Q&A: Fremantle’s Jens Richter

As the CEO of commercial and international at Fremantle, a leading group of content creators owned by RTL Group, Jens Richter’s responsibilities include overseeing the company’s global distribution of finished programs, international content and acquisitions and co-production strategies. In discussing the European scripted market, he points to several trends: a shift toward entertaining mainstream programming, the evaluation of multiple budget options and a greater willingness to co-produce and share rights.

WS: What have been the main challenges facing the European scripted market in the last few years?
RICHTER: There were a couple of big challenges. One is that production budgets went up. Inflation drove up production costs quite a bit. We always hope that when inflation is high, prices will come down again. The reality is they’re probably not coming down; if we’re lucky, they stabilize.

The biggest change during the last three or four years has been a very focused shift toward mainstream programming. Six or seven years ago, it was all about premium drama. Streaming services, especially, were a big sandbox, and people could try different genres of shows targeting niche audiences. Everybody was under the impression that the big advantage of on-demand is that you can focus on niche audiences, which you can. But then there was this big shift from revenue growth to profitability, with the realization that when you want to reach niche audiences, relative to your investment, you end up serving a small group. When you hit a much bigger consumer group with that same investment, you have a much better return on investment.

Plus, over the last two years, everyone has started selling advertising. That was the final step into proper mainstream television, for the streamers as well. Everybody but Apple TV is selling advertising. So, you need brand-friendly programming. In today’s market, the ideal drama can sit on almost any platform because buyers are all looking for very similar programming. Five years ago, there was a clear distinction between commercial television, state broadcasters, premium pay TV and streaming TV. Today, however, we are sometimes selling the same show into very different spaces.

Our series Little Disasters is a very nice case study. We did that for Paramount+ in the U.K. They were the commissioner, we gap-financed it. So, it was Paramount+ in the U.K.; the producer, Roughcut; and us. At an early stage of development, before we went to greenlight, we discussed the cast very intensely because we said that if we’re going to cover the gap for the rest of the world, we need a cast that helps us sell the show. We have a fantastic cast, including Diane Kruger, which helps to sell the show globally. While we were in production, Paramount+ in the U.S. came to the table. In some markets, we sold it to state broadcasters—Yle in Finland and ABC in Australia. In other markets, we sold the show to commercial broadcasters like TV4 in Sweden and TV 2 in Norway. We have Paramount+ in the U.K. and the U.S., and in some European markets, we sold to HBO Max, another streamer. Five years ago, if you had done a streamer show, it would have probably only been on streamers.

Another change is that streamers now do not necessarily need to own worldwide rights. Many streamers have dedicated production budgets allocated to their local territories. Paramount does that, Amazon does that. Then we can come in and take the risk and invest for the rest of the world. Sometimes we might sell it back to them, as we did with Little Disasters for the U.S. That helps the commissioners to be more cautious with their budgets and more market-centric. It also opens an opportunity for us as a producer-distributor to zoom in on a specific market, retain some rights, take the risk and consider how we may need to think about the casting or some other aspects of the show to make it fit the rest of the world. This openness of a streamer going only for local markets is also relatively new. Five years ago, it was always worldwide rights and vertical integration. And the streamer needed that show on its platform forever.

We are now back in the world of the 2000s: Windowing is back. Commercial mainstream television is back, and commissioning for a single territory is back. It’s quite a shift.

WS: Because of all the horrible news we are bombarded with every day, I have loved escaping into Hotel Costiera. Is it just me, or are you seeing demand for escapist programs?
RICHTER: Yes, very much, whether it’s Hotel Costiera, which we sold beautifully around the world, or Sullivan’s Crossing, which we shot in a beautiful natural setting, which is a character. Little Disasters is a show set in Richmond, a suburb of London that is a very affluent, upmarket village. We have upper-middle-class characters in a beautiful setting, until something happens, and this beautiful world starts to spin. If you were to take that same narrative and put it into a less affluent world, we might not be able to escape because we like to see beautiful places. We shot in a multi-million-pound house—an awesome house! The people are happy and look great. It’s a beautiful world, and that world explodes. We like those kinds of shows—either the setting is a character because of its nature and beauty, or because it’s upmarket. And it’s exactly as you described. We have wars going on in the world. People are thinking about their jobs and the impact of AI. The cost of living is pushing up, and consumers are under pressure. So, when you come home in the evening or on your weekend, you want to watch entertaining shows. And that’s really our mantra. We are here to entertain you. And whether that is with America’s Got Talent or Little Disasters, we want to entertain you. For us, what’s most exciting this year will be the reboot of Baywatch. That is truly entertaining!

WS: How are you helping producers secure financing for their dramas?
RICHTER: Five years ago, you got a commission, you made your budget and you went into production. In 2025, you get a commission and then you think about where and how to produce your show most efficiently. For some shows, instead of one budget, we run three, four or five different budgets for different budget locations. You consider the cost of production in the region or territory and the local incentives. In some markets, we might have our own studio capacity available. We run through many more production scenarios these days, and that helps quite a bit.

The other thing we consider, wherever possible, is co-producing, like with Film Club, the BBC show we did with ZDFneo; Sandokan, for Rai with Mediaset in Spain; or the second season of Big Mood for Channel 4 and Tubi. Co-producing is very much on our radar, and it’s more important than ever, whether it’s in Europe or America. While the U.S. has become more difficult, it is still possible.

So, budgeting, smart production structure and co-producing. And when you’re a local commissioner, you want to serve your local audience. How can we help you serve your local audience while still creating a show that can travel? And that requires a lot of know-how—from different casting choices to the setting. The advantage of an upmarket setting, like with Little Disasters in Richmond, is that these worlds look similar almost everywhere. They drive similar cars, live in similar houses and wear similar clothing. Obviously, a setting must always fit the show. So, we have a lot of creative conversations, and we give feedback. If you want a more local show, we can only help you so much with financing, but if you make these changes, we can increase our investment.

WS: The U.S. is commissioning less. Is that affecting European drama production?
RICHTER: The U.S. is commissioning less and buying less. Three or four years ago, when you got a commission in the U.K., you would find a distributor, whether it was Fremantle, ITV, Banijay or All3Media, to provide the gap financing, and the producer was off to the races. Then, about two or three years ago, the first commissions happened that couldn’t find financing anymore. Commissioners often want to see the financing structure in place before they even commission the show. Currently, there are a handful of commissions in the U.K. market that broadcasters would love to do, but they can’t get financed, as these shows are too local for too much money. At a time when the U.S. is a lot more selective, we need to look at the nature of the show to determine if it hits the U.S. commercial needs. Secondly, even if you hit that need, you have to assume it will take you longer to get that deal done because there’s a bit more decision-making by committee. Clearly, this has implications for European commissioning and production.

WS: What’s your outlook on the demand for scripted programming in the coming year?
RICHTER: We clearly need great shows, so the outlook for the next couple of years is that shows need to be commercial and entertaining. We focus on two priorities. One is long-running, returning dramas that need to be set up for multiple seasons. We recently finished season four of Sullivan’s Crossing. A show like Baywatch lends itself to potentially many seasons—mainstream, blue sky and entertaining, and, ideally, the episodes have a narrative of the week. If you think about it from the commercial perspective for the distributor and producer, if you want to go into windowing, episodic narrative is much better. In the other bucket are the big miniseries or shorter runs with big casts and IP, which are more expensive—event TV.