Your once-a-month recap for trends in the scripted sector, with news digests, interviews, analysis & more.
ScreenMDM Scripted
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Content from Asia, new vertical video shifts, and a wealth of revivals and remakes defined the last month in the scripted business.
What's Inside:
- Asian IP: Insights from BCWW, Ampere Analysis, and Media Partners Asia on what’s working, and what’s not, in Asia’s fast-moving scripted business.
- Microdrama Mania: Another big month for the vertical video space.
- What’s Being Made: Known IP and a broadcast uptick.
- Script Savvy: It was a particularly busy month in the world of scripted formats.
- What’s Being Bought: A recap of acquisitions over the last month.
- Other Bits & Pieces: Personnel news, leaning into fandoms, and a new U.K. channel.
Asian IP
ScreenMDM was at BCWW this month, where much of the conversation revolved around the challenges of the Korean media ecosystem. While interest in the country’s content sector has never been higher, the word on the ground was that high-profile events like the Lumière Summit are great for generating headlines in the global trades—but they may not be enough to overcome the crisis in the domestic production landscape. With linear ad revenues shrinking and production costs rising, the Korean content business is eagerly looking for better models to ensure it can maintain its hot streak as a market to watch for creative IP.
News out of Korea over the last month included CJ ENM preparing to expand its content distribution efforts in Central and Eastern Europe, participating in the 2026 Poland-Korea Brand Week, hosted by KOCCA, and signing an MOU for closer regional collaboration. Singapore’s Mediacorp joined forces with the Korean content investment company Blintn for a 12-episode romantic comedy filmed across both markets. Netflix added to its Korean slate with the greenlight of Outback (w.t.), an adaptation of the G’Day webtoon. South Korean studio SLL signed a partnership with Mediawan to explore remakes of their respective IPs and pursue co-productions.
It was also another landmark month in what ScreenMDM has been calling the year of Japanese IP. The TBS drama Vivant became the most-watched streaming title across the Asia-Pacific—excluding China and India—according to Media Partners Asia’s ampd Analytics. TBS’s Sunday Theater series returned for its second season in July and has become the first Japanese drama to lead the regional chart since ampd measurement began. Per MPA’s streaming measurement and analytics platform, Vivant has reached 15.6 million unique viewers, 15.1 million of them in Japan—that’s a quarter of the country’s tracked VOD audience of 61.4 million. The local streaming platform TVer, backed by the country’s broadcasters, delivered 10.2 million viewers. Only two other titles have crossed 10 million on a single platform in one market in one month: the World Baseball Classic in Japan and Teach You a Lesson in South Korea, both on Netflix. Also from MPA, anime accounts for a larger share of streaming viewers in Asia than any other genre, reaching between 31% and 47% of premium VOD users across eight key markets in the region.
In other news from Japan, Lightning International is working with Japanese producer and distributor REMOW to bring the Samurai vs Ninja FAST channel to Samsung TV Plus in Southeast Asia. The South Korean-owned subscription platform Manta expanded its lineup, scoring manga deals with KADOKAWA and Square Enix’s Manga UP! platform. Shadows of the Ten Ninja, an ambitious period action-adventure series from TV Asahi, will stream on Netflix worldwide. Nippon TV and Netflix entered their first-ever live-action partnership with the global original From NEET to Peak, launching on the streaming giant in January. MIP Cancun, marking its 13th edition this year, is set to host a delegation of 10 Japanese broadcasters looking to drive their businesses across Latin America.
Korea and Japan are the biggest scripted exporters in the region, but activity is picking up across Asia. In the first half of this year, first-run streaming scripted orders in Asia eclipsed Europe and North America for the first time, Ampere Analysis says, accounting for 36% of scripted orders for the major streamers. Across Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix, and Paramount+, Asia saw 70 first-run scripted commissions in the first half, with North America at 46 and Western Europe at 44. All other regions combined added up to just 34 scripted orders, Ampere found. Across India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, video content investment is projected to reach $15.1 billion this year, Media Partners Asia says.
Microdrama Mania
This last month in the vertical video space was marked by new players, expanded reach, and new use cases. Vertical video specialist RoseBerry clinched a deal with Fremantle to reimagine the long-running soap Neighbours for a short-form vertical rollout. Modern-day adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, produced in both vertical short-form and horizontal feature versions, are part of the inaugural slate at the new L.A.-based studio LoveHit, which has also launched its own microdrama app. JK Media Group expanded into this space, making a pair of microdrama series for TelevisaUnivision’s ViXMicrO. COL Group International is working with MediaSpurs to boost its microdrama business in Poland as it looks to further expand across the region, and joined forces with Lingopie to launch DramaRizz, which uses vertical short-form drama for language learning. Super Punchy Studios’ original vertical drama Step By Step is expanding beyond the outfit’s own app, landing on TikTok. ReelShort expanded its significant Southeast Asian footprint, aligning with Singtel CAST in Singapore and Telkomsel in Indonesia.
