Television from Small Nationsbuilding a network for cultural and

commercial success

A report by the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations, University of South Wales

www.culture.research.southwales.ac.uk

2 Television from Small Nations building a network for cultural and commercial success A report by the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations 3

This multidisciplinary, international research network was established with a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Councilin order to address the specific challenges and opportunities facing television broadcasters and producers in small nations. Forsmall nations the television industry performs a number of important cultural, political and economic functions: constructingcultural identities, contributing towards a democratic public sphere, and enabling minority-languages to thrive in the modernworld. However, several structural challenges shape their TV industries including less access to talent, fewer capital resources,higher production costs, and a smaller market for advertising and licence fee revenue. The network directly addressed theseimperatives by drawing together academic experts and key stakeholders in the television industry, and enabling them to identifythe necessary conditions for sustained success in both cultural and commercial terms. A total of 63 participants came from 12different countries across Europe. Their expertise spanned academia, policy, public sector broadcasting and independenttelevision production.

Dr Ruth McElroyPrincipal Investigator, Television from Small NationsDirector, Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations

Creating a sense of ourselvesTelevision production can contribute to the formation of nationalidentities and to both the cultural and economic wealth of a nation,through locally grown business, direct inward investment and throughattracting international interest in an area encouraging tourism andother forms of economic regeneration. Public Service Broadcasting(PSB) remains uniquely important to how small nations representthemselves to their own citizens but also to the wider world.

The television landscape is changing as digital innovation potentiallyprovides new spaces and forms for cultural representation and usergenerated content (UGC) enables viewers in small nations to have a rolein representing themselves. Further, UGC enables speakers of minority-languages to communicate with each other in ways that make aholistic, minority-language life visible and audible online. There isconsiderable value in such visibility for speakers of languages that areall too often rendered invisible in dominant language environments.

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) contributes not onlyto the television ecology, but also to the culture andeconomy of small nations PSB can make substantial contributions to civil society, to the economy,to the development of minority languages and to culture more broadly.It serves as a reflection of our reality, supports regional programmingespecially drama, enables risk and innovation relating to both contentand technology, and functions as a training ground for future talent.Public service broadcasters are crucial to the sustainability of televisionproduction. Compared to its larger neighbours, PSB in small nations iseven more critical due to the size of the market and the ongoingcompetition from imported content. The sustained cuts and politicalattacks which public broadcasters have experienced over the last fewdecades are having a significant impact on both investment and marketshare of these institutions across Europe.

Learning from the diversity of television ecologiesThe way television is made across small nations is diverse. Independentproduction companies are a major feature of the TV landscape in smallnations such as Scotland and Wales but less so in other small nationssuch as Norway where there has been relatively less deregulation.Public funding is also a key difference; for instance, the Macedoniangovernment has allowed payment of the licence fee to be optional andthe resulting loss of funding has meant that output such as drama andchildren’s content has nearly disappeared and the majority of contentproduced is now studio-based. Elsewhere however, in Slovenia andNorway for example, public support for PSB has made substantial cutspolitically difficult to enact, though freezing public funding has its ownconsequences in an increasingly competitive television landscape.While these differences are significant there is still much to be learntfrom international collaboration and knowledge exchange.

Foreword Key findings

“looking at television as aresearch topic from the point of

view of the small nations has widenedour perspective. This will also certainly bring

benefits to the many public service mediaorganizations in small nations that

are among the EBU Membersthat we serve.”

Dr Roberto Suárez Candel,Head of Media Intelligence Service,

European Broadcasting Union

“I can still feel the highafter all the wonderfullyproductive discussions.”

Mads Møller AndersenPhD student at Aarhus University

Siwan Hywel, Partnerships Officer, S4C

“This network helps to target exchanges across national and

disciplinary borders and to betterunderstand how TV in small nationscan build economic capacity whilst

also maintaining its cultural andlinguistic commitments to the

core audience.”

“PSB can make substantial contributions to civil society, to the economy, to the development of minority languages and to culture more broadly.”

