{"id":14551,"date":"2021-03-02T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2021-03-03T08:49:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T13:49:41","slug":"elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"Elisa Viihde\u2019s Finnish Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alan Sim, executive producer and commissioner at Elisa Viihde, tells <\/em>TV Drama about the Finnish platform’s local drama strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the last few years, Finnish entertainment platform Elisa Viihde has ramped up its original content efforts as it looks to maintain an edge in the competitive streaming wars. As executive producer and commissioner, Alan Sim is taking the lead on local drama initiatives at the platform, which has rebranded as Elisa Viihde Viaplay since its 2020 partnership with the Finnish arm of Nordic Entertainment Group\u2019s SVOD service. Sim\u2019s efforts have paid off, with the company making a mark both domestically and internationally with its original series.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom no [Finnish] series ever being on British TV, there are now four, in the space of two and half months,\u201d Sim tells TV Drama<\/em>, with two seasons of All the Sins<\/em> on Channel 4, Bullets<\/em> on All 4 and Man in Room 301<\/em> on BBC Four. All are Elisa originals.<\/p>\n

The platform began original commissions about seven years ago with local comedies. Its first big original was Bullets<\/em>, winner of the MIP Drama Buyers\u2019 Coup de Coeur Award in 2018. \u201cSince then, we\u2019ve had over 30 titles in total,\u201d Sim notes. \u201cWe\u2019re doing roughly seven series a year and probably half of those are drama titles. It\u2019s been a steady ratcheting up and up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest batch of dramas from Elisa Viihde includes the upcoming Bad Apples<\/em> from Fire Monkey Productions. \u201cIt\u2019s Orange Is the New Black<\/em> meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em>,\u201d Sim quips. \u201cIt\u2019s set in a sanatorium on an island in the Baltic Sea in the early \u201970s, with a primarily all-female ensemble cast.\u201d Also on the upcoming slate is Next of Kin<\/em>, featuring Sarah Boberg (The Bridge<\/em>), which Sim describes as a \u201cnear-fi drama that deals with genetic manipulation. It\u2019s very topical; hopefully, it will create some interesting discussion.\u201d It\u2019s made by Bufo, an arthouse film company that has now entered the TV space.<\/p>\n

As for what qualities he looks for in potential Elisa projects, Sim says, \u201cIt has to be premium. What\u2019s different about what we\u2019re trying to do in Finland is we\u2019re keeping a consistency of premium titles with real local flavor. The way we differentiate ourselves from Netflix is that we have content aimed at Finns. Whether that is location, subject matter or humor. Ivalo<\/em> is set in the deep snow of the Arctic Circle, All the Sins<\/em> is about a [Laestadian Lutheranism] church that you only really find in Finland and most of our titles have that cutting, laconic Finnish humor. They don\u2019t fall into a generic space. The people approaching us have to have that tonality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finland has been less impacted by Covid-19 than most other countries, so production has been able to continue largely uninterrupted. \u201cWe pushed one or two series, maximum. We\u2019ve had almost nobody come down with symptoms on-set. Part of that is the pragmatism within Finnish production. It\u2019s not a big American production where you have an assistant for an assistant. We\u2019ve had smaller markups, probably 15 to 20 percent in Covid costs. However, we are starting to see some new lockdown measures now in Finland, so we\u2019ll monitor these closely and follow the guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the pandemic\u2019s impact on viewing habits, Sim is hesitant to outline any discernible trends. \u201cGreat scripts make great series, not trends.\u201d Yes, upbeat shows have done well, he notes, but so have projects reflecting darker material. \u201cWe had made a virus series called Ivalo<\/em> before Covid and it went out on Elisa Viihde and did really well; it was our top show. We were worried about [how it would do in] the second window on Yle. They\u2019ve just released it, we\u2019re still in the middle of Covid, and it\u2019s one of their top series. The bottom line is, people liked the actors, the action, the scripts; they liked it regardless of what was going on [in real life]. It was well cast and well made. So that\u2019s why trends shouldn\u2019t matter so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his team do, however, tap into analytics as they make content decisions. \u201cWe do look at the data a lot and we do qualitative research. We look at what people liked and didn\u2019t like. Who\u2019s buying the service, why they are buying it, what they are watching. But that\u2019s only part of the picture. It doesn\u2019t give you a huge look into what\u2019s happening in four or five years, which is how long it might take to make a drama. With our commissioning, we\u2019re always looking for a good spread of series. For example, Bad Apples<\/em> is an all-female-led series and we think it will have a female-skewed audience, but that doesn\u2019t mean that men won\u2019t watch. It\u2019s just about having a good mixture that will appeal across the board. Now we\u2019re Elisa Viihde Viaplay as a service. Viaplay traditionally is quite popular with sports, so will we see if our drama audience will move and change. Will we find that some of those male-skewed sports viewers are interested in more of our male-skewed drama programming? Let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sim is also looking forward to the prospect of greater European collaboration as regional platforms look for new ways to compete with the well-funded global giants. \u201cEurope has always been well known for co-productions and broadcasters teaming up. I think we\u2019ll see more of that as the pots get bigger for making drama and there has to be collaboration. We do a lot with our second-window deals locally. It means we can join together to get the money to make a show. There\u2019s no reason why there shouldn\u2019t be more co-producing within Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Sim, executive producer and commissioner at Elisa Viihde, talks about the Finnish platform’s local drama strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":14552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,70],"tags":[2944,2602,4350],"class_list":["post-14551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-alan-sim","tag-elisa-viihde","tag-elisa-viihde-viaplay","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nElisa Viihde\u2019s Finnish Edge - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elisa Viihde\u2019s Finnish Edge - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alan Sim, executive producer and commissioner at Elisa Viihde, talks about the Finnish platform's local drama strategy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-02T13:00:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-03T13:49:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/Alan-Sim-Elisa-321.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Elisa Viihde\u2019s Finnish Edge - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-02T13:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-03T13:49:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/elisa-viihdes-finnish-edge\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Elisa Viihde\u2019s Finnish Edge\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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