The Nordic public service TV and media collaboration is in the midst of a golden age. With a cornucopia of drama productions for children, young people and adults, the five Nordvision countries pooled their resources to produce 77 Nordic TV series last year. Now the collaboration is growing further. 200 new series have already gone into production.
Against all odds, and in spite of all coronavirus-related obstacles, 2020 was the second-best year in the partnership’s history in terms of the number of Nordic co-productions. In total, we co-produced more than 2,200 programme episodes and completed more than 260 projects and TV series.
“It’s touching and brave when young people call me up and tell me their stories because they’ve seen our series. To me, this suggests that we could become even more relevant for young audiences who otherwise watch
Netflix and spend a lot of time on YouTube,” says Sanne Övermark, producer of the youth drama series Eagles (SVT).
SVT bring a bloody power struggle for the Swedish throne to life with ambitious crowd animations and Hollywood-style dramatisations. This is necessary in
order to match the audience’s high expectations of visual quality, says producer Patrick Bratt.
The Nordic children’s channels will close ranks even more through a new commitment: the co-production of at least 14 drama series per year. These channels have a key advantage that not even global giants such as Netflix and Disney are able to beat, says the head of DR Children’s TV.
”How can you keep being a complete and loving human being
when you’re exposed to the absolute dregs of society in your
day-to-day job? The viewers will encounter human characters
with flaws and imperfections in a kind of Hill Street Blues, set in
Malmö in 2020.” This is how SVT’s Head of Drama, Anna Croneman,
sums up the content of SVT’s new drama series.
How do public service providers deal with the increasingly popular genre of true crime? Yle wanted to venture into this category by centring on a real-life, contemporary Sherlock Holmes. DR and SVT wanted to do the same and came on board as co-producers. Jari took on an unsolved 60-year old murder case that still has the power to cause upset in Finland.
Podcast listener numbers are increasing, along with the
offering and number of platforms. The Nordic public
service providers can offer proximity to their own culture,
their own language and recognition. The development process is now in full swing to produce the first pan-Nordic drama podcast. This is Permafrost.
NRK Skole’s videos on religious education are some of the most frequently viewed in the provider’s offering for schools. However, the material was starting to feel dated. Nordvision’s knowledge collaboration has now co-produced a whole series of new films, where animations and green screen filming take centre stage.
The Nordvision partners want to ensure that a new EU directive requires digital platforms to respect the editorial independence of public service broadcasters.
