“The Bridge” is coming back to the Beeb.
Germany’s ZDF Enterprises has licensed award-winning Nordic crime drama “The Bridge” to U.K. broadcaster BBC.
All four seasons of the show will air simultaneously on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer. This is the second time that “The Bridge” has been licensed to the BBC. It originally showed on BBC Four between 2012-2015 and proved to be so popular that it moved to BBC Two for its final season in 2018, consistently winning over 1.5 million viewers.
The series follows a Swedish police detective and her Danish counterpart who have to share jurisdiction and work together when a body is found on the bridge between Denmark and Sweden, right on the border. It stars Sofia Helin, Kim Bodnia and Thure Lindhardt.
Created and written by Hans Rosenfeldt, the show is produced by Filmlance (Sweden) and Nimbus Film (Denmark), in co-production with ZDF, DR, SVT and ZDF Enterprises, who is also the global distributor for the series.
The cross-border nature of the format has proved popular around the world and has been adapted locally five times across U.K./France, U.S./Mexico, Estonia/Russia, Malaysia/Singapore and Germany/Austria.
Robert Franke, VP of ZDFE drama, said: “Every once in a while, a drama comes along that is so brilliantly written and acted, it transcends language barriers and has audiences begging for more. ‘The Bridge,’ with one of the most captivating female detectives ever to grace the small screen, belongs in that category. A timeless classic which British audiences will, once again, get a chance to enjoy.”
Worldwide sales for the 38-hour series so far include the BBC, Amazon, Antena TV, Arrow Films, AXN Spain, Bontonfilm, Canal+, Czech TV, DirecTV, Estonia Public Broadcasting, Fox Cable Network, Fox International, Globosat, Google, Hotvision, HRT, Hulu, Ivi.ru, Joyn, LTV, MHz Networks, Netflix, PopTV, RSI, RTS, SBS, Sky Italy and Germany, Studiocanal, Telekom Germany, TFC, TG4, TRT and many others.
Yi Qiao, ZDF Enterprises’ director of drama for English-speaking territories and Scandinavia, brokered the deal.