 Your once-a-month recap for trends in the scripted sector, with news digests, interviews, analysis & more. |
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What's Inside:
- European Commissioning Trends on Global Streamers
- Vivian Yin’s Vision for Premium Microdrama
- Japan’s Rising Soft Power
- Manga to Morning Moments & International Acclaim: The Hirayasumi Story
- BBC Studios is Scaling its EMEA Scripted Footprint, One Breakthrough Idea at a Time
- Surviving the Post-Peak TV Scripted Era
- The Korean Webcomic-to-Series Story with Studio N’s Mikyung (Michelle) Kwon
- Dynamic Television’s Dan March
- Distribution Shift: ORF-Enterprise’s Armin Luttenberger
- Chasing IP: Reboots, book adaptations, experiential events, and scripted formats.
- In Short: News from the microdrama space.
- Turkish Delight: News from ATV, Eccho Rights, Inter Medya and OGM Pictures.
European Commissioning Trends on Global Streamers
To get a sense of what global SVODs are looking for in Europe, ScreenMDM Extra pored over the insights shared by senior programmers from HBO Max, Prime Video, and Disney+ at Series Mania Forum in Lille. While largely promotional keynotes, intended to highlight upcoming originals, the sessions with HBO Max’s Sarah Aubrey, Disney+’s Angela Jain, and Prime Video’s Nicole Morganti and Thomas Dubois pointed to a few key themes, namely, to win globally, you must first win locally; IP matters; niche and broad audiences are on their watch lists; and while making the cut is no easy feat, the door does appear to be open to the best ideas from Europe’s biggest creative hubs.
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Vivian Yin, founder of Y+X Entertainment, is on a mission to rescue the microdrama format from the “junk food” cycle of disposable content and transform it into a sophisticated, IP-driven ecosystem.
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The Japanese government launched its revamped “New Cool Japan” strategy in 2024, aiming to increase international revenues from the country’s cultural exports to ¥50 trillion by 2033. If the last few weeks are any indication, this revamped global outlook is clearly beginning to bear fruit for companies across the Japanese content ecosystem.
Hirayasumi, a 20×15-minute series, is part of the growing manga-to-series pipeline, inspired by the graphic novel of the same name by Keigo Shinzo. The “slice-of-life” series aired in a daily morning slot on NHK. “It’s a best-selling manga, and very popular, especially among the young generations,” Koji Sakabe, a producer at NHK Enterprises, tells ScreenMDM. “I asked myself, why does it have so much power to appeal to the young generation? This was the beginning of our journey.”
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The message from Matt Forde at Series Mania Forum was clear: in the year since he had last been on stage in Lille, the restructuring that brought production and sales together under a global content studio has dramatically changed the U.K. powerhouse’s positioning in Europe and beyond. “We are a full-service studio, based out of London,” Forde, president of BBC Studios Global Productions, said. “We have ten production bases around the world, so we are effectively production companies in every market—mini-studios.”
Surviving the Post-Peak TV Scripted Era
Amid a constricted commissioning environment for scripted in the post-peak TV age, producers and distributors of the genre should be prioritizing efficiency over “high-budget spectacle,” lean into streamers’ new acquisition-first strategies, and exploit opportunities in the vertical video space, according to Olivia Deane, research manager at Ampere Analysis. “Between 2024 and 2025, titles from both North America and Western Europe showed a significant decline in the volume of new content," Deane said at Series Mania. "Conversely, the volume of premieres of acquired scripted TV seasons created in the Asia Pacific increased more than titles from any other region. They’re making more, and therefore there is more available to buy, and the increase in acquired scripted premieres from Asia Pacific has also had an impact on global genre trend.”
The Korean Webcomic-to-Series Story with Studio N’s Mikyung (Michelle) Kwon
Studio N CEO Mikyung (Michelle) Kwon shares insights with ScreenMDM on making hit series out of successful webcomics, including The Legend of Kitchen Soldier, based on a WEBTOON webcomic that has notched up 650 million global views.
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ScreenMDM Talks catches up with Dan March, founder and managing partner at Dynamic Television, on negotiating the scripted financing jigsaw and leaning into feel-good series amid a fast-changing international drama landscape.“Chaos is opportunity in disguise,” March says.
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Distribution Shift: ORF-Enterprise’s Armin Luttenberger
"In a world dominated by, e.g., English-language content, Korean productions, and very strong telenovela ecosystems from Latin America or Turkey, the tricky part is often not the quality of European drama, but access to the gatekeepers and decision-makers. There is so much fresh, original, and beautifully produced content coming from Europe. Our task is to connect with people, exchange experiences, and identify new sweet spots for strong stories that may not immediately fit the most obvious market pattern.”
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Chasing IP
Monarch of the Glen, which ran on BBC One from 2000 to 2005, is being reimagined by original producer Ecosse Films for 5 and Masterpiece on PBS, in association with Northern Ireland Screen, with Banijay Rights handling global distribution. Gabrielle Creevy and Michael Socha are set to star in an upcoming BBC supernatural thriller inspired by Danny Robins’ The Witch Farm podcast, with ITV Studios handling global distribution. Banijay Live Studio has unveiled an immersive experience for Black Mirror. STUDIOCANAL is setting up a joint venture with Hachette Livre to develop a slate of film and TV adaptations based on the publisher’s properties.
Meanwhile, on the scripted formats front, yes Studios, home to Your Honor—which is tied for the top spot in K7’s Scripted Giants Report—has closed three new scripted format deals, all for comedies, in Europe. Long Vacation, a prime-time drama that originally aired on Fuji Television in 1996, is getting its first international remake, courtesy of PCCW Media’s MakerVille for ViuTV in Hong Kong.
In Short
Announcing a slate of ten English-language vertical short-form series, Singapore’s Refinery Media is making a “full pivot” into the format. Married at First Sight, a popular microdrama on the ReelShort platform, is getting a Brazilian remake courtesy of Endemol Shine Brasil. TikTok has clinched a deal for vertical content from Issa Rae’s HOORAE Digital. Great American Media is working with the U.S. Hispanic- and LatAm-targeted vertical shorts platform Minivela on a slate to be made available on Pure Flix Familia.
Turkish Delight
GoQuest Media and Rains Pictures are making a second season of the Turkish drama Arafta after season one landed deals in 19 markets and delivered more than 850 million views on its official YouTube channels. OGM Pictures and Grupo Ganga will collaborate on developing premium scripted projects in Türkiye and Spain. Portuguese commercial broadcaster SIC acquired a batch of Turkish drama series from Eccho Rights, which also sealed a significant content pact with a broadcast partner in Mexico, encompassing 3,200 hours of Turkish drama, and did a batch of deals in Central and Eastern Europe. Inter Medya’s Halef is headed to Romania and Hungary, the latest in a raft of CEE deals for the Turkish distributor. The Nightfall (Bir Gece Masalı), from atv, landed on Mediaset in Italy.