What’s Being Made
Linear TV scripted commissions in the U.S. rose by 11% from 2023 to 2025, Ampere Analysis said in a recent report, a slight recovery from the 26% slide between 2022 and 2025. Overall, there were 1,304 linear TV orders in the U.S. in 2025, with scripted at 262. The sector has demonstrated greater resiliency than VOD, with streaming orders down 42% from 2022 to 2025 to 678. The U.K., meanwhile, remains a hub of activity across known IP and fresh ideas. ITV commissions included Code Zero, a crime thriller from Two Brothers Pictures; In Contempt, from Hartswood Films and starring Jodie Whittaker; and She Lies in Wait (w.t.), a Clapperboard Studios-produced thriller based on the Jonah Sheens series of novels. In other known IP news, MGM+ ordered an adaptation of the first book in John Sandford’s Prey book series from MGM Television and Take 5 Productions; ITV Studios’ Eagle Eye Drama secured the rights to adapt The Great Dictator, the biography of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet; SkyShowtime added a new Polish original series to its slate, The Hidden Beast (Zwierzak), based on the life of Jerzy Hybiński; Netflix slated a new movie for the beloved sitcom The Inbetweeners; and Globo’s Brazil Avenue is returning for a second season in 2027, 15 years after its hit ratings in Brazil and sales to more than 140 countries.
Other commissioning updates include FOX ordering a new legal drama starring Edie Falco from FOX Entertainment Studios and Scott Free Productions; and Finnish broadcaster MTV boarding the six-part psychological drama Dangerous Woman from Gutsy Pictures. In renewal news, RTÉ and the BBC are on board for a second season of the comedy series The Walsh Sisters, P-Valley is finally returning to STARZ for a third and final season;, and Apple TV confirmed the return of Silo for a fourth and final season.
Script Savvy
There was a lot of scripted format news in the last month, from across the globe. The Studio Dragon/CJ ENM Korean mystery drama Quiz from God is being remade in Japan for global rollout on Prime Video this December. The Globoplay original The Others has landed its first remake, with a Greek version in production for Alpha TV. Globo’s Brazil Avenue is being remade for Portuguese broadcaster SIC’s 2027 schedule. The Brazilian media giant also renewed a deal with Ay Yapım for Turkish adaptations of its telenovelas, with Madd Entertainment leading distribution on the remakes. Romanian broadcaster PRO TV has adapted Eccho Rights’ Turkish drama Kaçak as Fără Urmă (Without a Trace), marking its third scripted-format deal with the distributor. A German adaptation of the Argentinian TV series La chica que limpia—adapted as The Cleaning Lady in the U.S.—launched on ZDFneo. FOX Entertainment Studios and BBC Studios Los Angeles are executive producing an American remake of the British comedy Mammoth for FOX.
What’s Being Bought
We covered a lot of acquisitions news in the run-up to MIPCOM, from across the globe. North American shows that saw traction included Cineflix Rights’ Anna Pigeon, a crime procedural for USA Network and Bell Media; the highly anticipated Baywatch reboot for FOX from Fremantle, which is headed to Stan in Australia; and Blue Ant’s Kim’s Convenience, acquired by Peacock. Portugal’s SIC International Distribution landed a Canadian deal on Vitória. Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Ukraine licensed 10 series and 11 feature films from Mediaset Distribution. The Murder of Mr. Moonlight, an RTÉ commission in association with Screen Ireland and Banijay Rights, was acquired for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. APC secured European deals for two dramas in its French-language catalog. One Life Studios (OLS) landed deals in India and Germany for three of its Hindu mythology-based drama series. And, as always, a ton of activity out of Turkey: Inter Medya licensed its drama series Eshref Ruya to Mediaset in Italy. ATV Distribution licensed four series to Bulgaria’s Nova TV. Global Agency’s rom-com Daydreamer is now available on 6ter in France. Eccho Rights closed a deal with Alshana in Morocco for three series.
Other Bits & Pieces
Mediapro Studios alum Juan C. (JC) Acosta was tapped as head of Telemundo Studios, leading the strategy to develop, scale, and monetize scripted content across long-form series, vertical formats, and feature films. Joanna Strevens and Kate O’Hara joined Sony Pictures Television International Productions as it continues to build out its scripted capabilities. U.K. broadcaster 5 added 5Drama to its branded-channel lineup on digital TV, YouTube, 5Streaming, and Freely. Banijay Rights inked a deal that will see the launch of a beer range inspired by Peaky Blinders.
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