Danish Television Drama: Global Lessons from a Small Nation [1st ed.] 9783030407971, 9783030407988

Citation preview

PALGRAVE EUROPEAN FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES

Danish Television Drama Global Lessons from a Small Nation Edited by Anne Marit Waade Eva Novrup Redvall · Pia Majbritt Jensen

Palgrave European Film and Media Studies Series Editors Ib Bondebjerg University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark Andrew Higson University of York York, UK Mette Hjort Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Palgrave European Film and Media Studies is dedicated to historical and contemporary studies of film and media in a European context and to the study of the role of film and media in European societies and cultures. The series invite research done in both humanities and social sciences and invite scholars working with the role of film and other media in relation to the development of a European society, culture and identity. Books in the series can deal with both media content and media genres, with national and transnational aspects of film and media policy, with the sociology of media as institutions and with audiences and reception, and the impact of film and media on everyday life, culture and society. The series encourage books working with European integration or themes cutting across nation states in Europe and books working with Europe in a more global perspective. The series especially invite publications with a comparative, European perspective based on research outside a traditional nation state perspective. In an era of increased European integration and globalization there is a need to move away from the single nation study focus and the single discipline study of Europe. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14704

Anne Marit Waade  •  Eva Novrup Redvall Pia Majbritt Jensen Editors

Danish Television Drama Global Lessons from a Small Nation

Editors Anne Marit Waade Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark

Eva Novrup Redvall University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark

Pia Majbritt Jensen Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark

Palgrave European Film and Media Studies ISBN 978-3-030-40797-1    ISBN 978-3-030-40798-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: The Oresund Bridge, K7 Photography / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

‘What makes Danish television drama series travel?’ This was the research question and the starting point for our research when we started working together on the topic back in 2014. The question has also been the title of a research project funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark (2014–2019) and supported by Aarhus University Research Foundation (2014–2015) and Carlsberg Foundation (2016). In a Danish context, the project has been the first major investigation of the different cultural, institutional, economic, industry and policy aspects of the way Danish TV drama travels and how national series were suddenly viewed and praised outside the culture of their origin. This project would never have been possible without a number of crucial collaborations. In England we worked with Roehampton University/Professor Andrea Esser, King’s College/Professor Jeanette Steemers, and the Birkbeck University of London/Dr. Janet McCabe. In Germany our partner was the Film University Berlin/Professor Lothar Mikos, and in Wales we worked with the University of South Wales/ Professor Ruth McElroy and Cardiff University/Dr. Caitriona Noonan. Our partner in Australia was the University of Wollongong/Professor Sue Turnbull and Dr Marion McCutcheon, in Turkey it was Izmir University/ Dr. Yesim Kaptan, and in Brazil we worked with Universidade Federal de São Carlos/Dr. Alessandra Meleiro. Furthermore, we have worked with Dr. Tim Raats at Vrije Universiteit, Dr. Elke Weissmann at Edge Hill University, Professor Matt Hills at Huddersfield University, Dr. Vilde Schanke Sundet at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, v

vi 

PREFACE

Professor Robert Saunders at SUNY Farmingdale State College, Professor Annette Hill at Lund University, Dr. Iris Rittenhofer at Aarhus University, Dr. Yamila Heram at the University of Buenos Aires, Professor Trine Syvertsen at the University of Oslo, Professor Hanne Bruun at Aarhus University, and PhD fellow Cathrin Bengesser at the Birkbeck University of London. Our international partners and colleagues have helped us to organise the fieldwork, recruit viewers and industry partners, conduct interviews, and translate and transcribe manuscripts. They have also taken part in the project’s visiting professor programme, co-authored and contributed in other ways to our publications, and given talks at workshops and conferences hosted by the project. As such, the study of transnational Danish television drama series became a transnational research project in itself. The project has benefited hugely from this collaboration across national, cultural and disciplinary borders, paving the way for future research initiatives and academic partnerships. There have been other related large-scale projects within the field, all of them only partly focusing on Danish television drama series, for example, Television from Small Nations (AHRC, University of South Wales, 2016–2017); Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens (MeCETES, HERA, University of York, 2013–2015); Media Experiences (Wallenberg’s Foundation, Lund University, 2013–2016); Success in the Film and Television Industries (SIFTI, Lillehammer University College, Norwegian Research Council, YEARS); and Crime Fiction and Crime Journalism in Scandinavia (Danish Research Council, Aalborg University, 2007–2010). The transnational Danish drama series project has included researchers from these other projects and worked closely with them by exchanging ideas and co-authoring publications, thereby creating fruitful synergies and exchanging knowledge across the different research projects. It has been a pleasure to work with all our academic partners and colleagues both in Denmark and abroad. It has been an amazing journey, and we are grateful for all the help and support that you have given us. Besides the academic partners, we have worked closely with our industry partners both in Denmark and abroad, and we want to thank you all for your support and your time. We have conducted approximately 100 interviews with industry partners, including screenwriters, producers, distributors and buyers. And finally, we have talked to hundreds of viewers across the different countries and continents. We are thankful for your help and the fact that you have shared your experiences and insights with us.

 PREFACE 

vii

The team of researchers have published extensively, including books, edited volumes and articles, and as the editors of special issues about Danish television drama series or topics related to the study, both in English and in Danish. For a complete list of publications, please visit our project website ‘What makes Danish television drama series travel?’ at Aarhus University (http://danishtvdrama.au.dk). In addition to this volume about the general perspectives and findings, the group of researchers within the project have written the following books: 1864: Tv-serien og historien (2015, ed. Kim Toft Hansen); Locating Nordic Noir (2017, Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade); European Television Crime Drama and Beyond (2018, eds. Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock and Sue Turnbull); Reconsidering Audience Proximities:  The Global Travel of Danish Television Drama (forthcoming, eds. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen); Dansk tv-drama 2005–2018 (forthcoming, Gunhild Agger); and The Showrunner Effect: System, Culture and Individual Agency in American Remakes of Danish Television Series (PhD dissertation, Aarhus University, Lynge Stegger Gemzøe). We will use this opportunity to thank the Danish research team for their professionalism and commitment, and their highly productive contributions. In this book we share the overall ideas and findings from our project about the traveling Danish television drama series. The book marks the end of the research project. However, our transnational media studies journey has just started. Copenhagen, Denmark Aarhus, Denmark Aarhus, Denmark

Eva Novrup Redvall Pia Majbritt Jensen Anne Marit Waade

Contents

1 Transnational Television Drama? Lessons Learned from Danish Drama  1 Anne Marit Waade, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Pia Majbritt Jensen Part I Societal and Cultural Values in Danish Television Drama  23 2 The Golden Age of Danish Public Service Drama Series 25 Gunhild Agger 3 Why the World Fell for Borgen: Legitimizing (Trans)National Public Service Broadcasting Culture in the Age of Globalization 43 Janet McCabe 4 The Linguistic Landscapes of Transnational Crime Drama: Nordic Noir’s Celtic Contact Zone 63 Ruth McElroy

ix

x 

Contents

Part II Small Nation Perspectives: Producing Danish Television Drama  81 5 Glocal Perspectives on Danish Television Series: Co-Producing Crime Narratives for Commercial Public Service 83 Kim Toft Hansen 6 Fifty Shades of Green: On Visual Style in Danish Television Series103 Jakob Isak Nielsen 7 Can You Export a Production Culture? The Team as a European Nordic Crime Drama125 Eva Novrup Redvall 8 Drama as Flagship Productions: Small-Nation Television and Digital Distribution147 Vilde Schanke Sundet Part III Global Lessons: Distribution and Reception of Danish Television Drama 167 9 Augmenting Proximity Theories: Including Other Proximities in the Transnational Travel of Danish Television Drama169 Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen 10 Key International Markets: Distribution and Consumption of Danish TV Drama Series in Germany and the UK187 Susanne Eichner and Andrea Esser

 Contents 

xi

11 Bridging Cultures: Transnational Cultural Encounters in the Reception of The Bridge209 Ib Bondebjerg 12 ‘Just Follow the Trail of Blood’: Nordic Noir Tourism and Screened Landscapes231 Anne Marit Waade Index253

Notes on Contributors

Gunhild Agger  is Professor Emerita, Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University. She has written widely on television drama, history of media and genres, national and transnational film, bestsellers and blockbusters. She is director of the research programme Crime fiction and crime journalism in Scandinavia (2007–11) and a member of the research team in the programme What makes Danish television drama series travel? (2014–2018). Her recent articles have been published in Journal of Popular Television, Series, Kosmorama, Northern Lights and Journal of Scandinavian Cinema. Ib Bondebjerg  is Professor Emeritus, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Director of the Centre for Modern European Studies (2008-2011), chairman of The Danish Film Institute (1997–2000), Co-Director of the research project ‘Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens’ (2013–2016), and co-editor of the book series Palgrave European Film and Media Studies (2013–). His most recent books are European Cinema and Television: Cultural Policy and Everyday Life (co-editor; 2015), and Transnational European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences (co-author; 2017). Susanne Eichner  is Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Department of Media Studies and Journalism. She employs a cross-media approach focusing on reception aesthetics and audience research, media sociology, production ecology, and popular (serial) culture. She is co-director of the Centre for Transnational Media Research and co-director of Cultural xiii

xiv 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Transformations. Her publications include the books Agency and Media Reception (Springer, 2014), Transnationale Serienkultur (co-editor; 2013) and Fernsehen: Europäische Perspektiven (co-editor; 2014). Andrea Esser  is Professor of Media and Globalization at the University of Roehampton, London, and Director of the AHRC-funded Media Across Borders network. Her research considers the transnationalization of television: programme circulation, global production networks, and format adaptation. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited Media Across Borders: Localising TV, Film and Video Games with I. Smith and M. Bernal-Merino (Routledge, 2016). In 2015, she spent six months at Aarhus University as a guest researcher. Kim  Toft  Hansen  is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. He focuses on crime fiction and media production studies with special attention on local-to-global media. Recent publications include Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge with A. M. Waade (2017) and the co-edited volume European Television Crime Dramas and Beyond (2018). Currently, he is taking part in the H2020-­ project DETECt: Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives (2018–2021). Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen  is Associate Professor at the Department of English at Aarhus University. Trained as an anthropologist, her current research areas include professional and transcultural communication, English as an international/global language, cosmopolitanism, and language use in the media and creative industries. Her earlier work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Language and Intercultural Communication and Critical Studies in Television. Pia Majbritt Jensen  is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Journalism at Aarhus University. An audience, industry, and production scholar, her current research interests and projects include an EU Horizon2020 project on European crime narratives and an Independent Research Fund Denmark project on the production and reception of audiovisual fiction for children. She has written widely and co-edited New Patterns in Global Television Formats (2016) and The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama (2020).

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xv

Janet  McCabe is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the co-founder and managing editor of Critical Studies in Television, a leading international journal of television Studies. She writes widely on contemporary television and gender politics and feminism in television drama, and has co-edited several collections, including Quality television: Contemporary American television and Beyond (2007) and television television’s Betty Goes Global: From Telenovela to International Brand (2013; co-edited with Kim Akass). Ruth  McElroy  is Professor of Creative Industries at the University of South Wales, UK, where she is Co-Director of the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations. Her recent publications include an edited collection, Contemporary British Crime Drama (2017) and a co-authored book with Dr Caitriona Noonan, Producing British Television Drama: Local Production in a Global Era (2019). Ruth is also Chair of Ffilm Cymru Wales, the screen development agency for Welsh film. Jakob Isak Nielsen  is Associate Professor at Aarhus University. He is coeditor of Fjernsyn for viderekomne (2011) and chief editor of www.16-9.dk (2003–2019). He has published in journals such as Journal of Popular Television, Critical Studies in Television, Northern Lights, POV, Kosmorama, Short Film Studies, Mediekultur, and Passage, and in anthologies such as A Companion to Fritz Lang (2014), Transnational Cinematography Studies (2016), 1864 (2016), Filmanalyse (2016), Helt til grin (2017), and Litteratur mellem medier (2018). Eva Novrup Redvall  is Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on European film and television, particularly on screenwriting and production. She has published widely on Danish television series, for example the monograph Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From The Kingdom to The Killing (2013). Her latest book is the co-edited volume European Film and Television Co-Production: Policy and Practice (2018). Vilde  Schanke  Sundet  is a researcher in media and communication at the University of Oslo and a guest researcher on digitalization and media policy at the Institute for Social Research (Oslo). Her research interests include media industry studies, media policy studies, television studies, and fan studies. She is part of the STREAM research project, investigating how streaming media services impact cultural industries and practices.

xvi 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Anne Marit Waade  is Professor in Media Studies at Aarhus University. Her main research interests include location studies and cartographic aesthetics in television drama and travel series, creative industry, the export of Danish television series, place branding and screen tourism. Her publications include titles such as Locating Nordic Noir (2017), ‘Melancholy in Nordic noir’ (2017), ‘Local Colour in German and Danish Television Drama’ (2015), ‘When Public Service Drama Travels’ (2016), and Wallanderland (2013).

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 1.4 Figs. 8.1   and 8.2

Fig. 11.1 Fig. 11.2 Fig. 11.3

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 The Screen Idea System (Redvall 2013, 31) The Transnational Value Ecosystem of Danish television drama Location study model by Hansen and Waade (2017)

4 7 9 11

Many fans took upon themselves to translate SKAM into various languages and share it. Here are two examples that show how fans have translated SKAM and posted it on YouTube and the commentary section following every update on the SKAM blog (skam.p3.no), respectively 156 Total shares of American and British crime series in Denmark. Based on MeCETES data 2005–2015 213 Average shares and ratings for crime series on Danish television, 2005–2014. MeCETES data 214 Structural diagram of production and distribution companies involved in The Bridge216

xvii

List of Images

Image 5.1 Greyzone’s international profile is significantly emphasised by the locations in the series, such as Frankfurt’s central business district, ‘Mainhattan’ (Copyright: Comso Film) Image 5.2 The auteurist implications of Warrior were evident in the way the series was promoted as ‘Christoffer Boe’s Kriger,’ e.g., in the lead-up to the 2018 premiere at the CPH PIX film festival in Copenhagen (Copyright: Miso Film) Image 6.1 Overt and unobtrusive style Image 6.2 Green hues (from episode 1) Image 6.3 Shades of light green are remarkably dominant in this planimetric composition. A light pink gel on the light sources in the window display add subtle pink highlights to Saga’s hair, the desk, and the plant to the right Image 6.4 Rigshospitalet saturated in olive green Image 6.5 Green is evident in clothing and props; see arrows for examples Image 6.6 Mandrup comes to ask Saga about the investigation and places his right hand next to the green–yellow note Image 6.7 Ultimately, Saga reads the note, which we finally get to see in an insert that allows viewers to read the text Image 6.8 A face-off between green trench coats. Saga arrives at Henrik’s house in her olive-green Porsche wearing an olive-green trench coat, and she interrupts Susanne, who is about to leave the scene with Julia and Ida Tasered in the boot of her car; also note the green light poles Image 12.1 Visit Denmark (2017) promoting Forbrydelsen tours on their website (Peter and Ping, Copenhagen)

92

95 105 109

112 115 116 118 119

120 232 xix

xx 

List of Images

Image 12.2 Bron tour: One of the stops is the building used as the exterior of the police station in the series, originally the local health centre, located close to Møllevångstorget in Malmö. The guide is Eva Roos Davidsson, and she is the founder of the tour guide company In-Sight Art of Guiding. (Private photo)242 Image 12.3 The Bron exhibition at Malmö Museumin in 2015, showed the car and Saga’s costume from the series. (Gillberg 2015) 243 Image 12.4 This Dicte postcard promotes the Aarhus locations used in the series, as well as Filmby Aarhus, the local screen industry hub. Part of the text is in Danish, indicating a Danish/ Nordic target group. ‘Du står på film-settet’ means ‘you are on the set’ and ‘Iben was here’ refers to the popular Danish actor Iben Hjejle, who plays the main character, Dicte, in the series 247

CHAPTER 1

Transnational Television Drama? Lessons Learned from Danish Drama Anne Marit Waade, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Pia Majbritt Jensen

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

A. M. Waade (*) • P. M. Jensen Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] E. N. Redvall University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_1

1

2 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

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

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

3

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,

4 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

Policy

Production

Production/text study • Location study • ‘One vision’ study • International remake study • Screen idea study (script) • Distribution studies • Regional TV drama series • International co-productions • The golden age of Danish TV drama series

Transnational screen ecology & small nations’ TV drama • How does Danish TV drama challenge the centre/periphery complex? • Case studies: Forbrydelsen, Borgen, Bron/Broen, Arvingerne, 1864, Norskov • Spill-over study (nation branding, tourism, export of production culture) • Small nations’ TV drama: PSB policy, value chain, production value.

Audience

Culture

Audience Study • Buyers • Media Coverage • Ordinary viewers Markets: Germany, Turkey, Brazil, US, UK, Australia, Japan, Argentina, Denmark

Textual study: • Danish TV drama 1994-2018

Economy

TV drama series & paratexts

Market

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

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). 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?

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

5

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 transnational screen studies.

Transnational Screen Studies and Small-Nation Television Cultures The concept of ‘travelling television drama’ is related to theories of transnational television and transnational culture. The definition of ‘transnational’ was negotiated and developed throughout the 2000s and 2010s, and is linked to the rich field of academic theories on globalization and mediatization. Jean Chalaby analyses television formats and argues that a new order of local, national, regional, and global levels has emerged: ‘The TV format chain may be global, the adaption process and transfer of expertise may be transnational, but TV formats begin and end their lives as local shows’ (Chalaby 2016, 187). Andrea Esser (2014) explains that transnational television content, whether factual entertainment formats or television drama, is an object of ongoing negotiation across national borders. According to Elke Weissmann (2012), travelling television drama should be regarded as two sides of the same coin: national and international. Weissmann’s study of the relationship between British and American television drama illustrates how television drama that travels between the two countries and continents becomes essentially transnational, and ‘the industries operate, consume, produce and think transnationally’ (Weissmann 2012, 6). The recent development of streaming services reinforces this transnationalism in production, financing, and narratives:

6 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

A review of the economic underpinning of almost any new European television series will demonstrate that the financing of television has become at once both local and international. Motivated by new funding practices, in the space of two or three decades, TV series have become a financially glocal phenomenon marked by local, national, regional and transnational players. The most recent decade (2008–2018) has also seen the introduction of new global streaming services into this mix (Hansen et al. 2018, 7).

Mette Hjort (2010) argues that the concept of transnationalism itself has become trendy, and consequently that it has also become imprecise. She suggests that a distinction be drawn between unmarked and marked transnationality (Hjort 2010, 13), whereby marked transnationality foregrounds the transnational elements of a given film or television drama, whether this relates to production, distribution, reception, narrative, or cinematography (for further discussion, see Weissmann 2012; Agger 2016; Bondebjerg 2016; Hansen and Waade 2017, 221). The study of the international export of Danish television drama clearly reveals that transnationalization—marked and unmarked—involves not only production but also overarching themes and stories, aesthetics, audience reception, and distribution (Agger 2016; Agger, this volume). The instance of Danish television drama further demonstrates that local, non-­ Anglophone languages and places have become significant selling points in a global media market (see Hansen in this volume). Moreover, the fact that a small nation such as Denmark can produce content that is attractive to a broader global media market, and influence cultural trends, challenges the centre/periphery dichotomy that has dominated global media culture in modern times (for further elaboration, see Jensen and Jacobsen, this volume). Finally, the Danish case focuses on the role of public service broadcasters (PSBs) in small nations and on how recent international attention has resulted in significant changes in the production cultures in Nordic countries, including among the Nordic PSBs (see Sundet, this volume).

Understanding Television Production in Terms of Different Screen Idea Systems In line with creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s statement that creativity never develops in a vacuum (1999, 315), a fundamental understanding that guided this research project is that screen production is always shaped by the people involved and by the particular places and

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

7

media systems from which new ideas emerge, and where they are produced and distributed. We regard different production frameworks as various forms of screen idea systems (Redvall 2013, 2016), with new series being marked by the dynamics involved when people propose new ideas based on the traditions, trends, and tastes of the existing domain. These ideas must be accepted by the group of individuals who may be regarded as gatekeepers to the domain in question, gatekeepers who are constantly searching for a specific type of content (Fig. 1.2). DR has been the primary producer of Danish television drama for many years, so Danish television series are fundamentally based on a strong public service tradition that has influenced the kinds of stories and the storytelling strategies that emerged for particular time-slots and audiences. This project studied the way in which this tradition was challenged in the 2010s when, following the success of Danish series such as Forbrydelsen and Borgen, new national players started to produce television dramas, and, from 2012, when international players such as Netflix and HBO Nordic entered the domestic market. The 2010s witnessed a number of remarkable changes among the main producers of television drama and in terms

Tastes Trends Traditions

Selects Novelty

Mandate Management Money

Transmits Information

Produces Novelty Stimulates Novelty

Fig. 1.2  The Screen Idea System (Redvall 2013, 31)

Talent Training Track record

8 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

of the content produced, something that several chapters in this volume address from various perspectives—comparing television drama traditions with current trends and tastes. Text and context are linked, and it makes sense always to regard production as the interplay of the three main forces outlined in the screen idea system: the people creating new series based on their particular talents, training, and track record; the series that already exist in the domain, to which all new ideas will be compared and with which they will have to compete; and the gatekeepers with a certain mandate and specific managerial ideas about what to produce, but with an often too-limited amount of money at their disposal for financing expensive drama series. Many of the chapters in this book explore these dynamics, for instance indicating the way in which individual showrunners or commissioners have a huge impact in specific small-nation screen idea systems. The notion of ‘track record’ is always at work when commissioners and financers decide whether to risk new ideas, often leading to a centralization of power that makes it hard for new talent to emerge. Television production is always high risk and always marked by the media industry mantra that ‘nobody knows’, because there is no recipe for success. Drawing on the interplay outlined in the screen idea system, this book explores some of the systemic, creative, textual, and audience aspects that may be regarded as important to the recent success of series that originate in a small-nation production framework such as Denmark.

The Values of Television Drama and the Transnational Value Ecosystem By taking the transnational circulation of Danish television drama series as its point of departure, this project explored the particular value creation that emerged at all stages of drama development, from idea to production, cross-sector collaboration, distribution, international reception, and fandom. In a Nordic context, discussing the values of publicly funded screen production has become more important than ever, because a media welfare state with nationally subsidized media such as Denmark needs to legitimize and embed the fact that it spends tax money on producing media entertainment and drama series (Lowe and Martin 2013; Syvertsen et al. 2014; Raats et al. 2016). We suggest a transnational value ecosystem model that describes this value creation, which takes place at all stages of

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

9

drama production and development. The underlying idea is that the transnationalization of Danish drama series increases their value for both domestic and international audiences. Our model is based on Turnbull and McCutcheon’s idea of a ‘total value model’ that frames a qualitative analysis of the cultural value generated by crime series (Turnbull and McCutcheon 2017, 6). The authors cluster the various financial values of television crime series into three main groups: first, values related to the production process; secondly, values related to the consumers (value to audience, including ratings and sales, critic and fan responses); and finally, values related to society in general (indirect benefits of the series that accrue to society as a whole). With regard to the production process, Turnbull and McCutcheon further distinguish values that may accrue for the creators and producers during screen idea development, other creative personnel during production, and sales intermediaries during distribution (Fig. 1.3). In contrast to the common vertical supply chain for media production and distribution (Doyle 2002; Turnbull and McCutcheon 2017), our model is circular, thus pinpointing the fact that each drama series is part of a larger cultural circulation of ideas and synergies. The circular value ecosystem model was inspired by Filmby Aarhus (2013) and Månsson and Eskilsson’s (2013) value-chain model for screen tourism, in which the dynamics between industries (in this case tourism and the screen industry) are emphasized. The fact that Danish screen production adds value to other sectors, trends, and industries, such as nation branding, the Nordic wave and tourism, and television channels and streaming services abroad, Fig. 1.3  The Transnational Value Ecosystem of Danish television drama

10 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

is not captured by a traditional linear value-chain model. The cross-sector added value may also be understood as a spill-over effect by which value creation in one sector or industry creates value for other related sectors and industries (Fleming 2015). To emphasize these circular, dynamic processes and the spill-over effects of the transnational value creation of Danish drama series, we call the model a value ecosystem model.

Location Studies and Nordic Noir A central contribution to research that is informed by the study of travelling Danish television drama series is the location study model (Fig. 1.4). Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade (2017) take the significant use of locations in Nordic Noir series as their point of departure. Nordic Noir is characterized by the remarkable use of landscapes, climate, mood, and lighting (also see Jensen and Waade 2013; Creeber 2015; Agger and Waade 2018). The authors analyse local colour in their research on Nordic crime series, and apply it to their study of contemporary crime series and crime fiction from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland. The location study model encompasses both on-screen features and off-screen factors, relating the places that appear on screen to the production site. The general idea is that off-screen factors influence and inform the way on-screen features are displayed and received. Off-screen factors include aspects such as production facilities, studios, and local professionals (sites of production); local funding systems and screen industry strategies (policies of place); the actual places used, including their historical and physical character (geographical places); and finally the extent to which the places and film locations are known and promoted as tourist destinations (place as destination). The on-screen features encompass various categories of setting: from urban/rural places, architecture and design, and climate and weather conditions, to shore/island/inland settings, and mobility and infrastructure. Together, the off-screen and on-screen features influence the role played by the setting of a series (visual, dramaturgical, and referential). This model may be used in a textual–analytical approach to analysing series, but also as a way to design and analyse an empirical study of production that focuses on the settings. The overall idea is that there is a clear link between the increasing transnationalization of Danish television drama on the one hand and the significant use of Nordic settings, climates, and cultural conditions in a television series on the other (also see Hansen, this volume; Waade, this volume).

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

11

ral precondition Cultu s

Off-screen factors

ies

lic

Pp

Plac

On-screen features

n

atio

stin

de e as

ical

Mobility, infrastructure

Urban / rural

e

plac

Climate, weather, season

ce

h grap

Geo

Scenespecific locations

pla

Shore, inland, island

of

Architecture, arts, design

s ite

of

pr

on

cti

u od

S

Fig. 1.4  Location study model by Hansen and Waade (2017)

Transnational Reception from a Three-Leaf Clover-Model Perspective Our approach has been influenced by the so-called ‘three-leaf clover’ model of audience groupings that we believe to be instrumental in explaining how and why Danish television drama has travelled globally, or at least to the eight territories we have examined: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This model arose in response to one of our central concerns, namely the construction of a methodological lens that captured the multitude of

12 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

players involved in viewing Danish television drama outside its immediate geo-­linguistic region of Scandinavia and the complexity of their interrelationships, while remaining as methodologically and theoretically explorative as possible when analysing emerging data. This methodological lens brought transnational audiences into focus in a novel way, revealing audiences not only as regular audiences or as statistics extracted from television ratings, but also as a ‘three-leaf clover’ of interacting players, each of which is an audience in a different capacity and each of which plays a key role in the transnational success of Danish television drama. The three-leaf clover comprises (1) television industry distributors and broadcasters who act as gatekeepers to international markets; (2) other professional actors in the media industry, such as journalists, bloggers, and television critics, who act as cultural intermediaries; and (3) regular audiences who act by watching series on television or diverse online streaming services. The metaphor of the three-leaf clover conveys a certain sense of a paradoxical sameness and difference. The three leaves refer to all three broad groups as ‘audiences’ that interact with, interpenetrate, and influence one another. But there are also boundaries within and between them that make each grouping distinct and separate. Secondly, each leaf is similar to the other two, which means that no specific grouping is methodologically privileged over another—they all exert influence in some ways, and the nature and extent of this influence and their interdependence must be empirically established within specific contexts. Thirdly, the metaphor of the clover leaf conveys a fragility of relationships and arrangements, which is a distinctive trait of sociopolitical and economic relations in an age of globalization (see Jensen and Jacobsen 2017; Jensen and Jacobsen in this volume). For the detailed account of the eight-country global study in all its variety, we refer to the edited volume published previously this year (Jensen and Jacobsen 2020). Audiences are often somewhat overlooked when the analytical focus is on production strategies or the content produced. However, apart from this project’s extensive reception studies, one important aspect has been the investigation of how certain ideas of audiences and concrete audience feedback during production may inform the production processes and help create stronger series. Consequently, there was a dialogue with media researchers such as Lene Heiselberg (DR Media Research) during the research project, leading among other things to an outline of how DR media researchers have been involved in testing drama content for many years, using traditional qualitative methods, such as focus groups, as well

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

13

as new biometric methods, such as measuring skin conductance to learn more about audience arousal and offering feedback to those developing the series (Redvall 2017). Recent years have seen an increased interest in trying to develop series based on research into the intended target group, as was the case with the Norwegian hit teenage drama SKAM (2015–2018), which was created based on extensive research into the lives and thoughts of 16-year-old Norwegian girls (Redvall 2018). There are exciting perspectives in bringing production and audience studies closer together. The close collaboration between the various research teams in this project led to a number of interesting conversations that crossed research traditions and approaches, and proved valuable in this regard.

Critical Perspectives on the Success of Danish Series: Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery? Danish television producers and broadcasters specifically and Denmark’s cultural industries and global brand more generally have undoubtedly benefited tremendously from the unprecedented international popularity of Danish television drama. This is evident in many of the chapters in this anthology. Internationally, Danish drama has unquestionably punched above its weight, and in the process moved Denmark away from the periphery of the global television market and closer to the centre—at least for a while. As Creeber (2015), Jensen (2016), and Turnbull and McCutcheon (2017) have emphasized, the traditional (often Anglophone) centres have not been slow to pick up on Denmark’s and Scandinavia’s success, producing a large number of series heavily influenced by Danish series and the general Nordic Noir trend: Fortitude, Broadchurch, Hinterland, The Kettering Incident, and The Code, to name a few. There have also been American and British–French adaptations of series such as Forbrydelsen and Bron/Broen. As these productions originate from well-known and fairly significant broadcasters and production companies in large, predominantly Anglophone markets, they generate more revenue and capture larger, more mainstream, global audiences than the original series. This is because English-language series will be sold to larger broadcasters and larger channels, and be given a more attractive time slot, resulting in significantly higher audience ratings, thanks to the historical dominance of

14 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

the American and British television markets in particular, and because English, the global lingua franca, is used as the production language. In this sense, these series operate in a global macro-market, in contrast to the global micro-market in which the Danish series operate. One example of these dynamics is found in the Australian market, where the original The Bridge was broadcast by the second public broadcaster, SBS, which has an average audience share of 4–5%, while the British–French adaptation (The Tunnel) was broadcast by the main public broadcaster, ABC, with an average share closer to 20%. Financially, this means that in the global market, Danish series trade for considerably less than American and British series. Moreover, Anglophone series are likely to be exported to more regions worldwide, which also generates larger revenues. Although imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery, we argue that in the case of Nordic Noir, imitation has been the means by which established global players exploit the trend, to a degree that may ultimately dilute the very brand and thereby saturate (at the very least) the global niche market for Danish and other Nordic broadcasters and producers. This means that despite global export and creative accolades, international prizes, and critical acclaim for Danish television drama— which must not be underestimated—the already dominant markets have also benefited considerably from its success. Indeed, financially speaking, they have probably benefited even more than the Danish market itself. The combination of increased digitization and convergence caused a rapid shift in the business models of the audiovisual industry over the course of this project. The television sector’s traditional revenue and financing models are under pressure, which has increased competition among legacy media and between legacy media and new players such as Netflix and HBO (Evens and Donders 2018). For television drama produced in small markets and by PSBs, three intertwining developments have increased the pressure on domestic production (see Raats and Jensen 2020). First, television viewing is moving from a linear paradigm to a non-­ linear one via Video-on-Demand and SVOD, provided by national broadcasters and distributors and international Over-the-Top (OTT) services alike. The quality offerings of the latter—including Netflix and HBO— mean that they can compete directly with series transmitted by PSBs such as DR. Naturally, broadcasters and producers could (at least theoretically) generate additional revenue by selling television drama on more platforms and in more windows, as well as to different territories, and this is

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

15

happening to a certain degree. However, the rise of new distribution platforms has also increased the pressure on traditional broadcasters, which no longer enjoy their previous exclusivity when it comes to television series. Secondly, not only do new OTT streaming services challenge traditional broadcasters, but they also invest in original content. The fact that Netflix operates worldwide provides advantages related to economies of scale, leading to investment in large-budget productions for the global market. However, given their global business model, Netflix and HBO are less likely to invest in other than token productions from smaller (language) markets such as Denmark, as subscription numbers in small markets are correspondingly far lower and therefore investments there are riskier than in larger (language) markets. Thirdly, the past decade has seen a series of significant public broadcasting cutbacks. In 2018, the European Broadcasting Union (2018) reported a drop of 2.8% in real terms of financing of European PSB, and DR is no exception, with their licence fee being turned into a media tax and their budgets cut substantially for the 2019–2022 period.

The Structure of this Book and the Individual Chapters As mentioned previously, this book builds on research conducted as part of the ‘What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel?’ project, in combination with related research by scholars who were affiliated with it during the four years that it ran. The chapters illustrate how the study of Danish television series has been approached from a variety of analytical perspectives by Danish scholars and those from other countries who explore the nature of the series themselves, as well as the context surrounding their production, distribution, and reception. The first section of this book focuses on the dynamics between national and transnational perspectives with respect to understanding the recent success of Danish drama series. In the first chapter of this section, Chap. 2, Gunhild Agger approaches recent Danish series from a historical perspective, outlining main developments in drama production from 1995 until 2015. Based on theories about golden ages, the chapter argues that the main television drama developments in those 20 years are an example of the emergence of a fruitful golden age in a small nation’s public-service drama production, which inspired new developments in neighbouring

16 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

countries, such as Norway. Agger makes the case that golden ages have always travelled from one country and cultural context to another, and emphasizes the value of exploring how golden ages emerge and develop not only from a national perspective, but also from a transnational perspective. In Chap. 3, Janet McCabe uses a case study of the political drama series Borgen to investigate how watching and debating television drama may be regarded as a special kind of public sphere in the age of globalization, and that PSBs in particular have an important part to play in this arena in terms of putting certain topics on the agenda. McCabe draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural and sociological ideas to explore how a series such as Borgen has been legitimated and its value accepted and circulated through a widely distributed network of various agents and institutions. The chapter uses this case study to discuss what happens when the productions of national broadcasting cultures become part of transnational flows, and how to think about cultural encounters like this in the current media landscape. Based on her extensive studies of media production in Wales, Ruth McElroy, in Chap. 4, explores a transnational perspective to analyse what Wales learned from the successful export of Danish television drama. The focus of this chapter is on bilingual crime drama, investigating the cultural mobility of Nordic Noir from the perspective of contemporary Welsh-­ language and bilingual television drama production. Adapting insights from linguistics, postcolonial studies, and minority-language media studies, this chapter examines how Nordic Noir operates in contemporary transnational global television cultures, and how small-nation production cultures naturally compare strategies and seek inspiration for successful strategies in other small markets. The second section of this book focuses on small-nation drama production. In Chap. 5, Kim Toft Hansen looks at the ‘glocal’ perspectives of Danish television drama. Drawing on case studies and qualitative interviews, Hansen argues that theories of transnationalism do not fully explain current trends in contemporary television production/funding practices. Hansen suggests instead that the theoretical concept of glocalization contributes fruitful perspectives that explain the co-existence of local, national, regional, and global players in television drama production and the different strategies chosen, for instance in relation to co-production. In Chap. 6, Jakob Isak Nielsen focuses specifically on the Danish series themselves, offering a visual-style analysis of the use of the colour green in

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

17

the Swedish/Danish crime series The Bridge. Building on film scholar David Bordwell’s work, Nielsen argues that overt style has an important function in several Nordic series and, accordingly, is important for understanding their international appeal. This chapter explores how overt style has evolved and been transformed historically, with overt practices in Danish mini-series from the 2000s reappearing in long-form series, where they assume a less obtrusive but still stylized form. In Chap. 7, Eva Novrup Redvall analyses The Team (2014–) as an attempt to create a European crime series based on what were perceived as effective Danish production practices. This chapter explores the difficulties of trying to export a specific production culture and outlines some of the clashes and conflicts that arise when one nation’s notions of best practices encounter a transnational cast, crew, and setting. Although much may be learned by adopting what seem to be effective production practices from other broadcasting frameworks, this chapter illustrates that co-­ production inevitably entails new challenges, particularly in terms of communication and translation across languages and cultures, in screenplays and on set, and in many different and sometimes surprising aspects of production. In the last chapter in this section, Chap. 8, Vilde Schanke Sundet analyses how the recent emergence of strong SVOD players, such as Netflix, in the Scandinavian markets and their ambition of appealing to younger audiences have challenged traditional ways of producing and distributing national drama series. Using the first NRK–Netflix production, Lilyhammer (2012–2014), and the NRK teen drama SKAM (2015–2017) as examples, this chapter investigates how the intent to produce different kinds of Norwegian flagship productions has been influenced by new production set-ups, such as the collaboration between the PSB NRK and Netflix and new distribution practices, such as the cross-media, real-time broadcasting of SKAM. Sundet argues that this development has been facilitated by the impact of Danish series and the general interest in Nordic content, but that the Norwegian television production landscape has been marked by remarkably different success stories and strategies. The last section of this book focuses on a number of different perspectives on distribution, reception, and audience engagement, ranging from audience encounters with Danish series to audiences’ desire to visit the actual locations and the countries where they were shot. Drawing on the extensive audience studies of the project, in Chap. 9, Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen first outline different ways in which to

18 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

think about proximities theory, and focus on the notions of remoteness and closeness in an analysis of how emotional proximities connect individuals at the level of perceived universal affect that transcends cultural differences. They also discuss how cosmopolitan proximities connect individuals with distant others through perceptions of stylistic and ethical/ political sameness, and how grapevine proximities connect individuals in meshes of media industry and personal networks through viva voce, word of mouth. This chapter illustrates how these three forms of proximity have influenced the acquisition, viewing, and generally positive reception of Danish television drama in many different ways. In Chap. 10, Susanne Eichner and Andrea Esser focus on the distribution and consumption of Danish television drama series abroad, offering a comparative perspective on developments in the German and British markets. Their analysis illustrates how Danish series entered these two instrumental markets in very different ways, while considering the specific German and British market dynamics alongside broader technological changes and attendant market transformations. Their analysis reveals the many factors related to programme import, and the increasingly transnational character of television production, distribution, and consumption. In Chap. 11, Ib Bondebjerg uses the crime series The Bridge to offer a qualitative case study of a cultural encounter between a Danish series and its international audiences. This chapter analyses the demographic profile of the audiences of this series and the discourses surrounding it in selected newspapers and social media. The reception study reveals the presence of a fascination with Nordic Noir as a genre, but also demonstrates that the reception of the series was marked by social, political, and cultural themes and an exchange of different norms and lifestyles. Bondebjerg argues that small-nation content such as Danish television series may lead to cultural encounters that challenge established patterns of national understanding, and that in this regard The Bridge is a remarkable example. In the book’s final chapter, Chap. 12, Anne Marit Waade investigates Nordic Noir tourism as an example of fan culture and long-tail marketing, and as the result of strategic collaboration across industries with an interest in screen production and tourism. The chapter outlines how Nordic Noir tourism has developed since the early 2000s, and uses case studies of Wallander, The Killing, The Bridge, and Dicte to explore the framing and marketing of these series, as well as their distinct use of place. The analysis demonstrates that Nordic Noir tourism is a transnational phenomenon in the creative economy, which is often marked by deliberate market

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

19

strategies and screen tourism initiatives. This chapter concludes that the balance between factual and fictional places engages screen tourists, and documents how Nordic Noir tourism has developed into small enterprises that attract enthusiasts throughout the Nordic countries. This interest in Nordic Noir tourism and location has reached such a level that it represents a possible new source of funding for television drama productions, as well as new cross-sector collaborations and strategic partnerships, thereby underlining that the value created by television series may take many forms. As the outline of this book’s chapters shows, the findings of the joint research project contribute to a number of different fields and offer theoretical and methodological perspectives that have implications beyond the analysis of one particular small nation’s television culture. The global lesson learned from the story of Danish television drama is that drama series from a small, non-Anglophone country can travel worldwide and pave the way for subtitled and foreign drama, thus feeding into the general Nordic and Danish trend. Even though this trend may have peaked, and the golden age of Danish television drama may be declining (Agger, this volume), there are no signs yet that the international demand for Danish television drama content, production knowhow, and creative employees has decreased. And with the growing market for streaming services, the demand for content and co-productions that position and market channels, broadcasters, and platform providers will remain. By focusing on the theoretical framework (theories on transnational television drama and the screen idea system model) that informed this research, and the general findings and theoretical and methodological contributions to the academic field, the intent of this introduction is to draw attention to the general lines, trends, and challenges of this study— in particular, the transnational value ecosystem model, the location study model, and the transnational three-leaf-clover audience studies model. There are many other lessons in the following chapters that draw on the rich empirical material of this research project. Happy reading.

