Scale, Independence and Economic Sustainability

Cultural Diversity in Internationally Coproduced High-end Drama

“…The accentuation of cultural specificity in today’s high-end TV drama, whilst only one contributor to the increased allure of this drama that is underlined by Gillian Doyle, Richard Paterson and Kenny Barr (2021: 172) deviates from perceived constraints, as examined by a succession of media culture and industry scholars, on the potential international appeals of programming that foregrounds cultural details and/or specificity. Two concepts are indicative of a wider perception evident in scholarship and in industry circles before the multiplatform era, that audiences prefer programmes they perceive as culturally familiar and are notably less attracted to content perceived as culturally distant or unfamiliar.…”

“…While neither of these concepts of transnational and cultural flow for TV programming is necessarily outmoded, there are valid questions about their relevance to high-end TV drama, a category which, mitigated by its unprecedented production cost, is now devised and intended to travel. As such, Doyle et al (2021:171) suggest, ‘the impetus to develop material that is suited both to domestic and international markets is even stronger’ than it is for TV programming intended primarily for a domestic audience. Yet while this drama’s development for both domestic and international functions might have once rendered it subject to the reduction of cultural details and specificity in the assumption that such ‘delocalization’ would boost rather than diminish its international appeal, the tide is turning, as the case studies in this issue all suggest, to endow cultural details and specificity with increased value for international audiences.…”

“…Citing the perspectives of drama producers in a changing British TV industry, Doyle et al (2021: 176) suggest that these include an increased international interest in the cultural specificity of UK-produced drama. While cultural specificity is a longstanding expectation for TV dramas commissioned by national broadcasters, its increased presence in the international arena is being encouraged, Doyle et al suggest, by a perceived ‘looking for local’ strategy in the drama being acquired and/or commissioned by multinational premium networks and/or SVODs (Critchley cited in Doyle et al, 2021: 176). Although these providers are still likely to prioritise acquisitions and commissions with obvious international appeal, Doyle et al’s industry interviews suggest that this aim is no longer incompatible with the pursuit of localisation and cultural specificity.…”

“…Although these providers are still likely to prioritise acquisitions and commissions with obvious international appeal, Doyle et al’s industry interviews suggest that this aim is no longer incompatible with the pursuit of localisation and cultural specificity. As Doyle et al (2021: 177) explain, ‘greater emphasis on localized material, while opening the door to criticism of cultural appropriation, underlines the fact that local material often works well for both domestic and international audiences.’ Citing Andrew Critchley of Red Production Company, Doyle et al (ibid.) acknowledge that ‘whereas setting out deliberately to make content that has broad international appeal or that tries “to please too many” is a strategy that ‘can backfire’, Red’s more ‘insular’ or ‘inward-looking’ dramas, exemplified by BBC crime drama Happy Valle y (2014, 2016, and 2023) have been notably successful for the company.…”

‘Black Lives Have Always Mattered’: Cultural specificity and transformative representations in Small Axe

“…New strategies for transnational coproduction, as I argue elsewhere (Dunleavy, 2020) have become necessary in the context of unprecedented production costs for high-end TV drama in particular (see Pearson, 2021). Connecting the escalation of TV drama’s costs and risks with the necessity for ambitious locally commissioned productions to pursue finance from additional, usually foreign, sources, Gillian Doyle et al (2021: 171) underline that ‘high production costs have encouraged the internationalisation of television content’. Although this finance is also derived from pre-sales agreements with TV distributors and individual foreign networks, an important and prevalent course for broadcasters in the multiplatform era is transnational coproduction.…”