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00:00:00 Thank you for your patience and thank you for joining us this afternoon. I
00:00:04 think we've got a really fantastic session to kick off the afternoon. It was
00:00:08 interesting for those of us who were around this morning to see some of the
00:00:12 threads I think that we're going to pick up on, whether it's kind of the use of
00:00:16 technology, the state of the production sector and a whole lot more as well.
00:00:22 So anyway, I'm Stuart Clarke, I'm from Deadline and how this is going to work,
00:00:26 there are two parts effectively. First of all we're going to hear from Johanna
00:00:31 Kolionen, I'm sure I've got that wrong but I really did try, who is the author of
00:00:36 the Nostradamus report, The Paradox of Hope, so we're going to understand what the
00:00:39 paradox of hope is. And then there's some amazing insight in there actually, I've
00:00:44 read the report, it's really, it's super. And then we're going to be joined by
00:00:48 Dana Stern and Robert Frank to kind of discuss and unpack some of what's in
00:00:53 there and kind of get into the detail I guess and work out what the next steps
00:00:58 are, where the industry is headed. So we're lucky to have our very own
00:01:00 Nostradamus today. So I'm going to hand over to Johanna and then we're going to break
00:01:04 into the conversation. So please welcome Johanna.
00:01:09 Okay, hi, good to, I mean I can't see you actually but I can hear you coughing so
00:01:21 thank you for this moral support. My name is Johanna Kolionen and I'm an
00:01:25 industry analyst, I'm a near future futurist and for 11 years now I've
00:01:31 looked in this Nostradamus project towards the closest edge of the big
00:01:35 picture for our industry. This year's report has eight chapters on different
00:01:39 topics and a few of those are about feature film and theatrical exhibition.
00:01:44 And what I wanted to do today, very rapidly I apologise in advance, is to
00:01:50 tease out some of the ways also that the things that are happening in
00:01:54 independent film and theatrical might also be relevant on the TV side. But for
00:01:58 some thanks, none of our work would be possible without our key partners
00:02:02 Kulturakademien which works with upskilling the Swedish sector and Boost
00:02:05 HGB which is an audiovisual innovation hub in southern Sweden. And the support
00:02:10 we receive makes it possible to offer this report as a free download, I'll put
00:02:14 up the link at the end. And WE, I should say, is the Göteborg Film Festival and
00:02:19 the Nordic Film Market who are doing this work really to, well originally to
00:02:26 help ourselves understand what was going on and then to share as much as we can
00:02:29 about our insights with the wider industry. And at the heart of the report
00:02:33 are our expert interviewees, different people every year. This year they cover
00:02:37 everything from film funds to exhibition networks, audiovisual markets to
00:02:41 researchers. And I'm going to be quoting them a little bit on the slides and
00:02:45 those quotes are shortened so if you want to later quote that in writing
00:02:49 please go to the report and check out the full version. And I'll just barge into it.
00:02:55 The first chapter is titled "Paradoxically, Hope". So let's start with
00:03:01 the opening quote from Professor Angela Chan. "My biggest fear is that the
00:03:07 creative industry will die on its ass while it's waiting for someone to
00:03:12 realize it's brilliant." As we've seen also in Germany this week, the climate
00:03:18 crisis is escalating catastrophically. There are ongoing wars and famines in
00:03:22 our near environment. There's food insecurity increasing even in Europe. And
00:03:26 the handling of all of these issues is complicated enormously by populist
00:03:30 leaders in democracies of course as well as in autocracies. This is a baseline
00:03:35 terrible state of things and it's going to continue for the rest of our lives. So
00:03:40 our jobs as humans, as citizens, as parents, as artists is to dedicate our
00:03:44 energies to mitigating harm and to saving what we can and to transform the
00:03:50 world around those things that we cannot save. And in all of this the state of the
00:03:55 film and TV industry is obviously a lower stakes question. But it's not
00:04:00 without importance. What stories are told, by whom and how, it really matters even
00:04:06 like in what futures we as a species can imagine. So when we think about the
00:04:11 sustainability of storytelling and the conditions of the film industry it's not
00:04:14 just about us, it's about everything. But I should say that the condition of the
00:04:19 film industry isn't great. Between cutdowns, savings, austerity layoffs,
00:04:23 untenable business models and the whole streaming market correction, pretty much
00:04:27 everything about how we work is either fundamentally broken, temporarily broken
00:04:33 or at a breaking point. So that's where we're beginning. But weirdly when you
00:04:40 speak to people, when we speak to each other, that's not what people tend to
00:04:44 feel in the industry. Paradoxically this moment is kind of hopeful. And part of
00:04:49 that has to do with the streamers pulling back. So for years we existed in
00:04:54 this boom year rat race and much of the industry, especially on the TV side, had
00:04:58 to somehow grapple with our... we had to be in denial. We knew that the numbers
00:05:02 aren't making any sense but if people want to finance our work of course we're
00:05:06 going to take it. But when the economic value of the work becomes disconnected
00:05:10 from actual viewer needs and the actual audience markets, then we and our work
00:05:15 become alienated from reality. So that's not great. And I totally respect that for
00:05:20 the people who have lost their jobs or who will lose their jobs, this is zero
00:05:24 comfort. I get that. But for those who are in the industry right now, many people
00:05:29 are almost feeling a sense of relief. When you hit rock bottom, at least your
00:05:34 feet are connected to the earth. So we've had strong sales now in Sundance and
00:05:39 Berlin and Cannes. International TV sales are okay. We can understand that the
00:05:43 calculus that any investor in any project is doing. And of course we also
00:05:47 understand part of that is the after effects of the US strikes. But that's not
00:05:51 everything. The fog is clearing and that means we can see what needs doing. There
00:05:56 are many reasons for hope but they all go back ultimately to what Gaia Tridente
00:06:00 of the media market says here. That the broader audiences are very skilled now
00:06:04 in understanding quality. We've had up to 20 years of artistic flourishing on the
00:06:10 small screen and it has trained a more sophisticated imagination and ultimately
00:06:14 that's the only market that really matters. So everything else I will say
00:06:18 today will kind of boil down to this slide. We as a sector have been and are
00:06:23 very focused on making the work, the artistic process, getting things funded,
00:06:27 getting things made. But if we don't want to die on our asses, we also need to do
00:06:32 the work. Do the work of earning the attention of the audiences. Make our
00:06:36 productions greener and more efficient. Learn about communication styles and
00:06:40 media platforms and formats that we haven't been trained in. And to
00:06:43 build structures of collaboration and learning. And this year it's particularly
00:06:48 true in feature film. It's very clear in feature film but I think it's true for
00:06:52 everybody. In the last decade of course many filmmakers expanded into TV and
00:06:57 vice versa. So often it's the same people and companies involved which diversifies
00:07:02 risk. That's great. But also I think many of the underlying mechanisms are shared.
00:07:08 The second chapter of the report is about theatrical overabundance. Which is
00:07:12 a fancy word for saying we're making too many movies and putting them in movie
00:07:16 theaters. 20 years ago the theatrical admissions were doing incredibly well.