References Abrahams, Charlotte. 2016. Hygge: A Celebration of Simple Pleasure, Living the Danish Way. London: Orion. Agger, Gunhild. 2016. The Development of Transnationality in Danish Noir: From Unit One to The Team. Northern Lights 14 (1): 83–101.

20 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

Agger, Gunhild, and Anne Marit Waade. 2018. Melancholy and Murder: Feelings, Atmosphere and Social Criticism in Television Crime Series. In European Television Crime Drama and beyond, ed. Steven Peacock, Kim Toft Hansen, and Sue Turnbull, 61–82. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bondebjerg, Ib. 2016. Transnational Europe: TV Drama, Co-production Networks and Mediated Cultural Encounters. Palgrave Communications 2: 1–13. Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Breaking Borders: The International Success of Danish Television Drama. In European Cinema and Television: Cultural Policy and Everyday Life, ed. Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson, 214–238. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Chalaby, Jean. 2016. The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution. Cambridge: Polity Press. Creeber, Glen. 2015. Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetics, Philosophy and Influence of Nordic Noir Television. Journal of Popular Television 3 (1): 21–35. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1999. Implications of a Systems Perspective for the Study of Creativity. In Handbook of Creativity, ed. Robert J.  Sternberg, 313–336. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doyle, Gillian. 2002. Understanding Media Economics. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Esser, Andrea. 2014. European Television Programming: Exemplifying and Theorizing Glocalization in the Media. In European Glocalization in Global Context, ed. Roland Robertson, 82–102. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. European Broadcasting Union. 2018. Financing of Public Service Media 2017. Geneva: EBU. Evens, Tom, and Karen Donders. 2018. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets. Palgrave Macmillan. Filmby Aarhus. 2013. Experience Films  – In Real-life: A Handbook on Film Tourism, Created by Seismonaut for Filmby Aarhus in Cooperation with North Sea Screen Partners, Midtjysk Tourism and Visit Nordjylland. http://www. northseascreen.eu/File/Handbook_Filmtourism_double_1.pdf. Accessed 14 May 2019. Fleming, Tom. 2015. Cultural and Creative Spillovers in Europe. Online Report Made for Arts Council England. https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/ default/files/Cultural_creative_spillovers_in_Europe_full_report.pdf. Accessed 20 April 2019. Hansen, Kim Toft, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull. 2018. Down These European Mean Streets. In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull, 1–19. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

1  TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION DRAMA? LESSONS LEARNED… 

21

Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hjort, Mette. 2010. On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationality. In World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives, ed. Natasa Durovicova and Kathleen Newman, 12–33. London: Routledge. Hochscherf, Thomas, and Heidi Philipsen. 2017. Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Television Drama. London: I.B.Tauris. Jacobsen, Ushma Chauhan, and Pia Majbritt Jensen. 2016. Born European, Born Regional, or Born Global? Language Convergence in The Team. Northern Lights 14 (1): 123–140. Jensen, Pia Majbritt. 2016. “Global Impact of Danish Drama Series: A Peripheral, Non-commercial Creative Counter-Flow.” Kosmorama 263. http://www.kosmorama.org/ServiceMenu/05-English/Articles/Global-Impact-of-DanishDrama-Series.aspx. Accessed 20 April 2019. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. 2017. The ‘three-leaf clover’: A methodological lens to understand transnational audiences. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 430–444. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Marion McCutcheon. 2020. ‘Othering the Self and saming the Other’: Australians watching Scandi Noir. In The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama, ed. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 91–108. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Anne Marit Waade. 2013. Nordic Noir Challenging the ‘Language of Advantage’: Setting, Light and Language as Production Values in Danish Television Series. Journal of Popular Television 1 (2): 259–265. Kingsley, Patrick. 2013. How to Be Danish: A Journey to the Cultural Heart of Denmark. ECIR: Short Books. Lotz, Amanda. 2014. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. New York/London: New York University Press. Lowe, Gregory Ferrell, and Fiona Martin. 2013. The Value of Public Service Media: RIPE@2013. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Månsson, Maria, and Lena Eskilsson. 2013. Euroscreen: The Attraction of Screen Destinations. Baseline Report Assessing Best Practice. Sędziszów Małopolski: Pracownia Pomyslów. McElroy, Ruth, Caitriona Noonan, and Jakob Isak Nielsen. 2018. Small Is Beautiful? The Salience of Scale and Power to Three European Cultures of TV Production. Critical Studies in Television, Sage 13 (2): 169–187. Nielsen, Jakob Isak. 2016. Point of Contact, Points of Distance: DR/TV2 Meet HBO/Netflix. Northern Lights 14 (1): 29–45.

22 

A. M. WAADE ET AL.

Raats, Tim, Tom Evens, and Sanne Ruelens. 2016. Challenges for Sustaining Local Audio-Visual Financing and Production of Domestic TV Fiction in Small Markets. Journal of Popular Television 4 (2): 129–147. Raats, Tim, and Pia Majbritt Jensen. 2020. “The Role of Public Service Media in Sustaining TV Drama in Small Markets.” Television and New Media. First published 13 April 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420913398 Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From the Kingdom to the Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2016. Film and Media Production as a Screen Idea System. In The Creative System in Action: Understanding Cultural Production and Practice, ed. Phillip Macintyre, Janet Fulton, and Elizabeth Paton, 134–154. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2017. Dialogues Between Audience Research and Production: The History of Testing Television Drama for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Critical Studies in Television 4 (12): 346–361. ———. 2018. Reaching Young Audiences Through Research: Using the NABC Method to Create the Norwegian Web Teenage Drama SKAM. In True Event Adaptation: Scripting Real Lives, ed. Davinia Thornley, 143–161. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Steemers, Jeanette. 2016. International Sales of U.K. Television Content: Change and Continuity in “the Space in Between” Production and Consumption. Television & New Media 17 (8): 734–753. Straubhaar, Joseph. 2007. World Television: From Global to Local. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Syvertsen, Trine, Gunn Enli, Ole Mjøs, and Hallvard Moe. 2014. The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Turnbull, Sue, and Marion McCutcheon. 2017. Investigating Miss Fischer: The Value of a Television Crime Drama. Media International Australia 164 (1): 56–70. Weissmann, Elke. 2012. Transnational Television Drama. Special Relations and Mutual Influence Between the US and UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

PART I

Societal and Cultural Values in Danish Television Drama

CHAPTER 2

The Golden Age of Danish Public Service Drama Series Gunhild Agger

The term ‘golden age’ naturally comes to mind in connection with Danish public service television drama of the first two decades of the twenty-first century. There is abundant documentation of the fact that highlights such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing (DR1, 2007–2012) and Borgen (DR1, 2010–2013) acquired special status among producers and audiences worldwide, and that these series garnered a remarkable reception and impact (e.g. Jensen and Jacobsen 2017; Creeber 2015; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015). In their introduction to Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television Drama (2017), Tobias Hochscherf and Heidi Philipsen present the concept of a golden age as a truism: ‘The last decade has been a golden era for Danish television drama’ (Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017, 1). In research and its dissemination, the term has gradually developed into a standard designation that is synonymous with success. This is also the case in DR’s own marketing of series and generally in the press. The frequent use of the term is an invitation to trace its origins and meaning.

G. Agger (*) Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_2

25

26 

G. AGGER

Equating a ‘golden age’ with success, in her 2004 book Pernille Nordstrøm introduced the term in the context of Danish television drama. Her presentation was concise and pragmatic: ‘[DR] has succeeded in uniting a level of artistic ambition with the audience appeal for which the series were created. Generally speaking, one success has been followed by another, to such an extent that it must be legitimate to mark the phenomenon as the golden age of the Danish television series’ (Nordstrøm 2004, 8, my translation). Her criteria for a golden age were artistic ambition and audience appeal, resulting in success. These criteria call for further reflection. One of the overarching aims of the major research project What Makes Danish Television Drama Series Travel? was to more precisely examine the question of recognition at various levels. Building on the research carried out for the project, this chapter analyses and discusses the explanatory power of the concept of the golden age in relation to this unusually productive period of Danish television drama production. The concept of the golden age is under-theorized, considering its popularity in research as well as in common usage. Coined by the Greek poet Hesiod, the term ‘golden age’ is globally used to identify a period of high-­ level achievement. This chapter takes Hesiod’s fundamental contribution as its point of departure, together with literary scholar Jurij M. Lotman’s theories of cultural exchange and renewal. Lotman (1990) has argued that certain patterns can be traced in the cultural exchange that takes place when golden ages travel from one country to another. Following this idea, this chapter compares recent developments in Danish television drama to earlier periods in television drama from the United Kingdom and the United States of America that have been identified as ‘golden’. Finally, the recent Danish drama scenario is compared with current developments in series from Norway, concluding with a discussion of what may be learned from a more nuanced understanding of thinking about, discussing, and labelling various periods of television drama as ‘golden’.

Studying Television Drama Production and Cultural Exchange Several researchers have used a production studies approach when investigating what is widely recognized as the golden age of Danish television drama, and have documented profound changes in production culture. This applies especially to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Eva

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

27

Novrup Redvall’s work (2013) is an invaluable contribution to understanding the processes behind the series, highlighting creative developments and new collaborative approaches especially in the area of screenwriting. Later, Hochscherf and Philipsen (2017), Degn and Krogager (2017), and Jakob Isak Nielsen (2016), among others, have applied this approach, supplementing the existing results from different angles. New methods of transnational cooperation have also been analysed, highlighting how basic public service drama values have been exported (Jensen et al. 2016; Jensen and Jacobsen 2017; Esser 2017). One influential approach to television studies has focused on the way that ‘quality television’ (Nelson 2007) or ‘complex television’ (Mittell 2015) in drama series has redefined the cultural field in which it operates, taking on challenging themes and complex storytelling. In this way, television drama has contributed to debating the state of the nation and, further, to compare the state of different nations. This has entailed more innovative narrative patterns, redefined genres and genre mixing, the development of a distinctive noir style, and in particular increased complexity of characters and plot development (Nielsen 2016; Nelson 2016). An important point of view on the societal impact of television drama is found in the extensive research that surrounds the phenomenon labelled ‘Nordic Noir’, which originated in the Swedish crime bestsellers that paved the way for an international interest in all things Nordic (StougaardNielsen 2017). Nordic Noir certainly had momentum during the 2000s and 2010s, and undoubtedly the composite Nordic Noir brand strongly contributed to the international breakthrough of Danish television drama through its choices of location and style (Hansen and Waade 2017), and prevailing themes and characters (Waade and Jensen 2013; Agger 2016). I argue that the foregoing perspectives are not mutually exclusive but complementary approaches. Each examines parts of the transnational cultural exchange processes that have developed, with increasing speed, during this period. I argue that in many ways the second golden age of American television contributed to the emergence of the Danish one, which in turn has been instrumental in what may be regarded as the current golden age of Norwegian television drama. Which processes facilitated this? I will focus on the processes of cultural exchange and renewal, but first I present an introduction to Hesiod’s thoughts on golden ages.

28 

G. AGGER

The Classical Concept of the Golden Age It is common knowledge that throughout the history of civilization gold has been attractive because of its permanence, which adds to its practical value as well as to its mythological status—practical value because gold was accepted as payment everywhere; mythological status because of its brilliant appearance and durability. Although the prize of the antique sports contests was a laurel wreath, gold, silver, and bronze were later included in the world of sport to symbolize the value of the medals awarded at major sports venues such as the Olympic Games. What, then, is a golden age? The prevailing definition is stated briefly in the Oxford English Dictionary as a ‘period when a specified art or activity is at its peak’. The way in which the concept is generally used originates in Hesiod’s Works and Days, written at the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century BCE. Directly or indirectly, this poem provides the basis for the common understanding of this concept as presented in any encyclopedia. Here, Hesiod gives an account of the so-called Myth of the Ages. The combination of myth, everyday life, advice, and directions that follow each other without any transition makes it difficult to determine the work’s genre and assess its value. Translator and commentator Lene Andersen (1973) has convincingly characterized Works and Days as the most personal of Hesiod’s works, his intent being that his contemporaries should know about their past, including the gods’ actions and motives, in order to understand their present conditions. In Works and Days, Hesiod (c.700 B.C., 1914) introduces two golden age myths. The first explains the end of the happy age of humanity through the tale of Pandora. When Pandora raised the lid of the jar entrusted to her, a myriad of misfortunes escaped. This version is followed by an alternative version, the so-called Myth of the Ages, which divides the transition from happiness to misfortune into five phases, ranging from mythological time, or ‘Cronos’ time’, to the present. Hesiod’s ideas imply that periods are characterized by certain traits and that all periods will end, to be replaced by others in a constant process of change. Generation is a key concept in these changes. Hesiod distinguishes among five different generations that are marked by certain characteristics, which I summarize here with a few quotes to try to convey the essence of his ideas. 1. The Golden Age is characterized by harmony between people and nature in an ideal state without conflicts or the need to work: ‘And

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

29

they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them’ (Hesiod ll. 109–120). 2. The Silver Generation is honoured without reason. It takes a hundred years for it to reach maturity, and when it finally achieves this it is characterized by hubris and ‘a little time in sorrow because of their foolishness’ (ll. 121–139). 3. Mankind of the third generation, the Bronze Age, ‘loved the lamentable works of Ares and deeds of violence; they ate no bread, but were hard of heart like adamant, fearful men’ (ll. 140–155). 4. The fourth generation, in contrast to the previous one, consists of heroes—the heroes of the Odyssey and the Iliad. As idols, they are ‘nobler and more righteous’ than the Bronze generation. After the Trojan War, they live on ‘islands of the blessed,’ where they harvest crops three times a year and enjoy ‘honor and glory’ (ll. 156–169b). 5. The fifth generation, Hesiod’s contemporaries, live in the Iron Age. They are contrasted with the generation of heroes, materially and spiritually: ‘For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. But, notwithstanding, even these shall have some good mingled with their evils’ (ll. 170–201). Contrary to common understanding, Hesiod did not consider the Myth of the Ages as a story of pure decline. The fact that the Silver and Bronze Age generations represent a decline in relation to the Golden Age generation is undeniable. However, it is questionable whether the bellicose Bronze Age was that much worse than the lazy, invalid Silver Age. In any case, the heroes’ generation represents a kind of renaissance of the Golden Age. Although Hesiod complains about his contemporaries and wishes he were born in another era, the later sections of Works and Days argue that by taking appropriate precautions people could live effortless, cheerful, and active lives, even in what he calls the Iron Age. Admittedly, the Golden Age represents the ideal, but it is significant that all the other epochs manifest good and evil to various degrees. Moreover, the concept of time, or the concept of separate eras, is used to explain society’s fundamental cohesiveness. Regardless of any individual endeavour, the genus or generation displays a common spirit bred by the conditions of its time. Although this spirit is universally acclaimed in its own era, it changes with the next generation.

30 

G. AGGER

In conclusion, since Antiquity, the concept of the golden age has appeared universally in literary and art histories to describe a period whose creations are indisputably characterized by an extraordinarily high degree of artistry. However, in light of Hesiod’s original understanding of the golden age’s relationship to both the good and bad that followed it, the implications of a golden age need further thought. We need to answer questions such as: Which are the most significant identifiers of a golden age? When does a golden age begin? When does it end? What happens in between? Is there a general model for its course? I shall discuss the first question in light of British and American television drama history, and the remaining questions will be examined from the perspective of Jurij M. Lotman’s reflections.

‘Important Moments’—British and American Perspectives In the field of British television drama, the concept of the golden age is widely used to characterize the period from the mid-1960s to the 1970s. For instance, John Caughie argues that the term is appropriate with regard to the idea of television drama, itself a central component of post-war British culture, reflecting a transition in the wider culture. In this context, Caughie theorizes about the concept, simultaneously claiming and disputing its relevance: There is, however, a sense in which the idea of a Golden Age may be meaningful: when it refers to that historical moment when one set of meanings and values is being replaced by another, when the traditions which stabilized a culture are beginning to be questioned and rewritten, and when creativity seems to transgress the boundaries of received good taste. (Caughie 2000, 57)

Against this background, Caughie argues ‘that in the years after 1964 television drama became one of the key sites of this moment’ (Caughie 2000, 57). Accordingly, it held a privileged position when it came to changing what he calls ‘the marketable images of Britishness in the national and international imaginary’ (Caughie 2000, 6). Caughie does not indicate when the period ended, but he points out its intermediate character, its path prepared by theatre and film from the 1950s. From an institutional perspective, the golden age was inaugurated by the Pilkington

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

31

report of 1962, which was highly critical of commercial television. Pleading for public service values, it supported the foundation of BBC Two in 1964 (Petley 2015, 6). In his history of television drama, Lez Cooke (2015) emphasizes what he calls ‘the important moments in the historical development’ of the single play, serials, landmark serials, series, and soap operas (Cooke 2015, 2), and his account concentrates on defining these moments. The 1960s–1970s golden age does not stand alone. Cooke has pointed out that since the recent turn of the century, British television drama has been enjoying a renaissance. According to Cooke, the fact is ‘that the advent of digital channels and the internet has increased the outlets for drama, and that the range, variety and quality of British television drama is now as great, if not indeed greater, than it was in the mythical “golden age” of the 1960s–70s’ (Cooke 2015, 249). This assessment corresponds with Trisha Dunleavy’s, who is referring to the international television drama landscape when she claims that ‘creative innovation in high-end series and serials has been a strategic, integral element of television’s response to the unprecedented pressures and opportunities that increasing multi-channel competition, technological convergence, and market fragmentation have combined to present’ (Dunleavy 2009, 199). There is general agreement among historical television drama researchers that a golden age of American television drama occurred as early as the 1950s. This period witnessed the creation of classical television drama that was characterized by originality and a pioneering spirit. In the United States, this kind of television drama was embodied in the so-called ‘anthology drama’ on different networks. This included adaptations of plays and literary works as well as original television films. Stage plays and literature yielded cultural authority to the new television medium. Television historian Erik Barnouw has highlighted the close connection with the theatre community in New York as crucial on the artistic level (Barnouw 1990, 154)—just as the London stage was later to British television. Television drama historians disagree on whether there have been two or three golden ages in American television. Robert J.  Thompson’s book Television’s Second Golden Age (1996) emphatically identifies a second golden age, from 1981 to 1996. Others reserve this designation for the period from 2000 to the present. According to Thompson, the second golden age was introduced in 1981 with Hill Street Blues (NBC, 1981–1987), and comprised ‘Serious Literary Writer-Based Drama’

32 

G. AGGER

(Thompson 1997, 30). In his book, he analyses its groundbreaking character. The crucial elements he identifies in the 1980s aesthetic breakthrough may be summarized as: 1) series of episodes of about one hour’s duration, which spanned several seasons, utilizing television’s unique capacity to mimic everyday life; 2) an interest in popular genre conventions (crime, legal drama, soap opera, etc.) that are renewed by using 3) complex characters and narratives mastered by a showrunner/author in a form that uses symbols and allusions (Thompson 1997, 31–32). Thompson concludes that ‘As the Golden Age of Television was rooted in the legitimate stage, quality dramas were rooted in the soap opera’ (Thompson 1997, 35), a form that understood how to use multiple plots and narrative tracks that ran in parallel through multiple episodes. As noted, there is disagreement about the dividing lines between American television’s golden ages. An important reason for this is that many of the features that characterize the third golden age in American television repeat Thomson’s characterization of the second golden age— for instance, the crucial role of the main author/showrunner, and the use of multiple plots to promote narrative complexity in long-running drama series. If the second golden age ended in 1996 and the third began in the late 1990s, the periods are so closely linked together that a certain overlap is hardly surprising. Several alternative designations have been applied to a third golden age, from ‘post television’ (Pearson 2007) and ‘quality television’ (Nelson 2007) to ‘complex television’ (Mittell 2015). In general, what makes the third golden age stand out is the series format, in which new distribution and production units, such as HBO and Netflix, played a leading role. Although the major networks were subject to the doctrine of producing ‘the least objectionable programming’ (NBC’s vice-president Paul Klein, cited in Thompson 1997, 39), the arena of the new producers was pay television. This allowed them to address niche audiences more directly, by focusing on boldness in language and visual design, and their diverse themes supported a level of uncensored sex and violence in a hitherto unprecedented way. Overall, whatever the precise dates in question, new modes of distribution (Cunningham and Silver 2013) that increased transnational production and extensive experiments with aesthetics and narrative forms make a strong argument for a third golden age in American television drama. To summarize, Caughie’s and Cooke’s analyses emphasize ‘the historical moment’ when meanings and values that used to be marketable are

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

33

suddenly replaced because of a need to reassess traditional approaches. For my purposes, ‘the historical moment’ implies a powerful, culture-leading role for television drama that reverberates throughout, and changes, the public sphere.

Transnational Cultural Exchange and Danish Television Drama That everything has a beginning and an end is a rule inherent in the golden age mythological trope Approaching the issue of the relationship between centre and periphery, or between national and transnational cultures, offers an interesting perspective. Jurij M.  Lotman draws a fundamental distinction between ‘autocommunicative’ and ‘message-oriented’ cultures. Autocommunicative cultures are primarily oriented towards their own culture, whereas message-oriented ones display more curiosity and an interest in receiving messages from others. A culture may shift from one to the other over time. Such shifts are associated with intense value struggles, as is the case with any moment of significant historical change. Lotman’s model of exchange between cultures ‘orientated towards autocommunication’ (usually situated on the peripheries) and those ‘orientated towards the message’ (usually situated at the centres) represents a way of elucidating what it means to negotiate cultural relationships and appropriate another culture’s texts. Lotman conceptualizes the relationship between centre and periphery, and hence the processes of cultural export and import, as having five phases (Lotman 1990, 144–145). In the first phase, the foreign texts, distributed in their original language, are perceived as strange and elitist. In the second phase, by means of translations, imitations and edits (‘adaptations’, Lotman 1990, 146), the texts are restructured, gradually influencing the texts of the domestic culture. In the third phase, this appropriation is so extensive that the foreign texts seem quite homely; and in the fourth phase, the imported texts are completely dissolved into the recipient culture, which in turn starts to develop newly transformed and restructured texts. The fifth phase of this process causes the originally peripheral receiver culture to develop into a new transmission centre. This pattern is one of ongoing oscillation between periods of inertia, when saturation takes place, and periods of high activity.

34 

G. AGGER

In the case of Danish television drama, the period against which the golden age is naturally measured is the period immediately preceding it (c. 1980 to the mid-1990s). During this period, the dominant DR production culture was ‘autocommunicative’ in the sense that it was primarily oriented towards its own culture. Exports were limited mainly to the other Nordic countries. As DR held a monopoly until 1988, the broadcaster could rely on an audience. Television 2 was designed politically to focus on news and entertainment programmes, therefore it took a while for any real competition to appear in the arena of television drama. Considered in terms of both quantity and quality, DR’s productions during this period provided a mixed bag of programmes. A variety of genres was included, to accommodate different tastes in different segments of the Danish population. As DR prepared for competition, it took some time before the traditional divide between serious and popular drama, between ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’, was breached. The in-house production culture in DR’s Drama division was not sufficiently encouraged to bridge this gap, and planning was hampered because of procedures that hindered swift decision-making and experimentation, which were hard to accommodate with the existing resources. The customary practice was to start on a fresh enterprise after six episodes (Agger 2005). The following period—the mid-1990s to 2016—witnessed the development of quite different Danish television drama, as a result of a transformation from a primarily domestically orientated production culture into a primarily transnational production culture. I would like to illustrate this transition with a rough outline that follows Lotman’s general pattern of five phases. • Innovation in Danish television drama is prompted by influences from abroad, primarily two television serials, Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective (BBC, 1986) and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (Lynch/Frost Productions et  al., 1990–1991). Both the international and the Danish reception of these productions stand out. They are intensely debated in the public sphere, and immediately become the focus of research (Bondebjerg 1993; Christensen and Kristiansen 1992). In the United Kingdom and United States, and in the other countries to which these serials are exported, they are regarded as strange, elitist, challenging, and highly innovative sources of inspiration. • The importing culture considers such products to invite new developments in locations, aesthetics, genres and themes, and they act as

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

35

catalysts for Lars von Trier’s television serial Riget/The Kingdom (DR1, 1994/1997) (Creeber 2002; Bainbridge 2007). The Kingdom depicts the much admired hospital ‘Rigshospitalet’ in Copenhagen with the use of distinctive aesthetic strategies. High angle photography and close interior shots are two perspectives that characterize these. The setting demonstrates seemingly peculiar, self-consciously aesthetic cinematography characterized by the hand-held camera, brownish colours, and leaps in time, and is distanced from the realism with which you would expect the nation’s top hospital to be depicted. Several genres are oddly mixed in this serial—medical soap opera, satire, melodrama, ghost stories set in the past, and horror mingle with a traditional, realistic depiction of everyday life. This production challenges the traditional institutional culture that is imposed from above with a scriptwriter/director/producer-oriented culture that is developed by the most creative minds in the kingdom. • The importing culture appropriates foreign fiction, starting the production of new serials and series. The Kingdom is followed by Ole Bornedal’s Charlot og Charlotte/Charlot and Charlotte (DR 1, 1996), which wins the Prix Italia for best European television serial. The lesson of this romantic comedy lies in its successful shift of perspectives—from the local perspective of Valby and Skagen, to the global perspective of New  York, and back. Later, the long-running drama TAXA (DR1, 1997–1999), inspired by American narrative strategies (Nielsen 2016), dominates the scene. Subsequently, Rejseholdet/Unit One (DR1, 2000–2004) first conquers the domestic audience, then wins an Emmy, signalling wider international recognition. Simultaneously, Danish production culture begins exporting its appropriations, with intermediaries and audiences abroad beginning to take an interest in Nordic productions. Forbrydelsen/The Killing is popular at home and exported to the United Kingdom and the United States during 2011–2012, followed by Borgen (2010–2013) and Bron/Broen/The Bridge (Filmlance International, Nimbus Film, SVT, and DR, 2011–2018). These series are able to travel well because of their strong female leads and themes marked by an acute sense of topicality (Helles and Lai 2017), combined with a perceived realism (Jensen and Jacobsen 2017). The start of a circular process is confirmed by the American remake of Riget, Kingdom Hospital (ABC, 2004), with Stephen King as producer and Lars von Trier as executive producer. Danish production culture develops in an extraor-

36 

G. AGGER

dinarily consistent manner, which involves the ten Dogmas for television drama, working with a writers’ room for development and screenwriting, and the ‘relay race’ principle for directors (Redvall 2013). This involves an original director setting a concept and style that subsequent directors must follow. • The receiving culture starts to develop newly transformed and restructured texts, branded as ‘Nordic Noir’. Remakes of Danish productions continue, with The Killing (AMC, 2011–2014) as the most prominent example. Nikolaj og Julie/Nikolaj and Julie (DR, 2002–2003) is remade as a pilot with the title Love is a Four Letter Word (NBC, 2015) (Gemzøe 2018). The most impressive record is held by the Danish–Swedish co-production The Bridge, which inspires an exposure of cultural conflicts in several contexts. Simultaneously, British productions in particular start appropriating Nordicness for their settings, typically located on geographical peripheries: Broadchurch (Kudos Film and Television; ITV, 2013–2017), Shetland (BBC Scotland, 2013–2018), and the transnational Fortitude (Sky Atlantic, 2015–2018). • The receiving culture gains momentum and becomes a centre of transmission, not only for its television series, but also for its scriptwriters, directors, actors, photographers, sound and production designers, and so on. Many of the most creative people move to production centres in other countries and work on transnational productions. Some of them keep their Danish engagements and return at intervals, whereas others remain abroad, contributing to the hegemonic culture. Series that were originally inspired by the Nordic Noir wave, and even remakes, such as Shetland and The Tunnel, are exported to the Nordic countries. Furthermore, all kinds of collaborations occur, examples being transnational productions such as The Team (ZDF and other production companies, 2015–2018) and Ø (Canal Plus, 2016). The pattern described above presupposes a continuous shift between periods characterized by high activity, experiments and vibrant exchange, and periods of declining innovative activity. Today, current transnational co-production and distribution, and a certain breakdown between centres and peripheries caused by digital media, tend to complicate the pattern described by Lotman. However, for the period in question, his model helps explain the processes that led to the increased export of Danish television drama and to foreign appropriations of the Danish series (Agger 2020).

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

37

It is important to consider that production cultures may indeed move from creative low points to respected peaks, as happened in Denmark beginning in the mid-1990s, and that golden ages may travel from one country to another. Currently, Norwegian television drama constitutes another compelling example of a golden age in the Nordic region. As this case presents a development similar to the Danish one, I will briefly describe it. In 2004, the Norwegian television drama industry had a primarily ‘autocommunicative’ culture. Inspired principally by the Danish example, it was eagerly trying to overcome this limitation (Lavik 2015). All administrative layers of any importance—from the Minister of Culture and the film foundations, to NRK, television 2, and private production companies—encouraged a transition to a culture ‘orientated towards the message’. During the next ten years, Norwegian production culture changed, and so did its television drama, repeating the processes Danish television drama had undergone, transforming itself from a domestically based production industry to a transnationally oriented one that targeted international and Norwegian audiences. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Danish golden age knowhow was crucial. For instance, key knowledge exchanges occurred at industry seminars and through Danish practitioners, such as Sven Clausen, the producer of TAXA, Unit One and Ørnen/The Eagle (DR 1, 2004–2006), among others, who taught at the Norwegian Film School and exported the main ideas behind DR’s mode of production. For example, Clausen was consulting producer for the Norwegian crime drama Mammon (NRK, 2014, 2016), which won an Emmy in 2017 and was remade as Pakt by Polish HBO 2015–2016. Skam (NRK 2015–2017) subsequently stood out by virtue of its huge international penetration, which led to several remakes. The Norwegian example illustrates cultural exchange between neighbouring countries with similar broadcasting systems, and shows how a golden age in one country may travel and influence another production culture.

The End and Legacy of the Danish Golden Age In some respects, Arvingerne/The Legacy (DR 1, 2014–2017) was an exquisitely apposite ending to the recent Danish golden age. The ‘legacy’ of the title has several layers. When you inherit, an era has ended. Genrewise—recommencing the modern family series—The Legacy distances itself from Nordic Noir crime series, and resembles previous family series, for instance Sommer/The Summers (DR1, 2008). The clear reference to

38 

G. AGGER

various generations and to succession suggests various forms of inheritance. One aspect is the competition for material objects; another aspect concerns values. Throughout the series, the values of the ‘’68ers’ were reassessed, especially those concerning the parent–child relationship. The fateful year of 1968 was alluded to several times. When Veronika was taken to hospital in the very first episode, the doctor says ‘68-year-old woman, suspected cardiac arrest’. Similarly, in the second season, Thomas, a caricature of the stereotypical hippie, becomes a father again at the age of 68. In short, The Legacy addressed the moral failings and shortcomings of the ‘’68ers’ as they played out in the individual choices that face the four siblings at Grønnegaard—in particular, regarding what could or should be inherited. Despite its harsh verdict on the emotional mess and moral irresponsibility cultivated by them, The Legacy recognized the openness of its experimental spirit (Agger 2015). At a meta-level, the question of legacies was emphasized by the fact that the production team were also heirs—in their case of the heavy burden of producing public service drama of a quality that lived up to the acclaimed golden-age standard. The series’ creator and head writer was a woman, Maya Ilsøe, and so was the director, Pernilla August. Another woman, Piv Bernth, took over as Head of Drama (2012–2017) after Ingolf Gabold’s departure. Bernth had a strong track record that prepared her for this challenge, with a long history at DR as the producer of programmes that included Nikolaj og Julie and Forbrydelsen. The theme of inheritance versus innovation reverberated intelligently during Arvingerne’s first season. In subsequent seasons this lost momentum and another, even more ambitious, theme appeared: the question of the degree to which it was possible to unite provincial and rural ‘handball Denmark’ with a country of avant-garde artists and their intermediaries. The difficulties of bridging the gap between these two cultures were scrupulously examined from the perspectives of social classes, gender, and generations, including those of grandparents and grandchildren. All the doubts and anxieties concerning new family patterns and values in this century were explored, echoing real experiences and concerns. However, in light of contemporary developments in society, the bridge-building note of the ending was not particularly convincing. The Legacy inaugurated a period in which the principal traits of golden-­ age drama, such as multiple, interconnecting storylines, complex characters, high production values, and the innovative use of genre and style, continued. However, the ‘historical moment’, the crucial element of something breathtakingly unknown, was missing.

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

39

Concluding Remarks: Agency and Reaction Innovation is an unstable phenomenon; criteria for what is new shift incessantly. Even in the midst of a golden age, its newborn dogmas may turn into inescapable routines, and this is fatal. In all periods, a combination of ‘evil with good’ prevails, as Hesiod emphasized. In less innovative periods, it is an advantage to orient oneself towards production cultures that have momentum. A golden age is not sent by the gods, but requires hard work and happy coincidence. This is confirmed by the Danish and the Norwegian examples. Regardless of time and geographical context, the various ideas about a golden age share a number of identical elements. From Hesiod to Lotman, Thompson, and Cooke, there is agreement that artistic creation exists in a steady stream of agency and response. When this idea is combined with the understanding that its peak is inevitably dependent on its convergence with a certain historical moment and subject to subversion and change, as noted by Lotman, it remains an illustrative metaphor. The historical moment may be defined as the moment when traditional meanings and values suddenly need to be replaced. Danish golden-era television series responded to important events and currents of their times, investigating and debating them. The historical moment was one of striking alignment between the new production culture and the television medium, whose dramas rendered and interpreted events in ways that resonated with domestic and foreign audiences alike. This facilitated the development I described, from domestically based production to transnationally oriented production. According to John Caughie, golden ages always appear in the rear view mirror of history: a ‘Golden Age only exists in retrospect. They are never lived as golden, but can only be constructed in memory from the hindsight of what came after’ (Caughie 2000, 57). It is too early to tell whether the golden age of Danish television drama has come to an end, but the direction seems to have changed. As discussed in this chapter, it is, for instance, difficult to draw a line between the second and the third American golden ages. The same may be the case in Denmark. Besides, it is too early to tell what it means for the Danish production industry that it has turned into a centre for transmission, and that a significant part of its creative staff works abroad. After The Legacy’s accounts were closed, some high-profile dramas appeared. For instance, Liberty (DR 1, 2018) insisted on revisiting the

40 

G. AGGER

legacy of classical Danish television drama of an earlier period. It was a five-part television serial; it was an adaptation of a novel; it was an intertextual commentary on Tørk Haxthausen’s Udvikling (‘Development’, DR, 1989). It represented all the ‘don’ts’ of the golden age—but in so doing, it also represented a fresh take on the dogmas. I wish to thank Stephen Edwards, postgraduate researcher/PhD candidate at the University of Southampton, for his comments and suggestions for amendments to this article.

References Agger, Gunhild. 2005. Dansk tv-drama: Arvesølv og underholdning. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. ———. 2015. Den etiske arv i dansk tv-drama. In Etik til forhandling, ed. Nils Gunder Hansen and Ivy Y.  Möller-Christensen, 101–121. Copenhagen: Dansklærerforeningens Forlag. ———. 2016. Nordic Noir: Location, Identity and Emotion. In Emotions in Contemporary TV Series, ed. Alberto N. Garcia, 134–152. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2020, Forthcoming. Realistic and Mythological Appropriations of Nordic Noir: The Cases of Shetland and Ø. In Nordic Noir Adaptation and Appropriation: Film, Television and Beyond, ed. Andrew Nestingen, Jaakko Seppälä, and Linda Badley. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Andersen, Lene. 1973. Hesiod. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Bainbridge, Caroline. 2007. The Cinema of Lars von Trier: Authenticity and Artifice. London: Wallfire Press. Barnouw, Erik. 1990. Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bondebjerg, Ib. 1993. Elektroniske fiktioner. Copenhagen: Borgen. Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Introduction: Mediated Cultural Encounters in Europe. In European Cinema and Television, ed. Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Caughie, John. 2000. Television Drama: Realism, Modernism, and British Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Creeber, Glen. 2002. Surveying the Kingdom: Explorations of Medicine, Memory and Modernity in Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom (1994). European Journal of Cultural Studies 5 (4): 387–406. ———. 2015. Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetics, Philosophy and Influence of Nordic Noir Television. The Journal of Popular Television 3 (1): 21–35.

2  THE GOLDEN AGE OF DANISH PUBLIC SERVICE DRAMA SERIES 

41

Christensen, Ove, and Claus K. Kristiansen. 1992. Det hemmelige og det hellige i Twin Peaks. K&K  - Kultur og Klasse 19 (71): 153–176. https://doi. org/10.7146/kok.v19i71.20295. Cooke, Lez. 2015. British Television Drama. Houndmills: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan. Cunningham, Stuart, and Jon Silver. 2013. Screen Distribution and the New King Kongs of the Online World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Degn, Hans Peter, and Stine Krogager. 2017. Danish Television Drama Series: A Sunday Evening Phenomenon. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 362–379. Dunleavy, Trisha. 2009. Television Drama: Form Agency, Innovation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Esser, Andrea. 2017. Form, Platform and the Formation of Transnational Audiences: A Case Study of How Danish TV Drama Series Captured Television Viewers in the United Kingdom. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 411–429. Gemzøe, Lynge Stegger. 2018. The Showrunner Effect: System, Culture and Individual Agency in American Remakes of Danish Television Series. PhD diss., Aarhus Univ. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Helles, Rasmus, and Signe Sophus Lai. 2017. “Travelling or not? A content analysis mapping Danish television drama from 2005 to 2014”. Critical Studies in Television.The International Journal of Television Studies 12 (4): 395–410. Hesiod. (c.700 B.C.). 1914. Works and Days. Trans. Hugh G.  Evelyn-White. https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/lectures/hesiod1.pdf Hochscherf, Tobias, and Heidi Philipsen. 2017. Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television Drama. London: Tauris. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. The Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 91–108. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. 2017. The ‘Three-Leaf Clover’: A Methodological Lens to Understand Transnational Audiences. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 430–444. Lavik, Erlend. 2015. Forfatterskap i tv-drama. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. https:// www.idunn.no/forfatterskap-i-tv-drama/kapittel-3. Lotman, Jurij M. 1990. Universe of the Mind. London/New York: Tauris. Mittell, Jason. 2015. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York: New York University Press. Nelson, Robin. 2007. Quality TV Drama. In Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond, ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass, 38–51. London: I.B. Tauris.

42 

G. AGGER

———. 2016. The Emergence of ‘Affect’ in Contemporary TV Fictions. In Emotions in Contemporary TV Series, ed. Alberto N. Garcia, 26–51. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nielsen, Jakob Isak. 2016. The Danish Way of Doing it the American Way. Kosmorama 263. https://www.kosmorama.org/en/kosmorama/artikler/ danish-way-do-it-american-way Nordstrøm, Pernille. 2004. Fra Riget til Bella: Bag om tv-seriens golden age. Copenhagen: DR. Pearson, Roberta. 2007. Lost in Transition. From Post-Network to Post-­ Television. In Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond, ed. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass, 239–256. London: I.B. Tauris. Petley, Julian. 2015. Richard Hoggart and Pilkington: Populism and Public Service Broadcasting. The International Journal of Communication Ethics 12 (1): 4–14. http://www.communicationethics.net/journal/v12n1/feat1.pdf. Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark. From The Kingdom to The Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stougaard-Nielsen, Jakob. 2017. Scandinavian Crime Fiction. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Thompson, Robert J. 1997. Television’s Second Golden Age: From “Hill Street Blues” to “E.R.”. New York: Syracuse University Press. Waade, Anne Marit, and Pia Majbritt Jensen. 2013. Nordic Noir Production Values. The Killing and The Bridge. Academic Quarter 7: 189–201. http:// www.akademiskkvarter.hum.aau.dk/pdf/vol7/13a_AWaadePMJensen_ NordicNoir.pdf.

