NCIS Tops Ranking of Europe’s Top Drama Imports

LONDON: New research from Essential Television Statistics, Madigan Cluff and Digital TV Research puts the value of imported drama series for European broadcasters at about $6 billion in 2011, with NCIS, the CBS military procedural starring Mark Harmon, leading the pack.

NCIS generated $210 million for European broadcasters, according to Imported Drama Series in Europe. Closely behind were CSI: Miami—recently axed in the U.S.—which was worth $193.7 million to European broadcasters, followed by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, worth $176.6 million. All three shows are sold by CBS Studios International. Other series in the top ten—a combined value of $1.4 billion—were House, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, CSI: NY, Two and a Half Men, Bones and the sole non-American entry, Sturm der Liebe (Storm of Love.)

CBS Studios International sits atop the ranking of distributors by value created. Its shows in the top 200 list of imported drama series in Europe generated $1.04 billion. Warner Bros. came in second with $691.4 million, followed by Disney ($634.6 million), NBCUniversal ($582.7 million), Fox ($357.1 million) and Sony (189 million.) “However, these six companies are probably not as dominant as many people would have guessed," said Michael Cluff, co-author of the report and director at Madigan Cluff. "Indeed, seventh-placed ZDF [$183 million, 12 titles] was pretty close to Sony in 2011. ITV was next with $116 million [9 titles]. Ninth place (and the only other distributor to record more than $100 million from Europe’s top 200 titles) went to Bavaria Media [$113 million], but this was solely for Sturm der Liebe.”