The two first days of the SERIES MANIA FORUM have been with busy corridors and full venues of people attending the programmed events. Yesterday in particular, The Grand Theater was taken by big players showcases and keynotes discussing their products, market strategies, content in the pipelines, and the state of affairs on production. A common theme was the slowdown of commissions in the European market, the difficulties of talent shortage and strategies to keep producing high-quality titles.

Yesterday, the first event was the Disney+ EMEA showcase, where Germany commissioners Liam Keelan (UK), Kevin Deysson, Benjamina Mirnik-Voges, and Spanish producer Sofia Fabregas Bernar, stressed their highlights to the market. Keelan started saying that Disney+'s main objective is to ‘change the perception that we produce just good quality family-related content’. Then, ‘Things are changing, and we need to change the brand's public perception. The main challenge is getting this message across’. And finally, ‘the best way to reach local audiences is with local content, always keeping the high quality Disney standards’.

Later, UK’s BBC Studios led a showcase where it made a spotlight on its partnership with German ZDF. Matt Forde, Managing Director US & UK, explained how he is currently identifying market opportunities and bringing budget to produce more content, boasted the great asset that is to work with producers and innovators from the BBC. Nick Lee, Commercial Director of Drama and Comedy, showed images of Small Ax, Good Omen and 2nd seasons of Sherwood and Blue Lights.

The stellar keynote was led by Wayne Garvie from Sony Pictures Television, who reflected the particular cycle that Sony is living with big titles that are coming to an end like Sex Education and The Crown. It is the only big Hollywood Studio with no streaming platform player. 'At’this moment, Sony is in a reflective period analyzing the good things of the past and developing new shows hoping to repeat previous successes. Even though the commissioning show market seems to be slowing down, we are highlighting that never in history we had so many shows commissioned’.

Also Spanish Movistar Plus+ showed images to buyers and press of La Mesias, its newest limited series. Domingo Corral, fiction director, talked about the production. ‘This project took three years of development and we tried to make a really good product. That's why we trusted again on Los Javis to this project’.

During the day, various conferences were held focused on technological advances applied to content production. Emilie Martel, Marketing and Brand Executive at Newen Studios, in charge of developing international B2B marketing strategies for the line of 40 new titles each year across all genres, led the conversation: ‘When we work with producers and series creators in the stages early in the process, when they present a project to us and need to sell the series to co-producers, financiers, we help them create assets, and in that case, we use artificial intelligence’.

Lastly, the winners of the ‘Seriesmakers’, backed by the European content giant Beta Group, announced the three winning projects of their second edition. The two Beta Development Awards (€50,000 each) were awarded to: George Blake (6x52', UK/Netherlands) directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Femke Wolting; and The Squatter (8x52', Philippines) directed by Erik Matti and produced by Ronald Monteverde.

Mariano Gutiérrez Alarcon, Alberto Buitrón

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