CHAPTER 3

Why the World Fell for Borgen: Legitimizing (Trans)National Public Service Broadcasting Culture in the Age of Globalization Janet McCabe

Few could have imagined that the machination of coalition politics in a small corner of Northern Europe would find an audience beyond its immediate broadcasting territory. Borgen (2010–13) first aired on Sunday 26 September 2010, in the 8 pm primetime DR1 slot. Its aim, claimed Annette K. Olesen (2012) (director of episodes 5, 6, 9, and 10), was to galvanize public interest in politics and engage a disaffected electorate grown weary with its politicians (also see Hammerich 2015a, 260). After ten years of a right-wing coalition (or ‘blå blok’/blue block) led by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, leader of Venstre, Denmark’s liberal party, a perception existed that the Danish political psyche was struggling to reconcile contemporary, often global challenges with its deeply engrained sense of social democratic politics. Such sociopolitical positioning becomes principles of division for social agents, and these, as Pierre Bourdieu claims, ‘make possible the production of a common, meaningful world, a common-sense

J. McCabe (*) Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_3

43

44 

J. MCCABE

world’ (2010, 470). For the purpose of this chapter, what interests me is not only how social democratic debate is represented in this Danish public service-made TV series, as a way of validating forms of public service broadcasting (PSB) storytelling as important television in the world, but also how Borgen is positioned within a field of cultural production to legitimatize public service television as a major force in culture, both in its local territory and internationally. At the centre of this contribution is how Borgen makes visible a specific field of cultural production for transnational television studies, one defined by a specific set of values, attitudes, and principles (Bourdieu 1993). In this chapter, I adopt a cultural sociological approach to spell out what Bourdieu calls a ‘production of belief’ (Bourdieu 1993, 74–111), in which a work such as Borgen is legitimated and its value accepted and circulated far and wide among a network of agents and institutions. I am interested in looking at how a way of thinking about public service television as important becomes known through a cycle of consecration as it moves through various networks and platforms; how a preference for this kind of television is shared by those who belong to a similar social group; and how, in turn, those ideas, perceptions, and attitudes are communicated in the way in which public service television culture is talked about and understood, but also inscribed deep into the very textual fabric of Borgen. I address such matters with the expressed aim of making sense of how this Danish political series legitimizes the cultural worth of DR as a public service broadcaster at a time of radical transformation in the TV industry, with its complex global trade flow involving cultural exchange and the advanced scope of commercial capital (see Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015; Jensen et al. 2016). Put simply, I ask why a modest drama about Danish parliamentary democracy, with its bewildering multi-party structure involving coalitions and consensus building, has travelled so well along particular kinds of trading routes. What we learn from these global travels is that a field of restricted cultural production is in circulation, where culture is encountered and exchanged, and where agents who proclaim the value of Borgen over other TV works invest their own prestige in so doing as a form of symbolic capital. In tracing the global cycle of consecration, adopting a Bourdieusian paradigm, this chapter sheds light on how such a theoretical frame can further illuminate the global lessons from a small nation in order to understand the contemporary positionality of PSB television culture within a

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

45

system of legitimization, by producing agents who make, recommend, and trade it, and by cultivating viewers who are capable of appreciating it.

The Production of Belief: Bourdieu and Legitimating Television Culture from a Small Nation Borgen was initially made for the Danish broadcasting territory, produced by the public service broadcaster with obligations to the national imaginary and citizenry; so much so that Jeppe Gjervig Gram, one of the co-­ writers, was told not to send the show to any overseas film festivals ‘because it would fail, it’s so Scandinavian’ (Halliday 2013, 15). Even creator and lead writer Adam Price didn’t think a series involving the intricacies of Danish politics would travel much beyond national borders, maybe only so far as Sweden and Norway, ‘perhaps out of brotherly love, or something’ (Halliday 2013, 15). Series producer Camilla Hammerich met a similar response from Ingolf Gabold, Head of Drama at DR (1999–2012), after suggesting she ask German public service broadcaster ZDF for additional funds to improve the ‘visual standards’ of the show. Forget it,’ he said. ‘Borgen is about Danish democracy; not a soul outside the Danish borders will have any interest in it – except maybe Sweden, Norway and Finland whose parliamentary system is similar to ours. Other countries won’t understand how Danish democracy works’ (Hammerich 2015a, 85). Therefore, it came as something of a surprise to the production team at DR when Borgen did travel and, more astonishing still, start to garner international recognition. As it passed through different mediascapes across the globe, Borgen accumulated a certain kind of capital and found specific champions to help define exactly what that might mean within other national contexts. The political series  was ‘discovered’ by specific critics—agents of legitimization—whose verdict consecrates a certain type of work and who target and guide particular viewing sensibilities (see, for example, Paskin 2013; Blackburn 2013). So when Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times claimed that ‘Borgen takes a far subtler and more beguiling view of people and political relationships’ (2012), her judgement defines the distinctive marks that allow the series to exist in the United States mediascape as part of a struggle for positionality and cultural recognition. Ellen E. Jones, writing in the United Kingdom-based

46 

J. MCCABE

newspaper The Independent, puts forward a different opinion of the series’ value within the British context: This show is top-class political drama, a badge of middle-class belonging and, for the British, also a kind of utopian sci-fi fantasy. Just imagine: a truly gender-equal society where men and women share childcare, women hold as many positions of power in politics and media as men, and everyone achieves an enviable work-life balance. (2013)

Class, gender equality, and a specific public capable of consuming its politics are referenced in the language of celebration. Both reviews originating from other Western democracies betray the social conditioning behind such beliefs, and their pronouncement takes up a particular cultural positioning in which, as Bourdieu writes, ‘the value of works of art and belief in that value are continuously generated’ (1993, 78). The critic is but one social agent, but the authoritative power of cultural consecration ‘only exists in the relationship with the field of production as whole’ (1993, 78). Suggested in this ‘struggle for recognition’ (Bourdieu 1993, 106) is that the value and reputation of the public service-produced Borgen is made within a series of relationships, in collaboration with the buyers who trade it, the critics who judge it, and a public who consume it materially (collect it as DVDs) or symbolically (watch it), which in turn enables DR as a purveyor of public service television to amplify its importance as a competitive player within a global market. It is important at this stage to acknowledge that global success for Borgen operates within a restricted, or small-scale, field of cultural production (see also Jensen 2016; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015). It is a field one normally associates with ‘high’ art and, as Bourdieu explains, the criteria for evaluation, prestige, and consecration involves competition among a ‘peer group whose members are both privileged clients and competitors’ (1993, 115). I turn to Bourdieu, and in particular his concepts of ‘habitus, ‘field’, and ‘capital’, as a way to expand on how a dialectic of cultural distinction of public service television comes into view when a series such as Borgen travels. TV shows like this have a consequence for specific groups and individuals based on their own requirements, economic and cultural needs, and position-taking within this restricted field of cultural production. What I argue is that a group of ‘elite’ individuals act as what Bourdieu calls ‘symbolic bankers’ (1993, 77), prestigious sponsors who invest their reputations in a series such as Borgen in the process of introducing it into

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

47

new markets and onto different, often niche, portals, platforms, and channels. These multiple mediators operating in and through affiliated networks contribute to the significance of Borgen and sustain a universe of belief in its value as somehow unique, distinct, and exceptional. Access to Borgen cannot be defined solely in terms of its physical availability in the world, but in a taste for it. Reputations depend on it in fact. This idea of television as a symbolic object of public service television culture thus, to borrow words from Bourdieu, ‘exists as such only by virtue of the (collective) belief which knows and acknowledges it as [such]’ (1993, 35; emphasis mine). Determining the values and systems of classification that make sense of the series at different times and within different national and international contexts is done from a perspective on the sociology of culture, with the expressed aim of exploring the ways in which a public service broadcaster— ‘whose traditional obligations arguably pertain to the national sphere’ (Jensen et al. 2016, 92)—legitimizes its positioning within global markets as a producer of a certain kind of cultural work. It is therefore necessary to consider the production of that knowledge by the creators of its materiality (the writers, the producers, the public service broadcaster), but also the producers of the meaning and value of Borgen—festival organizers and judges, TV buyers, foreign broadcasters and niche TV channels, and other agents (TV critics and scholars), whose combined efforts produce a way of knowing and recognizing the importance of Borgen.

Defining a Transnational Habitus: Festivals and the Trading of Public Service Culture Pia Majbritt Jensen is right to remind us that once a series such as Borgen ‘moves away from Denmark’s immediate geo-linguistic region’ (2016), and leaves behind the Nordic media system, it starts to behave in a similar way to an art-house film. Nowhere is this institutional rupture more evident than its presence at festivals, so important for reputation-making that it might explain the advice given to Gram not to send Borgen. Festivals confer specific capital on shows such as Borgen, programmes that will never have the popular, mass commercial appeal of, say, a super-format such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Selecting Borgen for festivals brings a certain kind of recognition for the drama as well as for its producers.

48 

J. MCCABE

Winning awards bestows the highest prestige, and further symbolic capital is afforded through accolades. Borgen won the Prix Italia 2010 for Best Drama Series and the 2012 BAFTA for Best International Drama Series. Sidse Babett Knudsen, who plays Denmark’s first female statsminister, Birgitte Nyborg Christensen, collected the prize for outstanding actress at the Monte Carlo TV Festival in 2011, delivering her acceptance speech in ‘flawless’ French (Hammerich 2015a, 277). Validation also came from the United States with a Peabody Award in 2014, and Andrew Romano wrote in Newsweek that ‘The Best Political Show Ever no longer hails from Hollywood, birthplace of The West Wing. It comes, instead, from Copenhagen, and it is called Borgen’ (2012). This is evidence of what Bourdieu calls habitus, a structuring system that organizes the way we perceive the social world as taste and lifestyle according to class division, education, and affiliations ([1984] 2010, 166–171). Put into practice at a festival is a specific set of attitudes and behaviours toward this kind of television, creating a ‘taste’ or appreciation for it in the way the festival manages access to it and judges Borgen as worthy of being shown. Festivals commit themselves to the task of ‘providing a “creative” interpretation for the benefit of the “creators”’ (Bourdieu 1993, 116). It is a site of cultural consecration devoted to the act of decipherment, to principles of evaluation, and distinguishing a series such as Borgen from what it isn’t and from everything it is opposed to in relation to other types of television (i.e. talent competitions [MasterChef] and factual entertainment programmes [How to Look Good Naked]). Marijke de Valck said it best when she wrote: With Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital we are able to frame (certain) festivals as important sites of cultural legitimization and show how they function as gatekeepers in the field of cultural production. However, festivals not only as gatekeepers, but as tastemakers, and it is Bourdieu’s notion of habitus that is particularly well suited to explain the dynamics behind taste making and festivals. (2016, 109)

In this way, the concept of habitus helps us to make sense of what those working in television do and how they understand the position that they occupy in relation to others within the cultural hierarchy of ‘the field of production and circulation of symbolic goods’ (Bourdieu 1993, 131). Entering into this international arena is where a public service broadcaster from a small nation such as Denmark with its restricted market and limited

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

49

financial and economic assets acquires symbolic capital to advance its ranking in the field. In opposition to the billion-dollar global trade in ‘super-­ formats’ (Chalaby 2016), for example, these public service-made dramas are modest in budgetary comparison, and financial recompense is not the motivational reason driving those who participate in their production. Culture is the main capital traded, in terms of reputation, acclaim and esteem, and a festival plays a key role in sustaining a particular way of thinking about the skill and craft of making television (institutional authorship and the writers’ room) as well as certain attitudes, preferences, and taste for it as an art form (the double storytelling, the civic purpose of the PSB remit). It is where creative enterprise is consecrated and value is added. Capital of this kind is privileged at the international festival precisely because it drives the legitimacy of these social spaces as sites of ‘discovery’ and arbitration, of authority and cultural legitimization in the first place; as Thomas Elsaesser put it, ‘by adding value and cultural capital at the top, while acting more of a gentle gatekeeper than a bouncer at the bottom’ (2014, 96). The trade is not the hard sell, but instead a ‘softer, more discrete [form] for “public relations” … receptions, society gatherings and judiciously placed confidences’ (Bourdieu 1993, 77). It is in this context where ideas about Borgen are exchanged by what Giselinde Kuipers names a ‘cosmopolitan tribe’ (2012). DR knows that festivals offer an important opportunity for exposure. In what it preselects, the Danish public service broadcaster recognizes how a series’ ‘foreign’ language, depiction of location, and sense of locatedness and place (see Hansen and Waade 2017; Hill 2016), as a product of in-house creative enterprise (see Redvall 2013), has an international currency. This is about how its products will become firmly embedded in an institutional context that encourages debate and reflection about the aesthetic possibilities of the medium. Borgen, for instance, thrived at FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels), a French-based festival held annually in Biarritz created ‘to recognise, honour and promote exceptional work in the audiovisual media, to help further understanding of the audiovisual arts’, and where the programme won the FIPA D’OR Grand Prix for Best Series. FIPA actively promotes itself as a platform for ‘discovery’ and ‘debate’, which reveals the distinct and distinctive position the festival believes it occupies within this field of restricted cultural production. In practical terms, the festival offers a kind of institutional shelter to guard, valorize, and disseminate knowledge about a certain idea of culture while at the

50 

J. MCCABE

same time defining its role as a European-based institution of culture. The series selection for FIPA, but also DR’s decision to send Borgen to this narrowly specialized festival, declares an allegiance to a particular way of thinking about and behaviour toward television as art and culture. Put simply, Borgen becomes enclosed in a festival universe in which to exist is to become nationally known and culturally recognized—to make a name for itself in the international market. Screenings at international festivals such as FIPA have a business purpose, of course; as de Valck puts it, ‘symbolic capital can be converted into economic capital’ (2016, 107). DR preselects its products for specific types of festivals, as it seeks out the best possible climate for doing business. It is at festivals where international buyers and schedulers acquire content for their local, often national, territories. Bill Nichols argues that ‘[an] encounter with the unfamiliar, the experience of something strange, the discovery of new voices and vision serve as a major incitement for the festival-goer’ (1994, 17). With that in mind, the ‘discovery’ of a Danish public service-made drama about the workings of parliamentary democracy (with its democratic principles and human rights), dramatized as a series of personal ethical dilemmas, takes place within a context where international buyers and schedulers are situated to appreciate television as art and demonstrate discrimination when selecting it. This group of ‘international television executives who promote, sell, purchase and schedule transborder television programming’, contends Timothy Havens, ‘form a unique cultural group’ (2006, 6). This is an elite, cosmopolitan class whose vocation it is to ‘select’ specific content and ‘discover’ programming innovations for their audience, leading Havens to conclude that ‘the global trade in television programming includes a good deal of trade in ideas about television as well’ (2006, 7; see Haven 2006). In a similar vein, and drawing on Bourdieusian accounts of cultural mediation, Kuipers (2012) seeks to make sense of the professional habitus in which television buyers operate. In her analysis of the professional ethos, personal tastes, and practices of TV buyers, she identifies a typology of buyers trading in specific forms of ‘cosmopolitan capital’. Insight into the guiding principles behind the decision-making process of buyers is thus revealed as nothing more than socialized norms strengthened and upheld by ‘the production of belief’ and the practices of this restricted field. Borgen’s reception at FIPA helped DR secure a contract with ARTE (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne) to broadcast the series

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

51

throughout Europe and beyond. Yet relations between ARTE and DR, between these broadcasters and the festival are mediated by the structure of this field, ‘perceived and interpreted as they are in accordance with the unconscious schemes of the habitus’ (Kuipers 2012, 133). With that in mind, how the series dramatizes institutions of modern democratic parliamentary politics, the mediated nature of it, and the ethics of power fit the agenda of the Franco-German and European cultural public service broadcaster as a ‘cultural magnet’ aimed at fostering ‘EU integration through culture’ (ARTE). The selection of the subtitled TV series Borgen in so many ways makes sense of what ARTE does as a cross-border channel within the cultural landscape of European broadcasting. Eva Novrup Redvall touches on ideas of shared agendas, bilateral creative control, and reputation-building in her case study of the DR/ARTE co-production of Herrens veje/Ride Upon the Storm (2017–2018), where she argues for how the commissioning of the drama about faith and religion happened precisely ‘because of the track record of Borgen and ARTE’s belief that a Danish series by [Adam] Price could work for French audiences in a similar way’ (2018, 149). In these acts of consecration is an accumulated cultural energy in which agents (writers, producers) and institutions (DR, ARTE) help to reproduce a belief in the value of their enterprise within these kinds of transnational cultural encounters and negotiations (see also Weissmann 2012, 190–192). Rights to Borgen have sold on five continents and in almost 80 countries, from as far afield as South and North America to Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and throughout Europe (Hammerich 2015b). Those most favourable to Borgen have been those channels with a public service remit, or to put it another way, the series sold to those who think about television in a similar manner: key players of European public service television such as Rai (Italy), RTÉ (Republic of Ireland), ZDF (Germany), and YLE (Finland), as well as the regional public broadcaster in Germany, ARD, and the digital terrestrial platform BBC Four. Themes of how we think about society, so central to the Borgen storyline, dialogues in so many ways with how BBC Four imagines its reputation as ‘a home for television intelligence’, as creating ‘the time and space to think deeply and differently’. Selecting and scheduling a series such as Borgen enables the channel to position itself as a truly distinctive voice within the British broadcasting ecology, where culture is promoted for its own sake rather than because of consumer-oriented dictates.

52 

J. MCCABE

Nine p.m. on Saturday is the slot for original foreign-language series in the United Kingdom and has become the destination for viewers who share similar tastes for cultural goods and methods of consuming them in particular conditions. The distinction of a show such as Borgen is generated through its viewing protocols: the initial investment made by those preferring foreign-language television and locating it on a minority channel. But in addition the belief in its value through consuming the series for over two hours (with episodes scheduled back to back), a form of binge-­ watching for a specific and select social class that is concentrated (reading subtitles, listening to the original language, watching the drama) and time delimited. Affirmation of capital is further confirmed in its positioning as destination television, a unique one off. Borgen becomes rare and distinguished as it is not repeated or stripped across the week, referencing older forms of scheduling, but also in opposition to how HBO, which also trades in originals, schedules its programmes across its platform—and in the UK context  HBO originals form  the backbone of  the  Sky Atlantic channel. As the series travels further still, beyond Europe and into North America, Borgen is presented on channels rich in cultural capital (see also Jensen 2016). In Canada, for example, Borgen was scheduled on ARTV, a niche public channel jointly owned by public broadcaster CBC/Canada and ARTE that specializes in art and culture programmes in the French-­ speaking province of Quebec. ‘Danish series are for the global few’, writes Jensen (2016, see also Esser 2017), but at issue here is how these niche channels predisposed to all kinds of art and culture cultivate this idea of an audience as select and capable of consuming this kind of television. It is in this negotiation that makes the value of Borgen visible and legitimates a way of consuming and circulating the series in culture. Alessandra Stanley might say ‘Borgen may be the hardest show to find on American television [shown on Link TV, a non-commercial liberal US satellite TV network, with an agenda to “engage, educate and activate viewers … (and present) issues not often covered in the US media”], but at the moment it’s also one of the best’ (2012); but when she does so—in her use of language, her choice of words, her address to an ever more select audience—she speaks to a taste for Borgen as a rarefied television object in global circulation.

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

53

Defining a Field of Contemporary Public Service Culture: DR Fiction, its Capital, and the Production of a (Trans)National Public Sphere Argued thus far is how contemporary public service television culture is positioned within a restricted field of production; how a belief in its relevance and cultural value as a major force in global circulation is made in a set of relations involving social agents, institutions, and affiliations. In deepening this idea of how a national public service broadcaster continually positions itself in the international market as an important purveyor of culture, I turn my attention to the content and its producers at DR. I will finish by looking at how this ‘production of belief’ in the value of public service culture is inscribed into the textual and representational fabric of Borgen, and specially the role DR plays in that cycle of consecration. In particular, I explore DR’s investment in the formation of a (trans) national public sphere in and through a vernacular of public service television modes with specific cultural, generic, aesthetical, and textual forms. Prompted by Jürgen Habermas ([1962] 2015) and his historical-­ sociological account of the formation of the public sphere as a domain of social life where public opinion is constituted, I contend that Borgen articulates DR’s public service remit for civic engagement and opinion forming as a distinct and distinctive positionality in the world. How the series focuses on the institutions of modern democracy—parliament and political parties, the media (press and TV news)—structures forms of thought and specific ways in which we think about and live in a modern democracy, which emphasizes how  Borgen puts public service culture into distinct opposition with other commercial forms of mass and privately-owned media. The series might speak to the specificities of the Danish nation state, with its multi-party government structure and consensus politics, but in ‘scaling up’, in the words of Nancy Fraser et al. (2014), debates about the changing relations between the public sphere and the private realm (private autonomy, civic responsibilities), and the State and mass media (the press and news media as the Fourth Estate), and also on a range of (trans)national issues (gender equality, the environment, human rights, immigration and migration), Borgen is further legitimized. This is a manifestation of its value in the restricted field of national cultural production in global circulation.

54 

J. MCCABE

Made in-house by the Danish public service broadcaster DR, Borgen may, on the surface at least, seem to occupy what Bourdieu (1993) sees as a thoroughly ambiguous position as a form of public art designed for a mass audience. Yet, as Redvall (2013) and more recently Tobias Hochscherf and Heidi Philipsen (2017; see also 2013) detail at some length, the making of this political drama emerged from a certain production context within DR Fiction. Profoundly shaped by its creative management structure and ‘one vision’ concept (Redvall 2013, 11), where a lead writer as auteur serves as the key creative force behind the project, this approach to producing drama at the public service broadcaster has come to be regarded as a best-practice framework—or what Hochscherf and Philipsen name a ‘scaffold working environment’ (2017, 65–96). This kind of recognition confirms those working at DR Fiction in their vocation and helps them to make sense of what they are doing as creative practitioners. Legitimized production strategies (i.e. the unique vision of a head writer/showrunner) and the particular ways of thinking about scripting and making television are inflected through Borgen’s forms of representation, which in turn shape and also privilege certain ideas, practices, and attitudes about the course of public service television in Denmark and beyond. Given the restricted budgets and limited series run, and learning lessons from, but also (and more importantly perhaps) creatively allying themselves with other market leaders such as HBO (Redvall 2013, 19) and Dogma 95 (Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017, 39–51), it is logical and highly significant that DR Fiction has become known for a particular approach to writing and producing TV drama. Just as international buyers and festival organizers, critics and audiences, both at home and aboard, define themselves in the search of a particular kind of television, and in their collective judgements of what unites these varied ‘original’ dramas produced under the DR rubric, from Borgen to Ride Upon the Storm, The Killing (Forbrydelsen, 2007–2012), and to Follow the Money (Bedrag, 2016–), so DR Fiction shares a similar set of values and beliefs in television as art. To the extent that defining what it does in relation to this cycle of cultural consecration, the in-house programme-producing unit is encouraged to think of itself as constituting more than a random group of television creatives. Instead, DR Fiction has become a credo, a specific way of thinking about, and approaching, the writing and production of television. This logic is embedded into creative practices—storylining in the writers’ room, institutionalized authorship, and the single authorial voice (see Redvall 2013; Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017)—and has its accredited

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

55

critics as well as what Bourdieu calls ‘scholastic consecration’ (1993, 136), to which this collection, this chapter in fact, undoubtedly contributes. At festivals and annual events such as Nordicana held in London that cultivate a taste preference for Scandinavian culture as lifestyle, and in the press (Jeffries 2013) and specialized publications (Hammerich 2015a), producers and head writers such as Adam Price endlessly talk about, and analyse, what they do as somehow distinct and unique. DR creatives work hard to establish and maintain a positive reputation for their way of making drama, and a large part of that effort involves identifying in detail the marks of authorial signature and best practice at DR (see, for example, the interviews and observations of screenwriting practice in Redvall 2013, 131–158). Producer Camilla Hammerich also wrote a book about ‘creating drama the Danish way’ as a means to grasp why Borgen became so ‘agenda-setting’ (2015a, 13), and asks rhetorically, ‘how did a television series about Danish coalition politics manage to go global?’ (2015a, 11). Such a catalogue of actions, perceptions, and articulations involved in classifying and evaluating television such as Borgen further brings to light not only how careers and reputations are made and advanced in reference to the series (see Redvall 2018), but also provides the mechanisms through which consumers of the drama acquire particular ways of valuing and appreciating the show, as well as how foreign audiences define their cosmopolitan taste in relation to it. In this way, public service culture at DR determines what it is as something of value and legitimizes its practices in what Bourdieu calls ‘a system for reproducing producers of a determinate type of cultural goods, and the consumer capable of consuming them’ (1993, 121).

Mediated Media Politics ‘Drama series are also a crucial part of the public service obligations to represent a variety of national stories in the native language on the small screen,’ writes Redvall (2013, 39). But how exactly does this translate into privileged representational forms and creative practice at the Danish public service broadcaster, ‘closely linked to social, cultural and political concerns, … [including] a commitment to diversity, pluralism and neutrality’ (Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017, 33). What follows are some thoughts about how Borgen communicates its value to ‘nurture an informed citizenship’ (Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017, 33) in and through the vernacular of a PSB culture and media practice as central to its ‘dialectic of cultural

56 

J. MCCABE

distinction’ (Bourdieu 1993, 117); and how this enterprise is positioned in and through a series of oppositional relationships that indicate what PSB is not in relation to some other institutional media form. Within the fictional world of Borgen, mass media and digital technologies are seen as profoundly framing public understanding of the world we live in, with those seeking power or desiring to shape or affect public opinion determined to take advantage of media opportunities and/or the new technologies to do so. A defence of liberal principles becomes a vindication of public service culture to protect those values. To this end, the series is attentive to how democratic debate and opinion forming is mediated through a national media infrastructure that involves print and broadcast media, as well as the more niche outlets, some transnational (CNN, for example, announcing how Denmark brings peace to Kharun [episode 19]), others sub-national, with more market-driven, corporately-owned media outlets such as Ekspres (Express) (newsprint and internet TV). The purpose and importance of public service culture emerges as a privileged subject in the series to, in the words of Bourdieu, ‘produce and impose the principles of a properly cultural legitimacy regarding both the production and reception of the artwork’ (1993, 117). Political action and democratic debate are invariably framed by a variety of news agencies, and put into opposition with each other they create a hierarchy of cultural legitimacy. Principally TV1 News is privileged in this regard, imagined as the national public service broadcaster and positioned within the diegesis as an arbiter of truth, integrity and transparency. It is the news that the protagonists watch to find out what is happening in the world, and diegetically it is often left to TV1 News to summarize the political machinations at the end of each episode. At editorial meetings held in open planned offices, in the production control room with countless monitors, in small conference rooms, and along the corridors of power, a vibrant conversation is conducted across the 30 episodes about what it is to hold power to account in a modern democracy. In the endless conversations about what to report and through the ethical contestation over how to explain, present, and comment on the politics involving the journalists Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), Hanne Holm (Benedikte Hansen), Torben Friis (Søren Malling), Ulrik Mørch (Thomas Levin), and Pia Munk (Lisbeth Wulff), what emerges is a moral dimension; this concerns the role of public service news media to hold power to account and to monitor how it is held or seized. The series sets out an ethical and political public service framework

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

57

in how it tells that story on a public channel: who are the stakeholders; who has the authority to speak; what can and cannot be said; how is dissent accommodated and consensus reached; and how does debate on public-service television look and sound? The textures of that discourse translates into a mise-en-scène of newsroom design that privileges the struggles and difficulties involved in its staging: how TV1 news hosts political debate, with the performativity of journalists, the framing of constitutional and legislative arguments, and the questioning of political actors in the TV studio or along the corridors of power. It is also about how the series structures those conversations within a media materiality, with multi-camera set ups, images rolling across countless TV monitors, use of portable cameras and sound equipment; and also in how the textual materiality of TV news media is set against the RED and HD cameras, steadicam and later lightweight high-quality cameras used to give the series its cinematic look. In so doing, this exposure of the textual and media materiality never allows us to forget the ethical role of the aesthetic to communicate the political within a mediated public sphere. More important than ever in the age of deregulation and the proliferation of privately-owned media outlets is the value of TV1 News as a public service broadcaster through its adoption of a set of values and principles in relation to how public debate is conducted. In this regard, its methods are set against what it does not do in relation to tabloid news journalism as  practised at Ekspres. In season 2, the public service remit of TV1 is pitched in direct competition and conflict with the populism of Ekspres and its charismatic editor, former Labour Party leader and ousted politician Michael Laugesen (Peter Mygind). Having lost his position after overplaying his political hand during an election debate (Episode 1), he is forced to step back from frontline politics. Yet his privileged position within the Danish establishment allows him to become the political disrupter par excellence, with his direct appeal to the ‘people’ and well-aimed op-ed grenades against the elite. His knowledge of the private lives that politicians would rather not share with constituents allows him to manipulate social agents operating in the public realm. Laugesen, for instance, seeks to bring down the ambitious Troels Höxenhaven (Lars Brygmann), and this pitches his methods against the reporting integrity of Fønsmark and Holm (who discover the truth behind the blackmailing of Höxenhaven over sexual indiscretions with men) and the political probity of Nyborg (who is trying to deal with how Höxenhaven

58 

J. MCCABE

has exploited the hijack of a Danish ship by Somalis to raise his political profile) (episode 14). In the defeat of political ambition—for it is Laugesen who delivers the fatal death blow (quite literally)—emerges a moral and ethical narrative ambiguity that articulates the central premise of the show: ‘Is it possible to stay true to one’s ideological “purity” and the political and personal morality—and maintain power at the same time?’ (Price [2007] as cited in Hammerich 2015a, 44). Answer: probably not (quite). Filtered through this moral dimension and broader ideological question about power, Borgen recognizes that explicitly formulated and articulated models of public service news production play an important and powerful ethical role in shaping public perception and transforming civic life as a consequence. At the centre of the series is an ideological conflict over the media’s role in opinion formation in shaping world views and the values of the people who consume them. Embedded into the philosophy and specifically its portrayal of the news at TV1, in this oppositional relationship with Ekspres, is a particular way of thinking about the role of public service culture: how it appeals to informed citizens, to contest, amplify, and alter the nature, direction, and understanding of how we think about society, and ethically analyse the politics and governance of a modern democracy. Borgen’s use of the epigraph at the start of each episode positions its viewers to think in that way. If, as Bourdieu writes, ‘works of art exist as symbolic objects only if they are known and recognised’ (1993, 37), then these quotes about power, politics, and governance from Niccolò Machiavelli and Bertrand Russell, William Shakespeare (Henry V and Hamlet) and Winston Churchill announce a symbolic value. It institutes an idea of Borgen as received by viewers ‘capable of knowing and recognizing’ (Bourdieu 1993, 37) what that is and what it means. National specificity in so many ways gives way to a common set of ideologies, value systems, and societal practices that transcend the limits of borders and speak instead to a transnational collective sentiment of belonging, to which public service culture believes it is making a significant contribution. Entwined with issues of cultural value, ideologies of belonging, and the pluralization of identities are questions of ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson [1983] 1991). At the centre of the drama are the Moderates, and in season 3, Nye Demokrater (New Democrats), led by Nyborg. The way in which this centrist party navigates the demands of social welfare (national) and liberal market values (global) in the enclosed and infinite world of this public service-produced drama reveals DR’s mediating role

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

59

in such a debate. The series portrays the ideological and ethical dilemmas of a modern democratic nation state, with its distinctive claims to offer border security, the rule of law, impartial authority, and limited power, and where debates over immigration and social welfare rage. Stories featuring Svend Åge Saltum (Ole Thestrup), leader of the minority Frihedspartiet (Freedom Party), give expression to a beleaguered traditionalism under pressure from advanced liberal capitalism, global in its reach, and challenging ‘established cultural fault-lines, notably national ones’ (Sassatelli 2009: 29). While Saltum’s dialectic is distinct, and to non-Danish ears decidedly strange, his popularist  rhetoric on immigration and crime, agricultural policy and national borders is familiar enough  to those living outside beyond the country: Denmark’s stories of migration and a loss of geopolitical centrality are indeed common to other liberal social democracies in the West. As with the future of PSB culture dealing with the encroachment of liberal capitalism and consumer-oriented thinking, this television project ‘scales up’, in the words of Nancy Fraser et al. (2014, 8–42), and appeals precisely because it articulates the values of a transnational liberal imagination. Public service television more generally is the least endowed with economic capital; but in its cultural position-taking as a storyteller in the service of the public it endeavours to impose modes of thought and expression that speak fiercely of its social and cultural relevance today.

Conclusion: Debating Democracy in (Trans)National Public Spaces of Television Democracy is dialogue. New Democrats are going to fight to re-open that dialogue. (Birgitte Nyborg, episode 22).

The emergence of a truly globalized media network of trade and fiction exchange has posed particular challenges for national, particularly smaller, public service broadcasters such as DR. Learning lessons from these patterns of collaboration and cultural encounters to build a reputation for contemporary public service television culture speaks in so many ways to what Arjun Appadurai (1996) has said about mediated cultural exchanges as a significant way of shifting the way we think and practise culture. Looking at how the dialectic of cultural distinction and ‘cycle of consecration’ has contributed to a ‘production of belief’ in Borgen, institutionally (its circulation and consumption), in production (a product of DR), and as a text (its themes,

60 

J. MCCABE

narrative forms, and style), this c­ hapter has sought to deepen the politics of this collection. It calls for a focus on smaller centres of media production, regional ones with global ambitions, as discrete case studies, in order to intervene in ideas of decentring and reframing, of reconceptualizing and reimagining, of dissent and disorientation, in relation to understanding the role of national broadcasting cultures within networks of transnational flows.

References Anderson, Benedict. (1983) 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. ARTE. n.d. Page Title. December 9, 2018. https://www.arte.tv/en/ Blackburn, Michael. 2013, February 3. Borgen and the Excitement of Danish Modern Television. Fortnightly Review. http://fortnightlyreview.co. uk/2013/02/borgen/ Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Breaking Borders: The International Success of Danish Television Drama. In European Cinema and Television: Cultural Policy and Everyday Life, ed. Ib Bondeljerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson, 214–238. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Cambridge: Polity Press. ———. (1984) 2010. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. R. Nice. Oxford: Routledge Classics. Chalaby, Jean K. 2016. The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution. Cambridge: Polity Press. de Valck, Marijke. 2016. Fostering Art, Adding Value, Cultivating Taste. In Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, ed. Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, 100–116. London: Routledge. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2014. Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, 82–107. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Esser, Andrea. 2017. Form, Platform and the Formation of Transnational Audiences: A Case Study of How Danish TV Drama Series Captured Television Viewers in the United Kingdom. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 411–429. FIPA. n.d. le festival de la création audiovisuelle internationale. December 9, 2018. http://www.fipa.tv/en/regulation/ Fraser, Nancy et  al. 2014. Transnationalising the Public Sphere. Ed. Kate Nash. London: Polity.

3  WHY THE WORLD FELL FOR BORGEN: LEGITIMIZING… 

61

Habermas, Jürgen. (1962) 2015. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press. Halliday, Josh. 2013. Politics for Idealists: Borgen Returns for the Last Time. The Guardian, November 16. Hammerich, Camilla. 2015a. The Borgen Experience: Creating TV Drama the Danish Way. Shenley: Arrow Films. ———. 2015b. Camilla Hammerich Discusses Her Borgen Experience. Nordic Noir. October 29. http://nordicnoir.tv/news/camilla-hammerich-discussesher-borgen-experience/ Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Havens, Timothy. 2006. Global Television Markets. London: BFI Publishing. Hill, Annette. 2016. Sense of Place: Producers and Audiences in International Drama Format The Bridge. In New Patterns in Global Television Formats, ed. Karina Aveyard, Pia Majbritt Jensen, and Albert Moran, 281–294. Exeter: Intellect. Hochscherf, Tobias, and Heidi Philipsen. 2013. Speaking for and to the Nation? Borgen and the Cultural Viability of Public Service Broadcasting in Denmark and Germany. Journal of Popular Television 1 (2): 243–250. ———. 2017. Beyond The Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television Drama. London: I.B. Tauris. Jeffries, Stuart. 2013. Borgen Creator Adam Price on What’s Next for Birgitte Nyborg in the Show’s Third and Final Series. The Guardian, November 14. https:// www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/nov/14/borgen-creatoradam-price-birgitte-nyborg-third-series Jensen, Pia Majbritt. 2016. Global Impact of Danish Drama Series: A Peripheral, Non-Commercial, Creative Counter-Flow. Kosmorama No. 263. https:// www.kosmorama.org/en/kosmorama/artikler/global-impact-danish-dramaseries-peripheral-non-commercial-creative-counter Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 91–108. Jones, Ellen E. 2013. Borgen: Birgitte Is No Longer Prime Minister But the Show Has Not Lost Its Power. The Independent, November18. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/tv-review-borgen-birgitte-isno-longer-prime-minister-but-the-show-has-not-lost-its-power-8945454.html Kuipers, Giselinde. 2012. The Cosmopolitan Tribe of Television Buyers: Professional Ethos, Personal Taste and Cosmopolitan Capital in Transnational Cultural Mediation. European Journal of Cultural Studies 15 (5): 581–603. Nichols, Bill. 1994. Discovering form, Inferring Meaning: New Cinemas and the Film Festival Circuit. Film Quarterly 47 (3): 16–30.

62 

J. MCCABE

Olesen, Annette K. 2012. “Speaking at the Borgen” Briefing at the Mercer Room, London, February 18. Paskin, Willa. 2013. Stop What You’re Doing and Go Watch Borgen. Salon, May 24. https://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/stop_what_youre_doing_ and_go_watch_borgen/ Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From The Kingdom to The Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2018. International Co-production of Nordic Television Drama: The Case of Ride Upon the Storm. In European Film and Television Co-Production, ed. Julia Hammett-Jamart, Petar Mitric, and Eva Novrup Redvall, 137–152. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Romano, Andrew. 2012. Borgen: The Best TV Show You’ve Never Seen. Newsweek, July 30. https://www.newsweek.com/borgen-best-tv-showyouve-never-seen-65623 Sassatelli, Monica. 2009. Becoming European: Cultural Identity and Cultural Policies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stanley, Alessandra. 2012. She Seems to Have It All, a Whole Nation in Fact. The New York Times, October 11. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/arts/ television/borgen-a-danish-political-drama-series-on-link-tv.html Weissmann, Elke. 2012. Transnational Television Drama: Special Relations and Mutual Influence Between the US and UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 4

The Linguistic Landscapes of Transnational Crime Drama: Nordic Noir’s Celtic Contact Zone Ruth McElroy

This chapter examines the cultural mobilities of Nordic Noir from the perspective of contemporary Welsh-language and bilingual television drama production. It advances understanding of how Nordic Noir operates in contemporary transnational global television cultures and reveals some of the tensions entailed in such mobilities. A multidisciplinary approach is developed, adapting insights from linguistics, postcolonial studies, and minority-language media studies to the task of assessing Nordic Noir. This is not a story of linear impact, in which Nordic Noir arrived on Wales’s shores and heroically transformed the existing local production sector. Rather, it is a more subtle narrative exploration of the Nordic/Celtic ‘contact zone’ that examines the capacity of Nordic Noir to enable textual mobilities and to engender productive re-evaluations of non-Anglocentric television drama.

