Such has been the chaos in international TV over the past 12 months that you could argue Cineflix Rights’ Head of Scripted, James Durie, is underplaying things when he says it has been “a hell of a year.” Distributors around the world have watched on in horror as the streaming sector crumbled and the crashing TV ad market decimated budgets at commercial nets everywhere, not to mention the license fee woes being experienced by the likes of the BBC.
Redundancies, cost saving and restructuring took hold, and the likes of Paramount, Disney+ and Prime Video have cut back on international originals, in some cases brutally culling non-U.S.
shows. In recent months, international scripted projects from countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia that would have been viable options for the U.S.
streamers have suddenly been seen as big gambles. The sense that co-production agreements with streamers could be struck faded into dust, while linear networks kept their hands in their pockets or came to the table with reduced budgets.
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