What Ted Said in London that Made TV Producers Uneasy
Sarandos' message to the U.K. also contained a rough message for L.A.
Manori Ravindran covers international TV from London for Series Business. She recently wrote about the death of mid-budget TV, what’s selling and who’s buying in the global TV market and Tubi’s launch in the U.K. for the broke Letterboxd generation. As a paid subscriber to Series Business, you’ll receive richly reported dispatches from both Manori and Elaine Low for a global perspective on the TV business. This is a standalone subscription separate from The Ankler. For access to Series Business and everything The Ankler publishes, including Sean McNulty's The Wakeup and columns from Richard Rushfield, you can subscribe here.
“Filming here in Britain is always a privilege, and never a sacrifice,” said Ted Sarandos, standing at a lectern with the Netflix red backdrop behind him emblazoned with the slogan Keeping Our Creative Edge. “Britain became one of the best countries in the world for TV and film because you made it happen.”
The “you” in question here was the room full of top executives who’ve largely built their careers at public-service broadcasters. American and British TV leaders may speak the same language — well, close enough — and work in the same industry, but the cultural divide between them was palpable this week at the Royal Television Society’s annual confab on Sept. 17.
The RTS is usually the domain of the U.K.’s stolid public-service broadcasters BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, with Netflix avoiding the spotlight. But this year not only did Netflix’s co-CEO deliver a keynote — his first appearance here in eight years, when he previewed season one of The Crown — but the streaming giant sponsored a slick edition of the event.
Sarandos touted that Netflix’s four most-watched shows around the world for the first half of 2024 — Fool Me Once, Baby Reindeer, Bridgerton and The Gentlemen — were all made in the U.K. (The company released its full report today.)
What’s more, he asserted that Netflix invests more in the U.K. ($6 billion since 2020) than any other country outside the United States: There are currently 100 active productions, while pointedly noting, “We own less than 25 percent of the IP in our U.K. catalog.” The streamer has done a large number of co-productions with British broadcasters, including the forthcoming Lockerbie with the BBC, not to mention all the acquisitions it’s made that are billed as originals, too. As Sarandos continued, he praised the U.K. as the “birthplace of prestige television.”
No one could miss the narrative Netflix brought to London: “Trying to really push that they’re doing good for the U.K. creative community,” as one insider summed it up.
Although there was polite applause in the room for Sarandos, his day wasn’t filled with rosebuds and gumdrops. He was grilled onstage by legendary broadcaster Kirsty Wark, battle-hardened from years of pinning down slippery politicians. Later, he was the subject of a savage roast by The Rest Is Entertainment podcast hosts Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, who joked that Netflix was “British Empire-ing” the U.K. by making hit shows in the country and taking all the profits back to America. Per one source, Sarandos was “chortling away” through the roasting. (Kudos to him for gamely sticking around all day, though he had paid for the event.)
With the Financial Times having declared Netflix the winner of the Streaming Wars that very day, why not? But even after the charm offensive, the U.K. TV community is left wondering whether that creative edge is theirs as they compete against the world for production — or the blade that’ll ultimately cut it to ribbons.
In this issue, you’ll learn:
The damning message Sarandos delivered to the Hollywood production community
How Netflix’s investment in the U.K. has translated into jobs
Why producers still feel in the dark about Netflix’s intentions
How they fear being caught between Netflix phasing out cost-plus deals but still wanting ownership
Why the vast majority of producers have no shot at a Netflix show
The precise revenue threshold they need to meet to have a shot
The moment that exasperated the otherwise unflappable Sarandos
The advice of one of the U.K.’s most important voices for how to survive
Why producers are still furious at the double standard Netflix enjoys
Why Netflix’s Baby Reindeer controversy simply will not go away in the U.K.