R. McElroy (*) University of South Wales, Wales, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_4

63

64 

R. MCELROY

The concept of the contact zone emerges from Mary Louise Pratt’s (1992) work on travel writing as a way of theorising transcultural encounters within a colonial context. In this chapter, I invoke the contact zone as a suggestive route into understanding how transcultural encounters in global television production markets allow for the revision of existing forms of cultural (self-)representation. I do not regard Nordic Noir as a coherent form that producers across Europe emulate. Instead, I understand it discursively as a contact zone that allows for existing representations (both individual dramas but also the paratextualities surrounding the nascent genre of Celtic Noir) to be revised and re-presented for specific cultural and economic purposes. As texts travel, so does the contact between their discursive positionings. This contact occasions new ways of articulating and conceiving of transcultural contact between distinct locales and production ecologies. One of the overarching global lessons learned from the case study of Celtic Noir, I suggest, is that we need to understand global television production as a contact zone—one that is riven by power for sure, but one that is not reducible either to linguistic or economic domination or to cultural homogeneity. Contemporary TV drama’s linguistic landscapes are an under-examined but fruitful area of investigation. While several scholars have sought to locate Nordic Noir’s generic attributes (Hansen and Waade 2017), such as the lighting, melancholic mood, characterful landscapes (Roberts 2016), and topography of its ‘enigmatic and barren landscapes’ (Creeber 2015, 22), scant attention has been paid to the linguistic landscape of these series. Analyses of how television drama represents localities tend to emphasise the visual over the aural texture of a sense of place on screen. However, for series where a purchase on realism matters (as is the case in most crime dramas and thrillers), the capacity to render authentic voices matters to audiences. In our Screening the Nation (Blandford et al. 2010) report commissioned for BBC Trust, my colleagues and I found that Welsh audiences were frequently irritated both by the misplacement of accents in geographies and by perceptions of Welsh accents being negatively reviewed in the United Kingdom (UK) press. In this chapter, however, my interest is in the broader linguistic landscapes of Nordic Noir. Linguistic landscape research (Landry and Bourhis 1997) attends to the visibility of regional and minority languages in public signage (Gorter et al. 2012). However, my focus extends beyond classic forms of signage such as road signs to consider broader ways in which a linguistic landscape is made both audible and visible on screen. Like

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

65

Coupland (2012), I am interested in how language display may ‘attract symbolic capital in particular semiotic and cultural economies that are increasingly globalized’ with particular ‘salience in projecting local values in global markets’ (2012, 2). Nordic Noir’s linguistic landscapes are multilayered, consisting not only of speech but also of the graphic textual layering of subtitles across the striking physical landscapes of both cityscapes and the natural world. The care taken aesthetically with fonts, the precision of subtitling as part of the overall design; all makes facility with language itself one of the quality markers of the series. My argument is that it is Nordic Noir’s combination of linguistic landscapes, together with its emergence from and exchange between public service broadcasters (PSBs), that marks its capacity to engender such a fruitful contact zone for producers in Wales. Nordic Noir’s Celtic contact zone is institutionally shaped (by PSBs’ approach to commissioning), but it is also culturally specific in its linguistic sedimentation or layering of multiple languages for public consumption. With Hansen and Waade (2017), I approach Nordic Noir as a discursive category that resonates with a range of aesthetic, commercial, and cultural considerations. Moreover, it is its intertextual and intercultural nature that allows for considerable elasticity in how the term is deployed. Rather than be frustrated by this lack of conceptual rigour, my approach is to ask what Nordic Noir allows, and what it reveals about how the values of transnational TV drama are being cultivated and contested by broadcasters, distributors, and producers.

Public Service Broadcasting: National Systems in a Global Marketplace While television drama production and distribution are part of a global system, they retain meaningful national characteristics. In the UK, one the most fundamental of these characteristics is the role played by PSBs (namely BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and S4C) in commissioning television drama. Original domestic drama remains a hallmark of quality public service broadcasting, reflecting both the form’s prestige and its capacity for telling stories that reflect wider social concerns. Nordic Noir as a televisual form is indelibly tied to public service broadcasting not only because it has been funded, commissioned, and transmitted by PSBs but also because the innovations required to achieve success are integral to

66 

R. MCELROY

how PSBs are evolving in the current competitive, converged, and deregulated marketplace. Without PSBs, few UK drama series would be made. Culturally and economically, they play a vital role in making some of the UK’s most popular continuous series as well as the high-profile, big budget, returning productions that win audience approval domestically and internationally—from Doctor Who (orig. 1968–1989; 2005–) to Downton Abbey (2010–2015). PSBs remain the main commissioners of drama from the UK’s independent production sector. While new entrants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are fast developing regional production strategies in the UK, they do so free from almost all the regulatory requirements and financial constraints faced by PSBs. These include requirements to create narratives that represent the UK’s diverse population. For example, Sex Education (Eleven Films, 2019–), a Netflix youth drama shot in south east Wales, uses Welsh places and local labour. This includes using my own university’s former campus in Caerleon as the main location and offering paid placements to students on set. On screen, however, the drama makes no mention of Wales, passing instead as a generic high school. Culturally, Wales is absent from the series, providing a mere backdrop to the Netflix global script. Strangely, few discussions of the local in the context of Nordic Noir attend to the difference that regulation makes, focusing instead on textual aspects of localities on screen, the role of local places in the narrative or generic tone of a series, or the allure of TV production to local municipalities. However, national regulatory regimes are important actors in the contemporary media landscape. They provide levers to governments to hold both national broadcasters and global media firms to account. Netflix may choose to produce local content where its commercial logic dictates, but it is not required to serve the public, represent the diversity of the UK population, its regions and nations, or stimulate the UK’s creative economy. In contrast, the BBC is required to do all these things. In his 2017 Roscoe Lecture, Tony Hall (Director General, BBC) drew attention to this stark distinction, and sought to galvanise support for the BBC based on its distinctly national public role: Over the next ten years we expect a very substantial gap to open up between the amount that is spent on UK content now and the amount that will be spent in the future. The risk that creates is very real. It could mean the

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

67

gradual loss of content – of stories – that respond to our lives and reflect the country we live in.

This is an especially political statement from Hall, who was responding implicitly both to cuts to PSB funding and to the UK Brexit vote. Hall placed the BBC squarely at the heart of the British nation at a time when the very narrative of its place in the world was under intense public debate. Moreover, his final assertion speaks to the enduring salience of place to the mission of public service broadcasting. UK public service broadcasting is both a regional and national phenomenon. From 1954 onwards, Independent Television franchises were launched across the UK including UTV in Northern Ireland (1958), STV in Scotland (1956), TWW in Wales and the West (1956), and the relatively short-lived Teledu Cymru for North and West Wales in 1961, on which some Welsh language content was broadcast. In 1981, S4C was established as a PSB to serve Welsh-speaking viewers following many years of campaigning by language activists. They understood the centrality of media consumption to the future of the Welsh language as a living entity of everyday communication; as Gruffydd Jones argues, ‘television enables a language community to speak to itself’ (2007, 190). Meanwhile, in the case of the BBC, almost all charter renewals have entailed debates about regionalism (Harvey and Robins 1994) focusing on both the location of BBC production and on-screen representation. Recently, Ofcom has evaluated the BBC’s representation and portrayal of UK’s diverse population (2018a) and has also reviewed its guidance on how all PSBs should meet their obligations to ensure that a percentage of the programmes they commission are made in the UK’s nations and regions (2018b). There is an irony in Hall’s statement, for it was the BBC—specifically BBC Four—that provided Nordic Noir’s entry route to the UK (alongside other European imports). The driver for BBC Four’s acquisition of international drama was its limited budget. The channel could not afford to commission original drama of its own. As Mazdon (2012) and McCabe (2017) argue, from this limitation emerged a curatorial approach that used subtitled foreign-language crime drama to cultivate a distinctive niche service. It brought new life to the notion of the BBC as an alternative, intellectually enriching public service; what McCabe describes as reversing ‘dominant (American) media flows’ and speaking ‘instead to a new regional media cartography’ (2017, 156).

68 

R. MCELROY

When Hall decried the threat to ‘home-grown content’, he invoked the spectre of American global subscription video on demand (SVOD) corporations such as Netflix, not fellow PSBs in Europe. This is because it is the SVODs’ business model that is perceived as a threat to the PSBs. Both the nature of the provision (public service versus commercial subscription on demand) and also the originating geography of textual imports (Europe rather than America) are at stake here. Implicitly, the mobility of European drama has worked for the BBC as an example of its capacity to deliver foreign-language niche content with a strong sense of place to discerning, largely older, viewers. In contrast, the mobility of SVOD texts emerges as an erosion of indigenous cultural stories that takes place alongside increasingly painful cuts to PSB funding in the UK. While TV drama production is a global business, not all textual mobilities are as accommodating to indigenous stories as Nordic Noir.

S4C and the Welsh Language To understand why Nordic Noir became a productive textual contact zone for Welsh-language drama, we must first understand the ecology in which Welsh-language drama is produced and consumed. S4C is a commissioner broadcaster established in UK law in 1981 (Price 2016). It was established just before Channel 4 across the UK. From 1982 to 2010, S4C carried significant English-language content from Channel 4 (the only way most analogue-era audiences in Wales could access Channel 4) but it reserved prime time for Welsh-medium programming across genres. However, with digital switchover in 2010, Channel 4 became available across most of Wales, and S4C became an exclusively Welsh-medium channel. The 2011 UK census records that 19% of the population of Wales speak Welsh. However, this statistic belies complex linguistic realities, including substantial regional variations. In Ceredigion (where Hinterland/Y Gwyll is set), for example, 47.3% speak Welsh, whereas in Neath Port Talbot (home to Bang) the figure is just 15.3% (see Statistics Wales). Additionally, there are Welsh-speaking communities across the UK, especially in London. S4C’s Annual Report notes that ‘S4C plays a key role in reflecting Welsh culture and society and promoting the Welsh language’ (2018, 5). Its Language Guidelines (2015) note that ‘S4C’s primary objective is to provide content for broadcasting on multiple platforms of a high standard through the medium of Welsh.’ S4C’s linguistic landscapes are far from immutable. The use of the English language on S4C is a complex

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

69

field that reveals tensions inherent to this heterogeneous minority-­ language community. The guidelines reflect the subjective nature of linguistic decision-making. On the one hand, they note how occasionally ‘a producer will be involved in a situation where it may appear attractive and authentic, for editorial reasons, to include material in the English language’. However, they also argue that ‘any use of the English language in a Welsh programme may undermine its validity as a Welsh programme that contributes to a Welsh language television service’. PSBs serving minority-­ language audiences frequently negotiate such competing demands of verisimilitude and language preservation, while also being a vital source of linguistic normalisation (Moriarty 2009). S4C primarily commissions its content from the Welsh independent sector, which is concentrated in the capital, Cardiff, and the Welsh-­ speaking heartlands of North and West Wales, as well as from ITV Wales. By statute, S4C receives a minimum of ten hours’ content per week from BBC Cymru Wales. This includes news programming and the soap opera Pobol y Cwm, produced at the BBC’s Roath Lock drama studios in Cardiff. In 2010, the UK Coalition Government cut S4C’s funding from £100 million in 2010 to £83 million by 2014 as part of its austerity package. From 2013, responsibility for the bulk of S4C’s budget was transferred from the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to BBC Cymru Wales. The BBC licence fee is now the main source of S4C’s income. This represents a major structural change both to S4C’s funding arrangements but also to the broadcaster’s independence. Because broadcasting remains a power reserved to Westminster, the Welsh Government had no formal role in the decision-making process. Minority-language media studies (Cormack and Hourigan 2007) place such imbalances of power centre stage. However, despite early misgivings, the partnership between S4C and BBC Cymru Wales affords new opportunities. For example, in 2014, S4C made much of its content available on the BBC’s iPlayer, a catch-up service with a much larger footprint than its own Clic service. S4C’s 2016 Annual Report noted an increase in online viewing sessions from 5.7 million in 2014–2015 to 8.4 million in 2015–2016, the first full year when S4C content was available on iPlayer, with a marked increase in viewings beyond Wales. Here the issue of linguistic and national borders becomes apparent. Many minority-language communities across the world either do not fit neatly within state borders (e.g. the Sami people inhabit ancestral lands across the modern states of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and

70 

R. MCELROY

Russia) and/or they exist within states that grant them limited governmental autonomy (e.g. indigenous communities such as Maori in New Zealand). Historically, Welsh-medium broadcasting has been confined territorially to Wales. However, thousands of Welsh speakers live outside Wales in other parts of the UK. Digital catch-up platforms now offer routes to content across these internal borders. A further consequence of funding cuts has been the development of co-production relationships between BBC and S4C in making original drama set in Wales. Moreover, the drive to seek funding from beyond S4C’s own budget has been accompanied by increasingly productive relationships between Welsh independent production companies and international distributors such as All3Media. Often regarded as the dominant ‘language of advantage’ (Jensen and Waade 2013), English dwarfs Welsh in cultural prominence, global reach, and economic influence. However, the past decade has seen a small but significant wave of S4C drama commissions gain critical acclaim, popular success, and international export, all of which have challenged the long-standing presumption that Welsh fiction will not travel. It is to these dramas that this chapter now turns.

Celtic Noir: Linguistic Landscapes in the Televisual Contact Zone S4C has commissioned several crime dramas and female-lead thrillers that, to different degrees, have been termed Celtic Noir. These series have been made either ‘back to back’ in English and Welsh as in the case of Craith/ Hidden (Severn Screen, 2018) or else, as in the case of Bang (Joio for S4C, 2017), have been shot as consciously bilingual dramas that capture the code-switching (alternating between languages) that often characterises bilingual speech patterns. Shooting ‘back-to-back’ entails shooting first in Welsh and then immediately again in English, using actors (but not necessarily all crew) who speak both languages. These are best conceived of not as mirror-image texts but as distinct textual entities that inhabit linguistic landscapes where both languages have left their mark and may be heard or observed. For one thing, none of these series’ titles are direct translations of the Welsh into English (Craith, for example, literally translates as ‘scar’, not ‘hidden’). Furthermore, the nature of each actor’s own linguistic fluency may impact the degree to which they feel most comfortable in the Welsh or English language version. Richard Harrington, who

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

71

plays Y Gwyll/Hinterland’s protagonist DCI Mathias, has said that while he loves the Welsh language, ‘I feel more comfortable filming it in English […] Welsh is not my first language’ (Harrington as cited in Boult 2015). Meanwhile Mali Harries, who plays DI Mared Rhys, described how ‘it was like learning two separate projects even though it was the same scene, the same intention, the same action in a line, the same sub-section of a scene’ (BBC 2014). The two languages also vary in spoken length, with English normally yielding the longer version. Hinterland/Y Gwyll’s producer/ director, Ed Talfan, notes that while ‘I think the Welsh version and the English version are very similar in terms of the edits […] you do see different nuances, different emphases’ (Talfan as cited in Boult 2015). Speaking subsequently as Executive Producer of Craith/Hidden, Talfan explains that ‘certain characters in the story world will speak Welsh and some won’t. So, you might have an episode that balances 60/40 English but then you might have one episode that is considerably more Welsh, just because that’s where the story is at. It’s true bilingualism, rather than a country where some people speak English and some people speak Welsh’ (Talfan as cited in Pickard 2017). Bilingualism on screen enhances textual authenticity and enhances these series’ claim to verisimilitude. Rather than being a restrictive template, Talfan presents shooting back to back as capturing the shifting, dynamic nature of bilingual landscapes. It is not a new phenomenon. S4C employed this production method in the 1990s with crime series such as Yr Heliwr/Mind to Kill (1994–2002), starring Philip Madoc, which aired first on S4C and subsequently across the UK on Channel 5. However, this approach had not been used for many years when Fiction Factory made Y Gwyll/Hinterland for S4C in 2013. Subsequently, back-to-back filming has been used for Craith/ Hidden (Severn Screen, 2017  in Welsh, 2018  in English) and Un Bore Mercher/Keeping Faith (Vox Pictures, 2017 in Welsh, 2018 in English), both of which were transmitted first on S4C and subsequently on BBC One Wales. Both Hinterland and Hidden were also transmitted across the UK on BBC Four. Keeping Faith was not initially selected for network and only appeared across the UK via BBC iPlayer. However, having gained a record-breaking 9 million downloads, it was subsequently screened in primetime on BBC One, the network’s most popular mainstream channel. At the time of writing, three of the four series remain in production (Y Gwyll/ Hinterland’s status is unclear) providing a significantly higher level of indigenous Welsh drama production than has been seen for many years.

72 

R. MCELROY

This is a considerable achievement considering the funding cuts that S4C and BBC Cymru Wales endured at the turn of the decade. The success cannot be laid solely at the door of Nordic Noir. However, the value attached to the local in television drama production provides a clue as to why Scandinavian content has been marshalled so effectively by S4C and Welsh-language producers. As S4C Creative Content Director, Amanda Rees, explains: The big buzz word at the moment in terms of scripted content certainly is ‘local that’s universal’ which means that anything that has a USP [Unique Selling Point] that feels like it is rooted in the culture and the landscape of a country really travels […]. I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to export Welsh content. Of the 5 dramas that have recently broadcast in Wales on S4C all 5 are selling internationally and I think that that’s probably a first. And not just selling internationally but selling format-wise into markets we never thought we could export to […] Foreign-language content has never been more popular. Scandi-Noir has made it possible for us to break into all kinds of markets. […]. Ever since Hinterland/Y Gwyll, Welsh Noir has become the buzzword (Rees 2018).

It is the link between culture, landscape, and language that Nordic (or Scandi) Noir operationalises in Rees’ discourse. Nordic Noir offers a distinctive purchase on the local conceived of both culturally and geographically, and it has carved out a valuable space for the kind of linguistic landscapes in which these dramas are set. Moreover, Nordic Noir’s value rests with its capacity to act as persuasive capital: it can enhance and exemplify the appeal of non-English language content in international markets. No direct attempt is made to emulate Scandinavian broadcasters in their strategic approach to production or to implement a generic template. Rather, Rees articulates the belief that Nordic Noir’s travels have facilitated the journey of Welsh-language content into markets previously considered closed. Ironically, this includes the closest and linguistically one of the most closed markets of all—the BBC network. Integral to the contact zone of Nordic and Celtic Noir is this complex, power-laden relationship of Welsh production to the BBC network. While Wales is the centre of excellence for BBC drama production, until recently it had not yielded many representations of Wales on screen (McElroy and Noonan 2016). Rather, the establishment of BBC’s Roath Lock studios provided a facility for network dramas to be made in Wales but not

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

73

narratively set in Wales. As New York Times reviewer, Mike Hale (2014) astutely notes: For the last decade, Wales has served silently as the home base and filming location for some of the most acclaimed TV shows set in England, including “Doctor Who,” “Life on Mars” and “Sherlock.” Here, finally, was a major show made by the Welsh about the Welsh.

Hinterland/Y Gwyll was sold to ARD (Germany), KRO (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), YLE (Finland), VRT (Belgium), RTV (Slovenia), Dizale (France), DR (Denmark), and Netflix. According to the series’ creator and executive producer, Ed Thomas, its international success is not due to a policy shift by senior BBC staff in London but ‘to the confidence of the Scandis’. If the BBC can take any credit, Thomas suggests, it lies with the popularity of foreign-language drama with BBC Four’s middle-class demographic, which helps explain the network’s belated interest in screening Welsh drama: ‘the very fact that those As and Bs are looking at Welsh in the same way they look at Danish is a plus, and we owe it to them rather than to any politician from here’. In their analysis of the TV drama The Team (2015), Jacobsen and Jensen argue that while ‘languages are always located and specific to contexts and places’ they may ‘also be paradoxically seen as a global form’ (2016, 136). The presence of linguistic diversity on UK screens through the transmission of subtitled Nordic Noir provides Welsh producers with a way to situate language as both local and potentially global; as both rooted to a specific landscape and community, and simultaneously as a marker of contemporary televisual trends and European culture. The Nordic/Celtic contact zone exemplifies how ‘global forms have an uncanny ability to connect disparate phenomena in novel constellations’ (Jacobsen and Jensen 2016, 136). Moreover, Hinterland’s success contrasts with Thomas’ earlier experience making Mind to a Kill, when ‘nobody would be interested at all in seeing Welsh anywhere. The difference between then and now is that they are, but only because of other countries like the Danes and the issue of subtitling’ (Thomas 2014). Because UK television does not dub, foreign-language content is both heard and seen by British audiences. Thomas’s reference to subtitling draws attention to the physical presence—aurally and graphically—of Danish and Swedish languages on UK screens. Nordic Noir is audible imported content that enters the UK’s own linguistic landscapes in which the dominance of the English language is a defining ideological

74 

R. MCELROY

characteristic. In doing so, it reveals to audiences, commissioners, and distributors the neglected linguistic layers of the UK. In his reading of Nordic Noir, Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (2016) claims it functions ‘as a medium for intercultural communication’. He notes how the explosion of all things Nordic in the UK presents reflexive consumers with a form of exotic but ‘acceptable difference’. Read from the perspective of Celtic Noir, this narrative is highly suggestive, but it underplays the internal difference and local exoticism of the UK’s ‘other’ nations and minority languages. Nordic Noir’s own subtitled linguistic landscapes appear to have attuned stakeholders to the value of linguistic diversity in creating a sense of place that can be traded internationally. However, interest in the Welsh language cannot be taken for granted in the Anglocentric marketplace of UK (and global) television production. When, in 2014, BBC Four decided to transmit a largely English-language version of Hinterland rather than the bilingual version that had previously been transmitted on BBC Cymru Wales, the ideological nature of Celtic Noir’s linguistic landscapes was placed firmly on public display. For many of the series’ Welsh fans, this erasure of the language echoed the BBC’s long-standing Anglocentrism and its attachment to a British national narrative spoken exclusively through the medium of English. The Nordic/Celtic Noir contact zone is fraught with such ironies and contradictory ideological positions that may be as much about the marketized processes of television production and distribution as they are the result of deliberate strategy. Hence, it took even Hinterland/Y Gwyll’s producers and commissioners by surprise: On this journey, since we have started, they have kind of realised that there’s a clamour and interest and genuine curiosity in the Welsh language. So, it’s gone from zero interest to maybe 12–15%. Which means when the Danes came last week, they’d never seen it before, they bought it but they had not seen it. Just saw the pitch. Luckily, they were on the panel afterwards and really loved it, but they were intrigued. We showed them four minutes in Welsh and then we showed them the screening, and half the questions everywhere, in every Q&A, has been about the Welsh and English issue, which we didn’t expect. Nor did S4C expect, they certainly didn’t expect such curiosity and warmth from All3Media (Thomas 2014).

Beautifully shot by award-winning cinematographers Hubert Taczanowski and Richard Stoddard, Hinterland/Y Gwyll is set in the

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

75

western coastal town of Aberystwyth. It revolves around DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington) who returns to Wales from a career in metropolitan London. A striking feature of the series, in all its iterations, is the care taken visually and aurally to create a compelling sense of place (see, for example, Weissmann 2018). The cinematic pace of filming enhances the series’ sense of concealed crimes being slowly revealed in a close-knit community. Shots are slow and lingering, while lighting allows for shadow and texture, capturing both the seascape and isolated rural inland mountains and hamlets around the town. As reviewer Ceri Radford (2014), notes: Whether it was windblown blocks of bright primary colours – green cliffs, blue sea – or the damp, drizzle-soaked greys and ochres of tangled trees, slippery moss and Victorian stone, there was a sense of capriciousness and subtle menace woven right through the production.

The series exploits Mathias’s outsider status in Aberystwyth, as do many cop shows that place their detective at a slant to the communities they police. However, the different linguistic versions of the series adopt distinct creative routes to this end. In both the Welsh-language and English-­ language versions Mathias’s ‘outsiderliness’ is captured visually when he is shot running solo along the dramatic Ceredigion cliffs to his shambolic caravan on the edge, a visual leitmotif that Hinterland shares with ITV’s Broadchurch, Britain’s island coastline providing both series with a rich natural resource for cinematographers. However, Mathias is also positioned as an outsider to this community through language use. This creative route is the unique property of the bilingual version of Hinterland, which was transmitted on BBC Cymru Wales (as opposed to either the Welsh-language version Y Gwyll, which was transmitted on S4C, or the English-language version, transmitted on BBC 4 across the UK). In this version, code-switching is deployed creatively to signify the stronger historical and personal bonds that Mathias’s sidekick, DI Mared Rhys, enjoys both with her fellow police officers but also with the witnesses and suspects whom they investigate. Mathias does not speak Welsh in this version. However, Mared frequently turns from speaking in English with Mathias to speak in Welsh with local people. This is a form of situational code-switching by Mared (Jacobsen and Jensen 2016), but in the drama’s creative world it also operates metaphorically to emphasise Mathias’ alienation. Such code-switching enriches the representation of a bilingual environment, exemplifying the habitual move

76 

R. MCELROY

made by indigenous Welsh speakers to change to English when working with non-Welsh speakers such as Mathias. Creatively, it normalises bilingualism as a characteristic of the place and its people while it also functions dramatically to demonstrate the limits of Mathias’s knowledge and the necessity for collaboration between the two detectives, a hallmark of the investigative genre. Here, then, we can see how the popular, transnational genre of crime is developed within a specific set of cultural, linguistic, and commissioning contexts to allow for creative distinction and a richer sense of place. However, the three different versions of Y Gwyll/Hinterland themselves testify to the mutability of place and its subtly different resonance for each audience and channel. Place is not one thing in the series nor are its meanings fixed. In making Y Gwyll, for example, Ed Talfan (2015) recounts how the priority was to create a credible linguistic universe so that S4C and the Welsh-speaking audience would be convinced by the series’ story world: We were keen to […] go to a place that had real identity and also to go to a place where, from S4C’s point of view, a Welsh-language cop show would ring true. It would’ve been a bit of a stretch in Cardiff or Swansea, not so much in Aberystwyth (Talfan 2015).

Language is one of the most powerful ways to create a sense of place. On-screen linguistic landscapes may enable a broadcaster to represent neglected regions. However, to retain fictional credibility they must retain a purchase on the layers of actual language use in that landscape. The creation of a credible story world requires a production to consider whether to try and capture the linguistic realities of the place where the narrative is set. Frequently, characteristics of everyday speech are filtered out to create a more cohesive whole that fits with existing dramatic conventions. One of these conventions has been the relatively monologic nature of television drama, in which all characters consistently speak the same language unless there is an overt narrative situation (e.g. a trip abroad) that mandates they do otherwise. While code-switching is a feature of bilingual speech communities, few TV dramas represent this reality on screen. Yet as Catrin Lewis Defis, producer of Bang, explains, ‘I move between speaking Welsh to Welsh-speaking friends and English to English-speaking friends almost within the same paragraph’ (as cited in Walford 2017). Set in Port Talbot, a predominantly English-speaking industrial town in South

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

77

Wales, Bang consciously creates a bilingual story world that challenges the monolingualism of British TV drama. Actor Jacob Ifan, the series’ male lead, explains how Roger Williams’s script included frequent code-­ switching in a manner that reflects how people ‘exist and speak in Wales’ (as cited in Walford 2017). Moreover, the claim to aural authenticity speaks to drama’s cultural value. As Ifan puts it, ‘In drama, I always feel that the duty of the production is to reflect the societies that we live in’ (Ifan as cited in Walford 2017). Not only does this enhance the series’ sense of place, but it also offers audiences greater space for their own engagement: ‘I think we need to trust audiences because we’re plenty used to doing that with TV shows now: programmes such as The Bridge or Narcos where people are far more open to subtitles and the like’ (Ifan as cited in Walford 2017). When drama creates a bilingual sense of place, it frequently challenges dominant social politics. Writing of US series such as Jane the Virgin (The CWO), Fresh off the Boat (ABC), and Speechless (ABC), for example, Alexis Gunderson (2018) points to how these broadcast networks shows allow mainstream American audiences to engage with ‘the eminently relatable lives of bilingual families whose specific experiences with immigration … are central to many of the biggest political fights we are facing’.

Conclusion As McCabe (2017) notes, contemporary mobilities are at the heart of Nordic Noir’s narratives. These series have made a genuine (albeit modest) impact on the prevailing Anglocentric logic of UK television, demonstrating that there is an appetite for non-English-language content. BBC Four’s curatorial approach means acquisition agents, commissioners, distributors, and audiences have been exposed to transnational fictions in which linguistic dexterity plays an enriching, dramatic part. The everyday reality of switching between Swedish and Danish in The Bridge, for example, has normalised code-switching as a positive source of compelling dialogue and tension between protagonists who inhabit multiple linguistic and cultural worlds. This chapter has explored the contradictory nature of the Nordic/Celtic Noir contact zone as an arena in which both cultural and industrial drivers of television drama production are put to work by different stakeholders. Nordic Noir offers a complex purchase on the value of the local in global production and distribution markets. This includes the specific cultural

78 

R. MCELROY

value of the linguistic landscapes of non-Anglocentric drama, which not only normalise bilingualism but also provide a dramatically productive feature of social life on screen. By refusing a narrowly formal conception of Nordic Noir, this chapter has revealed just how much it allows Welsh commissioners and producers at a moment of rapid industrial change. A global lesson for small nations is that the era of televisual abundance offers genuine opportunities for exporting content to markets where linguistic difference can be a positive element in a series’ dramatic appeal. In doing so, however, sight must not be lost of domestic audiences’ support for a system of public service broadcasting that champions the cultural and economic value of indigenous stories. In the contact zone of transnational television, support for public investment in innovative content with cross-­ cultural appeal will become more, not less, significant.

References BBC Cymru Wales. 2014. An Interview with Mali Harries. BBC. https://www. bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nrx9x. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Blandford, Steve, Stephen Lacey, Ruth McElroy, and Rebecca Williams. 2010. Screening the Nation: Wales and Landmark Television. Retrieved October 29, 2019. Online Report: https://www.google.com/ search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Screening+the+Nation:+Wales+and+Landmar k+Television&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 Boult, Luke Owain. 2015. Hinterland: Ed Talfan, Ed Thomas and Richard Harrington Interview. Buzz Magazine. https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/?s=Hint erland%3A+Ed+Talfan&x=0&y=0. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Cormack, Mike, and Niamh Hourigan. 2007. Minority-Language Media: Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Coupland, Nikolas. 2012. Bilingualism on Display: The Framing of Welsh and English in Welsh Public Spaces. Language in Society 41 (1): 1–27. Creeber, Glen. 2015. Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetic, Philosophy, and Influence of Nordic Noir Television. Journal of Popular Television 3 (1): 21–35. Gorter, Durk, Heiko F. Marten, and Luk Van Mensel. 2012. Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gruffydd Jones, Elin Haf. 2007. The Territory of Television: S4C and the Representation of the ‘Whole of Wales’. In Minority Language Media: Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies, ed. Mike Cormack and Niamh Hourigan, 188–211. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

4  THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DRAMA… 

79

Gunderson, Alexis. 2018. The Rise of Bilingual Families on Broadcast Television. Paste Magazine. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/02/therise-of-bilingual-families-on-broadcast-televi.html. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Hale, Mike. 2014. Following Trails at the Welsh Countryside. New York Times, August 31. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/arts/television/thebritish-cop-show-hinterland-comes-to-netflix.html. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Hall, Tony. 2017. Roscoe Lecture. https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/ speeches/2017/tony-hall-roscoe. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Harvey, Sylvia, and Kevin Robins. 1994. Voices and Places: The BBC and Regional Policy. The Political Quarterly 65 (1): 39–52. Jacobsen, Ushma Chauhan, and Pia Majbritt Jensen. 2016. Born European, Born Regional, or Born Global? Language Convergence in The Team. Northern Lights 14: 123–140. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Anne Marit Waade. 2013. Nordic Noir Challenging ‘The Language of Advantage’: Setting, Light and Language as Production Values in Danish Television Series. Journal of Popular Television 1 (2): 259–265. Landry, Rodrigue, and Richard Y.  Bourhis. 1997. Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1): 23–49. Mazdon, Lucy. 2012. Spiral on BBC Four: Putting Quality First? Critical Studies in Television 7 (2): 112–119. McCabe, Janet. 2017. Bodies of Evidence: European Crime Series, BBC Four and Translating (Global) (In)justice into (National) Public Service Television Culture. In Contemporary British Television Crime Drama: Cops on the Box, ed. Ruth McElroy, 154–168. London: Routledge. McElroy, Ruth, and Caitriona Noonan. 2016. Television Drama Production in Small Nations: Mobilities in a Changing Ecology. Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 109–127. Moriarty, Máiréad. 2009. Normalising Language Through Television: The Case of the Irish Television Channel TG4. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 4 (2): 137–149. Ofcom. 2018a. Representation and Portrayal on BBC Television. https://www. ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/124078/report-bbc-representation-portrayal.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. ———. 2018b. Review of Regional TV Production and Programming Guidance. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/130911/Reviewof-Regional-TV-Production-and-Programming-Guidance.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Pickard, Michael. 2017. In Plain Sight. Drama Quarterly. http://dramaquarterly. com/tag/ed-talfan/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019.

80 

R. MCELROY

Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London/New York: Routledge. Price, Elain. 2016. Hanes Sefydlu S4C: Nid Sianel Gyffredin Mohoni! Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Radford, Ceri. 2014. Hinterland BBC Four Review: ‘A Corker.’ Daily Telegraph, April 28. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radioreviews/10793152/Hinterland-BBC-Four-review-a-corker.html Rees, Amanda. Interview by Ruth McElroy. Personal Interview. Cardiff, May 2018. Roberts, Les. 2016. Landscapes in the Frame: Exploring the Hinterlands of the British Procedural Drama. New Review of Film and Television Studies 14 (3): 364–385. S4C. 2016. Annual Report, 2016. http://www.s4c.cymru/abouts4c/annualreport/acrobats/s4c-annual-report-2016.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. ———. 2018. Annual Report, 2017–18. https://dlo6cycw1kmbs.cloudfront. net/media/media_assets/s4c-annual-report-and-accounts-spreads.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. S4C Language Guidelines. 2015. Welsh Language Guidelines. https://dlo6cycw1kmbs.cloudfront.net/media/media_assets/20170524_Welsh_Language_ Guidelines.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Statistics Wales. n.d. Welsh Language. StatsWales. https://statswales.gov.wales/ Catalogue/Welsh-Language. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Stougaard-Nielsen, Jakob. 2016. Nordic Noir in the UK: The Allure of Accessible Difference. Journal of Aesthetics and Culture 8 (1). https://doi.org/10.3402/ jac.v8.32704. Talfan, Ed. 2015, November. TV From Small Nations: Internationalisation  – Challenges and Opportunities for Small Nations. Interview as Part of TV from Small Nations AHRC Network. Small Nation Screen, November 16. https:// smallnationsscreen.org/event/internationalization-of-tv-in-and-fromsmall-nations/ Thomas, Ed. Interview by Ruth McElroy. Personal Interview. October 2014. Walford, Jessica. 2017. How a New Welsh TV Drama Wants to Replicate the Success of Scandinavian Show The Killing. Wales Online. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/how-new-welsh-tv-drama-13621547. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Weissmann, Elke. 2018. Local, National, Transnational: Y Gwyll/Hinterland as Crime of/for All Places. In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

PART II

Small Nation Perspectives: Producing Danish Television Drama

CHAPTER 5

Glocal Perspectives on Danish Television Series: Co-Producing Crime Narratives for Commercial Public Service Kim Toft Hansen

Since the late 1990s, we have seen television drama production in Denmark move away from mostly national funding schemes to much more composite funding practices. Alongside the international attention paid to Danish television series, dramas have attracted increased international co-­ production and co-funding opportunities, a general phenomenon in the television industry referred to as ‘transnationalism’ (Weissmann 2012; Bondebjerg et al. 2017). Concurrently, however, new local film and television funding options have sprung up in Denmark (and elsewhere) to attract productions that may create what the local West Danish Film Fund Research presented in this chapter was financed by the research projects, What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel? (Danish Council for Independent Research, 2014–18) and DETECt – Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives (Horizon 2020, 2018–21). K. T. Hansen (*) Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_5

83

84 

K. T. HANSEN

calls ‘cultural reference’ to local areas represented by the local fund’s criteria (West Danish Film Fund 2018). The result is not a diminishing national role in funding television drama, but the nationally oriented funding practices of television series have been supplemented by concurrent local and transnational funding opportunities, including Subscription-­ Video-­ on-Demand (SVoD) players, which means that the financial composition of television drama production has become increasingly complex. In this chapter, I argue that theories of transnationalism do not fully explain these trends in contemporary television production/funding practices. I claim that, instead, the concept of glocalisation offers perspectives that explain the co-existence of local, national, regional, and global players in television drama production. Crime series have been central components of internationally distributed Danish television drama, and the funding composition of crime series appears exceedingly glocal (Hansen and Waade 2017), so for that reason this chapter focuses on commercial PSB television crime series. I use two recent TV 2 crime series, Greyzone (2018–) and Kriger/Warrior (2018) as examples of glocal television drama production, and relate these to qualitative interviews with key informants during the autumn of 2018.1 As a global lesson from a small nation, these series and TV 2’s cumulative history of crime drama production indicate increased international collaboration and challenges as a common and general raison d’être for commercial PSB television production. Although drama produced by DR, Denmark’s traditional public service broadcaster (PSB), also illustrates a tendency to attract international co-­ funding for drama production, this development is even more multi-­ layered for the ‘commercial’ PSB, TV 2. Still, most of DR’s dramas are established as in-house productions (although these are increasingly co-­ funded too), whereas from the outset TV 2 was governed by what Danish PSB regulation refers to as the enterprise model, which means that the broadcaster must buy all content, apart from news production, externally. The intellectual property of the dramas produced for DR normally lies with the broadcaster, whereas the creative rights for dramas broadcast on TV 2 often belong to the production company/ies, which means that the production company has a slightly less restricted hand in setting up the funding for these series. For this reason, international and local funding opportunities seem to further affect the dramas broadcast on commercial, rather than traditional, PSB. For this reason, I focus on series broadcast and co-produced by TV 2 in this chapter.

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

85

Theories of Glocalisation and Transnational Television Television scholar Elke Weissmann points out that ‘in television studies, the term “glocalization” has largely become associated with television format trade and its ability to localize global content, which is why I here want to continue to use the term transnational’ (Weissmann 2018, 119). Arguably, in television studies there has been a tendency to employ glocalisation in this way, although Weissmann stresses that scholars who use ‘transnationalism’ instead wish ‘to emphasize the intersection and interconnections between the national and global’ (119. According to sociologist Victor Roudometof, ‘it is necessary to conceptualize transnational interactions as taking place among people and institutions in two or more separate nation-states’ (Roudometof 2016, 125); that is, the transnational is a level above the national. This means that, even if glocalisation has been associated with mostly format trade in television studies, the concept includes the potential to specify sociologist Roland Robertson’s point about the ‘simultaneity of universal and unique impulses’ in acts of communication (Esser 2014, 83). This goes hand in hand with Robertson’s understanding of glocalisation as having a ‘connotation of spatiality’ (Robertson 2014, 20), and its dimensions include local, national, regional, transnational, and global perspectives simultaneously. So, although Weissmann is correct in describing transnationalism as dealing with ‘the complex relation of national or regional regulation and cultural distinctions within global power structures and struggles’, ‘transnational’ as a concept still logically fails to inscribe the important dimension of the local or sub-national and may oversee that a television drama may be ‘marked as intensely local and transnational at the same time’ (Weissmann 2018, 121). Television drama funding schemes have increasingly tended to involve transnational collaboration. In the Nordic region, the transnational television agencies Nordvision and Nordic Film & TV Fund are the prime transnational players in co-funding television drama production, and since the early 1990s, co-production and pre-buy agreements among both traditional and commercial television Nordic broadcasters have become a conventional way to co-finance expensive drama production. As a result, it is now almost unthinkable to produce television drama in the Nordic region without transnational collaboration. However, in this same period, several local agencies sprang up across the Nordic region in a counter-­ trend to the increasing transnational strategies (Hansen and Waade 2017,

86 

K. T. HANSEN

145–157). Such funding does not seem to ‘pull’ productions in opposite directions; instead, local and transnational funding appear side by side as ‘natural’ funding opportunities for television production. In Denmark, the Copenhagen Film Fund is a representative case, since it invests ‘in international productions with Danish co-producers or production service companies’ (Copenhagen Film Fund 2019); that is, though a locally based Copenhagen agency, it is involved in transnational co-productions only. In his broad definition of glocalisation as ‘a twin process’, Roudometof envisages different scales of social phenomena such as economic and institutional arrangements: ‘On the one hand, institutional and regulatory arrangements shift from the national scale both upward to supranational or global scales and downward to the scale of the individual or to local, urban, or regional configurations. On the other hand, economic activities and interfirm networks become both localized or regionalized and transnational’ (Roudometof 2016, 33). Scholastically, Roudometof visualises the scalar hierarchy of ‘space forms’ as a circular model running from local to global: local > national > regional > glocal > global (32). However, I argue that the glocal is illogically positioned as an intermediary between the regional and the global. Instead, I argue that the glocal is a consequence of—and not part of—processes that oscillate between the local and the global, including the intermediate national and transnational opportunities. In Model 5.1, I reworked the logic underlying Roudometof’s scalar hierarchy to demonstrate how, at least in television production, glocalisation is the result of networked activities and funding solutions involving collaboration among production companies, screen agencies, broadcasters, and other co-funding bodies from a local to a global level. Instead of replacing transnationalism with glocalisation, I perceive transnationalism as embedded in the same logic as supranational collaboration that involves two or more production and funding bodies, which means that the transnational, which functions above the national, runs from the national to the global. As a result, both regional (e.g. Create Europe) and global (e.g. Netflix) players appear transnational, but perform at different parametric positions (more or less transnational). The logic of the model must not be understood as a linear system that goes from local to increasingly transnational. Instead, the geopolitical rationale behind it addresses how media policies and production interests at all levels co-exist and may be activated

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

87

Model 5.1  The scalar hierarchy of glocalisation

simultaneously, but all levels do not have to be present in any given production. As Roudometof notes, ‘The scales of economic networks and institutional arrangements are recast in ways that alter the geometry of social power’ (Roudometof 2016, 33). For instance, television production may represent transnational interests from local funders, such as a local harbour co-financing the TV 2 drama Norskov (2015–2017) in order to attract international workforce (Hansen and Christensen 2018). In Table 5.1, I list examples of production and funding opportunities at each scalar level, and also indicate the need to distinguish between creative and financial collaboration (Hansen and Waade 2017, 152). In many cases, there is a gradual transition between co-creation and co-financing, and from ‘the majority co-producer’ to the ‘minority co-producer’ (Hammet-­ Jamart et  al. 2018, 13), but for the sake of clarity in this chapter, ‘co-­ production’ refers mostly to creative collaboration, whereas ‘co-funding’ indicates financial collaboration.2

88 

K. T. HANSEN

Table 5.1  Examples of production and funding opportunities at each scalar level Scalar position

Description

Local

Local screen agencies offer sub-national funding opportunities for screen productions. In Denmark, there are three agencies with different geographical interests in Western Denmark, Funen, and Greater Copenhagen. There is also a growing trend of local private businesses co-financing drama production in Denmark and the Nordic region (Hansen and Christensen 2018). Usually, production companies are nationally registered at first. Most countries have national screen agencies, such as the Danish Film Institute in Denmark, which administers the so-called Public Service Fund for television production. As their prime objective, Danish and Nordic PSBs cater to national audiences, which often involves local obligations, although increasingly they engage in transnational activities. When production companies establish offices outside the native country, they may become regional players, rather than global ones. Regional screen agencies may be more or less transnational: for instance, Nordic Film & TV Fund (promoting film and TV productions from the Nordic region) is a less transnational agency than Creative Europe (funding creative industries in the European Union). Allegedly, ‘regional’ rather than ‘transnational’ also implies a shared ideological/cultural outlook. During the 2010s, larger media conglomerates and/or SVoD services, such as Netflix and HBO, have become powerful global players. However, they also perform at a national level, offering programmes produced by production companies in specific countries (Hansen 2020). In serial television drama production, there are very few truly global players, if any, and, when it comes to funding, there are no global screen agencies (yet).

