Dynamic Television’s Dan March on Navigating a Fragmented Market

Active in development, production, co-production, financing and distribution, Dynamic Television offers international buyers drama series, unscripted shows and TV movies. Dynamic’s managing partner, Dan March, tells World Screen about the value of building a diversified catalog, which remains the key to satisfying the many needs of the company’s global clientele. While acknowledging the challenges the business is navigating—most importantly, changes in content monetization—March remains bullish about the continued appeal of great storytelling, high-quality shows and the ability to produce them at reasonable budgets.

WS: I am so enjoying Art Detectives! With so much bad news each day, I love escaping into a world of crime-solving and works of art.
MARCH: The world is a tense place, and you do feel like audiences want to relax and be entertained; they want to have a good time. So, we like to think about what good-time television is, and it can take a lot of different forms, genres and formats. The shows we’ve been producing, whether Ms. X or Art Detectives or the new show You’re Killing Me for Acorn TV, are fun shows. That doesn’t mean they don’t have drama and high stakes and thrills, or that they’re not grounded. But they’re shows that will leave you feeling fulfilled in a positive way. That is something we try to lean into intentionally.

WS: You are seeing a positive response in the market to that?
MARCH: For sure. But we’re in a business where we don’t operate in one market. We have a linear television market, a pay-TV market and different targeted audiences in the digital market. There are certain buyers who want content that is still more serious, dramatic, darker and elevated, and we try to provide them with some of that. In general, there is certainly an appreciation and interest in programming that brings enjoyment. We’re not trying to preach hopefulness; we’re not trying to be preachy at all. We want our audiences to have a good time and enjoy the ride.

WS: Given how fragmented the market is, are you finding that having a diversified catalog is helping you as an independent?
MARCH: It’s been a big part of our DNA for 13 years. I’ve always felt that when a client comes to sit with us, they don’t know what they’re going to get. It might be a crime procedural from Denmark, a thriller from Sweden or a sci-fi series from America. We’ve always focused on where opportunities are and we make shows we are excited about. We don’t always control those opportunities, but we certainly seek them out and react to them. As a result, you’re not always dictating the slate. The opportunities are dictating it for you, and, as we produce globally, we end up with a wide variety.

But even as we target these global opportunities, we are trying to capitalize on them in very commercial ways. In the past, we did things that might be considered avant-garde or riskier today. So, when we lean into commercial programming, not only do we know how to do that very well, but it’s broader and travels better. We’re in a hard industry, but if you execute [your content] at a high level, you have a good probability of a positive outcome.

WS: How do you view the market today?
MARCH: This is a hard industry for reasons that are irreversible. What is not discussed enough—and I’ve banged my head on this for a while now—is the decline in the value of content. This is the biggest single market shift we’ve seen: how content is monetized.

Content used to be monetized on a transactional basis. We make content; we license it to a commissioning broadcaster and they sell advertising. We then license a second window, and a third window. We license it globally, territory by territory. We might exploit EST rights; we might license some other rights. If we were good at our jobs and made the right programs, we could transact around that content, and it had the potential to generate a lot of value.

Today, a lot of the content produced sits behind paywalls. Most content being created by studios is not transacted and monetized directly. It’s used to sell subscriptions; that is a different transaction and a fundamental shift in how we are using content. When you use it to sell subscriptions, it becomes a commodity or a raw material. And it’s sitting behind these paywalls that are also global. Because we now have so much more content sitting behind these walls, it has really devalued how content is monetized, and that is reflected in the purchasing power of the consumer. And that’s irreversible. On top of that, you have a decline in advertising and a decline in linear TV viewing. And, of course, the costs of producing content are often increasing, so those are legitimate challenges.

WS: Do you think it’s going to get worse?
MARCH: I don’t think it’s going to get worse. We’ve probably hit a trough. There are negative pressures on advertising that may dissipate, and linear viewership is not going to increase. But linear is also not going away. I feel we’re in a trough and there’s maybe a glint of upside. And that glint of upside is seeing some of these streamers figure out what their profitability models look like so they can start reinvesting in content. We are seeing that.

We’ve been successful working with partners who like what we do. We make high-quality shows that embrace great storytelling. We’re able to produce at a good price with leaner above-the-line budgets, smart production structures and by marrying our creative with our financing plans. That doesn’t mean we don’t have stars or great shows, but we execute our shows within the framework of the resources we have. That solves problems for clients and partners who still need really good content but don’t have the same resources they had five years ago. We’ve never had a better slate of shows than we have today. That slate is from as far away as New Zealand to Sweden to Canada to the U.S. to Ireland, to producing Drops of God in France. We’re bullish, but it doesn’t mean it’s not hard. It’s still very hard because we are dealing with [the challenge of] how much to invest in our content when there is negative pressure on values.

I think we’re at the very early stages of AI having a positive impact on the cost of content. That probably is as exciting as anything, right? If we can use AI to shave $200,000 off an hour of content, that’s a potential margin we didn’t have before. In VFX and postproduction, [we have to be] very specific about using AI to assist in the physical production of content; that’s a positive trend that I see. So, there are some positive trends behind streamers figuring out the profitability models and perhaps cost efficiencies going forward. People are not going to stop watching television. The demand for great shows is not going away, and that is what we lean into and believe in every day. It inspires us to get out, keep fighting and figure out how to tell amazing stories.

For independents like Dynamic, the incentive systems and subsidies around the world—whether in Ireland, New Zealand, Europe—and the investment from public channels are fundamentally important to keeping independent television alive. Any cutbacks to those state-sponsored investments would have a negative impact on independent television.

WS: You mentioned stars. They have always been important. Are they even more critical today in trying to cut through and grab viewers’ attention?
MARCH: What every buyer, platform or channel will tell you is that they need programming that can sell itself. The reason is that audiences have never been more fragmented or had more optionality, not just in entertainment, but in how they spend their time. And the cost to launch one program—if I’m a platform and want to get your attention to watch one big tentpole—is a lot of money. If I spend a little bit of money, it is the equivalent of spending no money. So, I need to spend a lot of money to get your attention on that one program. What does that mean? That’s where my marketing budget is going, and I can’t spend a lot of money on a lot of shows. I can spend a lot of money on one or two shows. Therefore, the other shows need to sell themselves and have elements that will attract an audience. That has never been more important. And that is why you keep seeing broadcasters and buyers attracted to IP, to stars, to any element that will help the show find an audience without that channel having to spend a bunch of money that they don’t have.

So, yes, stars are incredibly important. Jane Seymour is a marketing magnet. Stephen Moyer launched Art Detectives, the number one premiere in the history of Acorn. Look at Brooke Shields in You’re Killing Me; she’s a global icon. When we talk about stars and cast, we’re talking about actors and actresses that audiences know and will recognize and want to watch.