‘Dark Hearts’ and ‘Women at War’ Highlight Collaborations Between French Broadcasters and Streamers

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Once pitted against each other as rivals, streamers and broadcasters have become unlikely allies in the face of increased competition and economic pressure following the pandemic and the launch of more content viewing platforms. 

Even in France, where Netflix was referred to as the “devil” by France Televisions president Delphine Ernotte Cunci in a 2019 interview, the tide has turned and a number of ambitious series have been jointly financed by both local broadcasters and streamers. 

Examples of collaborations vary from period drama series such as “The Bonfire of Destiny” and “Women at War,” from TF1 and Netflix, to action series like Ziad Doueiri’s “Dark Hearts,” from  France Televisions and Amazon Prime Video. What do these shows have in common? They shot in French with local casts, and have the high budgets and production values that are typically allocated to international co-productions like “Marie Antoinette,” which shot in English and was produced with French and foreign TV partners. 

“Platforms and TV channels are much more flexible than they used to be and open to take the first or second window,” says Pascal Breton at Federation Entertainment, who has worked with streamers on originals like “Marianne” and “Baby,” worked on co-financing “Made in Italy” and on pre-sales with the upcoming event series “Bardot,” about the rise to stardom of Brigitte Bardot, penned and directed by Daniele and Christopher Thompson. While “Bardot” was developed with France Televisions, Netflix pre-bought the show and got the second window in France and first window in Germany. “It was not a huge deal but they brought the 10% we were missing,” says Breton. 

“Up until recently, TV channels didn’t want anything to be shown before their broadcast premiere, but now if there’s a lot of money at play and if it can help them get a show financed, they’re fine with letting in streaming services,” Breton adds. 

In France, for instance, “Women at War,” a female-led WWI drama, was initially developed with TF1 before Netflix came on board. “It’s a budget of €20 million ($21 million) for eight episodes: Not a single TV channel is capable of investing that kind of budget on its own in France, but you can’t make an inexpensive WWI show so we had to have Netflix with us,” says Quad Drama’s Iris Bucher, one of the series’ producers. 

“Audiences have access to very high-quality content; they watch truly original, mind-blowing series, and they don’t care where they’re from, so if they see a series that has a lower production value, they won’t watch it,” Bucher says. 

Like most of these series, “Women at War” and “The Bonfire of Destiny” are represented in international markets by a distribution company, in this case Newen Connect, which engineered the deal with Netflix and has been selling remake rights and successive windows around the world. For instance, Newen sold remake rights to “The Bonfire of Destiny” in Italy and Turkey. Under the pact, Netflix picked up the shows after TF1, which had first-window rights to both series until seven days after the airing of the last episodes. 

“It was a true win-win deal for TF1 because even though they had less rights they accessed an ambitious series with a production value that surpassed their own investment, and for Netflix because it cost them less than it would have if it had been an original,” says Bucher. She points out that both “Women at War” and “The Bonfire of Destiny” attracted different audiences on Netflix than they did on TF1. Quad Drama, TF1 and Newen Connect are now back in business on another historical series set in 1936 against the backdrop of the French Popular Front, a prominent left-wing movement. 

The trend for partners has also been bolstered by the January 2022 implementation of a French decree stemming from the European Commission’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive that streamers and TV groups invest in local content. 

For Manuel Alduy, head of cinema and international development at France Televisions, the decree has marked the “beginning of a new era” because streamers have had to “open themselves to co-production for series and take rights for a shorter duration.” 

But the executive, who worked at Canal Plus Group for 22 years as well as Twentieth Century Fox, says co-producing with platforms remains a “plan B.” “When we work with other TV channels in other countries there’s no overlap in our territory, but when we work with a platform, we see our windows reduced,” he continues. 

Alduy cites “Around the World in 80 Days” or “The Swarm,” which France Televisions produced with European broadcasters, and was able to hold “long windows in France” on both. Meanwhile, on “Vortex,” a science fiction series produced by Quad Drama, France Televisions teamed with Netflix and had to sit on the second- window rights. On “Dark Hearts,” Alduy says France Televisions had to hand over first-window rights to Amazon and took a second window nine months after Prime Video because the streamer “brought a lot of the financing.” Prime Video didn’t just co-finance the series, they came on board early and closely followed the production, says Sahar Baghery, head of content for Prime Video in France. 

Baghery says the collaboration with France Televisions on “Dark Hearts” “is a virtuous model.” “When we work like this, we establish a dialogue with the producer and the TV channel and we benefit creatively from the expertise of the local producer and broadcasters’ commissioning team, while they benefit from our input.”  

The challenge, Baghery says, remains to find a “common DNA in terms of target audience and tone” when talking about potential alliances with TV channels. “We say ‘no’ more than ‘yes,’” she admits, but there is an “ongoing dialogue with all broadcasters to find the right projects.” 

Although the core audience of TV channels is older than that of streamers, Baghery
says, “TF1, France 2 and M6 now also have the ambition to attract
younger people.” 

Alduy also observes, “It’s less and less difficult to find common projects,” he says. “Platforms are increasingly interested in what TV channels do” because the success of “Lupin” “has encouraged streamers to seek some mainstream shows.” But it’s also easier because “the success of services like Netflix for the last decade has shaped the tastes of audiences and has pushed broadcasters to broaden their editorial horizons” and upgrade their programming with more premium shows. That said, France Televisions “can’t put [in] more than €1 million per episode” whereas “big shows” necessitate budgets of at least €1.5 million or €2 million per episode, Alduy notes. 

But Alduy says there are way more projects than there are possible alliances with streamers. In the last two years, France Televisions has collaborated with streaming services on just five series — including “Bardot,” “Dark Hearts” and most recently “Drops of God,” with Apple TV+ and Hulu Japan. The broadcaster has 20 ambitious projects in development and Alduy thinks that some of them won’t get financed. 

Yet Breton predicts the collaborative trend is going to intensify because streamers, like broadcasters, are looking to keep their costs down on local TV shows. 

“Streamers have understood that it’s not feasible to finance expensive shows that they can only exploit on SVOD and that will mainly work in the local market; that’s why in many cases now they’re fine to invest less for less rights,” says Breton, adding that Federation is looking to co-produce and co-finance series alongside platforms and complete the financing through international pre-sales. 

“It’s a wide-open world where everybody is talking to everybody to try and find the best combinations,” says Breton.  

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