National

Regional

Global

The Funding History of TV 2’s Crime Dramas Danish commercial PSB has changed dramatically since DR’s monopoly ended in 1988. Today, TV 2 is still the only commercial PSB player on the Danish market, fully funded by subscriptions and advertising revenue, and all television dramas are produced by independent production companies. The public service remit for TV 2 has been marked by a national discourse from the start, including its representation and dissemination of Danish culture, language, and heritage. At the same time, TV 2 is required to ‘provide a wide societal coverage of Denmark and, hence, reflect the cultural diversity […] in different parts of the country’ (Ministry of Culture

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

89

2014). Essentially, TV 2 is a national–local broadcaster, and the funding of its first two crime dramas illustrates this constellation very well. Blændet (Blinded, 1992) was a three-episode miniseries produced by Metronome Productions for TV 2, and TV 2’s first long-series endeavour was Strisser på Samsø (Island Cop, 1997–1998), produced by Per Holst Film for TV 2. Both series illustrate TV 2’s enterprise model, as the broadcaster ‘ordered’ a production from an independent production company (defined as production for TV 2 by a production company). After the turn of the millennium, dramas broadcast on, and produced for, TV 2 moved towards transnational co-production and co-funding. Increasingly, traditional and commercial Nordic PSB broadcasters pre-buy and co-fund Danish commercial public service drama, and Nordic and European transnational funding programmes enter the funding schemes. The significant transnational venture into co-funding TV 2 dramas emerged with the three-­ season crime drama Anna Pihl (2006–2008), produced by Cosmo Film for TV 2, though co-financed by Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish, Slovenian, and Estonian broadcasters, alongside the European MEDIA programme. Hereafter, we saw a gradual transition from the enterprise model to a co-production model (defined as TV 2 co-producing drama with one or more production companies and broadcasters). Although not all-­ pervasive, this shift is evident in the end credits of the dramas produced since the end of the 2000s, where the most common phrase is ‘produced by’ a production company ‘in co-production with TV 2’; for example, Blekingegade (The Left Wing Gang, 2009), Den som dræber (Those Who Kill, 2011–) and Dicte (2013–2016). Alongside transnationalising drama funding schemes, new local screen agencies entered the arena. The Left Wing Gang was the first TV 2 series to include local funding, in this case from the Swedish Film i Väst and Trollhättan Film, whereas private industrial and public municipal co-­ funding of television drama became customary with Dicte and thereafter. As a Miso Film production, Dicte marks a significant change in the financial composition with local funding (The West Danish Film Fund, the municipality of Aarhus, Filmby Aarhus, and Central Jutland Region), national funding (The Public Service Fund and various national PSBs, including TV 2 and the German ZDF), and regional funding (Nordic Film & TV Fund and the MEDIA programme). The SF Film production, Norskov, involved a similar collaboration scheme, and Dicte and Norskov were TV 2’s first television drama ventures into advertiser-funded programming, specifically as part of a collaboration with local municipal and

90 

K. T. HANSEN

private funding opportunities (Hansen and Christensen 2018). Flanking this development, the funding scheme for the third season of the dramedy series Rita (2012–2017) involved similar strategies, including TV 2’s first direct collaboration with global player Netflix, which demonstrates that this is not just a crime drama funding scheme, though the crime genre appeared as the ‘first mover’ in funding complexity. As a result, the years surrounding Dicte and the two last seasons of Rita are those in which glocal funding (from the local to the global) really influenced TV 2, and the period since the turn of the millennium has since been marked by a glocalisation process. The creative responsibility of dramas broadcast on TV 2 alters as we enter the phase in which the production companies co-produce with rather than for TV 2, emphasised by TV 2 now having two different contract models for enterprise productions and co-productions (Qvist 2019). At the same time, the production companies have started setting up more complex transnational co-production arrangements with increasing funding from national and transnational screen agencies and various geographically adjacent broadcasters and production companies (mostly Scandinavian and German). According to TV 2’s programme coordinator, Janne Nygaard Mogensen, ‘at TV 2 Fiction today we enter into a lot more co-production agreements than enterprise agreements. The number of co-­ production agreements has been steadily rising’ (Janne Nygaard Mogensen, email to author, 17 December 2018). This gradual shift since the late noughties to today is confirmed by Katrine Vogelsang (2018), head of fiction at TV 2, and Lisbeth Qvist (2019), head of legal affairs at TV 2. Both dramas analysed here display TV 2’s co-production agreement.

Co-Producing Greyzone and Warrior with TV 2 Two recent crime dramas, Greyzone and Warrior, were co-produced by TV 2 and external production companies, and both series demonstrate that co-production, rather than the enterprise agreement, is the continuing trend. Greyzone, co-produced by Cosmo Film and TV 2, was the first large-scale transnational co-production with TV 2 as an important co-­ producer, together with Swedish TV4. According to Pernille Bech Christensen, executive producer at TV 2, ‘Greyzone was our first really international co-production’, with TV 2 and TV4 as ‘delegate broadcasters’; that is, they were allowed to ‘give notes and take part in the creative process during production and development’. However, with respect to

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

91

the national discourse around the public service remit, Christensen emphasises that ‘TV 2 only enters into international co-productions if there is a clear Danish angle’ (Christensen 2018). Rasmus Thorsen, Cosmo Film’s main producer and the creator of the series, revealed that in practice, all co-production partners had the opportunity to ‘give notes’ (that is, present their comments), but it was mainly TV 2 and TV4 that availed themselves of this opportunity. ‘TV 2 was, so to speak, the closest partner, and you could say that they wore the Yellow Jersey regarding external notes. However, TV4 supplied both me and TV 2 with notes, and then, together with TV 2, I would work through notes from ourselves, TV 2 and TV4. In constructions like this there is a lot of notes’ (Thorsen 2018). Such a development method highlights the remarkable changes associated with producing commercial PSB television drama since the 1990s. ‘Today, there is really no traditional public service production anymore,’ says Thorsen, ‘it has all become co-productions, and that complicates matters. If you look at it from a European perspective in relation to large projects, besides pure streaming projects, then this is the reality. It’s similar to the way that feature films were produced fifteen to twenty years ago. This also means that there are contractual relations in all directions and a lot of regulations’ (Thorsen 2018). Thus, the historical development outlined above is also a story of the generally increased complexity of television drama production and funding (Image 5.1). The screen agency funding for Greyzone also reveals the glocality of the production; that is, from local (Copenhagen Film Fund), national (The Public Service Fund in Denmark and Swedish Film Institute), and regional (Nordic Film & TV Fund and Creative Europe) sources. Although some parties rarely used their right to ‘give notes’, the creative co-production partners included production companies (the Swedish SF Studios, British ITV’s production company ITV Studios, and the German Nadcon) and Northern European PSBs (Danish TV 2, Swedish TV4 and their SVoD-­ service C More, Norwegian NRK, and German ZDF). The series’ narrative and the funding scheme reinforce the impression of Bondebjerg’s (2016) notion of natural transnational cop stories; that is, the story itself does not spring from the necessity for funding, but from an internationally born story about transnational investigation in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. For Pernille Bech Christensen, ‘the crime genre appears to be the easiest one to co-produce. It has something to do with humour that has its difficulties; comedy does not travel as well as crime’ (Christensen 2018). According to Thorsen, ‘the positive angle to this is that if you have

92 

K. T. HANSEN

Image 5.1  Greyzone’s international profile is significantly emphasised by the locations in the series, such as Frankfurt’s central business district, ‘Mainhattan’ (Copyright: Comso Film)

an international story, then you don’t have to force the narrative and the creative process in order to make it work. You could say that it has Denmark at the centre, then you have Norway to the north, Sweden is east, England is west, and Germany is south. Basically, the series is financed only by neighbouring countries – and I guess that it would have been very different if we had had French money too’ (Thorsen 2018). Although there is also ‘a French connection’ in Danish drama production (Hansen and Waade 2017, 222), the foregoing statement indicates that co-production partners are (still) primarily found in close geographical proximity, even though production arrangements have become increasingly transnational. The funding parties range from local to transnational, but Greyzone is distinctly transnational from funding, narrative, and stylistic perspectives. The Copenhagen Film Fund leaves a local mark, but their funding objective is ‘targeted at qualitatively and financially interesting international film and TV productions for international distribution’, underlining their activities as markedly transnational (Copenhagen Film Fund 2019). In the series, Copenhagen is portrayed as an international Scandinavian hub that provides easy access to business environments in Northern Europe, rather than as a local capital. From a comparative perspective, the foregoing glocal portrayal of Copenhagen applies to the six-episode miniseries Warrior, which is also

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

93

set in Copenhagen, although the centre of attention is perhaps less flattering: internationally organised crime and drug smuggling. Warrior was not funded from the local level, but the series’ stylistic treatment of Copenhagen stresses that glocalisation may also be treated at a ‘textual’ level, through the way that a setting and locations are chosen during production development. Thus, the textual aspect of glocalisation builds on literary theorist Svetlana Boym’s perception of the glocal as ‘a culture that uses global language to express local colour’ (Boym 2001, 67), which, in the case of Warrior, means using globally recognisable television aesthetics in the treatment of local places. This was the intention of creator, co-writer, and director Christoffer Boe from the outset (as in many of his feature film productions): ‘Very often, I write my scripts for a specific location. I know precisely where it should take place, and if I don’t, it’s a matter of seconds before I know what we’re looking for. For Warrior, I was looking to expand my own use of Copenhagen, so it was a lot of work. Together with cinematographer Jacob Møller and various location scouts we went around, looking at 3 to 400 different places’ (Boe 2018). Although the series was not locally funded, the series’ setting is strikingly local, compared to Greyzone. For director Boe, ‘it was an attempt to create a changing and developing Copenhagen. In Warrior, I have a character that talks about how Copenhagen was built on slave trade, which creates a historical frame around a less romantic Copenhagen – a Copenhagen that is built on trade, force and muscles’ (Boe 2018). Although the series’ localisation appears to be simultaneously local and international, the production company, Miso Film, found it more difficult to co-finance: ‘This is probably one of those series that I have pitched to most TV stations in Europe. German, French, Spanish, English, Scandinavian and so forth,’ says Peter Bose, Miso Film’s producer on Warrior. ‘It is probably also the series about which I, most frequently, have heard that “it sounds exciting, but we cannot go into that. We cannot really see what you want to do” – we have had a hard time understanding this, since our vision have been quite clear from the start’ (Bose 2018). As a narrative, Warrior is specifically local television drama, although the funding scheme for the series was national, regional, and global. Warrior’s financial model was based on TV 2’s co-production model, with Miso Film co-producing the series with TV 2. In addition to being a trans-Scandinavian company, Miso Film is co-owned by the British-based Freemantle, a subsidiary company owned by the RTL Group, which gives the series a potentially global reach (for Warrior, Freemantle handles the

94 

K. T. HANSEN

international sales and has co-financed the production). The series is co-­ funded by the Danish Public Service Fund (national), Nordic Film & TV Fund (regional), and development funding from the EU MEDIA programme (regionally European), offering a national-to-global reach through the co-funding partners. However, owing to the lack of early pre-sales, Warrior never received production support from MEDIA. Despite the difficulty of getting broadcasters on board, the Norwegian NRK and the Finnish YLE, both traditional PSBs, finally co-financed the drama. Miso Film also co-produced earlier feature films and miniseries with directors’ privately owned companies, for example, Ole Bornedal’s 4Fiction for the miniseries 1864 (2015) and the film Dræberne fra Nibe (Small Town Killers, 2017); Warrior is also co-produced by director Christoffer Boe’s private company Monovision, altogether supplying such productions with artistic auteur connotations. For this reason, the series’ creative side featured a close collaboration between Miso Film and TV 2, with Boe as the creative force and attraction. According to producer Peter Bose, the focus on the miniseries format has a significant effect on attracting talent: ‘What is interesting with miniseries is, the way we see it, that it is a way to attract proficient talent. They cannot simply sign up for six-seven seasons – and when we do a miniseries, it is for a shorter period. It’s faster. In this way, the result rather appears as a work of art, typically the way a feature film would’ (Bose 2018). This point of view is supported by Katrine Vogelsang, who declares that the miniseries is one among a range of new market strategies (Vogelsang 2018), and Pernille Bech Christensen emphasises that this format made it possible for TV 2 to attract ‘auteurs’ such as Christoffer Boe for Warrior and Bille August for Lykke-Per (A Fortunate Man, 2018) as directors (Christensen 2018). Lastly, the final contributor to the budget, Netflix, pre-bought Warrior after the series was greenlighted by TV 2, and after Freemantle entered with significant support, giving Netflix the rights to global SVoD distribution, including Nordic distribution one year later than TV 2 (Bose 2018) (Image 5.2). The outcome of the above-outlined collaboration on television series is drama with a local sensibility, but with narratives that simultaneously seek out and confront themes that may have universal appeal (for instance, through Netflix). Although presented through an explicitly Northern European geography, the plot of Greyzone revolves around terrorism, which has been a source of global intimidation for years, and despite its unequivocally Copenhagen-based narrative, Warrior tells a recognisable story with a transnational reach, which addresses personal loss, the life of

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

95

Image 5.2  The auteurist implications of Warrior were evident in the way the series was promoted as ‘Christoffer Boe’s Kriger,’ e.g., in the lead-up to the 2018 premiere at the CPH PIX film festival in Copenhagen (Copyright: Miso Film)

soldiers, and organised crime. In co-productions such as Greyzone and Warrior, and increasingly through the narratives of the crime dramas co-­ produced with TV 2 since the middle of the 2000s, local narratives of everyday existence are recounted through the lenses of global challenges and internationally recognisable aesthetics.

Making SVoD ‘Frenemies’ The complex funding schemes for commercial PSB drama production just described present well-known challenges to transnational co-productions (Hammet-Jamart et al. 2018), but the presence of SVoDs as financial collaborators on both Greyzone and Warrior deserves discussion. Netflix and HBO Nordic were introduced to the Danish market in 2012, and today Netflix is the most popular SVoD service, but in recent years other competitors have gained Danish and Nordic market shares, including the pan-­ Nordic platform Viaplay (with its first ‘original’ drama production in 2016) and the Swedish TV4-owned C More service (first ‘original’ in 2017), and the quad play service YouSee (first ‘original’ in 2018). TV 2 launched online streaming in 2000, but in 2012, in the middle of the rise of streaming services in Denmark, they changed their name to the SVoD

96 

K. T. HANSEN

TV 2 Play. Recent 2018 statistics from a report from the Agency for Culture and Palaces (2018, 24) indicate a rapidly changing market, with Netflix as the leading SVoD (44% of subscribers), HBO (23%), YouSee (22%), Viaplay (22%), and TV 2 Play (21%) competing for subscribers at a similar level, and C More still playing a modest role on the Danish market (7%). In a SVoD market such as that described here, C More and Netflix as co-funding of Greyzone and Warrior may appear paradoxical. In the Nordic region, such co-productions began with the Norwegian NRK– Netflix collaboration on Lilyhammer (2012–2014), so the TV 2 situation is not new, but has historically raised a range of issues (Sundet 2017). Even though Warrior will remain as content on TV 2 Play, subsequently the series will be available for Danish Netflix subscribers, with the result that the long shelf life of this television drama will be devalued by exposing the content to a competitor’s subscribers. According to Rasmus Thorsen, Greyzone will not be available to Danish subscribers of C More and the Danish C More platform has not yet become a serious competitor in the Danish market, although in Sweden, Greyzone ‘was the most popular TV-series on C More to date’ (Thorsen 2018). Thus, Greyzone becomes part of TV4’s C More (the Swedish equivalent of TV 2 Play) strategy to attract subscribers and revenue in Sweden, which could—in a transnational business economy—indirectly challenge TV 2 Play’s position in Denmark. Regarding integrating Netflix as a pre-buyer, the question is really whether or not TV 2 would cannibalise its own content by collaborating with stronger streaming competitors. Pernille Bech Christensen touches on national and international challenges in the SVoD market, and stresses that fierce competition is a reason that TV 2 has been—and will be—involved in co-productions, but she also indirectly highlights financial pooling and shared risk-taking as obvious benefits: ‘We have an actual demand for more fiction, but our finances do not suffice. Co-production is, then, an obvious way to offer more fictional content for less money. Such productions are often higher production value than if we were to produce content with what we have internally available at TV 2. It’s something that we’re very happy about, but we haven’t done much of it yet’ (Christensen 2018). Here, Christensen discusses co-production in general, and not co-producing with SVoD services specifically, although Katrine Vogelsang specifically mentions SVoD competition: ‘Of course, they are competitors, and then we start competing with our own content, but the way to avoid that is to find common

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

97

ground. Though, when we meet with them, they call themselves “frenemy”’ (Vogelsang 2018). The ‘frenemy’ status of SVoDs is not only an obvious competitive challenge related to market shares, but it is also simultaneously a notable illustration of the present and accelerating transition from linear television to pay-per-view content streaming, and finally, it is also representative of the contemporary challenges to PSBs. It may not be as great a challenge for traditional PSBs in Denmark, since DR provides free VoD content, but commercial PSB needs, on the one hand, to compete in a market with a growing number of players with an increased global revenue base, and on the other hand, they still need to provide public service content that lives up to the national public service remit and expectations. When competing—and co-producing—with global commercial market players, the situation becomes quite complex, and Netflix, for instance, might regard such collaboration as ‘a lovely publicity campaign on TV 2’s main channel during prime time, which is why we have to insist on keeping long hold-back periods’, says Katrine Vogelsang (Vogelsang 2018). Viewed from the perspective of global SVoD players, co-producing national content is a glocal strategy, since for them this is a shared risk and a way to co-produce less expensive content for a transnational platform. As outlined in TV 2’s 2016–17 financial report, the ‘purely’ commercial side of TV 2 without public service obligations (including TV 2 Play), increasingly supports and finances PSB programming (TV 2 2017, 40). According to the report, the funding deficit of all TV 2’s PSB programming has been covered by TV 2’s commercial activities, and together, TV 2’s activities have yielded a profit. Ramsey presents a similar case related to British commercial PSBs: ‘the current public service television system functions both for the benefit of the audience and for the commercial PSBs’ (Ramsey 2017, 650). In general, this means that commercial PSBs, such as the Danish TV 2, have been able to stay above water in the increasingly competitive global market during the 2010s, and one strategy for achieving this with television drama production has been to become ‘frenemies’ with a range of competitors; that is, increasingly co-produce series in order to provide more fiction-based content for both linear and SVoD television.

98 

K. T. HANSEN

Conclusion In this chapter, I have shown that the glocalisation process dates back to local representation in the 1990s, which—based on TV 2’s local obligations—created a basis on which they established the local–national negotiation of identity through dramas. TV 2’s obligation to express Danish cultural diversity, and, later, the new funding opportunities presented by local screen agencies, made TV 2’s dramas increasingly local, compared to dramas produced by DR. After the turn of the millennium, several new co-production/co-funding opportunities grew significantly in their importance for TV 2, and finally, new SVoD players have established themselves as both challenges and opportunities—so-called ‘frenemies’— for production companies producing for/with TV 2, creating a local-to-­ global content scenario. However, this highlights a logic of television drama production funding in Denmark—and elsewhere—that is changing rapidly, and PSBs are working hard to find a place in a new glocal and commercial drama market. If a lesson may be learned from Danish commercial PSB production history, it would be that the cases presented here and the general market situation are historically and currently affected by similar transnational developments in other small nations (e.g. other Nordic countries). The production history also presents a range of concerns addressed by larger, more dominant PSBs in Europe. Glocalisation, as a twin process that involves local-to-global shifts, has reconfigured the production of commercial PSB drama, and will do so increasingly in the near future. The challenges of co-production and/with SVoD services may appear to be threats to an established public service system, but to maintain user loyalty SVoD players have recently started to increase the production of local content for national audiences (Imre 2018; Hansen 2020). Even if global players appear to be an indispensable global force, both Netflix and HBO have been able to establish themselves in specific countries and regions by producing locally relevant content, and Viaplay clearly seeks a pan-Nordic identity in many of its original drama productions. This may be a way to keep one step ahead of possible national policy changes that may require local production from foreign players. Recently, however, transnational players have attracted funding from the Danish Public Service Fund, which shares some values with both traditional and commercial public services; that is, ‘originality, significance and quality in terms of content, form and style’ (DFI 2019). In other words, in the late 2010s, producers for ‘purely’ commercial SVoD players

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

99

such as HBO Nordic and Viaplay have increasingly applied for national public service funding, which indicates that TV 2’s drama production within the intensely competitive environment is being pulled towards an increasingly transnational approach, because we have already seen the first notable steps towards drawing transnational players in a more national public service-oriented direction.

Notes 1. Informants were chosen to represent TV 2 and two recent crime drama productions broadcast on TV 2. All quotes have been translated by the author and have been approved for publication by informants. Thank you to Peter Bose, Katrine Vogelsang, Pernille Bech Christensen, Janne Nygaard Mogensen, Lisbeth Qvist, Rasmus Thorsen, and Christoffer Boe for their collaboration. 2. For further information about co-production terminology, see Bondebjerg (2016), Hansen and Waade (2017, 145–159), and Hammet-Jamart et al.’s edited volume (2018). Hansen and Waade (2017) also discuss the concepts embedded in the scalar model presented here.

References Boe, Christoffer. 2018. Interviewed by Kim Toft Hansen, November 1, 2018. Bondebjerg, Ib. 2016. Transnational Europe: TV-Drama, Co-Production Networks and Mediated Cultural Encounters. Palgrave Communi cations 2: 1–13. Bondebjerg, Ib, Eva Novrup Redvall, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, Henrik Søndergaard, and Cecilie Astrupgaard. 2017. Transnational European Television Drama: Production, Genres, Audiences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bose, Peter. 2018. Interviewed by Kim Toft Hansen, November 1, 2018. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Christensen, Pernille Bech. 2018. Interviewed by Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit, September 24, 2018. Copenhagen Film Fund. 2019. Copenhagen Film Fund’s Terms and Conditions for Investment in Feature Films and TV Series. http://cphfilmfund.com/en/ long-version-2/. Accessed 10 Jan 2019. DFI. 2019. Public Service Fund. https://www.dfi.dk/en/english/funding/public-service-fund. Accessed 10 Jan 2019.

100 

K. T. HANSEN

Esser, Andrea. 2014. European Television Programming: Exemplifying and Theorizing Glocalization in the Media. In European Glocalization in Global Context, ed. Roland Robertson, 82–102. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hammet-Jamart, Julia, Petar Mitric, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2018. European Film and Television Co-production: Policy and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Kim Toft. 2020. From Euro Noir to Nordic Noir: Nordic Noir Influencing European SVoD Serial Drama. In Nordic Noir Adaptation and Appropriation: Film, Television, and Beyond, ed. Linda Badley, Andrew Nestingen, and Jaakko Sepällä. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Jørgen Riber Christensen. 2018. Local Noir and Local Identity: Norskov and the Spatial Implications of Branded Content. In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull, 213–232. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Imre, Aniko. 2018. HBO’s e-EUtopia. Media Industries 5 (2): 49–68. Ministry of Culture. 2014. Tilladelse til TV 2 DANMARK A/S til at udøve public service- programvirksomhed. https://kum.dk/fileadmin/KUM/Documents/ Kulturpolitik/medier/TV 2/2015/Tilladelse_til_TV_2_DANMARK_til_at_ udoeve_public_service-programvirksomhed.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2019. Qvist, Lisbeth. 2019. Telephone Interview by Kim Toft Hansen, January 3, 2019. Ramsey, Phil. 2017. Commercial Public Service Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Public Service, Television, Regulation, and the Market. Television and New Media 18 (7): 639–654. Robertson, Roland. 2014. Europeanization as Glocalization. In European Glocalization in Global Context, ed. Roland Robertson, 6–33. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Roudometof, Victor. 2016. Glocalization: A Critical Introduction. London/New York: Routledge. Sundet, Vilde Schanke. 2017. Co-Produced Television Drama and the Cost of Transnational ‘Success’: The Making of Lilyhammer. In Building Successful and Sustainable Film and Television Businesses: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. Eva Bakøy et al., 67–87. Bristol: Intellect. The Agency for Culture and Palaces. 2018. Mediernes udvikling i Danmark: Streaming 2018. https://mediernesudvikling.slks.dk/2018/specialrapporter/ streaming/. Accessed 13 Feb 2019. Thorsen, Rasmus. 2018. Interviewed by Kim Toft Hansen, November 2, 2018. TV 2. 2017. TV 2 Danmark – Public Service-redegørelse 2017. https://omTV2. TV2.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/public_service/TV_2_Public_serviceredegoerelse_2017.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2019.

5  GLOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON DANISH TELEVISION SERIES: CO-PRODUCING… 

101

Vogelsang, Katrine. 2018. Interviewed by Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade, September 24, 2018. Weissmann, Elke. 2012. Transnational Television Drama: Special Relations and Mutual Influence Between the US and UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2018. Local, National, Transnational: Y Gwyll/Hinterland as Crime of/ for All Places. In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull, 119–138. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. West Danish Film Fund. 2018. Den Vestdanske Filmpulje  – Vilkår for støtte. https://filmpuljen.dk/stoette/; https://filmpuljen.dk/wp-content/uploads/ 2019/05/DVF-midlertidige-støttevilkår-2019.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2019.

CHAPTER 6

Fifty Shades of Green: On Visual Style in Danish Television Series Jakob Isak Nielsen

This chapter comes out of a larger research project, supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research (2014–2018), that was striving to discover ‘what makes Danish TV series travel’. This question is to be understood broadly, as asking what causes the internationalization of Danish television series—for example, as exported canned programmes, as remakes, and as a mainstay of international awards festivals. The question demands an answer at various levels of generality, ranging from Faroese sweaters to overarching media system structures and market dynamics. With due respect for the interconnectedness of the multiple factors that underpin the ‘travel’ of Danish series, this chapter looks more closely at one aspect of Danish drama series, namely their visual style. My reason for doing so is that key personnel in the production community believe that Danish series have a specific visual style that sets them apart on the international market. For instance, Nadia Kløvedal Reich speaks of a particular Danish ‘flavour’ and a visual style that is ‘naturalistic, raw, and sensual

J. I. Nielsen (*) Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_6

103

104 

J. I. NIELSEN

at the same time’ (Reich 2013). Furthermore, reception studies among viewers abroad support the argument that the audiovisual texture of these series are experienced as being different from both American series and domestic series (see the UK reception study by Andrea Esser 2017). Analysing visual style entails a set of analytical strategies. The arguments presented in this chapter draw on three avenues of research: (1) functional analysis of stylistic devices in the context of particular modes of production (e.g. Bacher 1996; Bordwell 1997, 2005; Butler 2010); (2) close interpretive readings of applied techniques in a specific narrative context (e.g. Gibbs and Pye 2005; Cooke 2013; Jacobs and Peacock 2013); (3) historical poetics; that is, tracing the historical development of visual style through analyses of various parameters, including contextual factors such as technological development and organizational and institutional history (e.g. Bordwell 1989; Salt 2009). Arguments for nationally specific visual styles have formed the basis of many historical accounts of film and television history; for example, German expressionism, French impressionism, Italian neorealism, and the French New Wave. Some scholars have emphasized nationally anchored practices, for instance the tradition of camera movement in German musicals of the early 1930s (Salt 2009). I have not found clear evidence to support the argument that there is an overarching, distinct, and specifically Danish visual style. If by ‘naturalistic’ Nadia Kløvedal Reich means the subduing of audiovisual embellishment and stylization, and instead pursuing lifelike motifs, colour palettes, and lighting patterns, then it is easy to identify Danish series that subscribe to a markedly different visual style, as some of the cases presented here demonstrate. However, an argument may be made for the presence of overt style and its function in series that have been cornerstones of the international success of Danish series. Briefly stated, overt style is style that draws attention to itself. I take the concept of overt style from the work of David Bordwell (e.g. Bordwell 1985, 1997, 2005). Stylistic devices in a work of fiction may function on a scale from overt use (in a manner that draws attention to itself) to unobtrusive use (in a manner that does not draw attention to itself). In this

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

105

Image 6.1  Overt and unobtrusive style

context, I align it with the concept of motivation. More specifically, I suggest that the four categories of motivation established by Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson (1985, 19–23) can be seen to subtend a range from overt to unobtrusive audiovisual styles (see Image 6.1). In reverse order, the four forms of motivation can be described as this. Realistic Motivation  Style motivated by real-life proximity. For instance, when setting a series in a police station, a mise-en-scène of office tables, chairs, computers, and telephones would be realistically motivated, based on their real-life presence in such workplaces. Narrative Motivation  Style motivated by its contribution to ‘telling the story’. For instance, an insert of a police investigator receiving a text message in an interrogation room may not be realistically motivated, but it may be narratively motivated, if the message informs a choice made by the protagonist that drives the narrative forward. Transtextual Motivation  Style motivated by transtextual norms and traditions; for example, if a character bursts into song, it may be overt in the context of a hospital soap such as Grey’s Anatomy, but expected in the context of a musical. Artistic Motivation  Style functions reflexively in a way that puzzles viewers about the underlying motivation, making them more likely to ascribe a stylistic choice to a specific artistic strategy. In other words, one could refer to such instances as stylistic choices that draw attention to ‘the hand of the artist’ (Bordwell et al. 1985, 21).

106 

J. I. NIELSEN

The foregoing categories of motivation may appear taxonomic and theoretically constructed, but they are sometimes directly invoked by members of the production community, and the four types of motivation embrace a number of subtle inflections. Both points emerge in an interview with Adam Wallensten, the cinematographer of the Danish series, Norskov (TV 2, 2015–2017): ‘Even though Norskov is to be anchored in realism […] the scope format can help draw it in the direction of “heightened realism” or “stylized realism,” which we are talking a great deal about’ (Wallensten 2015). Wallensten argues that Norskov subscribes to a form of motivation at the unobtrusive end of the spectrum, but by means of a scope-like format strives to push the aesthetic design more in the direction of overt style. Although I consider the model in Image 6.1 to be a useful heuristic tool, I will also discuss some of its weaknesses, which I observed when I applied it in the context of this chapter. To sum up, I make two claims: • Overt style has had an important function in series that have been key to the internationalization of Danish drama series. • Stylistic practices in Danish series have transformed over time. Overt style in miniseries has migrated to long-form series, assuming less obtrusive, yet still stylized forms.

Miniseries in Denmark The role of miniseries in the historical development of television series in Denmark is multifaceted. Generally, Danish miniseries have been commissioned from external production companies, and have had directors with a feature-film track record as their dominant creative force. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetic traditions of film is not a new phenomenon in Danish television, and goes back to the 1970s at DR (Bondebjerg 2012). Consequently, the argument I present here is not about crossover per se, but about a particular crossover effect. Categories of motivation and the scale of overt to unobtrusive styles may assist to establish these differences. In the 1970s, Danish film directors who crossed over into television production brought with them a proclivity for less studio-bound aesthetics and a stronger sense of authenticity. In other words, they were oriented towards realistically motivated staging strategies. This is markedly different from the overt function of style in DR’s miniseries, which I address next, where the director and crew, well versed in film production, instead

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

107

emphasized transtextually and/or artistically motivated staging strategies that in many ways exceeded the degree of overt style practised in their earlier work on feature films (e.g. Refn on this dynamic in Nielsen 2006). Historically, the significant miniseries that reflect the tradition just mentioned are Riget I–II/ The Kingdom (DR, 1994, 1997), Charlot og Charlotte/Charlot and Charlotte (DR, 1996), Edderkoppen/The Spider (DR, 2000), and Den serbiske dansker/The Serbian Dane (DR, 2001). These miniseries are significant for four reasons: (1) they are stylistically exploratory and lean towards overt stylization; (2) in these series, the overt style itself has attracted international attention; (3) the overt style has since migrated or, as Gabold puts it, ‘trickled down’ to long-form series (Gabold in Nordstrøm 2004, 42); (4) this ‘trickle-down’ manifests in Danish series that have reached global audiences in one form or another.1 There are various stylistically idiosyncratic dimensions to The Kingdom and The Serbian Dane—for example, the recurrent jump cuts in the former and the extensive use of wide-angle lenses in the latter—but I will highlight the colour design of the two series, and argue that overtly stylized colour design is seen to have migrated to the Swedish/Danish crime serial Bron/Broen/The Bridge (SVT/DR, 2011–2018), retaining a degree of stylization, yet taking on less overt forms of motivation. The academic literature on colour in moving pictures is relatively sparse and dominated by literature on film and on the technologies involved, as exemplified by two impressive studies on Technicolor production practices (Higgins 2007; Layton and Pierce 2015, in television studies, Leah Panos’s work is in also in this vein). Danish film scholar Eva Jørholt—writing in 1998—refers to colour as a ‘blank spot’ in film studies.2 If this is so, it is even more of a blank spot in television studies, and in particular with regard to the aesthetic functions of colour. Jørholt (1998) draws attention to important methodological concerns that partly explain such analytical restraints; that is, the function of colour varies over time, and the colour design of drama series is a slippery analytical object, as it also depends on the settings of the device on which you access the series. There may also be small colour variations depending on whether you access a series from Netflix or from a DVD on the same device. For the purposes of this chapter, I will attempt to pitch my conclusions at a level that does not depend on overly specific observations that are too dependent on how you access a series.3 Briefly stated, the colour design in The Kingdom and in The Serbian Dane is overt. The Kingdom’s sepia look stands out. In Variety, Derek

108 

J. I. NIELSEN

Elley noted ‘the quirky nature of the material (mostly printed in orange-­ sepia tones […]’ (Elley 1994). Harlan Kennedy’s festival review for Film Comment vividly described its visual style as ‘a handheld monochrome tinted peach and orange, like a Munch painting about to throw up’ (Kennedy 1994, 65). More accurately, The Kingdom displays a desaturated sickly ochre brown look (akin to Pantone 471) that is remarkably consistent throughout the show. Danish film scholar Peter Schepelern suggests that this look is produced partly during the printing process and partly by means of colour grading (Schepelern 2000, 171). It is a highly overt style that is puzzling because it is not realistically motivated, it does not have a clear narrative function, and it does not draw on specific genre conventions. Instead, the colour scheme comes across as artistically motivated, and as viewers we are bound to implicate Trier the auteur in our considerations concerning the overarching purpose of such a strategy. Is it a playful mockery of stylistic traditions, a metaphorical comment on the sick depravity of Danish society (the ‘Danish Kingdom’), the religious institution (the ‘Kingdom’), or the scientific institution (‘Rigshospitalet’), or does it serve the purpose of coming across as an amateur production? The series does not provide clear answers to these questions. The colour design in The Serbian Dane similarly stands out, but has more variation. The design is the result of a combination of coloured mise-­ en-­scène elements, such as curtains, cabinets, clothing, applied lighting schemes, and other photographic and post-production choices. With a few startling exceptions, the series generally inclines to green hues, blue hues, or a combination, on a few occasions interspersed by patches of dark red. The green hues come across as pale green (Pantone 624), green beige (Pantone 4525), and olive yellow (Pantone 4505) (Image 6.2). The blue hues come across as azure blue (Pantone 3025), capri blue (Pantone 301), and distant blue (Pantone 5405). The Serbian Dane presents a radical form of stylization that is otherwise found in art cinema, music videos, or advertisements. The colour design is not motivated on the basis of realism, since no realistic light source could explain the presence of either the green or the blue hues. It is also difficult to discern a clear narrative function for them. Radical shifts in colour are often motivated by the time of day (e.g. tinting or colour grading for ­day/ night scenes) or space (shift in  locale). However, green hues appear in Serbia, Berlin, and Copenhagen—and in both exterior and interior scenes. Furthermore, the series’ radical colour design does not make it easier, but harder to determine the time of day in the series. It is also difficult to

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

109

Image 6.2  Green hues (from episode 1)

identify an underlying colour scheme heuristic that couples the applied colour schemes to character traits. I do not want to claim that the colour design throughout The Kingdom and The Serbian Dane is meaningless. My point is that the colour design invites viewers to contemplate it and speculate about its function and meaning, in a manner similar to the use of style in art cinema and parametric narration (see Bordwell 1985).