00:07:21 Since then they have gone down while the number of films released in theaters has
00:07:25 more than doubled. And audiences usually pay of course in theaters film by film.
00:07:30 So it makes it really easy to see that these numbers don't add up. Too many
00:07:34 titles means you can't program long runs in theaters to build word of mouth.
00:07:38 It means that domestic releases cannibalize on each other. It means that
00:07:42 it's really difficult even to make audiences aware that your film exists.
00:07:46 And these problems I feel are also very familiar in television. On the production
00:07:52 side of the industry we tend to think of like the natural number of titles as
00:07:55 however many titles is possible for us to to get funded. But I think it's
00:08:00 possible to sit down and say okay we have this many inhabitants and this many
00:08:03 screens and this many times people go to the theater in a year. What's the
00:08:08 sustainable number of releases? And maybe we could also do that for for television
00:08:13 in some way. Like how many people actually watch in total? How many hours
00:08:17 of watching are happening? What's our domestic market share? And so on. And if
00:08:21 the numbers don't add up then either we need to make fewer of the things or we
00:08:25 need to change something else. For instance grow the total audience. The one
00:08:31 thing that's not going to work is to just put more content out there because
00:08:34 we've tried that now and that was a disaster.
00:08:37 Similarly yeah I won't go down the rabbit hole since we have so little time.
00:08:43 Okay so in the report I talk about how theatrical is not working except what
00:08:48 it is working super well and surprisingly well. For instance that
00:08:52 arthouse films have recovered stronger than mainstream film have after the
00:08:56 pandemic. And for that I've used the term engagement theatrical. This is the kind
00:09:00 of theatrical that works. The film needs to be personally engaging. Usually good
00:09:05 quality and high relevance. It needs to if it's super relevant to me actually
00:09:12 maybe it doesn't even need to be that good. But if it's a masterpiece but it's
00:09:15 not relevant to me I still won't see it. Also I need to know that it's relevant
00:09:21 to me. I need to know you need to reach me in advance before I watch it and
00:09:25 that's hard. But when you succeed then I the audience become engaged with the
00:09:30 title in some way and that's how you get organic reach for the film and for your
00:09:34 marketing or for the series in your marketing right. And again after seeing
00:09:38 it if I especially if I also had a good experience in the theater or a good
00:09:42 social experience around the watching I'll keep talking about it. It's the
00:09:46 movie has become an engagement a commitment in the calendar and typically
00:09:50 a special night out. And of course there I am talking about film and when I do
00:09:54 talk about this in a film context what happens is that the producers and the
00:09:58 distributors and the exhibitors start pointing at each other and they're
00:10:00 saying well we're trying very hard but they are not doing their job. Pointing
00:10:04 fingers will not do it. They have to sit down together title by title and figure
00:10:08 out what would it take to make this film a hit. Whatever that means on that film's
00:10:13 terms. How do we make this happen together. They're not used to working
00:10:16 like this but they're going to have to. And why shouldn't we also apply this
00:10:21 idea to an idea of engagement television which is not the same thing as
00:10:25 appointment television. I think you don't get appointment TV by just making
00:10:30 something good and putting it up out there and hoping for the best. You're
00:10:32 going to have to do all of this other work as well. But of course that strong
00:10:38 content still has to be there as a baseline. And I turn again to Gaia
00:10:41 Tridente. The quality that these audiences are now used to has created a
00:10:46 great interest in as she says the best pieces of art whether animation
00:10:51 documentaries feature fiction valuable culturally grounded work. So again for a
00:10:56 simple film example the commercial box office in the last year has been
00:11:00 terrible except when the blockbuster films are made by other filmmakers like
00:11:05 Greta Gerwig Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. Art house films are
00:11:08 working as well. Or for a TV example at the precise moment when all of the most
00:11:14 commissioners certainly not you in the room but other commissioners are
00:11:18 working. They're moving towards the mainstream. They're saying the work can't
00:11:21 be too personal not too depressing not too weird not too much drama. Here we
00:11:25 have baby reindeer becoming a massive hit. And we have other examples that are
00:11:30 like the bear which are shows with very specific perspectives that can tell
00:11:34 stories even in formally unusual ways a kind of art house television
00:11:38 aesthetically. And it resonates massively with audiences. And I think that if the
00:11:44 US majors and the big streamers are backing away out of here at this time
00:11:48 that also leaves a space in the market for specific voices which is something
00:11:53 we're much closer to in the European tradition. The difficulty of course is
00:11:58 that we ultimately exist in a capitalist system and our industry is dominated by
00:12:03 a handful of players mostly American that include the biggest media companies
00:12:08 in the world and then above them in the next layer some of the biggest
00:12:11 companies in the world of any kind. And their decisions good or bad do affect
00:12:16 our whole landscape because they're so massive and that makes us feel very
00:12:20 powerless. In Europe when we are powerless against mega corporations what
00:12:24 we like to do is to address their impact through more like regulation. And I think
00:12:29 we've done some good work in that space within this sphere. But it's really
00:12:34 important that we still have to compete in a market and we can't do that with
00:12:38 government protection as our only plan. France looking at you. No they make great
00:12:43 content as well. We have to do the work of changing the power dynamics between
00:12:47 ourselves and the giant competitors. Now how do we do that inch by inch. And this
00:12:53 is really hard because they're also our customers. But luckily their moment of
00:12:56 crisis means that there's room to act in other ways. In the report producer
00:13:01 Joanna Schimanska talks about this. She says I'm a lawyer by training. When
00:13:06 anybody tells me a contract is non-negotiable I say please everything
00:13:11 is negotiable. And she advocates for sharing with each other what terms you
00:13:15 are getting. Especially when you're in negotiations with very powerful
00:13:19 commissioners. She says talk to each other. Gossip. I always tell my students
00:13:24 just gossip guys. To know the market you're in. To understand its complexity.
00:13:29 To have the data to build your strategies on. That's power. Now think
00:13:33 about it. What would it take for you? Like how much guts do you need to tell your
00:13:37 competitors the precise numbers in your budget? But think about what all of you
00:13:42 could gain. We're so used to seeing each other as competitors. But the real
00:13:47 competition is those companies that are usurping the mindshare through
00:13:50 television and through many other audiovisual media as well. And it makes
00:13:54 so much more sense to think of our industry as a collaborative ecosystem
00:13:57 where diverse species, that is all of us, are sharing resources in a way that
00:14:02 creates better resilience for everybody. And it particularly makes sense in Europe
00:14:06 where so much of our money, whether from broadcasters or production incentives,
00:14:10 ultimately has public sources. The global market has hyper-capitalist properties.
00:14:17 That is the market in which we operate. But our specific circumstances are not.
00:14:22 And that gives us some space to maneuver. Ted Hope used to run films for Amazon.
00:14:27 And he has become incredibly disillusioned about the global platforms.