4 Television from Small Nations building a network for cultural and commercial success A report by the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations 5

Articulating the value of PSB for adigital worldPublic service broadcasters need to articulatemore expansive arguments for their cultural valueand contribution to public life in small nations.The tendency to focus on instrumental value hasbeen that a limited range of interventions in thebroadcasting market are being considered. Bothtax breaks and top-slicing of the licence are oftenlimited in their impact and accessibility especiallyto local industry. One often overlooked area ofvalue of PSB is that individuals, companies andpublic bodies are critical to significant talentemerging from small nations, and without thiscareer development route there is no future forbroadcasting.

Big budget provides short-termeconomic gain but little culturalvisibility or sustainabilityThe Missing (a British drama set in France butfilmed in Belgium) and Game of Thrones (filmed inmultiple international locations includingNorthern Ireland, Croatia and Iceland)demonstrate the unequal balancing of economicgain and cultural visibility within the race for big-budget foreign investment. Local and often small-scale productions are frequently overlooked tothe detriment of creating a rounded productionecology. Further, project based work such as bigbudget one-off productions creates a precariouslabour market and does not contribute to asustainable industry with a diverse talent pool.Nonetheless, large scale, internationalproductions are undoubtedly important as theybring with them structural and financialinvestment together with increased visibility as aproduction location as well as contributing to thesecondary economy through spend from both theproduction itself and television tourism.Geographical and cultural setting impacts notonly on the aesthetics but also the delivery of thefinal product in TV production. The mostsuccessful productions have well-nurturedrelationships with local stakeholders includinglocal government, education providers andlocation managers.

Digital innovation demands critical thinkingDigital is now everyday and integral to all aspectsof broadcasting; however, we are operating in anenvironment where politicians and broadcastremits reflect the assumptions of an analogue era.Digital innovations impact on programmemaking, scheduling and marketing as lineartelevision now operates alongside other forms ofbroadcasting including Subscription Video onDemand (SVOD) and user generated content aswell as provisions such as the public servicebroadcasters’ own on-demand services. Both theWelsh crime drama, Y Gwyll/Hinterland and theNorwegian dramedy Lillehammer testify to theimportance of Netflix as a platform forinternationalizing content and of distributors suchas All3Media. In both cases, PSBs have had toexpand their thinking and practices to make thesecollaborations work. For Danish drama Norskov,achieving a record high for viewings on TV2’sonline platform allowed the series to build itsaudience in what is always a crowded andcompetitive genre.

Digital is emerging but not dominantWhilst digital technologies have impactedsignificantly on the environment in which contentis being produced, linear television remainsoverwhelmingly dominant. The EuropeanBroadcasting Union, for example, found that in2014 more than 90% of the European audio-visualmarket was in linear TV. Digital has not killedtelevision, it has enhanced it. Public servicebroadcasters’ concern with the changing mediaconsumption patterns of under 25 year oldsmeans that they may neglect the bulk of the adultaudience and take their continued support forgranted. Digital innovations that appeal to diverseadult audiences merit more attention, not leastbecause an ageing population is a definingcharacteristic of many European nations bothlarge and small.

Co-production presents bothchallenges and opportunitiesCo-production and partnerships, including withSVOD services like Netflix and Amazon Prime,have become established models for developingand creating content within small nationsespecially drama projects of scale and withproduction values to match. However, questionsof power remain, especially in terms of rightsnegotiations for both content and platformaccess. This has excluded smaller broadcastersfrom platforms as the high cost of developmentand content rights may prohibit theirengagement in all of these spaces. Small nationshave traditionally been home to an often fragileindependent production sector and this offers aworrying scenario for how their power might befurther circumscribed in the future.

“Digital innovations impact on programmemaking, scheduling and marketing aslinear television now operates alongsideother forms of broadcasting”.

