France was the world’s third largest TV producer in the global TV market last year, claiming a 7.3% market share, placed behind the U.S. (with a 65.9% share) and the U.K. (with 9.9%), but was the world’s leading exporter of non-English language content.
According to a study published on Monday ahead of the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, 73% of first-runs of foreign works on international TV channels came from France. In terms of buyers, the Czech Republic, Spain, Poland, Italy and Germany accounted for just below 40% of all first-run broadcast sales; both Spain and the Czech Republic proved particularly reliable, offering Gallic fare the most broadcast hours, while the Czechs took more programing than anyone else.
“Bardot”
©Thibault Grabherr – FTV – Federation
Overall, nearly 300 French productions were scheduled on free-to-air primetime channels in 2024, with scripted crime offerings proving more durable than ever. In Italy, the TF1-produced “Master Crimes” averaged 1.5 million primetime viewers when broadcast on Rai 1, accounting for a whopping 11% of the share, while the true crime thriller “Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime” broke records at home and barriers abroad when broadcast in the U.K.
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Directed by Oscar-winner Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (whose seminal 2004 miniseries “The Staircase” might as well have invented the modern true crime genre), “Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime” broke records in primetime when it aired on public broadcaster France 2 last winter, scoring more than 4 million viewers per episode and earning an average market share of 19%. The limited series then won raves upon its primetime broadcast on BBC Four late last year – marking an impressive and rather uncommon coup for non-English language series.
As the U.S remained a more reliable source for catalog sales than for pre-buys and financing, the American market stayed ripe for remakes and format sales, as indicated by recent launch of ABC/Hulu’s “High Potential.” Meanwhile, across the board popular bio-series like “Bardot” and “Marie-Antoinette” both proved that the past is never dead — especially when each broadcast could take primetime viewers in six countries and nine free-to-air channels to Versailles and St. Tropez.
At a Monday afternoon panel organized by Unifrance and France’s National Film Board (CNC), the guest speakers did not paint a rosy-colored picture when listing the myriad issues facing the local audiovisual industry. All agreed that pre-financing was getting more challenging than ever, especially in light of wider market contractions making such pre-financing more important than ever.
Indeed, in a mean little Catch 22, those market pains made scripted dramas easier to sell while harder to finance, while streamer opacity has encouraged European public broadcasters to work closer together — just as the French, German and Italian governments undergo a period of political instability as dire as can be.
“The context has never been so dramatic,” said France Television’s Manuel Alduy. “And within that difficult context, we need as much advance-work and co-operation as possible. Despite all the talent of our distributors, we can no longer develop projects all alone in France – we need to work with other territories in order to share risks and support one another.”