00:14:30 And to him, anyone who is investing in a local market has an interest in keeping
00:14:34 the market viable over time. He says a forward-thinking investment strategy
00:14:39 might be to shift your production funds to something more like 60% for
00:14:43 production, 25% for marketing, and 15% for ecosystem building on a collective basis.
00:14:49 And as this starts to drive revenue and you get proof of principle of what's
00:14:53 working and can double down on that, I think that the split can be flipped
00:14:57 between the 15 and the 25. Less money will actually have to be spent on
00:15:01 marketing. So whether for film or serialized drama, the task now
00:15:05 is to negotiate together for better terms against the most powerful
00:15:10 stakeholders, while at the same time exploring and building other paths to
00:15:16 market where we're not as reliant on a very few platforms. Testing and scaling
00:15:22 innovative approaches is something that we have to do together, or it makes sense
00:15:28 for us to do together, because if we do it one by one, each of us has to
00:15:32 take a massive risk. But if we decide to do something at the same time together,
00:15:35 the risk and the cost lowers for everybody. And the best thing about
00:15:40 this is that you don't actually lose anything, because if you have a project
00:15:43 that is valuable in the global marketplace, it's still going to be
00:15:48 valuable in the global marketplace, and that's where you should go put it,
00:15:52 sell it for a fortune. But if we have other options, it also means that you
00:15:56 have other options, and that's going to make you a much braver negotiator.
00:16:01 The obvious place to begin, of course, is to scale up innovations that already
00:16:09 exist, that have proved to work somewhere else. A business model, a production
00:16:13 technology, an audience strategy, or new workflow. All of this, of course, again
00:16:17 requires that we talk to each other. And there are also so many problems that
00:16:20 haven't been solved, but probably their innovation can also begin by thinking
00:16:25 about stuff together. Working together is also necessitated by the storm of new
00:16:31 tools entering our daily work and all the phases of making a film.
00:16:36 Importantly, that's not just about AI. It's about, especially about what happens
00:16:40 when AI and virtual production are hitting us and our workflows at the
00:16:44 same time. So it seems pretty likely that we're maybe just one or two years away
00:16:50 from generative AI-powered technology that has enough creative controls that
00:16:56 you can realistically use it to generate, not whole films, but like shots that you
00:17:02 could use in a feature film or a premium television show. We're relatively close
00:17:08 to that. But the legal and ethical ramifications of what that would mean
00:17:12 are way behind and very unclear, and that might slow this change down, and perhaps
00:17:18 it should slow this change down. Even so, just like Robert Tranque, I expect that
00:17:24 these technologies will be fully normalized quite soon, especially within
00:17:28 certain subfields like VFX that have already used AI for a really long time.
00:17:32 And that timeline is really uncomfortable, because if we say that
00:17:36 this is three or five years ahead, maybe you'll make one TV show in that time, or
00:17:41 maybe you'll make two movies or something like that. And that's a really
00:17:44 short number, it's a really small number of productions to develop a new
00:17:49 workflow on. So even for your department heads, it's going to really be really
00:17:54 hard to keep up just with what's happening in their field. And as long as
00:17:57 all of this is experimental anyway, and it's constantly developing, putting
00:18:01 together teams that have complementary experience and match each other is
00:18:06 going to be really difficult. And let's say that we succeed, and we manage to
00:18:11 change or sort of somehow streamline maybe just one aspect of every major
00:18:18 task in pre-production, production, post-production. The system's effect of
00:18:22 that will be probably that in some way the job of everyone on every crew will
00:18:27 change. And what we're talking about here then is upskilling an entire labor
00:18:31 market, like an entire industry. And these people are typically freelancers who
00:18:36 aren't hired by somebody who will pay to put them in training. So again,
00:18:41 this is something we're going to have to do together. I think we're going to
00:18:44 innovate together and very rapidly find structures in our local markets or
00:18:49 in our guilds across Europe, for instance, to share what we have learned and
00:18:54 learn rapidly from each other, because otherwise we won't have anyone to work
00:18:57 with. Robert also echoes this collaboration message in the same
00:19:02 context, and he says, "For me, the number one thing is that we all educate each
00:19:06 other in order to stay relevant and competitive. Otherwise we will be
00:19:10 out-competed by other industries." And I also want to add about AI that this
00:19:16 technology has really destructive environmental and social impacts. And as
00:19:20 the media and entertainment industries are early adopters, that also gives us
00:19:24 some say in how this will be applied. But it's not just... I mean, when we
00:19:30 think about what is the real cost, that's important also from a business
00:19:33 perspective to think about. Because these kinds of disruptions are often
00:19:39 structured in a way where you put in a new technology and it becomes impossible
00:19:43 for humans to do that job, to compete with that, and the technology is very
00:19:48 cheap. And then once you've driven all the human alternatives out of the market,
00:19:52 then you raise the prices. I don't know if you ride Ubers, but if you have in
00:19:56 recent years, you know that the cost of that is very different than it was when
00:20:00 taxis were still a competition in the cities where this has been the process.
00:20:04 So I am a proponent of using technology for efficiency, but
00:20:08 let's just remember that generative AI is not the best technological basis for
00:20:13 solving every problem. And there might in fact be other kinds of like stupider AI
00:20:17 or database solutions or other kinds of tech stacks that might give you a much
00:20:22 cheaper and more competitive tool to do the specific thing that you want to do
00:20:27 and that would make us as reliant on a very small handful of
00:20:31 companies who can set the prices in any way they want.
00:20:35 Yeah, I was trying to be hopeful, but I realized I should have picked other
00:20:40 headlines. Yeah, AI technology is having even more dramatic impacts on another
00:20:46 part of the industry, which is the connected television. And I'm not talking
00:20:50 about it today, but I mean the television is watching us in our living rooms now,
00:20:53 so that is something that we've chosen to do. So as you know, the living room
00:20:59 screen now is a kind of computer, and we also discussed this in the last
00:21:04 year's report. It creates all kinds of new problems for what it means for
00:21:08 content to be available or content to be visible on the TV's landing pages in an
00:21:13 individual app, in app stores and so on. And currently the smart TV has two
00:21:18 enormous challenges. Content discovery and advertising. Content discovery is the
00:21:25 process where a viewer tries to find and select and commit to something to watch
00:21:30 right now. Between their TV provider, their 800 fast channels, the
00:21:37 on-demand content across all of their apps, all of that is in the television
00:21:40 and that needs to be navigated. It's not working right now. And advertising is
00:21:44 also a shit show. Even today, the smart television has the capability of
00:21:49 delivering to you individually targeted ads, if the systems wanted you to have
00:21:56 that. And they would also be able to make that advertising much more interactive,
00:22:00 so push you in different ways towards a purchase while you are watching.
