No abstract

This article provides a detailed analysis of how the Danish public service broadcaster DR employs external funding for its drama productions. This investigation is carried out in order to discuss the schisms involved when a public service broadcaster – whose traditional obligations arguably pertain to the national sphere – becomes a player in the international market for television content and, as a consequence, becomes partly reliant on international funding. Our article examines five different forms of external funding (i.e. funding from sources other than DR’s licence fee income): (1) co-funding with external partners (most often foreign broadcasters and/or foreign distributors); (2) canned programming sales; (3) pre-sales of canned programming; (4) format/remake sales and (5) international funds, both regional and international as well as pannational funds. All five forms of funding are critically assessed on the basis of existing theory and interviews conducted with significant industry professionals at DR’s Drama Division, DR Sales, German public broadcaster ZDF’s commercial sales arm ZDF Enterprises, and independent Danish production companies Nimbus Film and Miso Film. Specific cases (such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing [2007–2012], Bron/Broen/The Bridge [2011–], Arvingerne/The Legacy [2014–], 1864 [2014] and The Team [2015–]) are employed to illustrate the different funding models and tendencies identified within Danish television drama production. Apart from presenting the proliferation of different cross-national funding models that have been used within the last fifteen years, our empirical data also show significant new patterns in production culture and international market orientation within DR. Interestingly, however, our study demonstrates the distinctive contribution that DR’s public service remit has made to the quality of its drama programming, on one hand, and to the reach of its funding models, on the other – and, hence, to DR’s overall international success.

As television production becomes increasingly global, television studies must advance its understanding of how the global and the local intersect and impact upon the cultures of production. Drawing on original comparative research of three small European nations – Denmark, Ireland and Wales – this article offers empirical insights into the distinct challenges and opportunities for non-Anglophone producers and public service broadcasters (PSBs). The concept of small nations is employed critically to reveal how distinctions of scale and power make a tangible difference to how television is produced and distributed, and to how smaller, national PSBs are trying to secure a sustainable future.

Danish public service broadcasters have taken long strides into the international marketplace at the level of funding, production and distribution of TV drama series. The series are sold across the globe, remade in countries as different as the United States and Turkey, and the international co-production set-ups are becoming increasingly complex (e.g. Broen/The Bridge [SVT/DR, 2013–] and The Team [ZDF/vtm/DR, etc. 2015]). This article tests the limits of cross-national collaboration by discussing two recent co-production initiatives that involve DR/HBO and TV 2/Netflix. The co-production initiatives discussed are located at the intersection of at least three strands of development: first, the commercialization of European public service media that can be traced back to regulatory changes in the 1980s; second, the tendency towards cross-national partnerships regarding television funding, production and/or distribution; and third, the advent of streaming services available on various digital platforms. The article highlights tension and obstacles prohibiting or undermining these two co-production initiatives. In the case of DR/HBO, the obstacles have their source in alternative media systemic logics and differing narrative and aesthetic strategies, whereas competition and business development strategies are particularly pertinent to the case of TV 2 and Netflix.

A one-week continuing education course was given on software ergonomics for teachers in the Danish one to two year programmer training schools.