A European Television Fiction Renaissance

Luca Barra is Associate Professor of Television and Digital Media at Università di Bologna, Italy.

Massimo Scaglioni is Full Professor of Media Economics and History at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan.

This book maps the landscape of contemporary European premium television fiction, offering a detailed overview of both the changes in the digital production and distribution and the emergence of specific national and transnational case histories.

Combining a media-production approach with a textual and audience analysis, the volume offers a complex, stratified, systemic view of ongoing aesthetic, sociocultural and industrial developments in contemporary European TV. With contributions from leading experts in the field, the book first offers an overview of the industrial, policy and cultural context for the renaissance of European television drama over the past decade, based on original comparative research. This research is then supported by case study chapters from the key contexts within which quality European television is being produced, offering a complex and complete picture of the industry's strengths and limitations, its traditions and trends, its constraints and future perspectives.

A European Television Fiction Renaissance is a must-read book for TV scholars working across Europe and beyond in the areas of media studies, international communications and television studies, media industries studies, production studies, European studies, and media policy studies as well as for those with an interest in television drama, Netflix, globalisation, pay TV and on demand.

This book maps the landscape of contemporary European premium television fiction, offering a detailed overview of both the changes in the digital production and distribution and the emergence of specific national and transnational case histories.

1. Introduction: The Many Steps and Factors of a European Renaissance

2. The Grounds for a Renaissance in European Fiction: Transnational Writing, Production and Distribution Approaches and Strategies

3. Mapping European Premium Scripted TV: Trends, Patterns and Data in an Emerging EU Market

4. Transnational Circulation of European TV Series: National Models and Industrial Strategies for Scripted Pay Imports/Exports

5. A 21st-Century Gold Rush? Video on Demand and the Global Competition for UK Television

6. "The Biggest Drama Commission in British Television History": Netflix, The Crown and the UK Television Ecosystem

7. Video on Demand Platforms, Editorial Strategies and Logics of Production: The Case of Netflix France

8. The Strategy of "Quality TV": Branding, Creating and Producing at Canal+

9. What is a Quality French Series? Reflections on The Bureau

10. Towards a New Model for Italian TV Fiction: Sky Italia Originals and the Struggle for Difference

11. The Holy See(ing): Splendors and Miseries of The Young Pope

12. TV Drama Series Production in Germany and the Digital Television Landscape

13. Selling Location, Selling History: New German Series and Changing Market Logic

14. Ways of Production and Distribution as Movistar+

15. Bambú Producciones and the Transformation of Spanish Television Fiction Production

16. HBO Europe's Original Programming in the Era of Streaming Wars

17. Quality by Design: Feature TV Series from Premium Television in Poland

18. Familiar, Much Too Familiar... HBO's Hungarian Original Productions and the Questions of Cultural Proximity