00:22:04 And of course that's not even working on the Internet right now. And I'm in the
00:22:08 report I write more about why this is. But basically what you need to know is
00:22:11 that the underlying reasons for this shitness is basically the same. And AI is
00:22:17 actually probably about to help us solve both. And this is a real change that we
00:22:22 have to start thinking about now because it's it's coming fast. What happens when
00:22:26 most of the advertising on your television is actually personally
00:22:30 relevant to you? And when the individual services and your television as a whole
00:22:34 actually get good at recommending you something you want to watch? It's going
00:22:39 to change the whole economic calculus of advertising funded content. I think it's
00:22:44 going to be a game changer probably for niche content or audience for niche
00:22:47 audiences. I think it's going to make it really difficult, even more difficult, to
00:22:51 turn off the television. I think it's also going to make it much more
00:22:54 difficult to switch to another app once you've opened one. And of course the
00:22:59 biggest source of content for living room TVs in the US and many other places
00:23:03 now is YouTube. And it's worth thinking about what the positive vision of that
00:23:09 is for you. If you have a project with a really defined audience, what if you just
00:23:14 bypass the television commissioner entirely? Or, lest the commissioners faint,
00:23:21 what if you monetize certain territories yourself? Because it is so
00:23:25 defined. Maybe the niche in every market is too small to make sense. But maybe it
00:23:30 makes plenty of sense when you cut out the number of the middlemen. If your
00:23:34 writers understand affordable production, like what that actually means and
00:23:38 requires, and if you learn to work more efficiently, there are real opportunities
00:23:42 here. A growing threat that we haven't talked about or that I haven't talked
00:23:48 about today is synthetic media. So that's like fully or mostly AI generated
00:23:53 content. This already today it competes for audience attention on the Internet
00:23:59 and a lot of places, undermining the usefulness of search, the usefulness of
00:24:04 social media. And in addition to the synthetic media, we're also being
00:24:08 squeezed from the other side by sort of artificial demand of different kinds. And
00:24:12 artificial demand can be when there is plenty of funding available for content
00:24:17 that nobody is asking for or that isn't needed necessarily in a slate.
00:24:21 And artificial demand is of course also when the choices that the viewers make
00:24:27 are being manipulated in different ways, whether it's through small dopamine hits
00:24:31 or through just like making really manipulative shows. People will select
00:24:37 not what their heart is yearning for, but the thing that's just like least
00:24:41 annoying or easiest to access. And that's not a great basis for an artistic process
00:24:45 for us. And in response to all of this, the human, the human humans have been
00:24:51 very much in the mind of the interviewees this year. The medium of
00:24:55 filmmakers is moving images, but the medium of the film industry is people.
00:25:00 People talking to people as Hanna Raifkast says. Centering the human of
00:25:07 course includes all the humans who are working in this industry. So we have made
00:25:10 strides in a lot of areas, inclusivity, workplace safety, access and so on.
00:25:15 But so much work remains and there are new challenges ahead as a lot of jobs
00:25:20 are probably going to disappear and the remaining jobs are going to transform in
00:25:25 different ways. And that work is happening right now. There is a
00:25:28 collective moment through unionizing for instance and through active work across
00:25:32 nations as well. So in the end here, this is where I'll end. Storytelling including
00:25:37 film storytelling is a human need and it will continue whether or not our
00:25:42 traditional industry structures survive. But I think that we in these rooms, we
00:25:47 believe that these very complex human processes that we have created for
00:25:52 hundreds of people to get together to create filmed content of different
00:25:58 kinds, we believe that what you can make in that way is really worth
00:26:02 fighting for. Tabitha Jackson says in the report, "One of the things film does so
00:26:07 powerfully is to interrogate and investigate the interior landscape. What
00:26:12 it is to be human. These works are not just luxuries, they're essential in
00:26:17 counteracting this technological space. The stakes are high in not losing our
00:26:21 humanity and artists always find a way." And that's the paradox. Even in a very
00:26:27 bleak world, if we honor each other's humanity, we have hope. And as long as we
00:26:34 don't give up hope, at least there's hope. So I'm going to end there and ask Stuart
00:26:40 back up. This is where you can find the report, some other presentations, podcast
00:26:45 episodes and so on. And go take a look because very soon you're going to be
00:26:50 learning about something called the Nostradamus Collective that I can't
00:26:52 really talk about today already. All right. Thank you.
00:26:57 Thanks.
00:27:08 Thank you, Joanna. That was superb. I don't know paradoxically whether I feel
00:27:24 hopeful or not at the end, but let's discuss this. To do proper
00:27:29 introductions to my immediate left, we have Dennis Stern from In Transit
00:27:33 Productions, obviously former head of Yes Studios and further along Robert
00:27:37 Franca, VP of Drama at ZDF Studios. Between them, I've worked on so many
00:27:45 dramas, we're not going to list them all, but Understand, Development, Production,
00:27:48 Financing, Sales and the whole ecosystem, I think. One thing that struck me with
00:27:54 the overabundance piece is, I think in theatrical, I think perhaps there was an
00:27:59 acceptance that the theatrical model was somewhat broken. So that feels
00:28:02 interesting. In television, my sense as a journalist certainly is that
00:28:10 the received wisdom is the more we make the better and then there's
00:28:17 been a lot of hand-wringing and analysis around whether we've reached peak TV and
00:28:22 the implication within that is, oh no, we're still going to have to start
00:28:27 making less. And I wonder, and I'm going to come to you, Dana, just simply because
00:28:31 you're next to me, is the hard truth perhaps that the market correction we
00:28:36 are seeing now is that perhaps we've been making too much television.
00:28:41 I'm just wondering what is better? When you said, are we making it better? Some we do and some we don't.
00:28:47 We're definitely learning. There are markets that are learning to work
00:28:52 within the medium that have certainly gotten better, production value,
00:28:55 storytelling, accessibility, discoverability. But on the other hand,
00:29:00 there's a huge nostalgia for things that we used to make and maybe
00:29:06 they're not better or worse. It's really just up to the audience. But there's
00:29:09 definitely the whole situation of having peak TV in too many series and
00:29:13 I think the last number was 650 is where we peaked and now we're at 450-something.
00:29:19 Obviously this is all data that's coming out of the US that we look to, not
00:29:25 globally. I would venture to say that's probably double that.
00:29:27 Yeah, the European certainly follows the same curve. European probably peaks like this year, we expect.
00:29:34 And all the data shows that we have peaked. We're now, I don't know if a recession, but certainly a reduction of the amount.
00:29:43 But the honest truth is there is too much. Certainly as viewers, as you all are,
00:29:48 you can vouch for yourselves. Did you feel an overload?
00:29:52 Was there things in your queues? Did you make mental notes of things that you
00:29:55 kind of knew at a certain point you were never going to get to anyway?
00:29:58 So arguably, yes.
00:30:01 Robert, let's bring you in. Have we been making too much TV? Is this that natural moment where actually the market is correcting itself?
00:30:10 I think we're facing a fundamentally capitalistic problem.
00:30:15 And I always say the only thing that ever grows is cancer.
00:30:20 So why should things grow in a perpetual way?
00:30:27 It doesn't make sense that the industry grows and grows and grows.
