Television Industry Contexts

Independent: British viewers can't get enough of foreign-language dramas

1) What does the article suggest regarding the traditional audience for foreign-language subtitled media?

Fifteen years ago, if you'd mentioned to a colleague that you'd spent Saturday night glued to a subtitled European drama, you'd have been quietly declared pretentious, dull and, possibly, a little odd. Skip to today and foreign-language dramas aren't even on-trend, they're fully mainstream.

2) What does Walter Iuzzolino suggest is the key appeal of his 'Walter Presents' shows?

"Truthfully, I think it's simply down to the material," says Iuzzolino. "What filtered in before was mostly for a small, dedicated community of people who loved their intellectually complex cinema. Now we see shows that are populist and successful; we're tasting what people like us love in other countries, not something niche. Plus there was the advent of the 'box-set binge' as Netflix and others transformed how we watch TV."

3) The article makes an interesting claim for the popularity of subtitles in the multi-screen age. What does it suggest?

There may be something else in foreign TV's new popularity, too. It may sound prosaic but when we're frequently distracted from our TV viewing by Twitter feeds and a pinging WhatsApp, subtitles are a welcome enforcement for us to focus. "When you read subtitles, you have to be glued to the screen," says Deeks. "That concentration gives a particular intensity to the viewing experience. You just can't multitask when you're watching a foreign-language drama."

4) What are the other audiences pleasures of foreign TV drama suggested by the article?

"We all love getting that insight into a different culture," says Deeks. "The unfamiliar setting gives a freshness to genre pieces." Iuzzolino agrees. "You develop a love for the distant world because while you're watching, you're in Sweden," he says. "If you see something amazing set in Argentina, then Argentina itself, the houses, the people, what they wear, what their voices sound like, the language, is one of the biggest appeals. There is a huge pleasure in that."

Film School Rejects: The foreign TV dramas you're missing out on

1) What does the article tell us about Deutschland 83's release schedule?

Premiering on AMC Network’s Sundance TV in June 2015, the show was the first German-language

TV series to premiere on a US network. The fact Germany’s commercial RTL channel received Deutschland ’83 five months after the US both signifies the series’ global appeal as well as foreshadows where the German crime thriller was (and is) to find its audience.

2) The article contains important statistics on viewing figures in different countries. What were the German viewing figures for the first and last episode? What were Channel's 4's viewing figures for Deutschland 83?

The German premiere had 3.19 million viewers. Each new episode saw that figure drop, and by the

series’ conclusion the figures had fallen down to 1.63 million, it’s lowest figure. Channel 4 saw viewing figures reach a peak of 2.13 million viewers in a prime time TV slot, earning it the title of the UK’s highest-rated foreign drama.

3) Who are the two production and distribution companies behind Deutschland 83 and what did they announce in October? 

SundanceTV and FremantleMedia finally announced in October that there will be a second series of Deutschland 83 (called Deutschland 86, more likely than not followed by the pivotal year of 89).

4) How does Walter Iuzzolino use social media to engage audiences in new international TV dramas? How does he suggest this has changed the reception of foreign productions in the UK?

Even if you’re weary of foreign drama, with Iuzzolino posting a “Weekend Pick” on his Facebook

page and engaging with viewers on Twitter, it’s impossible not to become engrossed in the experience. As Iuzzolino says, in the UK subtitled and foreign productions are “relegated to the elite” and the art-house. His streaming service has certainly changed this perception in Britain.

The Guardian: How tech is changing television

1) How have streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime changed the way TV drama narratives are constructed?

“Your form of storytelling has to reflect the fact that people could watch the whole series straight away. So the hooks at the end of every episode are very important. But you also have to think about how you give information. With a thriller for terrestrial TV, you tend to have a recap at the start of each episode. But, with streaming video on demand, you can get straight on with the story.”

2) Why has the rise in streaming led to more complex storylines and an increase in cliffhangers?

