Danish Television Drama

Global Lessons from a Small Nation

Anne Marit Waade, Eva Novrup Redvall, Pia Majbritt Jensen, Anne Marit Waade, Eva Novrup Redvall, Pia Majbritt Jensen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030407988
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This book explores how to understand the international appeal of Danish television drama and Nordic Noir in the 2010s. Focusing on production and distribution as well as the series and their reception, the chapters analyse how this small nation production culture was suddenly regarded as an example of best practice in the international television industries, and how the distribution and branding of particular series – such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing, Borgen and Bron/The Bridge – led to dedicated audiences around the world. Discussing issues such as cultural proximity, transnationalism and glocalisation, the chapters investigate the complex interplays between the national and international in the television industries and the global lessons learned from the way in which screen ideas, production frameworks and public service content from Denmark suddenly managed to travel widely. The book builds on extensive empirical material and case studies conducted as part of the transnational research project 'What Makes Danish Television Drama Travel?'

© The Author(s) 2020

A. M. Waade et al. (eds.)Danish Television DramaPalgrave European Film and Media Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Transnational Television Drama? Lessons Learned from Danish Drama

Anne Marit Waade¹ , Eva Novrup Redvall² and Pia Majbritt Jensen¹

(1)

Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

(2)

University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Anne Marit Waade (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Eva Novrup Redvall

Email: [email protected]

Pia Majbritt Jensen

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Danish television dramaTransnational television dramaNordic NoirScreen idea system modelThe location study model‘The three-leaf clover’ model of audience groupings

End Abstract

Introduction

When the Danish crime series Forbrydelsen (The Killing , 2007–2012) hit the British market in the early 2010s, attracting a surprising amount of interest from British viewers and critics, it became a global game-changer that not only created opportunities for the new export of Danish television drama to international markets, but also paved the way for subtitled and foreign drama as a new trend on television channels and Subscription-Video-on-Demand (SVOD) services (Redvall 2013; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015; Eichner and Esser in this volume). The popularity of the Danish television drama series in the United Kingdom created opportunities for their export to new markets around the world (Jensen 2016). Danish broadcasters and producers experienced an increasing foreign demand for new/fresh Danish content; and in the following years, series such as Borgen (2010–2013), Bron/Broen /The Bridge (2011–2018), and Arvingerne (The Legacy , 2014–2017) travelled worldwide. The international success of Danish television drama interested and engaged the critics, the broadcasters, the distributors, the viewers, and the fans.

In the 2010s, Nordic Noir emerged as a popular brand that built on the global success of Scandinavian crime fiction (Hansen and Waade 2017). Danish and other Nordic television drama and crime fiction have mobilized transnational online fan communities and inspired Nordic Noir tourism. In parallel with this, the growth of new and streaming services has led to a significant demand for content, and made drama an excellent ‘driver for sale’ (Lotz 2014; Steemers 2016). As a result of these trends, the Nordic region has experienced a general boom in the production of television drama series.

Not only has Danish television drama travelled globally, so has Danish drama knowhow. For instance, producers from other countries have travelled to Denmark to learn more about the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) ‘dogmas’ for making engaging television series (Redvall 2013; Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017). The Nordic Noir style travels as well, for example in international series such as Fortitude (2015–2018), Hinterland (2013–2016), Broadchurch (2013–2017), Shetland (2013–), and The Kettering Incident (2016–) (Creeber 2015; Hansen and Waade 2017). Danish creators of drama productions (including producers, actors, and screenwriters) are also in international demand, and international broadcasters and producers are increasingly reaching out to Danish production companies and broadcasters to co-produce, remake, and collaborate with them, an example being the Danish-produced Netflix original series The Rain (2018–) (Nielsen 2016) .