00:30:30 I mean, what's the benefit for us as human beings watching all the content and where does it lead us?
00:30:35 I think part of the report, and you just quoted that, is very relevant in terms of what's the benefit?
00:30:45 How do I spend my time as a human being? Am I glued in front of a device,
00:30:51 just spending 24 hours a day and just consume more stuff?
00:30:55 So it's not about the quantity, it's about the quality.
00:30:58 And I think that's the chance which lies within for our industry to get rid of the overabundance.
00:31:05 And I can certainly attest to that because there is just way too much stuff out there, way too much content.
00:31:11 But let me, just for one second, can I just pick you up on something there?
00:31:16 You used the word quality.
00:31:18 I mean, I work for Deadline, so I'm not in the business of recommending other publications,
00:31:22 but there was an excellent article about mid-TV, the uncomfortable world of mid-TV in the New York Times.
00:31:28 Really, you probably read it, if not, it's very interesting.
00:31:32 And there, it was kind of unpacking this idea that there's a lot of kind of quote-unquote quality,
00:31:38 very expensive shows made on existing IP with incredible star names, director, showrunner.
00:31:45 The package is undeniable.
00:31:48 And yet, the kind of final product is...
00:31:52 Yeah.
00:31:52 Yeah. I mean, do you want to come in on that?
00:31:55 Yeah, I think most of it is not done because it is born out of just like a genuine wish of the creators
00:32:06 to manifest something which lingers in their heart and show that to the world.
00:32:11 A lot of it is just like a business decision, because somebody said, "Here's an opportunity,
00:32:16 we need more content." And then they take it out and people just jump on the opportunity.
00:32:21 And obviously, a lot of it is objectively great, but what's the motivation behind it?
00:32:28 True motivation, is it because of business or is it because we want to tell a story?
00:32:32 And if that's the question you are asking...
00:32:35 I think actually, I mean, I'm sorry to be critical of the question,
00:32:38 but I'm realizing you're again asking sort of the same two questions in the same sentence,
00:32:42 which the industry press and we also as a shorthand are doing at the same time.
00:32:46 We're confusing what we can get funded with what needs to be made.
00:32:49 So when you're asking, did the TV peak?
00:32:51 It didn't... Was there too much television for the audiences?
00:32:54 Those are two completely different questions.
00:32:56 TV peaked because there wasn't money available to invest in that kind of risk growth anymore.
00:33:01 People weren't willing to put money into making content that didn't have any plan to who would
00:33:07 watch it. Whereas audiences benefited for a while, I think a lot and a lot of creators
00:33:13 benefited for a while. I think there was great content was being made and seen,
00:33:18 and people were really happy that those passion projects got made.
00:33:20 And then I think we made a ton of stuff that maybe wasn't in those categories,
00:33:24 and that nobody cared about.
00:33:25 Shouldn't there be a correlation between how much money gets spent on programming
00:33:29 versus the demand? You're saying that actually those...
00:33:32 Well, no. These are publicly listed companies. No, of course not.
00:33:35 If they decide, if they are expanding, if they are invested in content,
00:33:42 because they're all competitively expanding in markets like Europe, that has no connection.
00:33:46 The whole point is that all of them need to hypothetically be able to take all of our
00:33:51 viewing time. So then in the end, all of them will not be able to maintain all of our viewing
00:33:55 time because you're going to run out of hours eventually.
00:33:59 But at the end of the day, for me, it seems to be kind of like, yes, we have more access,
00:34:03 and there is just more opportunity to watch. And that is basically because Wall Street
00:34:10 decided to apply blitzscaling strategies to the content industry, and a lot of money was
00:34:16 available. And all of a sudden, we had to fulfill the wet dream of some really,
00:34:22 really big venture capital companies. And they were riding that way for a certain time.
00:34:28 And now we're kind of like back to square one, and everybody has to ask themselves,
00:34:32 like, is it really worthwhile to spend the time watching those TV shows? And I would argue that
00:34:38 in the history of film entertainment, most of it has been mediocre, always has been mediocre.
00:34:44 And there's just like a very small percentage of things which are truly outstanding.
00:34:49 And I think, let's face it, I mean, like most human beings, our industry is mediocre. We're
00:34:58 not excellent most of the time. And that's okay. So we don't always have to be just brilliant,
00:35:04 because if everything is brilliant, nothing is brilliant.
00:35:07 - But Denessa, you said something so important just now, which was that a lot of local industries
00:35:15 have matured a lot with this money. And I think that's actually super important,
00:35:20 because we have become so many, I come from Finland, like our drama did not travel. And
00:35:25 I don't think a German drama really traveled either, no offense, historically. And now we
00:35:31 have in so many countries, we can make content that our audiences love, and it's of a high
00:35:37 quality, and that other cultures can see and learn. And that is sustainable, if we can fund it.
00:35:43 Those works we should continue making. - That was the hope, I think. And now,
00:35:47 in this kind of retraction that we've had, you're seeing less and less than anybody doing
00:35:52 non-English language is feeling that strain more than ever. So as much as the market's
00:35:57 contracted, it's certainly that whole hope of having these shows that were international,
00:36:03 or could travel. Travability was a word that Netflix invented at one point. Or local for,
00:36:10 the local, the local that makes it globally. Now we've gone back, as Robert said, to square one.
00:36:18 I mean, markets are producing primarily for their own market, crossing their fingers and hoping.
00:36:25 - Some of them will, I have to believe. I'm just hoping here. I have to believe that some of them
00:36:29 will travel. Maybe we're a square two. - But also, the definition of what is
00:36:33 excellent and what is brilliant. And who gets to say, is it an award thing? Is it our kind of
00:36:39 industry that we like the show? Or is it really the people that are watching that gets to say?
00:36:44 And if we look to them, what we're seeing right now, the most popular shows are reruns and
00:36:50 licensing. A very safe network type American fare, by the way, across the world. And then on the
00:36:58 other hand, you have returnable shows. Everybody was making small mini series for a while. Now
00:37:06 everybody wants returnable, everything that's comforting, that you don't have to relaunch.
00:37:10 Does that make them not as good or brilliant? I don't know. I think it's really up to the people
00:37:15 watching, in a way. - Dana, you're out of Berlin.
00:37:19 Robert, you run a studio, a German studio. I think it's on us to ask the question, a very local
00:37:25 question as well, because I think in microcosm, it speaks to wider issues. We can see that
00:37:33 Paramount, Sky Deutschland, ultimately US-owned companies and others have either
00:37:39 turned the tap off or are retrenching. What does that mean on a day-to-day level in terms of
00:37:48 actually the German drama business? It's a very specific question, but I feel like we need to,
00:37:54 it's an elephant in the room unless we at least ask that question.