The ‘Trickle-Down’ Effect The trickle-down of overt stylistic devices in miniseries to less obtrusive yet still stylized forms in long-form series is evident in many instances, such as Taxa (DR, 1997–1999), where the manifestly discontinuous editing and multifarious use of handheld camera movement of The Kingdom is transferred to rough editing interspersed with jump cuts and a more controlled, reportage style of handheld camera movement, in the vein of NYPD Blue (ABC, 1993–2005). Similarly, the overtly blue colour design of The Serbian Dane is applied more sparingly and deliberately for specific narrative purposes in Forbrydelsen/The Killing (DR, 2007–2012)—for instance, blue and green hues along with minimalist decor help establish the cool brutality of corporate Denmark when two key representatives

110 

J. I. NIELSEN

from a corporation meet. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully elaborate on how and why this ‘trickle-down’ came about. There was some continuity of personnel from miniseries to long-form series at DR, with Rumle Hammerich and Ingolf Gabold as the heads of the drama division during these years, and with cinematographers such as Eric Kress (Riget) and Jørgen Johansson (The Spider) working extensively on long-form series such as Borgen (DR, 2010–2013), Forbrydelsen, and Bron/Broen later on. However, the migration of stylistic practices has a myriad of less direct aesthetic, political, institutional, and organizational causes. For the purposes of this chapter, I focus on the finer stylistic variations as we may observe them in the series. Specifically, I want to explore the trickle-down of the overt colour design of The Kingdom and The Serbian Dane to Bron/Broen. Bron/Broen—like Forbrydelsen—has not only reached global audiences as a canned programme, but has also prompted a number of remakes, or series based on similar concepts. There is a substantial body of literature on Bron/Broen and its remakes. The series has been discussed in the contexts of Nordic noir, remake studies, setting and place, and so on (e.g. Jensen and Waade 2013; Gamula and Mikos 2014; Creeber 2015; Avis 2015; Wayne 2016; Hill 2016; Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017; Hansen and Waade 2017; Gemzøe 2018; Hill 2019). Given the scholarly attention to the series with respect to Nordic Noir, it is surprising how sparingly its colour palette has been analysed. Even publications that take it upon themselves to actually examine the series’ visual style remain relatively imprecise or cursory regarding its colour palette, even when they argue— and, by means of quotes from viewers, actually demonstrate—that those properties are key to emotional engagement with the series (see Hill 2019). For the purposes of this chapter, an interview with Bo Ehrhardt (2014) of Nimbus Film, a question-and-answer session with Lars Blomgren of Filmlance International (Blomgren 2015), and a recent interview with production designer Niels Sejer inform my observations on the production of Bron/Broen, but the main approaches used will be functional analysis and close interpretive readings. In the existing literature, the most sustained analysis of the colour palette of Bron/Broen is presented in Hansen and Waade’s book on Nordic noir (Hansen and Waade 2017, 274–275). They conclude: ‘Taking the yellow Porsche and the blue-grey colours of Øresund as points of departure, the conspicuous function of colours in the location design emphasises the literal importance of the local colour of a place and production,

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

111

causing the visual concept of the series to be inventive’ (Hansen and Waade 2017, 275). Hansen and Waade draw on the same Ehrhardt interview referenced here, so we have common points of departure, but my analysis differs with respect to methodology and analytical conclusions. Bron/Broen is built on the premise of an international crime that brings together Swedish and Danish detectives in a joint investigation. In the first season, the initial crime is presented in the form of the conjoined halves of two bisected bodies—the bottom half of a Danish prostitute, the top half of a Swedish politician—that have been placed exactly on the border between Denmark and Sweden on the Øresund Bridge. Saga Norén (Sofie Helin) of the Malmö Police and Martin Rohde (Kim Bodnia) of the Copenhagen Police come to lead the investigation. They are reunited in the second season, whereas in the third and fourth seasons Saga is instead paired with Henrik Sabroe (Thure Lindhardt). I will focus on the first episodes of season 1, where the audiovisual signature of the show was established, and will subsequently make some analytical observations about the colour design in the final episode of the fourth and final season. Bo Ehrhardt suggests that the production set-up for Bron/Broen was different from in-house productions at DR (and at SVT). For one thing, he argues that the complex co-production set-up with multiple broadcasters allowed Nimbus and Filmlance to better safeguard the creative vision of the series, because they could play the broadcasters against each other. Secondly, he argued that the production set-up was a joyous combination of head writer Hans Rosenfeldt and conceptual director Charlotte Sieling, both of whom experienced greater creative freedom than they had been used to in previous productions: ‘Hans came from a Swedish tradition where the conceptual director was usually in charge and had final cut. Charlotte came from a school at DR where the head writer was “King”’ (Ehrhardt 2014, author’s translation). Whereas at DR the concept for one vision (see Redvall 2013) is assigned to the head writer for long series and to directors for miniseries, Bron/Broen represents a middle ground, with Rosenfeldt as the key creator of the series’ universe, but with Sieling, Sejer (production designer), and Jørgen Johansson (cinematographer) given substantial latitude to realize that universe, so that the creative vision was more balanced, and distributed among a team (Ehrhardt 2014; Sejer 2019). In terms of developing a visual concept for Bron/Broen, these two circumstances enabled Sieling, Sejer, and Johansson to make bold choices. Ehrhardt argues that Sejer particularly encouraged Sieling to experiment, and as an example notes ‘the murky yellow [skidengule] Porsche,’ arguing

112 

J. I. NIELSEN

Image 6.3  Shades of light green are remarkably dominant in this planimetric composition. A light pink gel on the light sources in the window display add subtle pink highlights to Saga’s hair, the desk, and the plant to the right

it would otherwise never have been approved: ‘[I]t does not make any sense. She is a police woman […] and Asperger’s like. Why would she be driving such a car?’ (Ehrhardt 2014, author’s translation). Looking more closely at the visual concept, colours are often heavily muted and reduced to a remarkably narrow range that makes the series come across as stylized in a manner that is not necessarily overt, but certainly not realistically motivated either. The muted colours are evident in both interior and exterior scenes. They are particularly apparent in the interior of the Malmö police department, which is nearly drained of colour and reduced to pallid pastels, not unlike the colour design of Roy Andersson’s films, such as Sånger från andre våningen/Songs From the Second Floor (2000) (Image 6.3). Even the fire hydrant is muted to a neutral silver, rather than being the standard red. Sejer explains how he arrived at a visual design concept of ‘unspectacular’ architecture and ‘unspectacular’ colours: I biked around Malmö and Copenhagen and took photographs of anonymous walls in the city and then printed these out, and then I actually got a colour palette out of it that was – what shall we say – unspectacular […] I

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

113

called it ‘found colours’. The palette was called ‘found colours’ because I postulated that I did not invent any of it, which is of course untrue because I went out and fetched them – you always do – but I postulated that these were colours accidentally found in the street (Sejer 2019, author’s translation).

‘Unspectacular’ or ‘found’ colours do not mean that Sejer (along with Sieling and Johansson) developed an audiovisual style that was meant to go unnoticed. Sejer is well aware of the dual nature of this colour palette, and vividly describes its intended effect on the audience: ‘It only works when it is unspectacular in a spectacular way. And one of the ways of making the unspectacular spectacular is to be consistent’ (Sejer 2019, author’s translation). Essentially, the invitation to engage with the audiovisual texture of Bron/Broen works in (at least) two ways. On the one hand, the series’ colour programme is remarkably coherent and pervasive throughout the four seasons—an aesthetic consequence that is somewhat outside Sejer, Sieling, and Johansson’s sphere of influence. They did develop the audiovisual signature of the show in a ‘visual concepts and ideas’ document, but could not be certain how this would be executed in subsequent episodes and seasons. Part of this consistency is also the result of Sejer and Sieling trying to develop similar looks for Copenhagen and Malmö: What if it is hard for us to assess whether we are in Copenhagen or Malmö? What if we make it a little difficult for the audience to figure these things out? What if we avoid easily decoded symbols outside the credit sequences? What if the architecture is comparably alike? What if the spaces are comparably alike? What if the colour palette for instance is used throughout regardless of whether we are in Denmark or Sweden? Because in film and TV you would usually make an effort to differentiate (Sejer 2019, author’s translation).

Note how Sejer evokes the spatially indeterminate colour programme identified in The Serbian Dane. On the other hand, Sejer explains how he and Sieling were also trying to undercut the consistency of their aesthetic choices and prompt viewers to be puzzled and ask questions. Perhaps this double ambition is best achieved with Saga’s olive-green Porsche 911, which, on one hand, is tied to the ‘unspectacular’ and subdued colour programme of the entire series, and on the other hand, is an iconic vehicle that is a highly unusual prop in a police procedural. The Porsche was put up for auction in July 2018, its colour being described as ‘jäger grün’.

114 

J. I. NIELSEN

Comparing the accompanying photograph of the car with its presentation in the series emphasizes how subdued the colours in the series actually are, and that the colour strategy is not only a question of prop choice, but of how it is photographed (e.g. lighting, filters, lenses) and graded.

Fifty Shades of Green A side effect of Bron/Broen’s muted colour scheme is that it allows particular colours to stand out more clearly. In particular, the series systematically incorporates shades of green throughout its four seasons. This is evident from the title sequence of the first episodes to the final frame of the fourth season. Sejer notes that they (the creative team of Sieling, himself, and Jørgen Johansson) did not deliberately set out to develop a green colour programme, but that the visual concept certainly allowed for it— even invited subsequent creative teams to carry out such explorations (Sejer 2019). Hansen and Waade note how the colour of the Porsche is followed up in the series’ production design and its colour palette (Hansen and Waade 2017, 274), but Bron/Broen not only uses shades of green in the production design, but also in the grading, lighting, and prop and costume choices. The first intimations of the series’ commitment to green are the individual shots in the title sequence in which the credits for Charlotte Sieling and Jørgen Johansson appear. Their credits appear against the background of the Little Mermaid statue and Rigshospitalet, respectively—both of which are in Copenhagen (Image 6.4). That the names of two significant Danish contributors to a Swedish–Danish co-production appear alongside two significantly Danish motifs is striking and playful. Both the meanings of Edward Eriksen’s statue and of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale that inspired it (1837) are highly complex and contested, particularly in terms of gender politics. Furthermore, Sieling received ‘The Golden Mermaid’ from Women in Film and Television in 2004, even more clearly invoking interpretations related to gender issues. Whether or not the juxtaposition of Sieling and the Little Mermaid is tongue in cheek is difficult to determine, but it establishes an interpretive space that encourages such contemplation. The choice of Rigshospitalet (aka Riget) as the motif on which Johansson is credited establishes an interpretive space of a different kind, as it references Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred’s miniseries, particularly since the reduced colour palette is reminiscent of The Kingdom. Later, Lars von

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

115

Image 6.4  Rigshospitalet saturated in olive green

Trier’s end credits persona from The Kingdom is also invoked in the form of a doctor who resembles Trier, a diminutive figure clad in a dinner suit and with narrow facial features. The shot of Rigshospitalet echoes the way in which the hospital was rendered in The Kingdom (artistically and transtextually motivated), but the choice of Rigshospitalet and the Little Mermaid is also important in another sense: neither look remotely as they do in real life (i.e. not realistically motivated). Both motifs are saturated in olive green (akin to Pantone 385) (Image 6.3), thus establishing one of the recurring colour signatures of the series, the colour choice standing out exactly by tinting two highly recognizable motifs that many viewers will be acquainted with—particularly Danish viewers. Needless to say, it is not uncommon for title sequences to display a high degree of stylization. As a paratext, the title sequence falls somewhere between the series’ diegetic and non-diegetic spaces—in this case, it is both of the fictional world and apart from it. The degree of stylization of the title sequence of Bron/Broen is akin to that of The Serbian Dane, outside the title sequence; that is, in the diegetic space of the series as such. When we move past the title sequence, the colour is generally more unobtrusive. For instance, shots similar to the one of Rigshospitalet appear in the series’ diegetic space, but usually with less overt colour grading.4

116 

J. I. NIELSEN

Image 6.5  Green is evident in clothing and props; see arrows for examples

Initially, the proclivity for green in Bron/Broen appears to have mundane functions. For example, when green lighting is applied to the background, creating pockets of filmic space that enhance a sense of depth, or when the journalist Daniel Farbé is first introduced, the colours are generally muted except for the green hue of the already hyper-situated Staropramen bottle dexterously turned towards the camera so that viewers can clearly make out the name of the beer that he is drinking. However, more is at stake here than enhancing depth or product placement. In episode 3, when Saga and Martin are watching Farbé on Swedish television, note how the frame is littered with green props and costumes (marked by arrows below, Image 6.5). Even the fruit on the napkin on the table are green grapes! If one thinks of this as coincidental, or only tied to the first season, I would like to demonstrate how this colour strategy is further pursued into the concluding fourth season. In the opening scene of the fourth season, green hues continuously pop up in costumes and props in a manner that exceeds what is realistically motivated: Saga wears green, the new inmate, Lucinda, who hates cops, wears green, Saga’s cell-mate eats a cheese sandwich topped with slices of green cucumbers, Saga passes a green football goal, then a turquoise-green wall. As every inmate must choose a chore, Saga chooses pottery so she can be alone, and she shows her lover, Henrik

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

117

Sabroe, the fruits of her labour: an olive-green teacup! Apparently, Saga’s colour preference extends to both Porsches and porcelain. These are but a few examples. Shades of green reappear throughout the season as a lighting, grading, prop, and costume choice. But what is really at stake here? What are we to make of this strategy? Is it merely background information? We can answer the last question with a ‘no’, because this is clearly a part of the series’ overall visual signature. As illustrated by a shot of Saga after the attempted assassination, there are even a few examples of the characters appearing to be subsumed under a compositional pattern, which is unusual outside the tradition of German expressionism: After Saga is attacked at the beginning of season 4, she falls to the ground, blood coming from the area of her neck and shoulder. An overhead shot shows her posture (including her green shirt and raised arms) woven into an overall pattern against the green and blue linoleum floor. As pervasive as the green colour strategy is, it also inflects the tonality of the series in a general sense, and sometimes quite clearly carries expressive or symbolic functions, as when—in the stoning scene early in season 4—the green atmospheric lighting under the Øresund Bridge underscores the depravity and sick brutality of the action taking place. In many of the instances mentioned above, expressive or symbolic functions are not easily ascribed to the colour design: In the final episode directed by Rumle Hammerich,5 Saga—immediately after the title sequence—throws a green package of menstrual pads into a bin on her office desk. The colour choice comes across as deliberate, but I hesitate to assign expressive or symbolic functions to the use of colour in that case. But in that very same sequence of events, there is simultaneously an example of how the series helps build to a narrative climax by systematically relying on green hues for passing on narratively significant information. Central to the resolution of the plot is a phone call made by two girls, Julia (Fanny Leander Bornedal) and Ida (Iris Mealor Olsen), when they want to disclose to Henrik Sabroe that they now know who committed the crime, that is, Susanne (Sandra Yi Sencindiver). Since Henrik is at home, recently reunited with his long-lost daughter, Astrid (Selma Modéer Wiking), Julia and Ida instead leave a message. A woman at police headquarters takes down the message on a slip of yellow paper with a green imprint, which becomes a visual nodal point around which a number of narrative strands are built. First, the green–yellow note is highlighted in an insert when it is written, then highlighted during a follow shot as the camera lingers on the note when the police secretary walks through the station

118 

J. I. NIELSEN

Image 6.6  Mandrup comes to ask Saga about the investigation and places his right hand next to the green–yellow note

to stick it to Henrik’s metallic mail container. In an ensuing shot, it is highlighted both compositionally and by suspenseful underscore music. Then comes the title sequence, but the series resumes the suspenseful circling around the note immediately afterwards. Hammerich stages an almost Hitchcockian kind of suspense, with the viewers having knowledge that exceeds that of the characters. Almost imperceptibly, Saga briefly turns her eyes towards the note when she sits at her desk, but before managing to read it, she is interrupted by John (Rafael Pettersson), as he and Barbara (Julie Carlsen) give Saga information about a secret assailant. As Saga walks towards John and Barbara, the camera initially follows her, but then picks up and tracks towards the note. After a scene at Henrik’s house, where Astrid asks to go ‘home’ later in the day, for reasons that are not fully disclosed to us, we return to the police station, where the newly appointed head of the investigation, Jonas Mandrup (Mikael Birkkjær), approaches Saga. He places his right hand on Henrik’s post box, right beside the note (Image 6.6), further playing off the discrepancy between our knowledge and that of the characters, who do not yet know that an important key to their investigation is sitting literally right under their noses. Only when Henrik phones does Saga finally notice and read the note (Image 6.7).

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

119

Image 6.7  Ultimately, Saga reads the note, which we finally get to see in an insert that allows viewers to read the text

Sophisticated as this use of the green note might appear, it is only the beginning of a remarkably intricate staging pattern where the note becomes a visual nodal point that ties together a particular set of characters, each of whom wears green and ends up in the same location in a climactic scene. The two girls, Julia and Ida, wear green when they phone the police to deliver the key message to Henrik. The woman who receives the phone call wears a light green blouse, and the villain—who will later go to look for the girls at Nørreport Station, from which they made their phone call— Susanne, wears a dark green trench coat. After the title sequence, we see that Saga—driving about in her olive-green Porsche—also wears an olivegreen trench coat. Saga and Susanne are engaged in parallel investigations, where both receive important information by phone—Saga through a phone call with Henrik and Susanne through a phone call with her boss, the child psychologist, Niels (Thomas W. Gabrielsson). Ultimately, Susanne, Julia, Ida, and Saga end up in the same place— Henrik’s villa, now empty, since he and Astrid have left. On their part, Henrik and Astrid wear dark blue coats. At Henrik’s villa, Susanne catches the girls by surprise. Susanne first stuns them with a Taser and then puts

120 

J. I. NIELSEN

Image 6.8  A face-off between green trench coats. Saga arrives at Henrik’s house in her olive-green Porsche wearing an olive-green trench coat, and she interrupts Susanne, who is about to leave the scene with Julia and Ida Tasered in the boot of her car; also note the green light poles

them in the boot of her car, before being interrupted by Saga (Image 6.8), at which point there is a shoot-out between the two women. In this case, the colour code serves a narrative function, as it helps distinguish cross-cut from intercut scenes. Ultimately, it helps tie together the three parties that go head to head at Henrik’s villa (Susanne, Julia and Ida, and Saga), and set apart the intercut scenes with Henrik and Astrid, who leave the location where the parallel investigations come to a narrative climax. Yet even in this case, the green hues are somewhat in excess of what is necessary from a narrative perspective. For instance, even the light poles are green in the scene where Saga and Susanne face off (see Image 6.8).

Concluding Remarks In conclusion, the use of colour in Bron/Broen ebbs and flows across the scale of motivation, from unobtrusive to overt. On the one hand, green hues are applied in ways that are either realistically or narratively motivated; on the other hand, green hues are also applied in excess of what is realistically or narratively motivated. A parametric colour design (Bordwell

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

121

1985) would generally qualify as artistically motivated, because it invites viewers to speculate about the artistic motives or rationale subtending its patterning. The examples that I have highlighted suggest that the series does stage a parametric game of form that invites viewers look for and contemplate the meaning of colour patterns. Yet I have not come across much critical commentary on the series’ playful proclivity for green. Both traditional media and fan posts feature considerable commentary regarding the colour of Saga’s Porsche, referred to, for instance, as ‘mustard coloured’ (Wollaston 2018) or ‘greeny brown’ (Doward 2014). There is also commentary regarding the overall look of the series, for instance, when Doward refers to a ‘bleak grey/brown tint through which the Scandinavian drama is filmed’ (Doward 2014). What I find lacking is attention to the continuous use of green hues in lighting, grading, set design, clothing, and props. It is reasonable to speculate that the series does not flaunt this playful colour strategy clearly enough for the general viewer—or critic—to notice it. Often, one has to pay relatively close attention, because the colour strategy is invoked at the fringes of our attention—in the backgrounds of shots, in details of sometimes cluttered compositions, as a transient motif that the camera briefly passes. When one is confronted with the analytical conclusions, one of the methodological challenges of the model described at the beginning of this chapter is that artistically motivated colour design is not overt by default. In this case, the call to engage with the series’ parametric design comes in the form of a subtle invitation. However, if viewers notice and accept this invitation, and then follow this path, they are essentially engaging with the texture of the series in a way that diverges significantly from the series’ ongoing narrative—and it is then that style comes to take on an overt function.

Notes 1. Miniseries have also been exploratory with respect to narrative design and generic hybridization, but it is beyond the scope of this article to account for the ‘trickle-down’ effect with regard to these aspects. 2. For an up-to-date overview of the literature (both academic and industrial) on colour film processes, see filmcolors.org, a website curated by Barbara Flückiger. 3. There was significant technological development from The Kingdom to Bron/Broen in terms of production and consumer technology, but I believe that the function of colour has not changed in a paradigmatic sense.

122 

J. I. NIELSEN

4. This is also the case with other shots that reappear as transitional shots that separate scenes. Most display a less radical form of colour grading, but a few are almost identical to the shots in the title sequence. 5. This is symptomatic in the sense that Hammerich was Head of Drama at DR from 1994 to 1998, when the early miniseries strategy was established at the division.

References Avis, Isadora García. 2015. Adapting Landscape and Place in Transcultural Remakes: The Case of Bron/Broen, The Bridge and The Tunnel. International Journal of TV Serial Narratives 1 (2): 127–138. Bacher, Lutz. 1996. Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Blomgren, Lars. 2015. Q and A with Lars Blomgren, CEO/Producer, Filmlance. Crime Pays Conference, Aalborg. Conducted by Jakob Isak Nielsen and Anne Marit Waade, October 1. Bondebjerg, Ib. 2012. Scandinavian Film and Television: The Birth of Modern Television Drama, Part II. Video Essay. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Bordwell, David. 1985. Narration in the Fiction Film. London: Routledge. ———. 1989. Historical Poetics of Cinema. In The Cinematic Text: Methods and Approaches, ed. R. Palmer Barton, 369–398. New York: AMS Press. ———. 1997. On the History of Film Style. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2005. Figures Traced in Light. Berkeley/London: University of California Press. Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. 1985. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge. Butler, Jeremy. 2010. Television Style. New York: Routledge. Cooke, Lez. 2013. Style in British Television Drama. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Creeber, Glen. 2015. Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetics, Philosophy and Influence of Nordic Noir Television. Journal of Popular Television 3 (1): 21–35. Doward, Jamie. 2014. The Bridge Fans Elevate Detective Saga’s Porsche to Cult Following. The Guardian, January 18. https://www.theguardian.com/tvand-radio/2014/jan/18/the-bridge-porsche-cult-status Ehrhardt, Bo. 2014. Executive Producer and Partner, Nimbus Film. Interviewed by Anne Marit Waade, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Pia Majbritt Jensen, March 21, 2014.

6  FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: ON VISUAL STYLE IN DANISH TELEVISION SERIES 

123

Elley, Derek. 1994. The Kingdom. Variety, September 26. Esser, Andrea. 2017. Form, Platform and the Formation of Transnational Audiences: A Case Study of how Danish TV Drama Series Captured Television Viewers in the United Kingdom. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 411–429. Gabold, Ingolf. 2014. Senior Producer, Eyeworks, Former Head of Drama at DR. Interviewed by Anne Marit Waade, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Pia Majbritt Jensen, March 21, 2014. Gamula, Lea, and Lothar Mikos. 2014. Nordic Noir – Skandinavische Fernsehserien und ihr internationaler Erfolg. Konstanz/München: UVK. Gemzøe, Lynge Stegger. 2018. The Showrunner Effect: System, Culture and Individual Agency in American Remakes of Danish Television Series. PhD Dissertation. Aarhus University. Gibbs, John, and Douglas Pye. 2005. Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Higgins, Scott. 2007. Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hill, Annette. 2016. Sense of Place: Producers and Audiences of International Drama Format The Bridge. In New Patterns in Global Television Formats, ed. Karina Aveyard, Pia Majbritt Jensen, and Albert Moran. Bristol: Intellect. ———. 2019. Media Experiences: Engaging with Drama and Reality Television. New York: Routledge. Hochscherf, Tobias, and Heidi Philipsen. 2017. Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television Drama. London: I.B. Tauris. Jacobs, Jason, and Steven Peacock. 2013. Television Aesthetics and Style. London: Bloomsbury. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Anne Marit Waade. 2013. Nordic Noir Production Values. The Killing and the Bridge. Akademisk Kvarter 7 (Fall): 189–201. Jørholt, Eva. 1998. Filmens Farver. Kosmorama 222 (Winter): 6–33. https:// www.kosmorama.org/kosmorama/arkiv/222/filmens-farver Kennedy, Harlan. 1994. Festivals: Venice. Film Comment 30(6, November– December): 64–67. Layton, James, and David Pierce. 2015. The Dawn of Technicolor. Rochester: George Eastman House. Nielsen, Jakob Isak. 2006. Bølgebryder. Interview with Anders Refn. 16:9 16 (April). http://www.16-9.dk/2006-04/side05_feature2.htm Nordstrøm, Pernille. 2004. Fra Riget til Bella: Bag om tv-seriens golden age. Søborg: DR. Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From the Kingdom to the Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

124 

J. I. NIELSEN

Reich, Nadia Kløvedal. 2013. Guest Lecture at Aarhus University. Hosted by Jakob Isak Nielsen, August 28, 2013. Salt, Barry. 2009. Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis. London: Starword. Schepelern, Peter. 2000. Lars von Triers film: Tvang og befrielse. Copenhagen: Rosinante Forlag. Sejer, Niels. 2019. Production Designer on e.g. Bron/Broen and Forbrydelsen. Interview by Jakob Isak Nielsen, 26 June, 2019. Wallensten, Adam. 2015. Cinematographer. Interviewed by Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Kim Toft Hansen. August 13, 2015. Wayne, M.L. 2016. Critically Acclaimed and Cancelled: FX’s The Bridge, Channel as Brand and the Adaptation of Scripted TV Formats. VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 5(9): 116–125. https://doi. org/10.18146/2213-0969.2016.jethc107. Wollaston, Sam. 2018. The Bridge Series Finale Review – Goodbye Saga Norén. God We’ll Miss You. The Guardian, June 30. www.theguardian.com/tv-andradio/2018/jun/30/the-bridge-season-four-finale-review

CHAPTER 7

Can You Export a Production Culture? The Team as a European Nordic Crime Drama Eva Novrup Redvall

In the 2010s, Nordic crime series such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing (2007–2012) and Bron/Broen/The Bridge (2011–2018) attracted international interest among niche audiences, despite being small-nation, subtitled drama that normally does not travel widely. Since then, much has been written about what may be regarded as the special characteristics of these series, particularly focusing on  the notion of ‘Nordic Noir’ (e.g. Hansen and Waade 2017). However, this chapter focuses on issues related to the series’ production through a case study of the European police series The Team (2015–), which was an attempt to export what was perceived as a successful production framework for high-end drama by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) to the broader European television landscape. Following the international audience appeal of the Nordic series, the European industry and the press took an interest in the Nordic production framework at industry events such as the European TV Drama Series Lab (Redvall 2012, 2013a) or by sending reporters to Denmark to explore the

E. N. Redvall (*) University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_7

125

126 

E. N. REDVALL

Danish ‘hit factory’ (Gilbert 2012), with the DR in-house production unit receiving special attention. Based on a study of what may be regarded as DR’s mode of drama production (Redvall 2013b), this chapter explores how industry perceptions of DR’s successful production framework led to The Team having an all-Danish writing and main production team, which was meant to ensure a high level of professionalism and a certain look for the series. Moreover, having the writers, the producer, the director, the director of photography, the production designer, and other key creative people all from one country was an attempt to avoid creating a ‘Euro-­ Pudding’ behind the scenes, by essentially trying to export a successful national production framework to the European level. The Team was co-produced by 11 media organizations from eight European countries (involving six public service broadcasters). It was presented by the European Broadcasting Corporation as ‘the first genuine “European” series of its kind’ (EBU 2015), and as built on the Scandinavian Noir series that have shown ‘that language is no barrier to the international success of “made in Europe” fiction’ (EBU 2015). This chapter explores how this particular production came about, and analyses what the main Danish practitioners perceived as the strengths and weaknesses of the effort to export a particular nation’s approach to producing series in a transnational context. The case study is based on qualitative interviews with the Danish screenwriters (Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboe), the producer (Stinna Lassen), and the director (Kathrine Windfeld) of The Team  and highlights how various kinds of cultural encounters that occurred while writing and producing the series pinpoint challenges that can emerge when high-­ end television drama is co-produced in this way. The challenges ranged from addressing the general logistical tensions that arise from there being many partners in different countries, to quite specific everyday tensions, such as deciding whether to have morning meetings on set or trying to calibrate different acting styles. This analysis of practitioners’ work in a particular production context draws on previous literature on co-­ production and demonstrates a number of the difficulties of transnational co-production, even when, from the outset, there is a deliberate attempt to apply a specific Nordic approach to production as the guiding principle.1

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

127

Building European Series on Nordic Production Strategies Traditionally, European production of expensive television fiction has been a national affair, whereas the world of cinema has seen more co-­ production. Some countries have had ‘networked productions’ (Baltruschat 2010) or a history of working together in both film and television, such as the United Kingdom and United States (Hilmes 2011; Weissmann 2012). In the Nordic region, the public service broadcasters have set up programme exchanges and other forms of collaboration through the cooperative venture Nordvision, since 1959 (Bondebjerg and Redvall 2011). However, television drama production has been primarily targeted at national audiences, while non-fiction formats have travelled more (Esser and Jensen 2015). In the 2010s, new developments in a rapidly changing television (and streaming) landscape led to new opportunities for television drama to travel, partly because niche audiences in the United Kingdom were warming up to subtitled content, such as Engrenages/Spiral (2005–), Wallander (2005–2006), The Killing, and Borgen (2010–2013) on BBC Four. This led to discussions of potential ‘counter-flows’ to the prevailing American and British fare, which might offer new opportunities for small-nation content (Weissmann 2012, 191). Moreover, Nordic Noir series such as The Bridge demonstrated that cross-cultural stories with multilingual dialogue could work for audiences in the principal co-producing countries (in this case, Sweden and Denmark) and for international viewers. The hype surrounding Scandinavian crime series, and the clever marketing of these series as embodying the Nordic Noir brand, helped to create the sense that not only the United Kingdom, but also other European audiences, might be more open to series from neighbouring European countries, at least if they are high-end in all aspects of their production. The production of The Team grew out of the new confidence in the international potential of European television drama. The executive producer of the series, Peter Nadermann, had been buying DR series for the German broadcaster ZDF since the Emmy award-winning crime series, Rejseholdet/Unit One (2000–2004). The Scandinavian crime series found a special slot on German television, where they gradually built up their audiences. Over the years, their popularity led Nadermann to invest in DR series such as Ørnen/The Eagle (2004–2006) and Livvagterne/The Protectors (2008–2010)—both written by the screenwriters of The Team,

128 

E. N. REDVALL

Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboe—and in the 2010s Nadermann saw potential in trying to create a new transnational series, built on exporting the DR production framework and taking advantage of the new interest in Nordic fare. What characterizes a particular production framework may be hard to define. Research on the DR production framework reveals major changes in the ideas that guided DR’s productions since the mid-1990s, when the broadcaster decided to focus all its energy on producing high-end, one-­ hour drama series (Redvall 2013b). Some of the new ideas in the production framework were based on mirroring American production structures, partly by putting the writers at the centre of television production in an otherwise director-driven Danish production culture. Thus, DR has focused on developing writers’ original ideas—rather than on making adaptations—based on a conviction that screenwriters are the ones with the ‘one vision’ for series (Redvall 2013b, 69). In 2003, DR formulated a set of ‘production dogmas’ for their drama series, insisting, among other things, that there should be ‘crossover’ between talent from the film and television industries (2013b, 72). Their ambition was to create cinematic series that could compete with the best foreign fare, but the series should always be grounded in a public service mindset and contain ‘double storytelling’, not only providing an entertaining plot, but also addressing larger ethical and societal issues (2013b, 69). These are some of the characteristics of this particular public service, in-house production culture, but even though there is a common general framework, different producers, writers, and other crew continuously approach their work from different angles, and they repeatedly insist that there is no such thing as a ‘recipe’ for good television drama production (2013b, 5). In the 2010s, several television industry events highlighted the DR framework as an example of best practices for a small-nation production culture (e.g. Redvall 2012, 2013b). At one of these events, Nadermann praised the DR series for displaying a number of high-quality elements, and emphasized the way in which DR had successfully copied the American ‘showrunner system’ and managed to create strong series, despite a very limited output (Redvall 2013b, 62). As he later explained at an industry event for The Team, he wanted this mode of production to mark the creation of the new series by putting a Danish team in charge (Nadermann 2014). This was achieved, with Danish screenwriters Brostrøm and Thorsboe creating the series, Kathrine Windfeld (who, sadly, passed away

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

129

in 2015) as the conceptualizing director, Kasper Gaardsø as episode director, Danish producer Stinna Lassen, and Danish directors of photography (Morten Søborg, Jan Pallesen, and Lars Vestergaard), the editor (Per K. Kirkegaard), the production designer (Søren Gam), and the art director (Knirke Madelung). All these people had previously worked on Danish series such as Borgen, The Bridge, Lykke/Happy Life (2011–2012), and Rita (2012–), and their experience was intended to bring high-end production values to The Team. In contrast, on several occasions Nadermann criticized most German television drama series of the 2000s as looking ‘too cheap’, which he identified as a major reason that they did not travel (Redvall 2013b, 61). One might ask whether one can seamlessly move a production framework from one television drama context to another, and how moving from an in-house, national production culture to a transnational setting might influence the way things are done. The academic literature on co-­ production discusses how there tend to be many challenges when trying to create transnational productions (Hammett-Jamart et al. 2018). This goes for questions of financing, logistics, or communication, when several partners have to agree on how to proceed, and also in terms of the creative collaboration, where there may be conflicting traditions, different notions of quality, or various ideas of what might work best in certain contexts (cf. Jäckel 2003; Morawetz et al. 2007). The obvious benefit of co-production is the financial pooling, and the drawback most often cited by producers is the increased coordination cost (Hoskins et al. 1995). When Nadermann discusses his perception of the Danish mode of production, he highlights the value of DR’s focus on writers, and how they enjoy a great deal of freedom, partly because almost all the financing comes from licence fees paid by the public service broadcaster (in Redvall 2013a, 62). There are not that many different financiers to please, and everybody involved in a series is at the same location, working together closely for a long time. Nadermann has also stressed the importance of knowing your partners well, and having trusted long-time collaborators when co-producing (Redvall 2013a, 61–62). This trust was present among the Danish writers with whom he had worked for several years, but as the following case study of The Team illustrates, it may be hard for a major European production to maintain a clear sense of one vision when it ends up having many different financing partners and the ambition to shoot with a multilingual cast in several countries.2

130 

E. N. REDVALL

Financing and Writing The Team From the outset, the idea behind The Team was to create a European series that could travel by appealing to audiences of many different countries. In this context, Nadermann argues that for many years only one genre has proven to work well in this way, namely crime (Nadermann 2014), and, accordingly, his ambition was to create a European crime series. Screenwriters Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboe’s first idea was to reuse characters from their previous crime dramas, such as the Icelandic Hallgrimm (Jens Albinus) from The Eagle, which had proven popular with German audiences, or Leon (Thomas W. Gabrielsson) from The Protectors (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). This idea is interesting with regard to format change, since this would not be an adaptation of a scripted format or a spin-off –  such as Better Call Saul (2015–), which grew out of Breaking Bad (2008–2013) – but the resurrection of an existing character from a national series for an international production. Jean K. Chalaby has analysed how format trade is currently changing with what he calls ‘the late rise’ of scripted series based on an attempt to create ‘drama without drama’, by building new series on successful productions from other countries or adapting existing material (Chalaby 2015). Resurrecting popular characters would have been an interesting example of such a strategy, but ultimately it was not used for The Team. When the writers explored this possible route, they found that it was hard to create a strong new story based on existing characters. They chose to instead work on another idea based on a European crime unit, which they had conceived several years previously, but had never had the opportunity to bring to life. Following the writing of Unit One—about a team of travelling police investigators who solved cases all over Denmark—Brostrøm and Thorsboe had wanted to create a series about an international police unit that travelled throughout Europe. They developed a possible concept for such a story in 2002–2003, and visited Europol and talked to investigators, but according to Brostrøm ‘the world wasn’t ready for that kind of story at that point in time. We met a lot of resistance and put the idea away. Instead, we created a similar story in a Nordic context with Hallgrimm in The Eagle’ (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). Thus, the principal set-up for The Team was an original idea that the writers had shelved since the television drama production and audience landscape was perceived as not receptive to this kind of content in the early 2000s.

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

131

Instead of trying to get their European idea off the ground, Brostrøm and Thorsboe continued writing in-house series for DR, with the Emmy-­ winning series The Eagle and The Protectors following Unit One. However, when The Protectors was not renewed for a third season, and Nadermann suggested the development of a series outside the DR framework, they accepted his proposal to create a European series. The development talks for a new crime drama began in 2009, and this time the writers felt that the time might be ripe for a European crime story such as that envisioned some years before. Brostrøm and Thorsboe went back to Europol in 2010, where they learned of a case involving three murders in three different countries, requiring three national investigative teams to collaborate. This became the set-up for The Team, with three main characters from three different countries having a natural reason for working together (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). However, the question was which three countries, and here the financing played a major part. As Nadermann was German and the writers were Danish, the intention was always to have two of the three characters come from Germany and Denmark. The third character, who ended up being the Flemish policewoman Alicia (played by Veerle Baetens), was originally written as British, then Spanish, and then French, before finally becoming Flemish. Nadermann was unable to secure British financing for his transnational idea, and the financing situation in Southern Europe was hard because of the financial crisis. As he has explained, the process of finding the money for production has creative consequences, since ‘if you get Swiss money, they would like to have a Swiss face in the show’ (Nadermann 2014). Nadermann (2014) found the writers to be ‘flexible’ in this regard, and according to Brostrøm and Thorsboe, they approached the change of countries as a ‘fun challenge’ that did not undermine the writing process ‘if you avoid national stereotypes so that it is not hard to move the material to another country’ (Brostrøm 2014). In retrospect, most producers and writers would probably defend their work process and final choices, but this example illustrates how the difficulties behind financing the material continuously called for the writers to rethink their original idea. However, according to the writers, Alicia’s backstory remained the same, even if her nationality changed. In terms of trying to cater to many different financers, the writers argue that this calls for a lot of trust between the main collaborators on a project. At the Danish television industry festival, Brostrøm and Thorsboe emphasized how they had only become involved in the project because they knew Nadermann in advance, and he had promised to ‘protect the story.’

132 

E. N. REDVALL

(W)e have heard so many stories about projects where too many people wanted to interfere, and broadcasters wanting weird things, which may not be a good thing in the story. But you [Nadermann] said: ‘I’m going to protect your story’ and we’re very grateful for that. Because I think that if we should give any advice today, that is the very important thing: That you’re not having too many people around the scripts, when you’re creating the story. (Brostrøm 2014)

This illustrates how the writers were concerned about whether they would have control of their material from the very outset of the process, and how knowing each other in advance was seen as making a difference in this regard; particularly since there would almost inevitably be conflicting ideas about the best choices and changes, if not from the outset, then definitely during the long process of production. In the case of The Team, there were challenges and disagreements during production, for instance, concerning the final edit of the last episodes, when the writers felt that attempts were being made to make the series mirror the structure of a classical whodunnit, even if the material was not written that way (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). They have described how they approached the writing of The Team as a ‘road movie series’— with a looser structure than most crime dramas and with ample room for digressions. However, they agree that this form may have been difficult for the series as a whole and since it was their first time writing an eight-­ episode serialized crime plot (in contrast to their DR series, Unit One, The Eagle, and The Protectors, where the crime cases wrap in one or two episodes), this structure presented challenges for them as writers. Even though there were discussions about some of the final choices, the writers generally found that the process was marked by respect for them as the creators of the series and for their original material. However, they argue that not having final cut does make it harder to maintain the sense of having one vision for a project, particularly when a number of decisions were made far away in a process that was sometimes—as will be discussed—marked by communication problems (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). According to the writers, once the characters’ nationalities were decided upon, there were no major creative notes from the various partners, but the material had to be ‘downsized’ to adjust the screenplays to the final financial realities of production, attempting to make the text 20% cheaper to shoot. They regard the need to be able to cope with this when

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

133

writing high-end series as a shared feature of all television production (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). Although the writers presented the process as ‘protected’, and Nadermann depicted it as having ‘all happy partners’ at industry events such as the Danish Television Festival, the research interviews reveal that the international collaboration also faced challenges along the way. The following analysis focuses on what the Danish director, producer, and writers highlighted as the most challenging ‘cultural encounters’ during the making of the series: the logistics of the transnational shoot and the meeting of different production cultures; calibrating different European acting styles to create the sense of a coherent series; and the major question of communication in what the Head of the Copenhagen Film Fund Thomas Gammeltoft has called ‘a very complicated circus’ (Gammeltoft 2014).

