Advances in Television Studies

8 Television and Serial Adaptation

9 Girlhood on Disney Channel

10 Horror Television in the Age of Consumption

11 Reading Contemporary Serial Television Universes:

12 Children, Youth, and American Television

13 American Television and the Sensate Body

14 Creating Reality in Factual Television

15 A European Television Fiction Renaissance

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com

A European Television Fiction

Renaissance

Premium Production Models and

Transnational Circulation

Edited by

Luca Barra and

Massimo Scaglioni

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Luca Barra and Massimo

Scaglioni; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Luca Barra and Massimo Scaglioni to be identified as

the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their

individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections

77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,

or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks

or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and

explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-34540-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-32648-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

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List of figures ix

List of tables xi

List of contributors xiii

1 Introduction: the many steps and factors of

PART 1

Researching European fiction 11

2 The grounds for a renaissance in European fiction:

3 Mapping European premium- scripted TV: trends, patterns,

4 Transnational circulation of European TV series:

Contents

vi Contents

PART 2

United Kingdom 69

5 A 21st-century gold rush? Video on demand and

the global competition for UK television 71

PHILIP DRAKE

6 “The biggest drama commission in British television

history”: Netflix, The Crown, and the UK

television ecosystem 86

ROBERTA PEARSON

PART 3

France 101

7 Video on demand platforms, editorial strategies, and logics

of production: the case of Netflix France 103

CHRISTEL TAILLIBERT AND BRUNO CAILLER

8 The strategy of “quality TV”: branding, creating, and

producing at Canal+ 118

HÉLÈNE MONNET- CANTAGREL

9 What is a quality French series? Reflections on

The Bureau 130

FRANÇOIS JOST

PART 4

Italy 143

10 Towards a new model for Italian TV fiction: Sky Italia

originals and the struggle for difference 145

LUCA BARRA AND MASSIMO SCAGLIONI

11 The Holy See(ing): Splendors and miseries of

The Young Pope 165

GIANCARLO LOMBARDI

Contents vii

PART 5

Germany 175

12 TV drama series production in Germany and the digital

13 Selling location, selling history: new German series and

PART 6

Spain 211

14 The origins of premium television fiction in Spain:

15 Bambú Producciones and the transformation of Spanish

PART 7

Central and Eastern Europe 241

16 HBO Europe’s original programming in the era

17 Quality by design: feature TV series from premium

18 Familiar, much too familiar… HBO’s Hungarian original

Index 295

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Figures

3.1 The age of overabundance. Number of titles of scripted

pay productions in the US per year 34

3.2 The European renaissance. Ten years of growth in pay

fiction. Based on the Ce.R.T.A. research sample: number

of original pay TV series (first seasons and returning seasons) 35

3.3 Industry breakthroughs and production growth in Europe 36

3.4 Genre proportions: comedy vs. drama 39

3.5 Adaptations vs originals 41

3.6 The network of premium productions in France 46

3.7 The network of premium productions in the UK 47

3.8 The network of premium productions in Italy 48

3.9 The network of premium productions in Spain 48

3.10 The network of premium productions in Germany 49

3.11 European premium productions across the five countries 50

3.12 The (indicative) nationality of the players 52

4.1 Exportability of scripted pay television. Number of

international titles on air in the five European markets

(by year), excluding repeats in the various markets 57

4.2 Export capability of the main markets. Number of titles

exported per country (out of the total titles produced) and

percentage of titles exported in the sampled markets 58

4.3 Circulation index. Circulation rating: the ratio between

the total instances of titles exported for the other four

countries and the number of titles exported from that country 60

4.4 Exportability by publisher. Percentage of titles exported

to one or more countries 60

4.5 Import volumes for European pay products. Number of

titles imported in the five European markets (by year) 61

4.6 Product destinations. Channel and platform

destinations – first run. Overall percentage and number

of titles imported per country 62

16.1 HBO Europe’s production system as of November 2019 250

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Tables

3.1 The composition of the “ national” networks

5.1 Number and production budget of HETV productions

8.1 Canal+’s original productions by format and genre

15.1 Bambú Producciones production history (2008–2019) 233

18.1 List of HBO’s format adaptations and original

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Luca Barra is Associate Professor at Università di Bologna, where he teaches