00:37:56 - I translated German on the panel. - Oh boy. I deliberately choose to do
00:38:02 international co-productions because I'm either too stupid or not charming enough to be in the
00:38:07 German industry. So I would say the German industry is suffering from the same problems
00:38:19 the worldwide industry is suffering from. If I go and talk to my colleagues in the Latin markets or
00:38:27 in the Asian markets, they all are suffering from the same problem, which is basically
00:38:31 higher interest rates and it's a macroeconomic problem. And that basically translates into all
00:38:39 these issues we are facing in the German industry. And they are not so different from the problems
00:38:47 other countries are facing in their local industry. So it's the same thing. It's just like
00:38:54 there was a lot of cheap money available. It has been thrown into the content industry because
00:38:59 there was that fantasy that there is sustainable, infinite growth in that field and people will just
00:39:08 spend 24 hours a day watching content, but that's obviously not true. It was a race to gain market
00:39:16 shares for some of the multi-billion dollar pan global conglomerates. That fight is over and now
00:39:23 it's going back to where it used to be before. So in a way, it's just like going back to more
00:39:29 of a sustainable baseline and the real disruption is coming from AI basically. That's the next
00:39:36 frontier. That's where the cannibalization is coming from. That and user generated content
00:39:43 because let's face it, we're part of a gatekeeper industry. We're working for gatekeepers. We're not
00:39:49 in the TV industry in particular. We're not working for an audience as producers. We work
00:39:54 for our commissioners because they are paying for it. And some of these borders, they're vanishing
00:40:01 now because the democratization of technology allows us to produce content on a shop.
00:40:06 That's a really good point. And yet there are the likes of Mr. Beast or the Sidemen who rack up
00:40:11 billions and billions of views and they literally, there's no commissioner. They speak directly to
00:40:16 their audience. I mean, he was but out. Now he has a deal in place. It's kind of a reverse engineering
00:40:22 of going out and finding that talent wherever it is. But I would venture to say even quicker than
00:40:27 AI is going to threaten what we do is certainly social media. It's TikTok and YouTube, which is
00:40:34 an Instagram and anybody below a certain age is really, when you say glued to their screen
00:40:42 or glued to the TV, they're just glued to the screen or the screen is actually glued to them.
00:40:46 They move around with it and they watch and there's a whole generation that's not going to
00:40:52 subscribe. That's not going to be paying. That's not going to sit down and watch any ads if they
00:40:56 can help it and are watching content that we don't even know about as people working in this industry.
00:41:05 I think this morning we saw some great use cases, some examples of how AI can be used.
00:41:10 It's fascinating to see stuff happening in the moment. And yet, perhaps I'm wrong, but my sense
00:41:17 is that for a lot of producers, they're clearly intelligent enough to grasp how to use the tools.
00:41:24 They have the wherewithal and yet there's perhaps it's a generational thing. Not everyone wants to
00:41:31 is the honest truth. Is that a fair observation? Yes, but I'm sure it was the same when the
00:41:36 internet came out in the 90s. It's still the same because YouTube is over 20 years old.
00:41:42 The whole creators industry is bigger than film and television now, so in financial value.
00:41:50 That is also a ruthless environment. I'm not saying that these creators, we shouldn't be
00:41:55 naive that they're these happy artists who have freedom. No, they are. If you want to live off
00:42:02 Instagram or off YouTube, you are in a relentless production cycle. It's like working on a sofa
00:42:07 back in the hell days when that was the worst. So of course, no, that's also awful,
00:42:12 but there are also other ways. There are also other paths in that that I think people who are,
00:42:17 well, most of us who are a little bit older in the traditional industry are not looking at that.
00:42:22 Whereas people who are young filmmakers who maybe come out of a traditional film school or TV
00:42:26 education and they're in their early 20s, they're very comfortable in those environments. And if we
00:42:31 keep trying to gatekeep them from jobs, they're just going to find their own ways.
00:42:34 So that's also, I guess, part of it. There are ways to go in both directions. It doesn't have
00:42:40 to be buying out Mr Beast. It can also be an incredibly DIY approach for us to work in.
00:42:46 Is it a case of learn how to utilize these tools, some of them, and how they work for you? Otherwise,
00:42:52 you're a dinosaur and you become extinct. Or hire people that know how to do it.
00:42:57 We don't have to know all of it. We need to know that we don't know. It's available.
00:43:02 I think the beauty of it is basically it levels the playing field. It kind of like demolishes
00:43:07 some of the market entry barriers we've been faced with, maybe when we started in the industry. And
00:43:13 now for some people, it is an opportunity to actually succeed and have their voice heard.
00:43:24 It comes down to fragmentation, because everything is fragmented now. And you have
00:43:28 like micro niches and micro audiences. And you as a creator can make a living
00:43:32 in an environment where you kind of decide for yourself what you do, as long as your audience
00:43:39 is appreciating that. There's like an in-between version. You don't have to learn a YouTube
00:43:46 business model for your traditional production company. That's a very long step. But for instance,
00:43:50 if you have creators who have come to you with passion projects that you just cannot make the
00:43:55 commissioners believe in, then prototyping it or piloting it or doing like an audio series or doing
00:44:00 something relatively affordable on other platforms, just as a proof of concept to show that there is
00:44:06 an audience who will be passionate about this, is going to absolutely change that conversation also
00:44:10 with bigger investors. And of course, then you can come in with a further developed product and you
00:44:14 will have more ownership ultimately. So there are these kinds of like super basic approaches.
00:44:20 Can I ask a question of the German industry as represented on stage? Because I've been thinking,
00:44:25 I looked with astonishment at the amount of incentives coming out of Austria in the last
00:44:33 year or so. And it seems like there's still like more money floating around specifically in the
00:44:39 German speaking world than in a lot of other places in Europe. And do you think that will
00:44:46 kind of, I worry that that has a risk that it will sort of stop people from having to think forward
00:44:51 because you can continue a little bit longer in the old system. But on the other hand, isn't it
00:44:56 also like an amazing opportunity to keep doing things when other people are more squeezed? Or am
00:45:00 I just like very naive of the impact? I think like traditionally, we, at least in Germany, did not
00:45:07 have like a lot of opportunities to get soft money outside of the German Emotion Picture Fund,
00:45:14 because like most of it is actually subsidy based. And that is, that means like somebody decides
00:45:18 whether or not it's good what you do. And now we get like a tax credit for the first time,
00:45:24 hopefully next year sometime. And then all that it was always kind of like, almost like
00:45:31 economic policies from countries to decide to develop parts of the industry. And now it's
00:45:39 Germany's term, time to do that. But I don't think that this is going to be a game changer.
00:45:46 It's just like one more tax credit. And like for me doing international co-productions, like
00:45:50 basically optimizing budgets by looking at like, where does it make sense to go and where it's
00:45:56 cheaper and like comparing all of these things. It comes down to just like more like choice.
00:46:04 But it's certainly not easier to get things funded because like it doesn't matter almost
00:46:11 like if I go to Austria, to Germany, or to Spain, or to Italy, it becomes just tool and you need to
00:46:19 know like what like it actually means to go to these countries and shoot there.
00:46:23 So it's apples to oranges in a way.