Planning and Shooting The Team An important reason for choosing to work with a Danish A team was that The Team should be clearly marked by what was perceived as strong talent from a successful production framework; another motivation was to have one vision on set. The Danish film and television industry is rather small. Most people in the industry have trained at the National Film School of Denmark, where they have acquired a common language for talking about stories, acting, or production (Redvall 2015). People know each other from industry events and from working on the same productions in the limited national output, with crossover between cinema and television drama. Having a team with the same or similar training and work background may help facilitate good communication behind the scenes of a production, which in this case had plenty of logistical challenges because of shooting in five different countries with an international cast over a long period of time. The Team had a 131-day shoot (divided into three blocks of two, four, and two episodes at a time) on location in Copenhagen, Berlin, Antwerp, Austria, and Switzerland. As Danish producer Stinna Lassen put it, it was a ‘road movie crime show’—and ‘a nightmare of calendar logistics’ (Lassen 2015). Lassen became attached to the production only two months before the shoot, when it was decided to have a producer travel with the production since ZDF was worried about not having someone on set. The logistics were complex because the delegate producer and the financial side of the

134 

E. N. REDVALL

production were situated in Belgium whereas the creative team was in Denmark; this was where the first part of pre-production took place before moving to Belgium for what Lassen calls the ‘serious pre-production’ before the shoot. Lassen describes how her job was to ensure that ‘what had been written and accepted by the broadcasters was what they actually got’ (Lassen 2015). Part of achieving that was making sure that everyone was on the same page. In the Danish production culture, a common strategy for ensuring this is to have a morning briefing every day of the shoot. Lassen explains that this briefing establishes team spirit for the day, and ensures that everyone knows whether any particular aspects need special attention. Usually, the director and line producer will start by thanking people for the day before, and will then move to introduce the scenes for the new day, mentioning any special concerns, such as having children on set. According to Lassen, the Flemish crew found the briefings strange, since they felt as though someone was dictating how things should be done. The briefings ended up being a point of contention, as the international crew did not really pay attention; this was frustrating for the Danish team, as they were trying to implement what they regarded as a constructive tradition on set. In the end, Lassen cancelled the daily briefings, despite having been instructed to use the Scandinavian way of producing series, wherein the briefings are perceived as an effective tool for making a working day run more efficiently (Lassen 2015). She highlights the different perceptions of the briefings as one of the major cultural conflicts on set, but there were also other differences, such as whether or not one is allowed to drink alcohol during the lunch break, or whether or not meals need to be served on porcelain plates. According to Lassen, small things like this may have a significant impact on a workday (2015). It was decided that the Danish team should speak English on set so that other crew members were not alienated, but there were often conflicts related to what Lassen considers a distinctly Danish way of stating opinions very directly. Other members of the crew considered this way of putting things ‘incredibly rude’, and Lassen had to spend substantial time solving conflicts. In general, she found that the German and Austrian crew members were more open to the Danish mode of production than the Flemish crew, and she argues that some cultures and countries work better together than others (Lassen 2015). Although network analysis of the most common co-production partners in Europe illustrates that certain countries collaborate more than others (Bondebjerg et al. 2017)—often

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

135

based on the funding available for these specific constellations—Lassen’s comments indicate that cultural differences also matter in this regard. What media scholar Joseph Straubhaar discusses as ‘cultural proximity’ (2007) is relevant not only in terms of audience perceptions of different content or in the negotiations of larger co-production set-ups and collaborations, but also in terms of the everyday practices and challenges on set. In Lassen’s opinion, Danish production teams are less hierarchical than those of other European countries, but normally teams are also much smaller and work fewer hours, although they are very efficient. On The Team, they averaged two and a half locations every day, since only 15% of the show was shot in the studio. The travelling crew consisted of 32 people plus local crew in every country. Thus, on a typical day there were 50 to 60 people on set, depending on the number of actors, so it was a huge production to keep track of, and there were many challenges surrounding language and communication (Lassen 2015). Lassen raises the question of communication as the greatest challenge, not only the communication on set, but also the communication among the various stakeholders in their respective countries. She describes a major part of her task as making sure that nothing got lost in emails or Dropbox systems that had synchronization problems. She remembers the process as one of writing endless emails to clarify problems caused by a lack of structure: Who says what? Who evaluates and analyses? Who makes the decision? Who respects the decision? What economic consequences does it have? Who signs off on it? The one who makes the creative decisions also makes the budgetary decisions, since those two things are inseparable. The screenplay is the budget. (Lassen 2015)

According to Lassen, the decision-making structure of the production was ‘born difficult’, since the people making the creative and financial decisions were in different places: ‘As a producer you are used to being able to say: OK, we go over budget, but we do that since we absolutely need this material. Those two decisions need to go together and that was not the case with The Team’ (Lassen 2015). She argues that this division created a structure where decisions were made too slowly, costing money and causing frustration, in contrast to smaller Danish productions, where a line producer has the mandate from the producer, and can make decisions or find a solution by making one phone call.

136 

E. N. REDVALL

Screenwriters Brostrøm and Thorsboe highlight the question of communication as the production’s greatest challenge. They wrote the screenplays in Danish before they were translated into English, and the dialogue was translated to the languages spoken in specific scenes. From a screenwriting perspective, it was hard to know whether things were translated correctly, and they emphasize the importance of improving communication during production—especially over large distances and between several languages—as the main lesson learned from making The Team (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). Brostrøm and Thorsboe argue that even if one’s collaborators are only a phone call away, talking to each other feels different when the production is in another country and you do not know what you might be interfering with when you call. Brostrøm and Thorsboe were used to being close to the DR in-house productions, so The Team was a major change for them in this regard.

Creating a Look and Calibrating the Acting Conceptualizing director Kathrine Windfeld found communication in the production of The Team as much of a challenge as did the writers, but because of the nature of her job she found this to be the case mostly when working with the actors.3 Windfeld became attached after directing two episodes of The Bridge, and participated in developing the series’ visual style and casting the many roles. She regarded it as a luxury that all eight episodes were written from the outset, which is normally not the case for DR series, where production starts while later episodes for the season are still being written. Coming from The Bridge, one of Windfeld’s major concerns was whether to copy the style of the popular dark Scandi crime dramas, or to create another look for this European series. Windfeld argued that a lot of blue (and sometimes brown or grey) series have come out of Scandinavia, since the Scandinavian light is blue. It was decided to try to distinguish The Team by using other colours. When scouting locations, Windfeld was struck by the red of several locations in Germany and Antwerp, and she decided to work with this colour in the series. Moreover, she was glad to be shooting in new locations, such as the Austrian mountains, which offer a different look from Denmark, which is ‘flat as a pancake’ (Windfeld 2014). According to the writers of The Team, they never set out to write Nordic Noir, which they argue they do not even know how to define (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). If they were to offer a definition, it would be more

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

137

about a certain inner darkness of people from countries with limited light eight months per year, rather than about the lighting of the series as such, and they had no particular expectations of a certain Nordic Noir look for the series (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). Windfeld’s and the writers’ statements suggest that although the stated ambition was to build on the success and production framework of recent Danish series, this did not mean tapping into a certain Nordic Noir look. In Windfeld’s opinion, the visual style of The Team is not particularly Scandinavian, but she highlights two other aspects as coming from a certain Danish approach to production. The first is the already-mentioned concept of ‘double storytelling’ from the DR production dogmas. Windfeld described double storytelling as related to what may be understood as including the moral elements of a story, and as a director she found it interesting to discuss this concept with the foreign actors on The Team, for instance in terms of how scenes have a subtext that is an important part of the whole (Windfeld 2014). The other particularly Scandinavian aspect relates to how she worked hard to calibrate what she perceived as different European acting styles, to make sure that there would be a sense of everyone acting in a style associated with Scandinavian series. Windfeld argued that ‘[W]hen you talk about Scandinavian noir, you talk about the Scandinavian soul.’ In her opinion, this means drawing on a tradition that comes from the work of Ingmar Bergman, where the acting is low key: ‘We don’t have to do very much. It’s a close up. You can see it in the eyes. It’s enough’ (Windfeld 2014). In Windfeld’s view, Nadermann’s assignment was to make ‘a Scandinavian noir European series’, and to achieve this, the acting needed to be based on ‘compressed feelings’ rather than the large expressions of feeling known from the films of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, for instance: ‘I love Almodóvar, but we don’t do Almodóvar, we don’t do feelings. It’s cold, it’s dark, compressed. This is, for me at least, the Scandinavian noir’ (Windfeld 2014). The ambition was to cast well-known actors for the main parts of The Team. According to Windfeld, the broadcasters and producers had some specific wishes, and the three main parts needed to be cast with stars from the characters’ home countries. There were castings in Berlin with the Danish caster Tanja Grunwald, and there were also e-castings, where actors presented themselves and then acted a specific scene on their smartphones. Windfeld described e-casting as a fantastic tool, ‘because you can see so much in such a short time’, and she was generally fascinated by the

138 

E. N. REDVALL

opportunity to suddenly have all Europe to cast from, rather than working with the Scandinavian talent pool only (Windfeld 2014). On set, working with actors from several countries turned out to be a challenge, since Windfeld found that there are different acting styles in Europe. In her view, the German actors in particular have a ‘loud’ acting style, and she had to tell them to do less. She decided that Danish star Lars Mikkelsen would set the Scandinavian acting style for the series, and the other actors initially responded by saying ‘But he’s not doing anything!’ She would then explain that this was exactly the style that the series was aiming for, since it was all about seeing it in the eyes of the character, rather than ‘overplaying’ (Windfeld 2014). Windfeld argued that she managed to make the acting find a consistent tone, and the writers agreed. They watched a lot of German series while writing The Team, which made them nervous about the meeting between their text and ‘the more temperamental’ German acting style, but Windfeld did a ‘fantastic job’ on the acting (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). Again, as creative practitioners, both directors and writers tend to present their series as the successful result of making the right choices, but beyond the appraisal of each other’s work, the foregoing examples demonstrate that not only can different languages on-screen and behind the scenes be challenging when making transnational crime series, as pointed out in much of the literature on co-­ production; different acting styles may also present a major challenge.

Launch and Reception of The Team The Danish producer of The Team, the director, and the writers emphasize that the opportunity to work with new actors, locations, and stories is the greatest advantage of moving from the national to the European level. Windfeld argued that she was not concerned about this transnational production becoming a Euro-pudding, or the use of ‘European English’ in the series, since the set-up made perfect sense to her: the process of making the series mirrored the story on screen by showing how people live and work in Europe now. ‘For me it wasn’t a Euro-pudding thing at all; I have been taking the plane to work, and I have been speaking English with a bad accent for the last ten years of my career. So for me, this is how you work in Europe now’ (Windfeld 2014). Producer Stinna Lassen argues that The Team is a series about modern work (Lassen 2015), whereas the writers highlight the theme of motherhood throughout the various storylines, beyond the crime plot and the

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

139

victims of human trafficking (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). They argue that they wrote the series from Denmark ‘out into Europe’, and that even without wanting to ‘tell about Europe’ you do it anyway, since Europe is now a much bigger part of everyone’s daily lives than it was at the beginning of the 2000s. From the outset, The Team targeted a broader European audience, and the writers were not concerned about other nations not following the story or characters, since they felt that they were addressing universal themes and storytelling strategies. They argue that it is a truly European series, and that it felt strange to them when they encountered press material describing the series as German because the main financing came from Germany (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). In terms of the series’ European life, the intention was to broadcast more or less simultaneously in the collaborating countries and use the same title throughout Europe (Nadermann 2014). This did not happen because of various scheduling considerations from the broadcasters involved, and in Denmark the series was given a Danish title, Mord uden grænser (‘Murder without borders’). Brostrøm and Thorsboe identify this as an example of how there was too little coordination surrounding the launch, which they describe as ‘anarchistic’, since the various broadcasters made their own decisions. This created conflicting signals around the series, some of which they found disturbing. Brostrøm and Thorsboe argue that it is remarkable that the Danish press was interested only in the Danish angles, focusing for instance almost exclusively on the Danish lead. They found that ‘a co-production does not have the same tail wind as a national production’, but is instead treated as a ‘stepchild’, with reference to both the work of the DR press department and the general press interest (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). The writers’ experience demonstrates the importance of having a shared strategy, not only for co-producing a series, but also for the eventual co-­distribution, again underlining the importance of communication during the production process and also when distributing and marketing the series. There may be several benefits to coordinating press material or PR events, and to trying to create a series’ consistent identity across the borders of co-­ producing countries. In Denmark, The Team premiered on 22 February 2015, in the Sunday evening time slot where DR in-house series are shown. The first episode drew an impressive audience of 1.5 million viewers, which is about the same as for a DR series such as Borgen. The audience declined over the eight episodes, but the series averaged 1.1 million viewers per episode,

140 

E. N. REDVALL

meaning an average share of 46%.4 According to then Head of DR Fiction Piv Bernth, this was satisfactory for what she described as a complex story with many locations that also had to fight an Easter break. She argued that the series showed how ‘[T]he multilingual element did not mean anything for the viewers, which opens new possibilities for our series’ (Nielsen and Oksbjerg 2015). Although the audience numbers that The Team attracted were generally regarded as good for this new kind of European series on Danish screens, the national television critics became increasingly critical over the course of the season. The first episode had some positive reviews, with one critic calling the series ‘a successful Euro-pudding’ that had managed to overcome the challenges inherent in this kind of international collaboration (Lindberg 2015). Others felt that the series overtold the story, and at the end of the season the daily newspaper Politiken gave the season only two stars of a possible six, under a headline stating that ‘the Danish–European’ series ‘wanted to do everything and thus did absolutely nothing’ (Yde 2015). Danish reception of The Team was also marked by the sudden criticism that the series was trying to influence Danes to have a more favourable view of Europol before the European referendum (Thiemann 2015a, 2015b). The writers explained to Politiken that the series was conceived long before the topic of Denmark’s participation in European police and judicial cooperation was on the agenda, and that they were against ‘educating the population through fiction’ (Thorsboe as cited in Thiemann 2015b). These examples illustrate how series may be interpreted very differently—for political, cultural, or other reasons—in different national contexts, even if one aims to produce a series marked by universal themes and internationally recognized storytelling strategies. Moreover, subtitling versus dubbing is also a problem when multilingual series travel, since the German market, for instance, dubs foreign fiction. With The Team, there was an attempt to show the original version with subtitles online, accompanied by a Twitter event whereby a certain number of Tweets would release the final episode online ahead of schedule. The series was described as ‘a phenomenal success’ by ZDF, with 3.91 million viewers (an above average market share of almost 20%) for the first episode, and 500,000 viewers online prior to the premiere on broadcast television (ZDF 2015).

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

141

The German numbers show that there was an interest both on traditional television and online, where ZDF offered the opportunity to listen to the original multilingual dialogue. The examples from the Danish and German launches and reception illustrate how each collaborating country will always have its own broadcasting landscape, creating a particular framework for airing the co-­ produced content. Although transnational communication and collaboration can help establish common ground among the co-­producing nations, in most cases each country will still need to address quite specific national needs.

Concluding Remarks This case study of The Team illustrates a number of difficulties that may emerge with regard to high-end transnational television production, even when a number of measures are taken right from the outset to ensure a ‘one vision’ series rather than a Euro-pudding. The ambition was to export a successful national production framework and build on the international interest in Nordic series. The screenwriters had extensive experience of writing Nordic crime dramas, and all the principals behind the production had worked on acclaimed Danish series. As discussed in the scholarly literature on co-production, financial pooling is an obvious benefit of transnational collaborations, and increased coordination costs from travelling and translation, for instance, are budgetary drawbacks. Moving beyond the budgets, and focusing on the work of practitioners who are making a transnational co-production come alive, this case study shows that there may also be a number of very concrete challenges that do not relate only to the languages spoken on screen or behind the scenes. These challenges are connected to what may be regarded as various cultural encounters surrounding production, when diverging traditions concerning how to organize productions clash or when different acting styles have to be harmonized. The production story of The Team highlights that there are interesting perspectives in trying to export successful ways of working from one production culture to another, particularly when it comes to creative practitioners finding inspiration in being able to use stories, locations, and actors from collaborating countries. However, the Danish informants emphasize

142 

E. N. REDVALL

that these new sources of inspiration come at a price, since there may be several challenges related to communication when making high-end transnational series, not only in terms of negotiating larger logistical issues related to the financial and creative decision-making, but also with regard to cultural clashes on set. As stated by screenwriter Mai Brostrøm, when she was asked about why the writers had felt less in control than they had on their previous series, even when they expressed contentment with the process as a whole, ‘I think this is the price one pays when there are so many people to satisfy, and all these people have not necessarily met each other at some point and agreed on what kind of TV series we are making’ (Brostrøm and Thorsboe 2015). It is important to be on the same page from the outset, but it is also important to have fast and clear ways of communicating during production when new ideas or challenges emerge. Financial pooling was essential for realizing The Team’s high-end European story, but the transnational financing had numerous implications on screen as well as behind the scenes. The analysis of this process shows that this kind of production is no easy task, but it can be done. And even if exporting a particular production framework proved difficult, all the informants argued that they learned valuable lessons that they hoped to be able to incorporate into future attempts to create high-end transnational drama for European screens, something that we will most likely see more of in the years to come.

Notes 1. This chapter is based on research conducted as part of the HERA-financed research project ‘Mediating Cultural Encounters through European Screens’ (MeCETES.co.uk) and the FKK-financed research project ‘What Makes Danish TV Series Travel?’ (http://danishtvdrama.au.dk/). 2. The main research questions were explorative, and the empirical research builds primarily on informants sharing their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the production at industry events, and through qualitative interviews with the author. Accordingly, there was a risk of encountering ‘corporate scripts’ (Caldwell 2008, 3) when talking to ‘exclusive informants’ (Bruun 2014), but efforts have been made to keep a critical distance, and provide a nuanced discussion of how to understand this particular production and its potential global lessons for transnational television drama production. 3. Several research interviews were conducted with Kathrine Windfeld, but sadly, she passed away in January 2015 before she greenlighted the use of

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

143

statements. Therefore, this section draws on her public statements at the MeCETES conference ‘Making European Film and Television Drama,’ in Ostend, Belgium, 18 September 2014 (referred to as Windfeld 2014). 4. The viewing figures are from the Danish TV Meter, monitored by TNS Gallup.

References Baltruschat, Doris. 2010. Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television. New York: Routledge. Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva N.  Redvall. 2011. A Small Region in a Global North: Patterns in Scandinavian Film & TV Culture. Copenhagen: Think Tank on European Film and Film Policy. Bondebjerg, Ib, Eva N.  Redvall, Cecilie Astrupgaard, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, and Henrik Søndergaard. 2017. Transnational European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Brostrøm, Mai. Session on The Team at the Danish TV Festival. Copenhagen, August 14, 2014. http://video.tvfestival.dk/?poditemid=27584&tagsi d=2106&soegeord= Brostrøm, Mai, and Peter Thorsboe. Interview by Eva N.  Redvall. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, June 24, 2015. Bruun, Hanne. 2014. Eksklusive informanter: Om interviewet som redskab i produktionsanalysen. Nordicom 36 (1): 29–43. Caldwell, John T. 2008. Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television. Durham: Duke University Press. Chalaby, Jean K. 2015. Drama Without Drama: The Late Rise of Scripted TV Formats. Television and New Media 17 (1): 3–20. Esser, Andrea, and Pia Majbritt Jensen. 2015. The Use of International Television Formats by Public Service Broadcasters in Australia, Denmark and Germany. International Communication Gazette 77 (4): 359–383. European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The Team: Public Service Collaboration Shows the Way Forward for Captivating ‘European’ TV Series. Press Release, January 28, 2015. http://www3.ebu.ch/contents/news/2015/01/theteam-public-service-media-co.html Gammeltoft, Thomas. Session on The Team at the Danish TV Festival. Copenhagen, August 14, 2014. http://video.tvfestival.dk/?poditemid=27584&tagsi d=2106&soegeord= Gilbert, Gerard. 2012. How Does Danish TV Company DR Keep Churning Out the Hits? The Independent, May 12. http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/tv/features/how-does-danish-tv-company-dr-keep-churningout-the-hits-7728833.html

144 

E. N. REDVALL

Hammett-Jamart, Julia, Petar Mitric, and Eva N.  Redvall, eds. 2018. European Film and Television Co-Production: Policy and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hilmes, Michele. 2011. Network Nations: A Transnational History of American and British Broadcasting. London/New York: Routledge. Hoskins, Colin, Stuart McFadyen, Adam Finn, and Anne Jäckel. 1995. Film and Television Co-Production: Evidence from Canadian-European Experience. European Journal of Communication 10 (2): 221–243. Jäckel, Anne. 2003. Dual Nationality Film Productions in Europe After 1945. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 23 (3): 231–243. Lassen, Stinna. Interview with Eva N. Redvall. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, June 25, 2015. Morawetz, Norbert, Jane Hardy, Colin Haslam, and Keith Randle. 2007. Finance, Policy and Industrial Dynamics: The Rise of Co-Productions in the Film Industry. Industry and Innovation 14 (4): 421–443. Nadermann, Peter. 2014. Session on The Team at the Danish TV Festival. Copenhagen, August 14, 2014. http://video.tvfestival.dk/?poditemid=27584 &tagsid=2106&soegeord=. Nielsen, Silas Bay, and Stine Oksbjerg. 2015. Fra fire til to stjerner. DR, April 13. http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/film/fra-fire-til-stjerner-anmelder -kalder-mord-uden-graenser-skuffende Redvall, Eva N. 2012. European TV Drama Series Lab. Summary of Module 1. Berlin: Erich Pommer Institut. ———. 2013a. European TV Drama Series Lab. Summary of Module 2. Berlin: Erich Pommer Institut. ———. 2013b. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From the Kingdom to the Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2015. Craft, Creativity, Collaboration, and Connections: Educating Talent for Danish Television Drama Production. In Production Studies, The Sequel! ed. Miranda Banks, Bridget Conor, and Vicki Mayer, 75–88. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Straubhaar, Joseph D. 2007. World Television: From Global to Local. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Thiemann, Per. 2015a. Så tæt er Mord uden grænser på virkeligheden. Politiken, April 12. https://politiken.dk/kultur/film_og_tv/art5572984/ Så-tæt-er-Mord-uden-grænser-på-virkeligheden ———. 2015b. Mord uden grænsers forfatter: Fiktion skal ikke opdrage. Politiken, April 11. https://politiken.dk/kultur/film_og_tv/art5572905/Mord-udengrænsers-forfatter-Fiktion-skal-ikke-opdrage

7  CAN YOU EXPORT A PRODUCTION CULTURE? THE TEAM… 

145

Weissmann, Elke. 2012. Transnational Television Drama: Special Relations and Mutual Influence Between the US and UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Windfeld, Kathrine. On-Stage Interview at the MeCETES Conference Making European Film and Television Drama. Ostend, September 18, 2014. http:// mecetes.co.uk/events/making-european-film-television/. Yde, Katrine Hornstrup. 2015. Mord uden grænser ville alt og gjorde derfor absolut intet. Politiken, April 12. https://politiken.dk/kultur/film_og_tv/tvanmeldelser/art5573014/Mord-uden-grænser-ville-alt-og-gjorde-derfor-absolutintet ZDF. Top Ratings for ZDFs International Crime Series the Team. Press Release from ZDF Enterprises, March 11, 2015. http://zdf-enterprises.de/en/news/ press/pressreleases/top-ratings-for-zdfs-international-crime-series-the-team

CHAPTER 8

Drama as Flagship Productions: Small-Nation Television and Digital Distribution Vilde Schanke Sundet

Introduction Since the early 2010s, several studies have addressed the international success of Danish television drama and the specific (public service) production culture in which they have been developed (Redvall 2013; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015; Jensen et al. 2016; Hansen and Waade 2017). Somewhat in the shadow of these Danish success stories, we find Norwegian television drama, which has only just begun to be exported outside the Nordic markets (Sundet 2017). Norwegian producers have clearly taken notes on the best practices of Danish producers, and have also benefited from the international interest in ‘Nordic Noir’ and ‘Scandi television’. Nevertheless, they have developed a somewhat different approach to television drama, in which novel and digital distribution is a key component. Hence, whereas Danish drama producers (public service broadcaster DR, in particular) have prioritized big-budget, prime-time drama series that aim to ‘gather

V. S. Sundet (*) University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_8

147

148 

V. S. SUNDET

the nation’ once a week, the Norwegian approach (promoted by public service broadcaster NRK, in particular) embraces a wider variety of productions, including niche, low-budget, and experimental series. Two of the internationally best-known Norwegian television dramas, the NRK–Netflix production Lilyhammer (produced by Rubicon TV, 2012–2014) and the online teen drama SKAM (NRK, 2015–2017), share a novel approach to the distribution of what they recognize as ‘digital flagship productions’ and ‘change-makers’, not only in Norway and Scandinavia, but also in the international television industry (e.g. Green 2013; Hughes 2016; McDermott 2017). For instance, Lilyhammer was promoted as Netflix’s ‘first original series’ (despite the fact that it was co-­ produced by NRK and Netflix) and a test case for Netflix’s ‘all-at-once-­ watching’ model (Carr 2012; Hale 2012), which also inspired NRK and others to introduce ‘binge-watching’ as a new publishing model for drama series. On the other hand, SKAM combined video clips, text messages, and social media updates to tell its story daily, online and in real time, and challenged the concept of ‘television drama’ as we know it, both at NRK and internationally (e.g. Bradley 2016; Stokel-Walker 2017). This chapter investigates ‘digital flagship productions’ within television drama and what the Nordic television industry has learned from these series, using Lilyhammer and SKAM as the basis for this analysis. A ‘digital flagship production’ may be defined as a production that effects a digital change in the television industry, teaches new ways to operate, and becomes significant through its success. It resembles what Amanda Lotz (2018) terms ‘milestone productions’; that is, productions that lead to business adjustments and behind-the-scenes changes, and that prepare ‘the future of television’ (179), but emphasize their novel digital aspects and what they teach about new ways to publish and distribute content in a streaming market. This chapter starts with the observation that the television industry is risk averse by nature, because of the ‘nobody knows’ principle (Gitlin [1983] 1995), which, combined with the ‘blockbuster effect’ (Elberse 2013), makes it sensitive to, and focused on, success stories, hit shows, and flagship productions (also see Napoli 2016). This is particularly true in today’s television industry, which is characterized by rapid and radical change and turmoil (Lotz 2007, 2017), with television drama increasingly produced for both national and international audiences, to be consumed

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

149

in both scheduled broadcast and on-demand user modes. Therefore, the study of flagship productions, especially those as novel and innovative as the examples discussed here, and what the industry learns from them is important, as these shows may be expected to guide future industry strategies and practices. Methodologically, the chapter relies on industry reports, material from newspapers and the trade press, and interviews with key informants and decision-makers at NRK, including people working on Lilyhammer and SKAM.1 These people should be considered ‘exclusive informants’ (Bruun 2014) and ‘the industry elite’ (Hertz and Imber 1995), as they have a particularly intimate perspective on the topic under scrutiny and they cannot be easily replaced.2 Theoretically, this chapter combines perspectives from production studies (Caldwell 2008; Mayer et al. 2009; Banks et al. 2015) with studies of flagship productions and hit-making (Gitlin [1983] 1995; Waisbord 2007; Elberse 2013) and studies of television’s digital transformation (Lotz 2007, 2017; Evens and Donders 2018). Although production studies often highlight the force of continuity in a specific cultural context, studies of digital transformation indicate a push for change. Studies of digital flagship productions may be positioned between these two, demonstrating how change and innovation take root in specific cultural contexts. A key argument in this chapter is that digitalization brings forth new opportunities and challenges for drama producers and broadcasters, and that players who aim to stay at the forefront need to harness emergent opportunities (Evens and Donders 2018). Although established broadcasters such as the public service institutions often emphasize the challenging aspects of digitalization (e.g. changing user habits and increased competition from global streaming services and social media), digitalization also clearly brings out many new opportunities for producing, publishing, and distributing television drama, including new storytelling techniques, flexible publishing models, better access to international markets, and new industry–audience relations (Andersen and Sundet 2019). However, key questions remain. How may the existing opportunities be harnessed? More precisely, what is the best use of these opportunities, when commissioning, producing, and publishing television drama? In this context, digital flagship productions have much to teach us.

150 

V. S. SUNDET

Studies of Digital Flagship Productions Several studies illustrate the remarkably high priority the television industry has always given to flagship productions and hit shows. These studies often note that the ‘nobody knows’ principle makes it difficult to predict tendencies and trends, which in turn makes the industry risk averse (Hesmondhalgh 2018). The principle that ‘nobody knows’ was first noted in television studies by Todd Gitlin ([1983] 1995) in his classic study of American prime-time television shows, to explain why the industry was so sensitive to previous examples of successful shows and how these shows guided production and scheduling strategies and practices. One of Gitlin’s key findings was that some programmes were far more important than others in terms of attracting and predicting larger audiences (Gitlin [1983] 1995; also see Ellis 2000). Several studies have followed Gitlin’s focus on flagship productions (and the ‘nobody knows’ principle) to explain the key logic of the television format industry. With television formats, the point is not so much to create a good schedule, but to acquire the legal rights and knowledge of how to produce a local version of a hit show that has already proven its success in another market (Waisbord 2007), and use this brand’s buzz to promote new versions of the show (Havens 2006). Again, the underlying rationale builds on the many unforeseen factors in the television industry and the role that some very specific programmes play in this context. In economic theory, the foregoing principles, which attempt to explain the underlying dynamics that make popular products disproportionately profitable (or important) for the suppliers, give rise to ‘the superstar effect’ (Rosen 1981), ‘the winner-take-all effect’ (Frank and Cook 1995), and ‘the blockbuster effect’ (Elberse 2013). Applied at a company level, they explain why an industry’s top performers often seem to accelerate their pace and magnitude. At least two dynamics seem to underlie this trend, both of which are relevant to television drama: first, lesser talent is a poor substitute for greater talent, which for the television industry implies that audiences will choose the best available drama series, not the second best; secondly, that people are inherently social, and find value in consuming the same content as others, meaning that people choose drama series they know are being viewed by others (Frank and Cook 1995). Several media scholars have argued that digital distribution and streaming would democratize and diversify the production and consumption of media products and make the industry less dependent on flagship

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

151

productions and hit shows. Of these, the best known may be Chris Andersen (2006), who argues that in an online world consumers would move away from the homogenized hits to explore the niches in ‘the longer tail’ of content. Others, such as Anita Elberse (2013), have taken the opposite stance, and argue that the dynamics of the digital media environment increase the importance of content with mass appeal, making ‘blockbuster strategies’ (that is, investing in expensive, high-risk, high-return content) even more important than the ‘long tail strategies’ (that is, investing in a wider array of content options that serve the full range of audience interests) (also see Lotz 2017). If we take a closer look at today’s main global streaming services, it is evident that they have pursued both blockbuster and long-tail strategies: the former category attracts viewer subscriptions and keeps the buzz going, while the latter keeps them afloat as they wait for new episodes or seasons. Yet there is little evidence to indicate that hit show or flagship productions have become any less important in a streaming market. For instance, Ramon Lobato (2019) illustrates how Netflix used signature programmes (‘Netflix original series’) as a key promotion strategy when entering new markets, combined with a large archive of less high-profile (‘long tailed’) programmes. Similarly, Mareike Jenner (2018) demonstrates how Netflix uses sophisticated algorithms and big data to gain insights into audience habits and preferences, to be used when ordering and commissioning new drama series—trying to develop new hit shows. Furthermore, several studies have shown that Netflix’s binge-watching model contests the value of traditional scheduling strategies and puts pressure on broadcasters to develop new publishing and distribution techniques to attract attention, create ‘flow’, and establish stable viewing habits, and that hit shows and flagship productions are effective in this respect (Lotz 2017; Jenner 2018).

Lilyhammer: Netflix’s ‘First Original Series’ and the ‘Binge-Publishing’ Model Lilyhammer (2012–2014) is often promoted as Netflix’s ‘first original series,’ even though the Norwegian production company Rubicon TV (owned by Endemol Shine Group) produced it as an NRK–Netflix co-­ production. When Rubicon TV first pitched the idea to NRK, it was as an NRK-only drama, and NRK commissioned it as a cost-effective and

152 

V. S. SUNDET

unconventional project with Steven Van Zandt (known from The Sopranos) in the leading role. Netflix entered as a co-investor during the production of season 1 (in 2011), turning Lilyhammer into an ‘original Netflix series’ and redirecting it from its national, NRK public-service audience to also appeal to an American (and later international) streaming audience.3 According to my informants, Steven Van Zandt was responsible for pitching Lilyhammer to Netflix, presumably as a means of increasing the show’s production budget and its international audience (Kristiansen 2015). Although Netflix is a key player in today’s global streaming market, that was not the case when Netflix joined Lilyhammer in 2011. At that time, the company was still a relatively small player overall, operating primarily in the American video-on-demand market (see Lobato (2019) for a historical overview of Netflix). As one of the showrunners noted, ‘I remember when Lilyhammer was sold to Netflix and everyone said, “Netflix, what is that?”’ (Bjørnstad 2015). However, in 2012, one year after joining the production of Lilyhammer, Netflix launched itself in the Norwegian market and used its investment in Lilyhammer as a way to promote itself. As a local television drama produced in partnership with a national production company and a quality public service broadcaster, and promoted by a well-known American ‘star,’ Lilyhammer suited Netflix’s expansion strategy perfectly (Sundet 2017; see also Brennan (2018) and Lobato (2019) for analyses of Netflix’s global expansion strategies). According to my informants, Netflix was a principal motivator for the increased production budget, which doubled with each new season. Whereas the first season had a budget of NOK 33 million (EUR 3.7 million), the budget for the second season rose to NOK 62 million (EUR 7 million), and the third season had a NOK 120 million budget (EUR 13.5 million). Thus, although NRK intentionally commissioned a ‘scruffy project’ (Wallace 2015), Netflix reached for higher quality and production value. Moreover, given the increased production budget, the balance of power between the drama series’ two investors shifted, from NRK as the main investor in season 1 to Netflix as the main investor in season 3 (Sundet 2017). The novelty of Lilyhammer—and Netflix—attracted significant attention in the television industry and in the press. This is clearly illustrated in the many news articles that followed the launch of Lilyhammer, both in Norway and in the international media and trade press. In Norway alone, over 1768 news articles (online and print) were written about Lilyhammer following its premiere (2011–2012), which is highly unusual for a

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

153

Norwegian television drama. Many of the stories addressed Netflix’s role in the production and the novelty of the show in terms of its production and distribution set-up. Internationally, Lilyhammer also attracted wide interest from newspapers and trade press. For instance, in February 2012, the New York Times ran a story announcing that Lilyhammer was launching ‘streaming video’s war on television’ and was also a novel ‘trailblazer and an interesting test case’ for the binge-watching model (Hale 2012; also see Carr 2012). The article emphasized that Lilyhammer was a ‘foreign show presented in its original form, with subtitles’, which at the time was ‘something virtually unheard of on mainstream American television’ (Hale 2012), and represented a fundamental cultural shift in the industry. In a similar vein, Rolling Stone ran a story on Lilyhammer in December 2013, claiming that the series ‘marked the beginning of a brand new era of television’, as it represented a successful experiment that paved the way for ‘hugely acclaimed shows such as Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, and the long-awaited fourth season of Arrested Development’ (Green 2012; also see Mohr 2018). Thanks to the partnership between NRK and Netflix, Lilyhammer was produced for both a scheduled broadcast audience on NRK’s main linear channel (NRK1) and for on-demand consumption via Netflix’s streaming services. However, Netflix’s binge-publishing model also inspired NRK to test new ground in terms of publishing and distribution. In the first two seasons of Lilyhammer, NRK adhered to a traditional broadcasting model, in which each episode was released at the same time every week on the linear channel and made available online through NRK’s on-demand service at the same time. In season 3, NRK changed its strategy, and adopted Netflix’s publishing model of making all the episodes available online at once. Although it was not the first time that NRK used the binge-­ publishing model, it was the first time it had done so with a high-profile, prime-time television drama. This move was met with strong criticism from both Rubicon TV and Steven Van Zandt (who was often said to speak for Netflix), who argued that NRK exceeded its legal rights (Braseth and Berg 2015). They also criticized NRK’s decision at a strategic level, claiming that NRK’s audience ‘did not go to NRK for “binge watching” drama’ (Kristiansen 2015). However, NRK asserted its legal right to ‘binge-publish’ Lilyhammer, and its general obligation to publish content for the benefit of its audience. As emphasized by one NRK informant, ‘Whether the audience watches the drama series on a television screen, a

154 

V. S. SUNDET

mobile display, a tablet or a refrigerator really does not matter, as long as it is viewed’ (Tolonen 2015). The fact that Netflix has grown from a small, mainly US-based streaming service to a truly international media player that now competes with NRK for both audiences and content rights may also have informed NRK’s decision. As one informant put it, ‘The competition gets harder, and Netflix is clearly a part of it’ (Flesjø 2015; also see Helsingen 2015). A Rubicon informant added, ‘We have gone from a world where NRK did not know what Netflix was, to a world where Netflix is NRK’s number-­ one enemy’ (Kristiansen 2015). For the duration of Lilyhammer, the co-­ producers changed from collaborators to competitors. As the case of Lilyhammer demonstrates, NRK did not wait for this change, but adopted new publishing paradigms and changed routines (Sundet 2017). To summarize, Lilyhammer is a digital flagship production, both in terms of how Netflix used it to strategically promote the company as a new, globally orientated streaming service for locally relevant and original content outside the United States, and in terms of how it helped launch the binge-watching model as a new mode of television consumption. In turn, this model inspired both NRK and others to rethink their traditional linear distribution and publishing strategies, and test new ground. Obviously, NRK (and others) had experimented with binge-publishing before Lilyhammer. For instance, NRK binge-published one of its children’s series (Karsten og Petra) in 2013, and it became a huge streaming success (NRK 2013). Nevertheless, Netflix’s use of binge-watching as its main publishing strategy intensified NRK’s work in this field, and made streaming and binge-publishing a more pressing concern. As emphasized by NRK’s Director of Drama a few years later, ‘We no longer think of linear views as our primary views. The online player is the most important’ (Køhn 2017). Similar statements have been issued by Danish broadcasters (e.g. Andersen 2018) and in studies of other markets (e.g. Jenner 2018; Johnson 2019), illustrating that over a short time span binge-publishing became a key model for television drama. In addition to serving as a catalyst for new publishing and distribution strategies, Lilyhammer also proved that Norwegian producers and broadcasters—like the Danish ones—could produce big-budget, world-class television drama intended for a transnational audience, and that international markets were within reach. Besides the international markets made available through Netflix, the distributor, Red Arrow, sold season 1 of Lilyhammer to 130 countries (Hansen 2013). Although Danish producers

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

155

had long proved that their productions were internationally attractive, for Norwegian drama producers this is a more recent discovery. Lilyhammer also proved that Nordic drama series could succeed internationally with a different aesthetic style and narrative structure to the more typical Danish high-end, prime-time political dramas, or the Nordic Noir series (Redvall 2013; Hansen and Waade 2017). Consequently, Lilyhammer may be said to have paved the way for many subsequent Norwegian drama exports (NFI 2018), and also for a new set of Nordic Netflix/HBO co-­productions, including Netflix’s ‘first Danish Original’ The Rain (Miso Film, 2018–), the ‘new Norwegian Netflix Original’ Ragnarok (SAM Productions, 2020–), and HBO’s ‘first original Norwegian’ series Beforeigners (Rubicon TV, 2019–) (Netflix Media Center 2017, 2019; Nielsen 2016; Redvall 2019; Keslassy 2018).