Mercurio believes scripts demanding such attention and memory are a modern phenomenon: “The fact that the audience can catch up easily on missed episodes has hugely changed content. You don’t have to go back very far to when commissioners had this idea that the audience was so fragile and fickle that you had to be careful how complex your story was, in case they lost track and never came back. That has changed. You don’t get editorial input about the risk of putting in stuff that might not pay off until an episode or two later.”

A surprise of the new TV has been its relative creative conservatism. Although streaming dramas can theoretically last anything from 60 seconds to 60 hours, there has so far been little structural experimentation. Episodes within a series may have unequal lengths, but the biggest hits of this revolution – The Crown, Stranger Things, House of Cards, Transparent – have chapter lengths that stay close to the half-hour or hour of traditional scheduled television.

3) How have the "economics of production" kept TV drama largely sticking to the 45- or 60-minute episode format?

Regardless of how they will ultimately be screened – are usually shot in blocks. In order to maximise the use of time, and minimise the cost of actors and crew, while part of a drama is filming, another team is prepping the next section. So, while a streamed drama theoretically need not be divided at all, it still makes logistical and financial sense to hire on episode basis.

“I think we’ll always have to split productions into time-groups,” says Shindler. “Although the complication is that, in order to attract directors to film a block of episodes, they have to feel they are telling a whole story. So that affects structure as well. The trick is to have big story arcs within the overall story.”

4) How has "permanent 24/7 connectivity" changed both the production and consumption of TV drama?

Permanent 24/7 connectivity has radically altered viewer responses. Live-tweeting by audiences has usefully democratised criticism, but the downside of this new media interaction has been in giving the old media a stick with which to beat broadcasters. Stories about alleged outrage over incomprehensible actors or violent action often turn out to be based on the fact that, from among millions of viewers, a tiny handful tweeted disagreeably. “I talk to other showrunners about this,” says Mercurio. “It’s the No 1 thing that really winds our clocks. It’s done very deliberately by a certain section of the press. They just punch certain key search terms into Twitter, such as ‘mumbling’, and get a viewer who thought the dialogue was inaudible. They take an isolated opinion and use it to make the case that something is failing, when it’s not.”

Media Magazine: Netflix and the Cultural Industries 

1) What does David Hesmondhalgh argue with regards to how the creative industries have changed since the 1980s?

The trend for the first two bullet points started in the 1980s and the Internet has facilitated the last two, particularly through the broadband connections that became ubiquitousin the 21st century. In the 1980s media companies began to see the benefit of synergy (see ‘Synergy rules OK?’, MM 14) at the same time that governments in the west, because of the decline of manufacturing industries, came to appreciate the economic benefits of having a strong ‘cultural’ sector (particularly the film, television and music industries). Although digitisation’s first major impact was on the music industry, with the creation of CDs in the early 1980s, it was the growth of home computing and the creation of the World Wide Web, which led to increased technological convergence; digitisation of media meant every media form could be accessed on computers. It was this that eventually enabled tech companies to compete directly with media companies and, arguably, even become media companies.

2) What is technological convergence? 

Technological convergence is digitisation of media which meant that every media form  could be accessed on computers. 

3) How are technology companies challenging traditional broadcasters in the TV industry?

Recently the chair of Ofcom suggested that Google and Facebook should be regulated as publishers and not, as they wish to be, considered simply as Internet platforms that take no responsibility for what is hosted on their sites. For example, Google’s YouTube hosts extremist content but if traditional broadcasters aired similar content they would be fined or possibly even lose their license.

4) The global nature of modern television means producers are having to consider international audiences when creating content. What example from Netflix does the article use to explain this?

Even more cannily Netflix also understood that it would need to produce its own content because the

traditional media companies would eventually realise that they could set up their own Internet distribution networks. Disney, for example, has withdrawn all its content from Netflix for distribution on its own channel. Next year Netflix plans to spend $8bn on original material; Amazon’s budget is

estimated at $4.5bn. network. In 2016 Netflix simultaneously launched its service in 130 new countries, bringing its total to 190, and Amazon opened in 200. Going global means they have to pay for the license to broadcast individual shows in different countries so another advantage of creating their own content is that Netflix or Amazon automatically own the copyright for the programmes and don’t have to purchase additional distribution permissions.