00:46:26 But I will say this as somebody looking, you know, living here, but looking at the industry
00:46:32 from as an outsider, the German industry in general, the commissioners and the distributors,
00:46:37 the vast majority of international distributors are German. And certainly the co-production
00:46:42 partners are. And I think at one point I saw a study that said 47 or something percent of all
00:46:48 international co-productions have German money in them, whether through a distributor advance
00:46:54 or with one of the broadcasters commissioners. And that's a huge, huge responsibility of this
00:47:01 market and a contribution.
00:47:03 It's interesting because in a way like what I appreciate about Germany and the German
00:47:09 commissioners as much as people bitch about them, there is like a real openness, at least
00:47:16 here in Germany, there is a real openness to actually have other voices heard. And that is
00:47:24 something like if I look to, for example, the Nordics, like which pride themselves to be very
00:47:28 open and to be very pluralistic and democratic and all that. They don't fucking care about
00:47:34 Europe, at least not when it comes to storytelling, like try and sell something which is not English
00:47:39 or Swedish or Danish to a local commissioner, they will show you the middle finger.
00:47:44 Not actually, they're very nice.
00:47:47 They are nice. They're nice about it. Yeah, but they still say no.
00:47:51 No, we cannot do that.
00:47:56 But it comes, I think, from responsibility in general that Germans have towards humanity
00:48:03 in a way. It also becomes from the fact that there is more money here than others. There's
00:48:07 more buyers here. And the fact that everything is dubbed, which is not in Scandinavia. So it's
00:48:14 very easy to make international shows seem accessible or at least make them accessible
00:48:20 for local audiences.
00:48:23 Johanna, you speak about, you speak in the report about collaboration as innovation and
00:48:29 playing devil's advocate here. A lot of what you're saying makes perfect sense on paper.
00:48:35 And yet there's a very big reality hurdle to jump in that people just don't want. That's just
00:48:41 business has never been done like that. So it's a whole, the shift that's required is so enormous.
00:48:47 And I wonder if you think we're actually on that journey to kind of to that greater kind
00:48:51 of industry level collaboration.
00:48:53 Never. My brain immediately goes to, is that true? I don't know, like just off the top of
00:48:57 my mind, since nobody's ever asked me this question, it would seem to me that the music
00:49:00 industry, for instance, would be one where people are very unafraid of collaborating in
00:49:06 different constellations, not just on the artist level, but then because people are,
00:49:09 and their rights are connected in weird ways, they have to collaborate. I think there's probably
00:49:13 a lot of places where it's possible to do more collaboration. But there are also a lot of these
00:49:20 are like win-win scenarios. It can be about, I mean, my examples in the report are theatrical,
00:49:25 but it could be things like, oh, there's a Benelux distributor who have created a brand,
00:49:33 like a niched brand for films that are not from Europe or North America. So mostly Asian
00:49:40 and African films. And they make people show up for their festival and every month in the
00:49:45 cinemas they sell out for films that people just don't even know what the title is because
00:49:49 they have such trust in the curation. And that model arguably should be, and that's
00:49:53 a non-profit as well, but you should be able to copy that in every market.
00:49:56 The question is, is that scalable?
00:49:58 Well, yes, for every market it's scalable, I think. If you can do it in the Benelux,
00:50:03 I think you can probably do it in Poland and also in Finland. And it scales when you have
00:50:10 all the different innovations that are tested.
00:50:13 But the question is, what's the benefit in making it scalable, right? I mean,
00:50:16 why do we have to make everything scalable?
00:50:18 We don't, we just have to sustain.
00:50:19 That's the point. And as long as it's sustainable in the home territory, and that's what I see,
00:50:24 the beauty of our industry is when you have passionate people who are really burning for
00:50:28 a topic and they do something and it becomes successful. And then at some point, every
00:50:36 single time when I see money coming in, it will not get better. When somebody buys it,
00:50:43 they will then apply their capitalistic thinking and I'm part of an ecosystem which does the
00:50:50 same thing, but it will never make things better, especially if it's American money.
00:50:56 It's weird we introduced all of these incentives across the world and also in Europe, in many
00:51:03 countries that are very thoughtful about this stuff. And I don't think I've ever heard
00:51:07 anybody say, "Okay, here are these millions coming into our ecosystem. Let's think about
00:51:12 how we can leverage those to the benefit of the audience." It's always about like,
00:51:15 "How can we get more, more productions to us from abroad, locally, more, grow, grow, grow."
00:51:21 And I think there's a real, there's a part, there's like a subtext in this report where
00:51:25 people voices, people who are saying, producers are saying, "We also have to ask what is enough.
00:51:29 Like how many viewers does my project need? Like maybe I don't need to be on it. My production
00:51:34 company doesn't need to be on a trajectory of infinite growth. I just need to make like my
00:51:39 one show a year or my five shows a year. And I need to make like a reasonable, like I need to
00:51:44 have a good quality of life and make a reasonable profit over time so that the value accrues,
00:51:49 so that we have some resilience in a time of crisis. And beyond that, kind of like,
00:51:53 maybe we don't need more. Or like this film, if a film, you know, like makes 2000 tickets in the
00:51:58 theater today, and you can scale that through these kinds of initiatives to maybe it makes
00:52:04 20,000 tickets, that's a hell of a huge difference, you know, and these are like chicken shit numbers.
00:52:09 And you can make huge differences in somebody's life with kind of chicken shit initiatives. And
00:52:13 yeah, and I also think some of them will scale enormously, but not all of them have to have to
00:52:17 scale that much, as Robert is saying. I think what you described about having one show or five shows
00:52:22 is there's a huge difference, right, between doing one and doing five a year. That's a whole-
00:52:28 Very different companies. But very different companies.
00:52:30 But both will have similar struggles as well. Yes and no, other problems. But the reality is
00:52:35 a lot of these companies already belong to larger groups. That in themselves are either publicly
00:52:42 traded, or have, you know, a lot of value attributed to them. So that reality where you're
00:52:48 saying, oh, just let's have a good life, work life balance and do less and be happy is not really
00:52:52 going to work in the system that we have all built over the last few years.
00:52:57 A lot of those companies are going to be very risk averse. Maybe a lot of them are going to
00:53:00 make mid-television if they can get the funding. And then I think everyone has to ask, is that
00:53:06 where I want to work, or is that where I want my projects to be? And some will not have a choice,
00:53:12 and then you'll have to make the best of it. Like if that's the only job that's available,
00:53:16 of course you're going to take it. And some people will be super happy just making
00:53:19 mainstream mid-content 3% better. You can change somebody's life with that.
00:53:25 But you also asked a good question, like what is the number of viewers that I need?
00:53:30 As a producer, I think what's really changed in the last couple of years is the metrics.
00:53:34 And now the technology is there to actually pinpoint if you're working with a streamer.
00:53:40 I mean, ratings have always been around, and market share, and ad revenue. But now with the way
00:53:45 the streamers work, there is actually this mathematical formula that really says, this much
00:53:54 money, these many viewers, this much completion rate, now there's a thing called a love factor.