6 Television from Small Nations building a network for cultural and commercial success A report by the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations 7

Social media and online content requires newtalents and new methods The importance of social media marketing raises questionsregarding the skills, resources, and access independentproduction companies have to developing content. Not allbroadcasters appear equipped to share content or editingplatforms with indies and this may reveal how editorialcontrol and a sense of ownership belies the morecollaborative ethos that characterises social media forms. Inthe digital landscape it isn’t necessarily the presence ofcontent which is problematic but rather gaining access to it.Technological affordances such as catch-up services mayexist but audiences will only find content and engage with itif it can be accessed easily on a range of devices includingsmartphones, tablets and Smart TVs. There is huge potentialhere for broadcasters and producers to reach new audiences,as well as to deepen the relationship with existing ones. TheIrish broadcaster TG4 have used the development of digitaland social media platforms to create far more opportunitiesto engage directly with the substantial Irish diaspora acrossthe globe. However, smaller broadcasters are often not ableto take full advantage of the opportunities presented bydigital media. Collaboration may be one solution to theproblem of findability as demonstrated by the partnershipbetween S4C and BBC which means that since the end of2014, S4C has had a distinct channel presence (both live andcatch-up content) on the BBC’s iPlayer service.

Policy must support the changing televisionlandscapeManufacturers of Smart TVs are significant gatekeepers topublic service content. Regulators have an important part toplay in making a diversity of content readily available toaudiences. Platforms are not neutral routes to content butare themselves businesses with their own distinct prioritiesand affordances. A striking difference emerged in discussionbetween the accessibility of these two minority-languagebroadcasters. Whilst TG4’s catch-up service is availablethrough their Smart TV app, S4C’s is not currently availablethrough Smart TVs. Regulation may be especially pressing inthe case of minority-language communities where themarket is not sufficient in size to sustain diverse commercialprovision or to ensure leverage with large corporations suchas Netflix or You Tube beyond the territory. The financialcosts of accessing such platforms and services is a majorchallenge for publicly-funded smaller broadcasters. Policy-makers and regulators need to think creatively about howactively to support plurality online in this businessenvironment where the dominance of a few globalcorporations could easily squeeze out smaller players andlanguages.

participant organisations Talent is keyWithin the economic and cultural ambitions of small nationstalent is the most critical resource. Strategies for nurturing,developing and leveraging talent are an important part ofthe support infrastructure of many small nations. For smallnations, the question of talent is even more pertinent astheir own pool of talent may be limited and they often haveto compete with the lure of bigger markets in other nationswhere opportunities seem more abundant and attractive.Talent can be divided into two distinct subsets - talent interms of creativity, innovation and idea generation, andtalent as a more instrumental set of skills around projectmanagement and artistic delivery. Building the capacity ofthe labour market within small nations needs to be anessential strategy that will work most effectively whencollectively owned and implemented. Partnership acrosssectors and international borders is a key component inestablishing a holistic approach to talent development.

CARDIff UNIvERSITy

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

ROYAL TELEVISION SOCIETY

AARHUS FILM CITY

S4C LINGNAN UNIVERSITY

TG4GLASGOW CALEDONIAN UNIVERSITY

BASMATIS FILMS

MULTIPLATFORM STORYTELLING

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDONDFI, NEW DANISH SCREEN M2FilMINTERACTIVE DENMARk

AARHUS 2017 AALBORG UNIVERSITYSDU

EuropEan Broadcasting union

CREATIVE ExCHANGE WALES NETWORk

BBC WALESFFILM CYMRU

INSTITUTE FOR WELSH AFFAIRS

OSLO UNIVERSITY

CITY UNIVERSITY, LONDON

PACT

MERCATOR MEDIA

HøGSkLOEN I LILLIHAMMER

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL

SEVERN SCREEN

FICTION FACTORY UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

“Regulators have an important part to play inmaking a diversity of content readily available to audiences.”

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

DANISH FILMTALENT FUND

UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER

COPENHAGEN UNIVERSITY

GLASGOW UNIVERSITY

ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH WALES

Research Team

Dr Ruth McElroy Director of the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations,and Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of South Wales.

Professor Anne Marit Waade Associate Professor at the School of Culture and Communication, Aarhus University in Denmark

Dr Caitriona Noonan Lecturer in Media and Communication in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC) at Cardiff University.

Centre for Media and Culture in Small NationsUniversity of South Wales, Adam StCardiff, Cf24 2fN, UKE-mail: ruth.mcelroy@southwales.ac.ukhttp://culture.research.southwales.ac.uk/

Images used throughout are provided by Rhys Skinner and Aarhus image provided by Hywel WilliamVisual interpretation by Marina McDonald.

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