Naturally, it is important to relate the international interest in Danish television drama series to the general international popularity of anything Nordic, be it food, fashion, architecture, landscapes, climate, candles, crime series, gender culture, or even the welfare state (Syvertsen et al. 2014) and bestselling books on ‘hygge’, ‘lykke’, ‘lagom’, and ‘how to be Danish’ (e.g. Kingsley 2013; Abrahams 2016). A reciprocal process is involved: Nordic Noir series and Danish television drama series strengthen the international interest in anything Nordic, and the international popularity of Nordic food, design, and culture makes it easier to sell Danish television drama series to international markets.

The fact that Danish television drama series began to travel outside the Nordic region challenged fundamental understandings of—and theoretical approaches to—national and public service television drama production (Redvall 2013; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015; Jensen et al. 2016; Jensen and McCutcheon 2020), as well as methodological approaches to the study of production and reception across countries and continents (Jensen and Jacobsen in this volume). This phenomenon called for a rethinking of the theoretical centre/periphery complexity within global television industries, in particular, cultural proximity and the role of small-nation screen production in a global media industry context (Straubhaar 2007; Jacobsen and Jensen 2016; McElroy et al. 2018) .

This chapter introduces a large-scale research project that studied how the international export of Danish television drama meets the challenges described above. In the following pages, we elaborate on this research project’s general findings and its theoretical and methodological contributions. We also introduce the other chapters of this edited volume, which analyse and explain specific aspects of the international success of Danish television drama, from the development of ‘screen ideas’ to the sale, distribution, and global reception of Danish series.

Researching the Many Reasons Why Danish Television Series Suddenly Travelled

‘What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel?’ This question was the title of, and the research question that underlay, a large-scale research project funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark (2014–2019) and supported by the Aarhus University Research Fund (2014–2015). The study investigated why and how Danish television drama started travelling in the 2000s. The study comprised three principal sections: a production study (interviews with producers, screenwriters, and distributors, an ethnographic study of production processes and international television sales markets, and various studies with distinct focuses, such as screenwriting, international remakes, locations, international sales, and co-funding); a textual study (examining genres, mood, audiovisual style, place, and historical and cultural representation); and a reception study (examining media coverage, including interviews with distributors, broadcasters, and viewers in eight markets around the world: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States – as well as Denmark itself). Our ambition was to shed light on the specific transformations and value creations that took place at all stages of the production system of Danish television drama series, from idea to production, distribution, and reception processes (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Research design for What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel? (DFF 2014–2019). The research project involved three research teams: the production study team, the text study team, and the audience study team

Our study was divided into four distinct sub-questions, each shedding light on significant parts of this process, and including a particular set of interviews, data collection, and theoretical approaches:

1) How can we consider Danish TV drama series as an international brand?

2) What makes Danish TV drama series travel from a transnational production perspective?

3) How are Danish TV drama series interpreted and valued by audiences abroad, specifically in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Denmark itself?

4) How are small-nation drama series challenging the centre/periphery complex of the global media industry and culture?

The Danish research team consisted of nine scholars from the fields of media and screen studies and international business studies. The study was carried out by three teams, each with the distinct methodological and empirical ambition (production study, text study, and reception study) of improving insights into travelling Danish drama as a cultural and industrial phenomenon, and bringing together different theoretical perspectives and sets of data. As part of our research, we followed Danish television drama series around the world. We talked to producers, screenwriters, distributors, broadcasters, viewers, fans, and critics. We studied the series, the narratives, their aesthetics, and their production values. We also studied the media coverage of these series in some countries in order to see which of the series’ discourses and themes were touched upon in reviews around the world. As part of this project, we worked closely with researchers and universities connected to each of the specific markets that we were studying and with internationally recognized scholars in the field of tran...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Transnational Television Drama? Lessons Learned from Danish Drama
• Part I. Societal and Cultural Values in DanishDanish television drama TelevisionTelevision drama Drama
• Part II. Small Nation Perspectives: Producing DanishDanish television drama TelevisionTelevision drama Drama
• Part III. Global Lessons: Distribution and Reception of DanishDanish television drama TelevisionTelevision drama Drama
• Back Matter