|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Netflix will ramp up the number of series, documentaries and movies it produces across Europe in 2019 as it steps up its competition with broadcasters on the continent.
The streaming service is on course for 141 projects in Europe this year consisting of 81 original productions and 60 co-productions or programmes licensed from other producers. In 2019 it will make 221 projects, including 153 originals.
Netflix has sharply increased its content investment in Europe this year and will spend close to $1bn on original productions across the continent. But its ambitions have alarmed European broadcasters, which are struggling with the migration of audiences to on-demand services from “linear” viewing, when audiences tune in to watch at a particular time.
“A year ago we had one or two shows in Spain, next year we will have six or seven,” said Erik Barmack, Netflix’s vice-president of international originals. “We are ramping towards 10 to 12 in each country . . . it could be more in particular markets.”
Its new European projects include The Eddy, a musical drama series from Damien Chazelle, the director of La La Land, which will be filmed in Paris in French, English and Arabic. Netflix at present has 40 projects in production or being produced by partners in the UK, including acclaimed hits such as The Crown and Black Mirror. Its latest series, Sex Education, about the teenage son of a sex therapist, is set in Wales.
The company is a big buyer of programming from UK producers. The recent hit The Bodyguard was made by ITV and screened in the UK on BBC One, but Netflix owns the international rights and is showing it on its service.
“We’re seeing a need in our biggest European markets for more local series and regional programming,” Mr Barmack said, adding that the shows were crossing borders and attracting large audiences across Netflix’s international customer base. It has about 130m subscribers worldwide.
The UK’s media watchdog this week urged the country’s public service broadcasters to collaborate on a jointly owned streaming service that could showcase the best British programming.
Sharon White, chief executive of Ofcom, warned that “cord-cutting” — the cancellation of pricey cable or satellite subscriptions — was growing in the UK. “Cord-cutting is no longer just a US phenomenon,” she told the Out of the Box conference in London. “In the UK, for the first time ever last year, the amount spent on traditional pay TV fell, and the number of subscriptions was overtaken by the streaming services.”
Ms White said the country’s PSBs should develop a joint streaming service. “Each of the big broadcasters operates an on-demand service, such as the BBC with its iPlayer. “A common platform could combine the pulling power of Broadchurch, Blue Planet and Bake Off,” she said.
Broadcasters are beginning to strike collaborative deals in response to the growth of Netflix and other streaming services. Discovery, the US media group that owns Eurosport, and ProSiebenSat.1, the German media company, are developing a subscription streaming service in Germany that will integrate their programming and digital services.