00:54:00 Anybody go into Netflix, you see we have a thumbs up and a two thumbs up. That you now,
00:54:06 if you love a show, give it a two thumbs up because the producers get points for that.
00:54:11 So all these things are really coming into play and are very much looked at when making decisions
00:54:20 about more ongoing seasons, new commissions from those same creators. And it's very much,
00:54:28 there is an answer to your question, how much do I need?
00:54:31 There is now, I mean, because they introduced, even Netflix, we were so impressed with their
00:54:36 algorithm when they came. They started measuring dollar per minute, like what does it, the budget
00:54:42 per minute versus minutes viewed. They started measuring that like two years ago.
00:54:47 They literally haven't been, the streamers haven't actually been using this data in this way,
00:54:51 because the metric that mattered to their market was subscriber growth. And now I think all of us
00:54:56 as an industry are going back to, okay, but how many people actually watch this thing?
00:55:00 And reconnecting to that, I think will artistically be beneficial.
00:55:03 And it's proof that we are out of that growth phase, because we're now dealing with a mature
00:55:08 industry and now it's about profits. We're back to square one again.
00:55:11 You mean like any other industry?
00:55:13 Yeah, exactly. And it's again, as long as we're part of a capitalistic system, which basically
00:55:20 forces everybody to grow indefinitely, we'll have these rules apply to our industry.
00:55:26 But we don't have to because we have so much public, like our industry in Europe works
00:55:32 mostly based on public funding. So we can learn another mindset of thinking, which is
00:55:38 what is the sustainable local industry? Like what does the German industry or the
00:55:42 state's industry need? What's the production volumes and artistic volumes?
00:55:48 I think that's a good point, because when the streamer money goes away and maybe it
00:55:52 comes back again, I think what you see is what underpins a lot of drama production of the public
00:55:56 service broadcasters and the commercial channels, each of which have their own particular challenges.
00:56:00 But one question, Robert, because you speak about fragmentation. So the
00:56:08 entertainment pie will be growing, kind of TV's piece within it may be shrinking.
00:56:12 And I wonder, we talk about strong voices coming to the fore, but isn't it just the
00:56:17 voice that kind of shouts loudest in that world? How do you, and actually it's a question for both
00:56:22 of you, how do you as people, you know, sort of produce all real, I actually get the best talent
00:56:27 and not just the loudest voice?
00:56:28 Well, that comes down to your personal preferences and how mature as a human being you are. So you
00:56:34 either are able to cut through the jungle of loud voices or you don't, or you are incentivized by
00:56:43 a company, by a system which you're part of, which basically forces you to kind of like
00:56:49 do the crap, you know? And if you just apply, I think I studied economics and there's this term
00:57:00 called, basically we as human beings, we always do what's best for us and this type of bullshit
00:57:07 enticed by the lure of wealth and indefinite growth and all that stuff. But it's a collective
00:57:17 decision we have to take here, I guess.
00:57:19 And we're running out of time, so I think we need to, I want to kind of work down the panel
00:57:26 and I think the report is called, you know, The Paradox of Hope. Why is that chapter
00:57:30 paradoxically, comma, hope? So I guess my question to you, then, is, you know, do you sense that
00:57:37 that fever has broken, that we've been through, you know, something where, you know, this chaotic
00:57:42 moment and now there's clarity about what happens next and how production, distribution, and the TV
00:57:50 business kind of gets back into better shape?
00:57:52 No. No, there's no clarity. There's never been clarity, right? There's been good times that
00:58:01 we looked up, that we used to look back on and decide they were good and there's currently bad
00:58:07 times because we tell each other that constantly and we commiserate. I'm surprised we made it all
00:58:12 the way through here without saying, you know, survive 25, which is like the new catchphrase
00:58:17 that everybody's using, was also in the report. I'm sure you're going to talk about it, but
00:58:22 everybody's kind of saying, you know, we just need to make it through to 25 and the industry
00:58:28 will be back.
00:58:29 Did things get better in 25?
00:58:30 No, I think we survived through, I don't know if that means like we survived to 25 or we survived
00:58:36 to 26. Anyway, I would recommend, yeah, stick around until 26, I think.
00:58:41 The point of all that just means nobody knows anything. We will work through it as needed
00:58:49 and we will maneuver as we've always done. Yes, with less commissioning. Yes, with less money.
00:58:54 We will try to integrate, you know, new technologies, social media,
00:58:59 new ways of communicating what we're doing to audiences.
00:59:02 Can I say something? I interviewed Donna Stern for an earlier report and you spoke then with
00:59:09 enormous clarity about basically what it takes, which is, you know, content that people can care
00:59:14 about at reasonable prices with funding where there are opportunities, you know, in the marketplace,
00:59:20 normal business sense combined with like artistic vision and audience relevance.
00:59:25 And it's felt super clear to me then.
00:59:27 And you make it sound so easy.
00:59:28 You made it sound so easy.
00:59:30 It's not.
00:59:30 No, but it isn't.
00:59:31 You two get together.
00:59:33 But that's what we do. And that's the hopeful thing, right? Somehow we make it work.
00:59:38 And Robert, survive till 25, 26 or I can't think quickly enough to get things that rhyme.
00:59:44 Something happens in 27.
00:59:46 I'm not a poet, so I leave that to the writers in the room here.
00:59:51 But I would learn to keep my breath until 26 at least because I think...
00:59:58 In 27 we go to heaven.
00:59:59 Yeah. God damn it.
01:00:01 It's going to be wild year next year for sure.
01:00:05 But what makes me hopeful is that we still talk about stories and that we're still here.
01:00:11 And there's also a big chance because it's such a cataclystic change right now in the industry
01:00:17 that it will allow us to explore probably a lot of new things because things are broken right now.
01:00:26 And then that allows for new growth.
01:00:29 Dana, you're going to have to keep that one.
01:00:32 No, I was just going to say, so long as we know that,
01:00:35 you know, we need to work at it, right?
01:00:37 Recognizing the problems is the first step.
01:00:40 And then I think that's what we're all doing here.
01:00:44 And then figuring it out.
01:00:45 I'm going to...
01:00:48 That was really...
01:00:50 It was super.
01:00:50 And I'd say that, Joanna, thank you so much for setting it up so brilliantly with the report.
01:00:54 I encourage you to check it out.
01:00:56 I'm sure everyone here will now do so.
01:00:58 But I'd say Dana and Robert, you know, I moderate lots of things.
01:01:01 And I think you were both really...
01:01:02 Felt like a very honest conversation.
01:01:04 It was great to go into different areas.
01:01:06 Especially Robert.
01:01:07 So please join me in saying a big thank you to our brilliant panel.
01:01:12 And I'm actually going to hand over to my colleague,
01:01:24 Jessie Wittek, international TV editor.
01:01:27 And next up, we have a master class on constellations.
01:01:31 So stick around for that.
01:01:32 and Jessie, wherever you are, over to you.