Glossy big-budget Hollywood programming has long been devoured by viewers of commercial television in Europe, but factors including new licensing models, content quotas and the emergence of higher quality shows from local markets have levelled the playing field.

Accordingly, ITV Studios’ European production labels are taking advantage of the unprecedented demand for high-quality drama coming out of the region.

The company’s slate of new scripted projects from the continent are world class, claims Lisa Perrin, MD of international production at ITV Studios.

ITV Studios is a multinational production and distribution Group and part of ITV PLC, which is also home to the UK commercial broadcaster ITV. It now has a global footprint spanning 13 countries, including Australia, France, Germany, the Nordics, the US, Italy and the Netherlands.

With 60 production labels crafting over 6,700 hours of content annually, ITV Studios produces and sells programming to broadcasters and streaming platforms around the world.

Operating in so many non-English-speaking territories has seen ITV Studios rise to the challenge of providing a pipeline of premium drama made by local producers, starring homegrown talent and telling stories featuring relatable characters.

One example is Blackwater, a 6x45’ crime series made by Danish prodco Apple Tree Productions, in collaboration with Germany’s ARD Degato and Filmpool Nord. Based on Kerstin Ekman’s novel of the same name, it tells the story of two tourists found murdered near the small town of Blackwater in the 1970s and how tragedy once again befalls the community.

“Most recently, we were really pleased to welcome Australia’s Lingo Pictures to the family late last year, while Cattleya is an amazing production company that has made shows such as Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero. These acquisitions are not a case of buying for buying’s sake. It’s not about scale; we want to find the right people and make sure it’s a natural fit.”

Another Apple Tree project is Chorus Girls, a stage revue drama set in the dance world of 1975. Commissioned by TV2 in Denmark, it follows eight young showgirls and tackles modern #MeToo issues from a period perspective.

Infiltré, meanwhile, is a cop drama developed by French label Tetra Media Fiction, the company behind Un Village Francais and Vernon Subutex. It tells the story of a police commander who heads an elite undercover squad determined to stop a new synthetic drug wreaking havoc.

“It’s powerful and shows that police procedurals never go away,” says industry veteran Perrin, who joined ITV Studios in 2020. “Viewers will always love character-led crime dramas.

“France, Italy, Sweden and Scandinavia have always had a strong cinematic heritage. Many cinematic creatives from those countries pivoted into making high-end TV, which is partly why their shows have such impressive production values.

“I would say that Poland is an emerging territory to look out for – there’s some fantastic content coming out of there. Colombia, too, is attracting a lot of industry buzz off the back of the Latin American content boom.”

With the global content industry opening up to embrace new territories and creative international partnerships, “the multi-language copro model is definitely here to stay,” says Perrin. “Using Django as an example, that’s a show made in English by Italian producers for Canal+ in France.

“The cross-collaboration between ITV Studios labels can be very helpful in that we can share information, technology, experience and, of course, inject cash to level up a project.

“Sometimes getting the money together can be the easy part, but making the content work for multiple channels in several different territories can pose challenges. It’s all about navigating that editorial puzzle – you can’t get the finance through copros and then write the story, as that would be a case of the tail wagging the dog. The story must be at the centre of the project.”

Streamers have played a huge role in the growing popularity of international drama, with shows such as South Korea’s Squid Game and Spain’s La Casa de Papel attracting millions of viewers for SVoD giant Netflix.

How has the rise of the VoD market affected ITV Studios’ distribution strategy?

“Streamers have been massive for exposing audiences to foreign-language content,” says Perrin. “During the Covid pandemic, even my 83-year-old mother got subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ and was watching subtitled shows.

“Then, of course, a lot of those same streamers pulled their US content off competing platforms to keep for themselves, which inevitably led to broadcasters seeking content from elsewhere.

“Now local content quotas in EU territories have had a huge impact, because there’s such a huge pot to play for. France really opened the door for this and now countries like Denmark and Australia are starting to negotiate their own local terms with the streamers. It means you can keep the money in your own country.

“In terms of our distribution strategy, global streamers often want rest-of-the-world rights, so that doesn’t leave much left for us. However, linear broadcasters and local streamers are spending more on shows, so we can use the copro model to develop high-end content that we can then distribute globally ourselves.  Having our own distribution business of scale and the ability to invest in projects is a great extra string to our bow.”

Realistically, few industry experts would deny that content from Hollywood’s cash-rich studios won’t still play a major part in the programming schedules of streamers and broadcasters alike.

However, ITV Studios is firmly committed to the path of incubating its international talent base to deliver fresh and original local stories, with the company looking forward to a prosperous future with no borders hindering its progress.