Drama and Public Service Media
Making European drama available to our Members
Credit © Sam Moqadam/Unsplash
The EBU's Drama and Public Service Media (PSM) is a collection of linked activities designed to secure good access to European drama content for EBU Members, with a focus on encouraging co-production and knowledge sharing.
TV drama is undeniably important to public service media (PSM) audiences, including young audiences. In order to stay relevant and indispensable, EBU Members need to offer high-quality drama at a time where commercial SVOD (Subscription Video On-demand) global players are bringing significant disruption into European markets with substantial budgets and agile commissioning and decision-making.
Experience has shown that co-production deals between PSM and SVOD platforms (becoming increasingly common) come at a cost, notably in the domain of rights, where third-party platforms tend to require significant access, often reducing broadcasters’ own rights to short domestic exclusivity windows. This situation creates difficult access conditions for other European PSM but also weakens the commissioning broadcaster’s brand association with the series in the public sphere.
The Drama Initiative aims to facilitate access to high-quality content by fostering co-production among EBU Members as a primary source of financing.
To achieve this, a toolkit (‘the EBU Drama Co-production Network’) will allow and encourage EBU broadcasters to work in an agile way among themselves, quickly leveraging co-production potential through the EBU.
Other strands of the drama initiative will create a hub of knowledge for drama managers, researching business models for drama co-production and publishing recommendations through a report, while regional networking meetings across the Membership will ensure that all parts of the EBU Membership have access to co-production partners with aligned budgets and cultural characteristics.
If you would like to make or receive co-production offers from Members, or access the business knowledge obtained through the initiative, contact us at tv@ebu.ch to ensure your organization’s contact details are up to date.
Find out more in our latest presentation on Drama and Public Service Media discussed during our recent TV Assembly.
Find out about the year's work and results in our Drama and Public Service TV report.
Learn more about the first two years of EBU's Drama and Public Service Media activities in our Drama in the New Media Landscape report.
Latest publication
Drama and Public Service TV
This report summarizes the work and research of the EBU Media department across the international drama...
EBU DRAMA OFFERS
Explore our selection EBU Drama Offers (EBU login required) currently open for pre-sale and/or co-production opportunities to EBU members. To ensure you receive alerts when new offers are published, please contact tv@ebu.ch