Radio and Television History, Television Production and C ontemporary

TV Series, and a former p ost- doctoral research fellow at Università

Cattolica, Milan. His principal field is media and television studies,

from both a historical and a contemporary perspective, with a focus

on industrial, production and distribution cultures. He is the author

of books La sitcom. Genere, evoluzione, prospettive ( Carocci, Rome

2020), Palinsesto (Laterza, Rome-Bari 2015) and Risate in scatola (Vita

e Pensiero, Milan 2012) and co- editor of Taboo Comedy. Television and

Controversial Humour ( with C. Bucaria, Palgrave, Basingstoke 2015),

Backstage. Studi sulla produzione dei media in Italia ( with T. Bonini

and S. Splendore, Unicopli, Milan 2015) and Tutta un’altra fiction (with

M. Scaglioni, Carocci, Rome 2013). He has also written essays in vari￾ous journals and edited collections, and is an editorial board member for

scientific journals including SERIES. International Journal of TV Serial

Narratives, Studi culturali and Comunicazioni sociali. He is editorial

consultant for Italian TV studies journal Link. Idee per la televisione

and co- director of the book series SuperTele ( minimum fax).

Bruno Cailler has a doctorate in Information and Communication Sciences

since 1999. Lecturer at the University of Nice Côte d’Azur since 2006,

after seven years at Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle, he is a socio- economist

in media and cultural industries. His initial areas of research are the

economy of audiovisual contents production and the strategies for their

promotion; he focused also on the local and participatory television,

connected and social TV, transmedia and television series.

Paolo Carelli,  PhD, teaches International Media Systems at Università

Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. He is Researcher at Ce.R.T.A., the

Research Centre for Television and Audiovisual Media at the same uni￾versity, and the didactic coordinator for the Master’s course “ Fare Tv.

Analisi, Gestione, Comunicazione” at ALMED. He is Adjunct Professor

of Media Economy at University of Bergamo.

Contributors

xiv Contributors

Concepción Cascajosa Virino is Senior Lecturer at Carlos III University of

Madrid, where she is a member of the TECMERIN research group and

director of the MFA in Screenwriting. She has written or edited nine

books and over thirty papers on television fiction and media history,

including articles in Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Journal of Spanish

Cultural Studies, Television and New Media and Feminist Media

Studies. Her current research deals with the transformation of television

production culture in Spain.

Philip Drake is Head of Education and Professor of Media and Creative

Industries in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Manchester Met￾ropolitan University. He has published widely on screen industries, in￾cluding co-editing Hollywood and the Law ( BFI London, London 2015,

with P. McDonald, E. Carman and E. Hoyt), and articles on film dis￾tribution, independent film, European co- production, TV performance,

and policy and practice in the creative industries. He has advised the

Council of Europe on film policy and recently directed a research project

on independent film distribution and VOD.

Susanne Eichner is Associate Professor at the Department of Media and

Journalism Studies, Aarhus University. Her research takes a cross- media

approach, focusing on media reception, media sociology, production

ecology and popular serial culture. She is the author of Agency and

Media Reception. Experiencing Video Games, Film, and Television

( Springer, Berlin 2014) and co- editor of Fernsehen: Europäische Pers￾pektiven ( UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Constance 2014, with E. Prommer)

and Transnationale Serienkultur ( Springer, Berlin 2013, with L. Mikos

and R. Winter).

Damiano Garofalo is Assistant Professor at Sapienza Università di Roma,

where he teaches Film and Television History. He holds a PhD in Cul￾tural History at the University of Padova, and he worked as a p ost- doc at

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. He has published the books

Political Audiences (Mimesis, Milan-Udine 2016) and Storia sociale

della televisione in Italia ( Marsilio, Venice 2018).

Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano  is Senior Lecturer at Universidad de

Málaga, where he is Deputy Vice- Chancellor of Communication. He has

been main researcher on several projects about Spanish and Andalusian

Television. He is currently chair of the ECREA Television Studies sec￾tion, Director of the Production and Media Content section of the Span￾ish Association of Communication Research ( AE- IC) and a member of

the editorial board of VIEW. Journal of European Television History

and Culture.

Dom Holdaway is Assistant Professor at the University of Urbino, where he

teaches film history and analysis. He received his PhD at the University of