Nicole Morganti, head of originals for Southern Europe at Amazon MGM Studios, and Thomas Dubois, head of French and Japanese originals, took part in a Series Mania Forum session this morning, moderated by World Screen’s Kristin Brzoznowski, to discuss Prime Video’s international content strategy and how its local original content is playing into this.
There are more than 200 million Prime subscribers who are accessing Prime Video across 200-plus countries and territories. This audience is global and diverse and has varying tastes and expectations, which is why the content selection needs to be deep and diverse.
Morganti said the international originals play “a big role” in the wider global strategy. “When we started, our department was called Local Original, and then a few years ago, we changed it to International Original. We started to notice that the content that we were doing was actually very appealing to a much bigger audience. We have a lot of audiences who are looking for series that come from different countries. Specifically, we see [that] target groups like young adults really don’t care about the language and where it comes from; they just want to enjoy the series because it resonates with what they like and their values. Even with the broader audience, we started to see that it was not just a specific country, it was more the genre, and that was why we kept doing local but also started to have even more international content.”
Morganti added that she and her team are always looking for content that draws audiences from multiple countries. “Everything is about the story,” she said. “It needs to be a story that we really enjoy. There is an example that I love to share. The production company Lux Vide, part of the Fremantle group, came to us with a story that we really liked. It was a moment where we decided that to do that story, we really wanted to be super flexible, so we actually changed the normal template for deals together. We are flexible in deals, we are flexible in the content we want to make, and we are ready for the next big bet.”
She was referencing Costiera, Prime Video’s first English-language series out of Italy, which has an American lead but is set on the Amalfi coast. “We really liked it also because it’s a novelty in that it’s a procedural, and a procedural on a streamer is not really a given; it’s not an easy one. So, we thought that it could be the right series, with action and crime but with an ironic touch, that we wanted to tackle. We created a deal that was completely new, which has then been scaled in other countries. The point is, we are looking for more series that can appeal to an international audience.”
Dubois has seen local French and Japanese titles have success abroad as well. “The first thing we’re looking at is something to resonate locally,” he said. “So, we’re not looking after a story that should adapt to international standards. We’re working closely with local creators to make the strongest story possible,” and he highlighted both movies and series working well. “The common denominator is the ambition that we’re putting behind and the talent that we’re working with to make sure that each time we’re telling a story, there’s a differentiating factor.”
Both Morganti and Dubois touched on the success Prime Video is seeing in the YA genre. Shows like Culpables and Maxton Hall have demonstrated that European YA content can resonate globally and sit alongside Prime Video’s global YA content like The Summer I Turned Pretty and Gen V. And this is continuing with Love Me, Love Me. “What we’ve seen is that young adults really don’t care where it comes from,” Morganti said. “They enjoy watching the movie or the series that they like, and it can come from Korea, France, wherever. The point is, it speaks to them, and it’s very important to do it in a completely different way from what was happening in the past. It needs to have their language, it needs to have what they like, and it needs to be something that they can watch and rewatch.”
“The genre that we’ve seen very much performing [well] is new romance,” Dubois added. “All those love stories can resonate very easily from one country to another. And looking at those successes, we’re trying to build pipelines of shows for the audiences in different territories.”
Within this, he said that a key piece is to engage and foster communities. “This is the intention. We love the romance genre, we love a good love story, but we really want to go after things that are going to foster and engage communities.”
As for other themes and genres of focus, female-targeted fare is a key priority. “We started very broad,” Morganti said. “There is this idea that now streamers are going to a broader audience. But no, we started with that. We started with non-scripted. What is broader than that?” She continued, “Now, we’re looking for women. We have been tackling a lot of action, a lot of comedy, a lot of sports, and we really want to now produce women’s content.”
“We’ve built some foundations on action and comedy, and we’ve seen great success with that,” Dubois added. “But the real focus right now is how do we get to women, and how do we engage them and then make them come to our service? We saw success with the first season of Culte that we launched last [fall]. It was a huge brand-defining title in the sense that a lot of people spoke about it, but it was a big step forward for us in having success with a series that was very much speaking to women. And we’re looking at more right now.” He highlighted a second installment of Culte coming up, with Culte—2be3, and Glamsquad.
The content teams work closely with each other to foster success across borders, Morganti said. “We work together a lot. Specifically with [Thomas], we are brainstorming at 1 a.m. like crazy. We’re going to have, for example, teams coming to Rome to have a workshop about young adult content and a set visit. They’re going to be sharing what is happening in Spain, what’s happening in France, what’s happened in Italy, and share the learnings of what has gone wrong or gone well. But it’s not just about sharing after; it’s also brainstorming before. It’s about constantly looking at each other and cheering the other on and trying to see what can be the next plan.”
“If there is a great story that comes to our desk and this story can involve people in different countries, we will look at it and approach it as a team, instead of approaching it independently,” Dubois added. “There is no intention to create what I would call an international group; we are not looking to create artificial things. But what we’re working on right now—and there will be more to come—are stories that are embedded into several countries and seeing how we can tell the stories with a common perspective.”
There’s a concerted effort overall by the Prime Video teams to get more series onto the platform. “The viewers that come to Prime Video love movies,” Morganti said. “We need you guys to come to us with more series. And maybe series that are not what you would expect. Procedurals, for example, are not something that is a given on a streamer. So, again, what is the next series? What is the kind of series that could appeal? Is it going to be a super long series with a lot of episodes that could actually engage day-to-day with the audience? Or is it going to be a procedural? Or is it going to a young adult series? This is the greatness of trying to really be bold and go for something new and see the reaction of the viewers and listen to what they like and give them more of that.”
