Guy Bisson, executive director of Ampere Analysis, and Cyrine Amor, research manager, gave Series Mania Forum attendees a look at the latest international trends regarding linear and streaming series orders during a session this morning in Lille.
Bisson kicked off the data-filled session with a reflective look at where the series business has been. “We all know that we aren’t where we were. Peak TV is over. And just to put some numbers on that, the average in terms of volume against the peak in 2022 is 25 percent down. So I’m calling that 75 percent peak TV. That is where we are. That is where we are likely staying. Unfortunately, the industry had scaled for 100 percent peak TV, so that does mean some rescaling is ongoing.”
He did point to some good news in an otherwise very challenging market. After a roller-coaster ride, the market trending to zero change is a good thing, he said. “Global first-run scripted series orders change versus a year earlier have leveled out. The good news is that stability is predictable and that is good for business. So while the industry is down, it is now at a new steady state for two years running of that 75 percent of peak TV.” Looking at Europe, in particular, it, too, has leveled out after experiencing a dip in first-run scripted.
In terms of what isn’t getting made, or more specifically, what has been getting canceled, some of the more expensive genres, like sci-fi and fantasy, in particular, are getting canceled more often. “The other slightly unusual one is children’s content, and children’s content is interesting because streamers, in particular, have moved away from kids’ content as an original production sector, switching to a licensing model instead,” Bisson said. “So, they’re making a lot less kids’ content; they’re licensing it in instead, and cancellation rates are slightly elevated.”
Conversely, what’s getting commissioned more now is comedy, which really took a hit before. “I used to describe comedy as one of the three battering rams for the streaming original production market,” Bisson said. “It fell out of favor for a bit but has come back in earnest—maybe because we all need a laugh right now with what is going on in the world.”
The other important genre that is strong is crime content. “A third of all scripted commissions in Europe, and that includes first-run and renewal, is crime content,” noted Bisson. “If you delve into the streamers, the big six global streamers’ first-run content, almost half of their European original commissions are crime. Crime is big, it works very well for the streamers as they become more and more like broadcasters, they carry advertising, they need their audience to come back again and again. We have fallen in love again with the crime procedural, and it is showing up in the commissioning data.” (The “big six” he references are: Apple TV+, Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+ and Max.)
Looking at which platforms are commissioning, Bisson said, “It is a tale of two halves.” Europe, for one, “has a very strong public service broadcasting market, and it’s very important for the production landscape. Almost half of first-run scripted commissions come from that PSB sector in Europe, so it’s a really nice, stable base. The bar of gold on the mantelpiece that you turn to in times of hardship, perhaps.” There have been fluctuations and some ups and downs over the last few years, but overall, it’s relatively stable in volume.
After “massive dips” in the streaming and commercial free-to-air sector in Europe for first-run scripted commissions, Bisson noted an uptick of late. “They’re back in business; they’re coming back up. We’re nowhere near the volumes that we were, but they’re going into recovery. So, there is some positive news in that otherwise wild roller coaster.”
The other trend Bisson pointed to, which again speaks to where we are in the market, is that streamers are focusing a little more than they were on renewals and a little less than they were on first-run. He highlighted two key reasons for this: “For one, we’re in a maturing market, so there’s more content going into renewal cycles. But the second factor that’s important is some degree of risk aversion. That’s partly because the market has been so difficult, but also because they are now dependent on advertising for their future growth. These two trends are likely to be ongoing.”
Commissioning at the “big six” streamers follows the wider industry trends, with sci-fi and fantasy down, along with children’s and family. They are doubling down on crime and comedy, though.
“The other thing that has been an ongoing trend is the internationalization of production,” Bisson said. “If you’re sitting outside the U.S., that’s pretty important. Netflix went to majority non-U.S. original production about four years ago. But even across those global six, not only are they majority, but they’re vastly majority now made outside the U.S. for their first-run original scripted content. Barely one-third of their content now is commissioned in the U.S. market. Looking for positives in what we all know is a hard and challenging market, that is good for Europe and good for the wider international market.”
Amor, meanwhile, shared a look at current production trends to get a better sense of where the industry is headed. Asian powerhouses are increasingly important to new scripted series, she said, while the U.S. and global SVOD shares are down. The top ten markets from 2022 to 2024 for commissioning remain the same. “We can see a number of Asia-Pacific markets, Japan particularly, are very prominent, with an even further rise in the volume of anime productions that they are supporting. Secondly, we see that the U.S., excluding the global streamers, has lost in share of the scripted series market. There has been a fallback and reduction in volume, a lot of it coming from the U.S. market, which is down 2 percentage points. And we see some of the European markets, the U.K. and France in particular, slightly gaining in share. So, there’s a bit more opportunity in this space.”
Global streamers, she said, are producing more in-house or through major European production groups. “Some of the big European production-distribution groups are really coming to the fore with securing more of these global streamer new commissions, which ties into some of the consolidation trends that we’ve seen recently with the number of acquisitions,” Amor said. “But we also see more of the streamers producing or turning to some of the subsidiaries of their parent companies for some of these productions, or at least to co-produce some of these commissions.”
Amor also explored the trend toward IP continuing in the marketplace. “Usually, when we have a market under particular strain, as we have seen recently, we tend to see the share of new commissions that are based on preexisting IP go up. This is a way to mitigate some of the risk by tapping into familiar intellectual property. And we’ve seen this in the Western European market. The rise of new series based on preexisting IP has risen by 4 percentage points, and we expect this to continue to go up in the coming future. By comparison, quite interestingly, in the North American market, this share has gone down—but we are talking about a very high level from which it has started. So, it is becoming a little bit closer to the European rate.”
She added that budget strains on Western European PSBs are leading to more reliance on IP, with literary IP increasingly key. Public service broadcasters in Western Europe’s share of first-run scripted series based on preexisting IP increased 5 percentage points, from 21 percent in 2021 to 26 percent in 2024. “Globally, the share of remakes and reboots has not actually increased,” Amor said. “But if we look at reboots and who is behind them, we see that broadcasters—commercial broadcasters in particular, but also public service broadcasters—are going more for reboots within the mix of commissioners. Often these are shows that they have been involved with in the past that they are bringing back, again as a way to mitigate a little bit of this risk in a market that is under pressure.”
Looking at genre and thematic trends, with Western European PSBs, there’s more new drama and kids’ content, and comedy has a greater chance of renewal. Romance is out across the board, except romantic comedies and anime romance. Some thematic trends are pointing to changes in social and political contexts and personal crises, she added. “We see anything related to armed conflict (war, soldiers, etc.) has risen a little bit, about 22 percent. We’ve seen a very big growth in faith- and religion-based content; a 500 percent rise, but from a very, very low number. We’ve also seen social media make a bit of a resurgence; anything related to the influence of social media was very popular during the pandemic period, and it lost a little bit of growth over the last few years, but then in 2024, we’ve really seen it come back. It’s not very surprising that we see commissioners trying to tap into some of these trends from the creator economy, bringing in influencers and tapping into that more with the series that they are now commissioning. And finally, anything relating to personal crisis, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, etc., is also slightly on the rise. This potentially can be interpreted, as a whole, thematically, as people looking to find their place within a changing political and social context and trying to navigate the space on an individual personal level.”
