On day 1 of this year’s MIA – International Audiovisual Market (14-18 October), Rome’s Cinema Barberini hosted a 30-minute keynote speech by Ampere Analysis expert Guy Bisson, titled “Navigating Uncertainty: The Key Scripted Content Trends You Need to Know to Survive”.

As the global scripted TV business continues to face severe challenges, Bisson examined how global streamers and local broadcasters are changing the type of content that’s in demand, highlighting the main market shifts and the opportunities that still exist in today’s turbulent world.

First, the British analyst reflected on what has transpired over the last few years. In summary, the market has experienced unprecedented saturation and was severely hit by a backlash from the main investors, generally resulting in staff cuts, lower commissioning levels and attempts to diversify income, including the implementation of ad-based offerings and prioritising profit over growth. “It’s hard to find bright spots,” admitted Bisson, “but I think I’ve found some.”

The end of “peak TV” began after Q2 2021. Over the last four years, the global audiovisual industry has faced unprecedented crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the pullback of investment from global streamers, and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. The investment pullback and Hollywood strikes have especially affected scripted content. “So, if a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, then the US scripted industry entered a recession in the middle of 2022 and has yet to fully return to growth,” observed Bisson. “The last time we had a media-specific recession was after the dot-com crash in 2002, exactly 20 years earlier… And that comparison gives some reason for optimism this time around.” Europe held out a year longer than the USA, but the scripted business still entered a “recession” in Q2 2023.

Predictably, the biggest pullback has been in the most expensive scripted genres, including children’s content (which is increasingly licensed instead), horror, action and sci-fi. Meanwhile, romance, crime, comedy and drama are still on the rise. The pandemic and strikes also led to a shift towards safer renewals over first-run productions.

“So, the new reality is that spend growth isn’t coming back any time soon,” warned Bisson. He showed a graph indicating that global content spending is set to grow by just 0.2% (CAGR, or compound annual growth rate) from 2022-2029, reaching $180 billion. In comparison, the CAGR figure stood at 6% in the period 2012-2022.

Western European scripted series orders in H1 2024, by genre, see crime and thriller leading with a staggering 39%, followed by comedy (18%), children’s content (16%), drama (16%), romance (7%) and sci-fi (2%). Crime shows are being ordered predominantly by pubcasters (50%) and SVoD platforms (24%), followed by commercial free-to-air channels (18%).

Bisson argues that recovery will start – and probably already has started – in the USA. First-run scripted series orders by US majors in Q3, though still below the peak, are up 73% compared to the strike period. That being said, global streamers are shifting their focus away from the USA, aiming instead at Asia and Europe. For example, 34% of all Netflix and Amazon first-run scripted commissions are now in Western Europe, followed by the Asia Pacific region (31%). In terms of commissioning, the two giants are mostly ordering crime and thriller (47%), comedy (20%) and drama (15%).

“Notably, there has been a language pullback, as commissioning now relies on ‘safe’ global languages,” underscored Bisson. While English and Spanish are still on the rise, owing to their large user base, French, German, Italian and the Nordic languages are dramatically declining in terms of commissioning.

In conclusion, “peak TV” is over, and there are no discernible signs of a significant recovery in either the USA or Europe. High-budget scripted content is increasingly challenging in today’s cost-conscious environment as activity shifts towards lower-cost drama. Meanwhile, licensing has re-emerged as a serious force to be reckoned with, with streamers filling the gap left by investment drops in scripted content with quality shows that have performed well on smaller broadcasting outlets. Interestingly, spend on licensing is expected to grow by over 12% in the next five years. This implies that there are now “very strong opportunities for the right type of catalogue content”, as “streamers have adopted licensing of drama that fills a gap in their cash-reduced originals slate, providing second-life opportunities for rights holders and acceptance of short windows”.

Where content is getting commissioned, Europe is actually the main beneficiary, with crime, comedy and key drama sub-genres such as historical, sport and military/war still drawing investment. At the same time, co-production opportunities are expected to increasingly emerge in Asia and, later, the MENA region, opening up new creative horizons.

Finally, advertising is now the driver of growth in streaming, and this is changing the demands from commissioners. Streaming is becoming more broadcast-like, favouring longevity of engagement over immediate impact on customer acquisition. Advertising will boost streamers’ revenue by at least 20% over subscriptions alone in the next five years, helping to speed up a recovery.