SKAM: Online Drama and the ‘Real-Time Publishing’ Model Whereas Netflix and Red Arrow exported Lilyhammer internationally, teens and online fan communities were the first to export SKAM beyond Norway. In fact, during its four seasons SKAM went from being a ‘secret’ online teen drama—which specifically targeted 16-year-old girls and avoided official promotions, relying on the power of worth of mouth—to being a global cult phenomenon with viewers and fans of all ages around the world. The fact that the show was in Norwegian—a language spoken by only about 5 million people—and was published without any official subtitles further illustrates the impressive and collaborative force of its fans, as they took it upon themselves to share SKAM content and translate it into various languages (Sundet 2019; Lindtner and Dahl 2019) (Figs. 8.1 and 8.2). Unlike Lilyhammer, SKAM was not created with any international aspirations but in order to serve the demands of Norwegian teens, who were otherwise distancing themselves from traditional television, including NRK’s channels. Therefore, SKAM was developed in response to the increased competition from social media and international streaming services, with the ambition of reconnecting with young audiences and giving them significant (public service) content that they were unlikely to find elsewhere (Furevold-Boland 2016). The fact that Netflix was almost unknown during Lilyhammer’s early years, but was one of NRK’s main

156 

V. S. SUNDET

Figs. 8.1 and 8.2  Many fans took upon themselves to translate SKAM into various languages and share it. Here are two examples that show how fans have translated SKAM and posted it on YouTube and the commentary section following every update on the SKAM blog (skam.p3.no), respectively

competitors only a few years later, proves the speed of change in the Norwegian streaming market at the time. To serve its particular target group, the SKAM production team did extensive audience research, including 50 in-depth interviews with Norwegian teens from all over the country, 200 speed interviews, school visits, social media scans, and studies of reports and statistics on teen culture. Its aims included gaining in-depth information on Norwegian teens,

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

157

in order to portray them in a relevant and realistic way, and to identify and demonstrate how the new online drama concept could serve the needs of this particular audience segment (Magnus 2017). SKAM differs from most other drama series in the weight it placed on identifying audience needs and using these needs as the basis for developing stories (Hedemann 2010; Redvall 2018). Furthermore, as SKAM was produced on a limited budget, relevance and credibility were seen as its main advantages in the competition with global streaming services and big-budget drama series with which NRK could never compete, particularly not with its teen or niche content (Faldalen 2016). SKAM also differed from most other drama series in terms of publishing and promotion. It built on an online drama format originally developed in house since 2007 to target young girls (aged 10–13), which had proved extremely popular with its intended audience. These online dramas were all character-driven, had storylines that were ‘so close to reality that it could be true’ (Nyborg 2012), and were published daily and in real time on a blog, through a combination of video clips, text messages, and images on which the audience was invited to comment and with which it was able to engage. The real-time publication meant that the series’ time and date were those of the Norwegian audience, which made the publishing rhythm irregular and unpredictable. It forced audiences to frequently check for updates, but also generated a sense of authenticity and ‘liveness’, as the audience watched the characters’ lives unfold as they were happening (Sundet 2019). Consequently, the show played with the sense of live storytelling, creating the feeling of watching an ongoing event (Magnus 2016). Once a week, all the video clips were collected into a full episode, which accommodated more traditional viewing modes. In ways that resembled the response to Lilyhammer, the novelty of SKAM attracted a lot of attention, first from viewers and fans, but soon in the television industry and in the press as well. In the press, many stories addressed the show’s true-to-life and non-stereotypical characters, also the new online format, and eventually the growing, international fan base. For instance, the Danish newspaper Politiken wrote an article declaring SKAM to be ‘the world’s best teen series’ (Hegnsvad 2016), The Guardian published a story entitled ‘Shame: A Scandi TV sensation for the social media generation’ (Hughes 2016), and Vanity Fair ran a story entitled ‘Is This Norwegian TV Series the Future of Television?’ (Bradley 2016; also see McDermott 2017).

158 

V. S. SUNDET

Following the interest of fans, mainstream media, and the trade press, international broadcasters and publishers also began to pay attention. In 2017, SKAM was sold for remakes in six European countries and in the United States, where it was distributed in the spring of 2018 as the ‘first Facebook Watch’ television show (Donadio 2016; also see Max 2018). When Simon Fuller announced that his company, XIX Entertainment, was to produce an English-language version of the show, he claimed the show ‘is leading the way in exploring multi-platform storytelling’ and that ‘Scandinavia, and Norway in particular, is at the forefront of innovation and creativity in the shaping of the world’s digital and creative industries right now’ (quoted in Bronson 2016). NRK learned from its own success, and launched several new online dramas that followed in the footsteps of SKAM, including Blank (NRK, 2018– 2019), 17 (NRK, 2018–), and Lovleg (produced by Rubicon TV, 2018–2019). SKAM also inspired comprehensively new strategies at NRK. For instance, NRK’s youth division (NRK P3) used SKAM as a ‘best practice’ example when mapping out its new strategy in 2017, highlighting the significance of audience insights in combination with important and relevant public service content. As the Head of NRK P3 stated, ‘I think SKAM is the ultimate proof that we need to make our content “choosable” and listen to the audience, instead of just broadcasting content’ (Bjørn 2018). The need to prioritize relevance and ‘choosable’ content is also echoed by many other NRK informants, including NRK’s Director of Drama: ‘Today, the audience needs to choose us not only once, but again and again, all the time’ (Køhn 2017). To summarize, SKAM is a digital flagship production in terms of the way it presents its storyline—using a mix of video clips, text messages, and social media updates to tell relevant stories based on audience needs—and in terms of how it launched the real-time format as a new publishing model. This model, like Lilyhammer’s binge-publishing model, inspired both NRK and others to rethink their distribution and publishing strategies, and to test new ground. Although the binge-watching model has several benefits, letting the audience choose what to watch, when, and where, it also faces the challenge of hiding good content in the larger portfolio and fragmenting audience consumption. On the other hand, the real-time concept behind SKAM developed ongoing momentum for the show, thus reintroducing a sense of schedule. In addition to its online, real-time format, SKAM is also a flagship production in its low budget and orientation towards a niche audience.

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

159

Although the development of a global streaming market has increased production budgets to new levels, SKAM and its successors represent an alternative trend of innovative, cost-effective, niche drama productions. These productions do not acquire their competitive edge by applying traditional production values, but by being relevant and innovative, and by engaging with the audience they seek to reach. Consequently, SKAM taught new ways of thinking about niche (teen) drama at a time when the tendency is to go for blockbuster strategies, and inspired not only Norwegian drama productions, but also Danish ones, including series such as Anton 90 (DR, 2015), Doggystyle (DR, 2018–), and 29 (Drive, 2018–) (Andersen 2018; Andersen and Sundet 2019).

Conclusion: The Power of Digital Flagship Productions Although both Lilyhammer and SKAM have several lessons to offer, they do not highlight the same points. On the contrary, they may be seen as examples of contrasting trends in today’s television industry, in which both big-budget drama series that target a larger, transnational audience (e.g. Lilyhammer), and small-budget drama series that target more niche audiences (e.g. SKAM) have their place. Both these trends are found in the drama portfolio of today’s Nordic drama producers, perhaps signalling a more varied and nuanced take on how to succeed in television drama, which may include a set of different production models. They also represent different distribution strategies—the binge-publishing model of Lilyhammer and the real-time model of SKAM—each taking the opportunities offered by a digitalized television market. Despite their differences, both Lilyhammer and SKAM—and the type of drama productions they inspire—provide a strong argument for testing new ground related to digital distribution. Moreover, the series are classic examples from a period of rapid change, especially for the Nordic countries, which in the time span of these two productions shifted from a primarily broadcast model for drama to a primarily streamed model. Although the Nordic countries may be at the forefront of this shift, there is little reason to believe that other countries will not follow suit over time, which makes the Nordic experience important across borders. Given this, both Lilyhammer and SKAM are useful examples of drama productions that actively made use of the new opportunities offered and incorporated these

160 

V. S. SUNDET

opportunities into their publishing models. Thus, they are good examples of the proactive role taken by many legacy media when they encounter change and challenges (Evens and Donders 2018). A key argument of this chapter has been that it is important to study flagship drama productions as they may provide lessons in new strategies and practices, and legitimize change that would otherwise be difficult to make in a risk-averse industry. In short, digital flagship productions allow for new cognitive frameworks for operating successfully in an industry characterized by rapid and radical change, and their success may legitimate strategic shifts. At the same time, digital flagship productions also involve the danger of becoming so successful and important that, paradoxically, they obstruct further innovation and experimentation—they become the new standard. Consequently, studies of digital flagship productions have the benefit of giving insights both into productions that break new ground and into productions that capture historical shifts in the television industry.

Notes 1. This study is part of a larger study of television in the age of streaming, for which Lilyhammer and SKAM constitute key cases (for further reading see Sundet 2016, 2017, 2019; Andersen and Sundet 2019). 2. The informants are Camila Bjørn, Head of NRK P3 (interviewed 2018), Anne Bjørnstad, Showrunner of Lilyhammer at Rubicon TV (interviewed 2015), Nicolai Flesjø, Editorial Director for On-Demand Services at NRK (interviewed 2015), Marianne Furevold-Boland, project leader of SKAM at NRK (interviewed 2016), Arne Helsingen, Director of Television at NRK (interviewed 2015), Ivar Køhn, Drama Director at NRK (interviewed 2017), Pål Kruke Kristiansen, CEO of Rubicon TV and executive producer on Lilyhammer (interviewed 2015), Mari Magnus, online producer on SKAM at NRK (interviewed 2017), Kristian Tolonen, Director of Analysis at NRK (interviewed 2015), and Petter Wallace, Director of External Productions at NRK (interviewed 2015). 3. A total of three seasons of eight episodes of Lilyhammer were made. Season 1 premiered on NRK 1 in January 2012 and on Netflix in the United States in February the same year. Seasons 2 and 3 premiered on NRK 1 in October 2013 and October 2014, and on Netflix in the United States in December 2013 and November 2014, respectively.

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

161

References Andersen, Chris. 2006. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion Books. Andersen, Mads Møller Tommerup. 2018. DR på flow og streaming – en todelt kanalanalyse. Mediekultur 34 (65): 138–157. Andersen, Mads Møller Tommerup, and Vilde Schanke Sundet. 2019. Producing Online Youth Fiction in a Nordic Public Service Context. View – Journal of European Television History and Culture 8 (16): 110–125. Banks, Miranda J., Bridget Conor, and Vicki Mayer. 2015. Production Studies, the Sequel! Cultural Studies of Global Media Industries. New York: Routledge. Bjørn, Camilla. 2018. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal interview. Oslo, March 23, 2018. Bjørnstad, Anne. 2015. Interview by Vilde S. Sundet, Oslo, February 18, 2015. Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Breaking Borders: The International Success of Danish Television Drama. In European Cinema and Television: Cultural Policy and Everyday Life, ed. Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson, 214–238. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bradley, Laura. 2016. Is this Norwegian TV Series the Future of Television? Vanity Fair, December 9. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/ skam-us-adaptation-shame-simon-fuller Braseth, Sofie, and Marthe Berg. 2015. Little Steven: Konflikter ødela for ny Lilyhammer-sesong. VG, July 29. https://www.vg.no/rampelys/i/kkbd6/ little-steven-konflikter-oedela-for-ny-lilyhammer-sesong Brennan, Louis. 2018. How Netflix Expanded to 190 Countries in 7 Years. Harvard Business Review, October 12. https://hbr.org/2018/10/ how-netflix-expanded-to-190-countries-in-7-years Bronson, Fred. 2016. Simon Fuller to Produce English Version of Norwegian Teen Drama ‘Shame.’ Hollywood Reporter, December 8. https://www.hollyw o o d r e p o r t e r. c o m / n e w s / s i m o n - f u l l e r- p r o d u c e - e n g l i s h - v e r s i o n norwegian-teen-drama-shame-954505 Bruun, Hanne. 2014. Eksklusive informanter. Om interviewet som redskab i produksjonsanalysen. Nordicom-Information 36 (1): 29–44. Caldwell, John T. 2008. Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television. London: Duke University Press. Carr, Austin. 2012. Traditional TV, Get You “Hooked” on All-At-Once Watching. Fast Company, July 2. https://www.fastcompany.com/1814701/ lilyhammer-netflix-wants-destroy-traditional-tv-get-you-hooked-allonce-watching Donadio, Rachel. 2016. Will ‘Skam’, a Norwegian Hit, Translate. The New York Times, December 9. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/arts/television/will-skam-a-norwegian-hit-translate.html

162 

V. S. SUNDET

Elberse, Anita. 2013. Blockbusters: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Ellis, John. 2000. Scheduling: The Last Creative Act in Television. Media, Culture and Society 22: 25–38. Evens, Tom, and Karen Donders. 2018. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Faldalen, John Inge. 2016. Nerven i “Skam” skal være sterk og relevant. Rushprint. No, April 4. https://rushprint.no/2016/04/nerven-i-skam-skal-vaeresterk-og-relevant/ Flesjø, Nicolay. 2015. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, January 26, 2015. Frank, Robert, and Philip Cook. 1995. The Winner-Takes-All Society. Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us. London: Penguin Books. Furevold-Boland, Marianne. 2016. Project Leader of SKAM at NRK. Interview by Vilde S. Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, December 13, 2016. Gitlin, Todd. (1983) 1995. Inside Prime Time. New York: Pantheon Books. Green, Andrew. 2013. How ‘Lilyhammer’ Changed the TV World. Rolling Stones, December 5, 2013. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ how-lilyhammer-changed-the-tv-world-203682/ Hale, Mike. 2012. From Netflix and Norway, a Wise Guy in Not-Quite Paradise. The New York Times, February 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/ arts/television/steven-van-zandt-in-norwegian-netflix-series-lilyhammer Hansen, Magne. 2013. Lilyhammer solgt til over 130 land. NRK, February 15. https://www.nrk.no/kultur/lilyhammer-solgt-til-over-130-land-1.10902472 Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Havens, Timothy. 2006. Global Television Marketplace. London: BFI Publishing. Hedemann, Ole. 2010. Ideutvikling i mediehuset. Kristiansand: IJ-forlaget. Hegnsvad, Kristoffer. 2016. Verdens bedste ungdomsserie er norsk. Politiken, August 25. https://politiken.dk/kultur/film_og_tv/art5633676/Verdensbedste-ungdomsserie-er-norsk Helsingen, Arne. 2015. Director of Television at NRK.  Interview by Vilde S. Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, January 16, 2015. Hertz, Rosanna, and Jonathan Imber. 1995. Studying Elites Using Qualitative Methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Hesmondhalgh, David. 2018. The Cultural Industries. 4th ed. London: Sage. Hughes, Sarah. 2016. Shame: A Scandi TV Sensation for the Social Media Generation. The Guardian, December 4. Jenner, Mareike. 2018. Netflix and the Re-Innovation of Television. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

163

Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 91–108. Johnson, Catherine. 2019. Online TV. New York: Routledge. Keslassy, Elsa. 2018. HBO Nordic Boards Original Norwegian Series ‘Beforeigners’. Variety, June 28, 2018. https://variety.com/2018/tv/global/ hbo-nordic-boards-original-norwegian-series-beforeigners-1202860383/ Køhn, Ivar. 2017. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, November 29, 2017. Kristiansen, Pål Kruke. 2015. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal interview. Oslo, January 21, 2015. Lindtner, Synnøve Skarsbø, and John Magnus Dahl. 2019. Aligning Adolescent to the Public Sphere: The Teen Serial Skam and Democratic Aesthetic. Javnost – the Public 26 (1): 54–69. Lobato, Ramon. 2019. Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution. New York: New York University Press. Lotz, Amanda. 2007. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. New York: New York University Press. ———. 2017. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Michigan: Michigan Publishing, Maize Books. ———. 2018. We Now Disrupt this Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Magnus, Mari. 2016. SKAM  – når fiksjon og virkelighet møtes. Nordicom Information 38 (2): 31–38. ———. 2017. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, January 12, 2017. Max, D.T. 2018. ‘SKAM’, the Radical Teen Drama that Unfolds One Post at a Time: Is a Narrative Build from Facebook Comments, Texts, and Instagram Stories the Future of TV? The New Yorker, June 18. https://www.newyorker. com/magazine/2018/06/18/skam-the-radical-teen-drama-t hat-unfolds-one-post-at-a-time?verso=true Mayer, Vicki, Miranda J. Banks, and John Thornton Caldwell. 2009. Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Media Industries. New York/London: Routledge. McDermott, Patrick D. 2017. Why the Whole Planet Is Obsessed with this Norwegian Teen Drama. The Fader, April 10. Mohr, Emil. 2018. Netflix-sjefen gir norske “Lilyhammer” æren for internasjonal suksess. Aftenposten, April 18. https://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/i/21lwxy/ netflix-sjefen-gir-norske-lilyhammer-aeren-for-internasjonal-suksess Napoli, Philip M. 2016. Requiem for the Long Tail: Towards a Political Economy of Content Aggregation and Fragmentation. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 12 (3): 341–356. Netflix Media Center. ‘The Rain’, Netflix’s First Danish Original Series Starts Production in Denmark. Press Release from Netflix Media Center, June 26,

164 

V. S. SUNDET

2017. https://media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/the-rain-netflixs-firstdanish-original-series-starts-production-in-denmark-1 ———. 2019. Ragnarok – A New Norwegian Netflix Original Series. Press Release from Netflix Media Center, March 19, 2019. https://media.netflix.com/en/ press-releases/ragnarok-a-new-norwegian-netflix-original-series NFI. 2018. The Golden Age of Norwegian TV Drama. Norwegian Film Institute. https://www.nfi.no/eng/news/2018/the-golden-age-of-norwegian-tvdrama. Accessed 1 Nov 2019. Nielsen, Jakob Isak. 2016. Points of Contact, Points of Distance: DR/TV2 Meet HBO/Netflix. Northern Lights 14 (11): 29–45. NRK. 2013. NRK Årsrapport. Nrk.no. https://www.nrk.no/informasjon/nrksarsrapport-2013-1.11703989. Accessed 1 Nov 2019. Nyborg, Ingvill Marie. 2012. MIA  – et stort og stille drama på nett. NRKBeta, May 3. https://nrkbeta.no/2012/05/03/mia–et-stort-og-stilledrama-pa-nett/ Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From the Kingdom to the Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2018. Reaching Young Audiences Through Research: Using the NABC Method to Create the Norwegian Web Teenage Drama SKAM. In True Event Adaptation: Scripting Real Lives, ed. Davinia Thornley, 143–161. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2019. International Co-Production of Nordic Television Drama: The Case of Ride Upon the Storm. In European Film and Television Co-Production: Policy and Practice, ed. Julia Hammett-Jamart, Petar Mitric, and Eva Novrup Redvall, 137–152. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rosen, Sherwin. 1981. The Economics of Superstars. The American Economic Review 71 (5): 845–858. Stokel-Walker, Chris. 2017. Skam: How a Web-Based Norwegian Teen Drama Is Changing How We Watch TV. The Telegraph, December 5. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/12/04/skam-web-based-nor wegian-teendrama-changing-watch-tv/ Sundet, Vilde Schanke. 2016. Still ‘Desperately Seeking the Audience’? Audience Making in the Age of Media Convergence (the Lilyhammer Experience). Northern Lights 14 (1): 11–27. ———. 2017. Co-Produced Television Drama and the Cost of Transnational ‘Success’: The Making of Lilyhammer. In Building Successful and Sustainable Film and Television Businesses: A Cross-National Perspective, ed. Eva Bakøy, Roel Puijk, and Andrew Spicer, 67–88. Bristol: Intellect. ———. 2019. From ‘Secret Online Teen Drama to International Cult Phenomenon: The Global Expansion of SKAM and Its Public Service Mission. Critical Studies in Television, Online First. https://doi. org/10.1177/1749602019879856.

8  DRAMA AS FLAGSHIP PRODUCTIONS: SMALL-NATION TELEVISION… 

165

Tolonen, Kristian. 2015. Interview by Vilde S. Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, February 6, 2015. Waisbord, Wilvio. 2007. McTV: Understanding the Global Popularity of Television Formats. In Television. The Critical View, ed. Horace Newcomb, 7th ed., 375–396. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallace, Petter. 2015. Interview by Vilde S.  Sundet. Personal Interview. Oslo, January 15, 2015.

PART III

Global Lessons: Distribution and Reception of Danish Television Drama

CHAPTER 9

Augmenting Proximity Theories: Including Other Proximities in the Transnational Travel of Danish Television Drama Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen

This chapter aims to elaborate on and develop well-established proximity theories that are conventionally used to account for the distribution and reception of audiovisual content produced in one national or cultural context to another. Taking its point of departure in the work of Joseph Straubhaar (2007) and other scholars who have enhanced proximity theories in relation to the transnational flows and reception of audiovisual content, this chapter considers the significant stimuli of three types of proximities—emotional, cosmopolitan, and grapevine—that have influenced the transnational travel of Danish television drama series. With a population of only 5.7 million and a language spoken by very few beyond its borders, Denmark is a small nation, something that is also true in media market terms (Berg 2011). Small media markets are characterized by a limited number of investors and a limited domestic market, which in turn generates lesser funding for original domestic production

P. M. Jensen (*) • U. C. Jacobsen Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_9

169

170 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

of, for example, audiovisual content than would be the case in bigger markets, such as Brazil, Germany, Japan, or Turkey (McFadyen et  al. 2000; Picard 2011; Raats et al. 2016). The result of this is comparatively smaller budgets for domestic productions, including TV drama series, which affects the potential exportability of programmes, as the minimum budget is often regarded as a measure of production value and hence potential domestic and international success (Bielby and Harrington 2008). Additionally, television series produced in smaller languages are often considered to contain inherent linguistic obstacles that restrain their entry into new markets where other languages dominate. This idea of the smallness of Denmark, in terms of markets and language, helps to explain how the export, consumption, and media hype surrounding Danish television dramas outside the nation’s borders came as a surprise, and why it prompted national and transnational funding agencies and Danish media industry professionals to re-examine their production practices and funding and distribution business models to trace the reasons for their export success. The inquiry also motivated audience research primarily into three export-successful drama series, Forbrydelsen (The Killing, DR1, 2007–2012), Borgen (DR1, 2010–2013), and Bron/ Broen/The Bridge (SVT1 and DR1, 2011–2018), in eight different territories from 2015 to 2017. Although there is plentiful evidence to suggest that conventional explanations of the influences exerted by cultural, genre, value, and thematic proximities have been influential in the global circulation of Danish television drama, lessons drawn from the audience research require us to question proximity theories in two ways. First, findings show how many of these proximities have been defied and transgressed, for example by their movement to acutely different geo-linguistic nations such as Turkey, Japan, Brazil, and Argentina. Secondly, findings show how the ‘enforced proximity’ provoked by the global media industry (Szerszynski and Urry 2002) encourages global connectivity characterized by other forms of ‘nearness’ and ‘closeness’ that become important for why Danish television drama travelled and was received in other nations. After a discussion of proximity theories and an outline of our methodology, we continue with an examination of these other forms of ‘nearness’ and ‘closeness’ to show how (1) emotional proximities connect individuals at the level of perceived universal affect that transcend cultural differences; (2) cosmopolitan proximities connect individuals with ‘distant others’ through perceptions of stylistic and ethical/political sameness; and (3)

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

171

grapevine proximities connect individuals in meshes of media industry and personal networks through practices of viva voce, or word of mouth. Our audience research shows how these three proximities influenced the acquisition, viewing, and generally positive reception of Danish television drama in surprising ways.

Proximities and Distances Explanations for the transnational flows in audiovisual content have until recently been grounded in notions of national, cultural, ethnic, and/or linguistic and geographical proximity or distance. In other words, the closer territory A is to territory B in cultural, ethnic, geographic, or linguistic terms, the more likely it becomes for territory A to export audiovisual content to Territory B. If the cultural, ethnic, geographic, or linguistic differences are significant, it becomes less likely that territory B will buy and broadcast audiovisual content that is culturally distant in its content and style. Joseph Straubhaar articulates this as ‘the seemingly common attraction that audiences feel for cultural products […] close in cultural content and style to the audiences’ own culture(s)’ (2007, 26). This perspective resonates with the assumptions of homophily, which refer to the spontaneous attraction and trust that people experience with regard to other people, places, and ideas that appear similar to their own (McPherson et al. 2001; Mark 2003). Elaborations, discussions, and similar arguments on the cultural proximity thesis have come in many guises, and there has been a general tendency to consider the movement and viewing of audiovisual content as limited to specific ‘geo-linguistic regions’ (Sinclair et al. 1996) that share similar cultural and linguistic features. Geo-linguistic regions are often geographically close as well. An example of such a region would be the three Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, among which audiovisual content has frequently been exchanged. That is, very often when transnational viewing and export flows are theorized, explanations have been found in the degree of shared ethnic and/or linguistic and cultural similarities among territories and the audiences populating them (cf. Iwabuchi 2002; Moran and Keane 2004; Sinclair 2009; Bore 2011). However, when it comes to the global dominance of United States (US) film and television, explanations have been found in the transparency and polysemy of US media texts and the highly commercialized and competitive structure of the US broadcasting system (Liebes and Katz 1990;

172 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

Olson 1999; Doyle 2013). The hegemony of English as a global language or, as Collins (1989) has put it, the ‘language of advantage’, has significantly influenced the directions and flows of television content. Included in Straubhaar’s theorization on what ‘content’ and ‘style’ may encompass are proximities that audiences could relate to in terms of the attractions of specific genres, values, and themes. ‘Genre proximity’ refers to a shared familiarity with certain genres and their structure of storytelling, such as the police procedural or melodrama; ‘value proximity’ refers to shared values such as work ethics or moral codes; and ‘thematic proximity’ refers to topical issues that permeate many societies, such as gender inequality, organized crime, and migration. Other media scholars (e.g. Olson 1999; Frau-Meigs 2006; Bielby and Harrington 2008; Oba 2009) have embraced the universal as an approach to understanding the transnational distribution of audiovisual content. We have to consider that viewers may share and audiovisual content may contain universal or general themes and topics that transcend cultural particularities, and thus appeal very broadly to worldwide audiences. This is an idea that is also prevalent among television professionals when, for example, buying a foreign drama series (Lippert 2011). In contrast to explanations found in different types of proximities between cultures, geographies, languages, and ethnicities, another strand of theorization—originating in film scholarship—points in the direction of the otherness and exoticism in foreign audiovisual content as a contributing factor that augments its appeal outside its territory of origin. Here, it is precisely the distance or non-proximity in cultural, geographic, linguistic, aesthetic, stylistic, and thematic elements—or the ‘aesthetics of the exotic’—that provide the motivation for transnational audiences to watch (Athique 2014). This is exemplified in what is termed the ‘cross-over audiences’ of world cinema, such as Western audiences watching non-Western movies (Khorana 2013), or when foreign films—or television series—gain cult status in another country (Rajadhyaksha 2003).

Researching the Global Audience of Danish TV Drama Series These theoretical positions on proximity and their role in transnational content flows formed the basis of our global study of the audiences of Danish TV drama or, more specifically, the three series The Killing, Borgen, and The Bridge that, when the Danish Council for Independent

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

173

Research-­funded project began in 2014, had been exported to many parts of the world. The study was considered global as audience research was conducted in eight different territories, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Turkey, the United Kingdom (UK) and the US—as well as Denmark itself. This covered the majority of the world’s largest and most important television markets on five continents. Besides representing an important global sample of markets, with different degrees of cultural and geo-­linguistic proximity to Denmark, the territories were also chosen because of their spectacular success in key markets (e.g. UK and Germany); their distribution in territories with significant social, cultural, and linguistic differences (e.g. Brazil and Japan); their differences in audiovisual translation practices (i.e. dubbing in Argentina, Germany, and Japan versus subtitling in the US, UK, and Australia); and, importantly, differing traditions for import/export of foreign audiovisual content (i.e. Germany as an import-­based market and the UK as an export-based market). Methodologically, our understanding of ‘audiences’ did not only comprise ‘regular’ viewers but also embraced two other groups of viewers that were considered crucial to explaining the wide export of Danish TV drama series. These were distributors and buyers, who acted as gatekeepers to foreign markets, and journalists, critics, bloggers, and other cultural intermediaries who performed important communicative work to disseminate information and promote viewership. A detailed account of the reasons, possibilities, and challenges of this ‘three-leaf clover methodology’ can be found in Jensen and Jacobsen (2017; see also Jensen and Jacobsen 2020 for the results of the entire eight-country audience study). Our research design yielded exceptionally rich and diverse empirical material from eight countries in five continents ‘with different language and cultural fabrics, and which all have their own media regulations, systems and practices’ (Jensen and Jacobsen 2017, 437). To retrospectively piece together the transnational travel of Danish television drama, we used this data to investigate, for example, similarities and dissimilarities between viewers and territories, local specificities and overlaps, paradoxes and surprises, and, not least, transnational interconnections. We actively paid attention to similarities between viewers and territories and other transnational interconnections. We were also concerned with maintaining a sensitivity to the charges against methodological nationalism (cf. Beck and Sznaider 2006; Esser 2014); that is, the tendency in some television scholarship to accept the nation state as the point of departure for any explanation. However, imagining a world without nations is like imagining the

174 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

melting pot where all ethnicities vanish (Calhoun 2008). We saw it as necessary to acknowledge the importance of nationally regulated media practices and locally rooted cultural preferences that influenced both the acquisition and viewing of Danish television drama in other territories. Before we account in detail for the three proximity types, it is important to stress that they were all present in one form or another in all the eight territories but not necessarily related to the experiences of all viewers. That is, while the majority of viewers expressed that all three types of proximity were present in their reception, a minority of viewers’ statements only evidenced the presence of one or two of the proximities. Additionally, we did not find significant differences between territories, except that the grapevine proximity was less important in Germany—as Danish series are an integral part of a dedicated primetime slot on a main public service channel (see also Jacobsen and Jensen 2020).

Emotional Proximity: ‘Same-ing’ the Nordic Other ‘Even though it is in a different language, it’s almost like we guess the emotional pace, the tone, the sensibilities’, says one buyer succinctly about The Killing when trying to explain why the series was so special and how she herself ‘got hooked’ and therefore had to buy the rights to it. The quote eloquently sums up what many of our respondents seem to agree upon: the Danish series felt emotionally proximate although most of our respondents literally lived thousands of kilometres away and were linguistically and culturally removed from Denmark. The series seems to strike an emotional chord with audiences, a chord that makes obsolete any specific cultural connection and as such alludes to the portrayal of universal human emotions and conditions transcending cultures and languages. This primordiality of emotions is not new. Already Liebes and Katz (1990) pointed to this in their study on how and why different ethnic groups in Israel enjoyed watching the US soap Dallas (CBS, 1978–1991), and newer research in cognitive screen theory (such as Grodal 2009 and Plantinga 2013) has only confirmed and refined this. What is new, however, is that— contrary to Liebes and Katz (1990)—most transnational audiences, regardless of where they are located, seem to agree on which structural elements of the story create this emotional connectedness, as we shall see. In Ien Ang’s work on Dutch audiences watching Dallas (1985), she coined this representational quality in a narrative as ‘emotional realism’: by way of the narrative’s representation of recognizable subjective

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

175

experiences and emotions, the narrative is felt to be true to life. However, where Ang’s term depends on audiences’ connotation—owing to the narrative content of Dallas being perceived as highly unrealistic and thus very distant from Dutch audiences—the emotional proximity felt by the transnational audiences of Danish TV drama very much depended on denotation and the feeling of a realistic and authentic narrative content: I think it’s why I like most of these things that we’re talking about, actually. The characters are not all one-dimensional. They’ve got good; they’ve got flaws and they’re not all bad or all good. They’re kind of […] more normal, more realistic. (53-year-old female music teacher, Sydney) He [Martin Rohde, Danish police officer and main character in The Bridge 1 and 2] is deeply flawed, he’s cheating and it’s all like ‘you’ve got a kid and you’re just a mess, man’ […] It was a great character and […] like good acting, really good acting, so you like had a lot of empathy even though you’re like ‘man, you’re horrible, really’. [laughs] (48-year-old male, unemployed, Sydney)

The emotional proximity in The Killing, Borgen, and The Bridge was often associated with a feeling of lifeworld or societal nearness to the characters in the Danish series. That is, contrary to what Ang (1985) found, the characters’ lifeworld and societal reality were in fact perceived by many respondents to be similar to their own lifeworld and societal reality, and hence real and authentic (also see Esser 2017; Esser 2020; Jensen and McCutcheon 2020), which the quotes given here testify. Or, as Susanne Eichner (2020, 114) puts it: the transnational audiences of Danish television drama ‘follow and identify the worries and decisions of the characters not only figuratively, but truly, rooted in their own life’. I find the series to be more real, more realistic and more relevant to how people live now [than American series], say it’s contemporary […] They deal with real issues in a very realistic way, whether it’s drugs or sex, or troubled, you know, youth […] And that’s what really resonates […] It’s realistic and it’s relevant. (50-year-old male concierge, Sydney) I actually think Australian TV is behind reality in Australia. When Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, I think it was in Glebe, the suburb, every one of their leaders from the local mayor right up to the Queen, every single one was a woman and that was the only place in the world where everyone in the hierarchy

176 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

was a woman. So, I think women are probably a lot more equal in reality here than Australian TV would lead you to believe. (39-year old male manager, Sydney) [Borgen] was realistic […] because it’s political. The influence of media over politics and country […] I think that the discipline to not deviate from the core, the real issue, focal point is very good. These kinds of seriousness made it easier for me to watch. (33-year old male journalist, Izmir)

Related to this perceived authenticity and realism is the fact that not only are the characters understood as more multi-faceted and human when it comes to their actions, emotions and circumstances, but also that many respondents believe they look more real, unlike the glamorous and highly stylized characters in American drama series. In this way, transnational audiences of Danish TV drama are in fact ‘same-ing’ the Nordic Other (see also Jensen and McCutcheon 2020; Eichner 2020). To them, this Nordic Other (be it Nordic people or Nordic society) is not necessarily alien or exotic but, in many instances, actually represents a mirror, in which they see themselves via realistic and authentic displays of emotions, which are helped along by the perceived realism and authenticity, and sometimes even the seeming societal representativeness, of what goes on in the series. Thus, also in this sense, the emotional proximity proposed in this chapter is slightly different to Ang’s emotional realism. What is interesting is that although our Danish respondents appreciated and enjoyed the series as well, the Danish audiences we interviewed did not necessarily feel a greater emotional proximity to the series than, for example, viewers in Australia and Germany; indeed, rather the contrary. As Danish viewers are naturally more familiar with the actual reality of living in Denmark, they did not perceive the series to be exceptionally realistic or authentic, not even at a societal level. Instead, they commented on the unreality and inauthenticity of the series and, as such, had a more nuanced view on the realism of the series. One 28-year-old female Danish respondent, for example, sarcastically stated, with reference to the female characters such as Sarah Lund, Birgitte Nyborg, and Saga Norén, that ‘the women are always emotionally cold, fucked-up and really good at their work’. She distanced herself from the characters, criticizing the fact that women in the series apparently could not be good at their work and emotionally warm at the same time. The respondent clearly did not find this

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

177

attitude very progressive, and based on her lived reality in Denmark she did not share it. Other Danish respondents described the characters as ‘too spacey’, ‘caricatures’, ‘exaggerated’, and ‘stereotypical’, and the stories as ‘unrealistic’, ‘too dark’, and depicting a ‘very bleak society’. Clearly, transnational audiences believe in the realism of what they see on screen, whereas Danish audiences do not to the same degree. In this sense, transnational audiences are doing a referential reading of the text that is more emotionally engaging than a more critically distanced reading (see, for example, Liebes and Katz 1990). They are showing signs of an ‘unwitting suspension of disbelief’—as opposed to a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’– that Danish audiences cannot share. This referential reading or unwitting suspension of disbelief most likely happens because the series are set in an unfamiliar milieu, such as Denmark, that most transnational audiences only know from the screen, there are realistic aesthetics and real Nordic settings, current themes, and extremely believable, subtle, and authentic characters and acting styles; all of these enhance the feeling of emotional proximity. The feeling of emotional proximity, we may also argue, is aided by the fact that not only are the Danish series perceived almost as verisimilitude by their transnational audiences but also as quality, or even high-brow, television by transnational audiences, whereas Danish audiences consider them as exciting but still fairly mainstream entertainment and ritual on DR1 on Sunday evenings (see also Astrupgaard and Lai 2016), and, as such, enter into a more ritualistic or habitual engagement with them. This means that transnational audiences somehow drop their guard and surrender more easily to the narrative content, possibly feeling an even stronger emotional connection with them than domestic Danish audiences.

Cosmopolitan Proximity: Values of the Distant Other In its contemporary form, cosmopolitanism is described as a ‘notion of belonging to a world larger than our own localities’ (Sobré-Denton and Bardhan 2013, 5). With its long history as forms of practices, mindsets, and ideologies that exist among individuals and communities, cosmopolitanism has become a valuable rhetorical vehicle for understanding changes and transformations in the twenty-first century. Cosmopolitanism challenges the dualities of yesteryear and investigates new interconnectivities

178 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

of individuals, institutions, and ideas that are configured in novel relationships ‘mediated by markets and media, migrations and infectious diseases’ (Calhoun 2008, 429). Many of these concerns are reflected in the writings of media researchers and sociologists who forge valuable insights regarding cosmopolitanism and television (e.g. Miller 2006; Robertson 2010; Delanty 2012; Atkinson and Strating 2016). When Calhoun writes that ‘the cosmopolitan inhabits the world’ (2008, 427), he not only describes cosmopolitanism as a ‘political project’ that focuses on building globally integrated participatory institutions external to the nation-state framework, but he also articulates cosmopolitanism as comprising a set of capacities and orientations. Calhoun (2008) describes these as, first, a ‘stylistic’ capacity where individuals desire to embrace diverse cultural influences from other parts of the world rather than what is local and familiar; secondly, a ‘psychological capacity’ that enables individuals and communities to feel, appreciate, and value cultural and social differences with ease and without fear; and thirdly, an ‘ethical orientation’ that provides ideological power to thinking and acting in the world with a strong concern for other people. Our findings on what attracted audiences to watch Danish TV drama show all three capacities and orientations towards cosmopolitanism. The ‘stylistic’ capacity is strongly related to Miller’s (2006) work on TV cultures, in which he describes them as being tightly wrapped with neoliberalist consumption patterns; it may also be related to what Athique defines as ‘commercial cosmopolitanism’ (2016, 15). These stylistic cosmopolitan tastes were often articulated, as seen in an example from Japan: Our audience […] they don’t choose drama depending on you know, either American drama series or Nordic drama series—they generally like drama series […] our job is to look for the high quality and very interesting drama series and getting to certain fans […] So our audience pays to watch drama series on our channels so they expect high quality […]. (Acquisitions manager, WOWOW channel)

The acquisitions manager displayed a strategic interest in fertilizing and capitalizing on consumption trends that characterize ‘stylistic’ cosmopolitanism and its close relationship with elites. This relationship is widely accepted in the cultural globalization scholarship, including Straubhaar’s (2003) discussion of the Brazilian elite as innately cosmopolitan.

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

179

Evidence of cosmopolitanism as a ‘psychological capacity’ may also be related to what Athique calls ‘mediaculturalism’, which is described as ‘the visual equivalent of an overseas holiday or learning to enjoy foreign foods’ (2016, 105), or his earlier notion of the ‘aesthetic of the exotic’ (2014). This capacity certainly encouraged audiences to be inquisitive about and place value on cultural and social differences that they perceived with ease and without fear. An example from a viewer in Brazil shows how representations of non-proximate people in Denmark appreciated and considered differences: I see very organized cities with very nice gardens, everything well set … I see very polite people, educated people … not that warm, but nice people, respectful people, organizations that work accordingly, doing exactly what they’re supposed to do … maybe because of the hard winter … maybe people a little bit sad, it’s not much sunlight… (Male cultural entrepreneur in his 50s, Brazil)

Audience research among bloggers in Brazil demonstrated the presence of a cosmopolitanism with an ‘ethical orientation’ that brought culturally non-proximate people into a relationship. The first example refers to the ‘reality’ that The Killing had offered to imagine new futures: You see that it is really different in the reality … but in the end it’s all about people and what connects people … it doesn’t really matter from where it is but the personal dramas and the family, even if you are from another reality, you can connect in some way—also you knowing about another future. (Male in his 20s)

Another example shows how Borgen provided inspiration for societal engagement: And it attracted me for two reasons: one, to accompany a political drama outside the English-speaking world, in a country about which we know much less than we imagine. Another, to know the story of a strong and interesting female protagonist. (…) I found it quite empowering. (….) In Brazil, it is happening on + Globosat channel. (….) I saw the 30 episodes and it’s as good as I expected. It addresses unreservedly issues such as colonialism, abortion, legalization of prostitution, public health... (Anonymized blog entry, 2014)

180 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

These examples demonstrate how cosmopolitan proximity, increasingly activated by new technologies that allow bodies and imaginations to travel further than before, connects individuals with ‘distant others’ through stylistic curiosity and ethical/political interests. In the viewing of Danish television drama, audiences are plugged into the negotiations of cosmopolitanization that we are all willingly, or unwillingly, part of.

Grapevine Proximity: The Power of Viva Voce Our findings show that new global distribution models, changes in national broadcaster strategies and regulations, and the availability of Danish TV drama on streaming platforms all impacted surprising distribution and viewing in novel territories (Eichner and Esser in this volume; Jensen et al. 2016). However, to add to these macro-factors, our interactions with all three types of audiences showed the importance of personal recommendations when buying and viewing Danish TV drama. We call this practice of personal recommendation grapevine proximity, and consider it as an important stimulus for the global travel and spread of drama series that were initially produced for domestic audiences. Grapevine proximity connects individuals in meshes of media industry and personal networks through practices of viva voce or word of mouth. Although the notion of word of mouth is conceptually associated with scholarship on oral histories, we use the term denotatively here to convey the importance of personal recommendations, fragmented information about current trends, and rumours that are transferred between people based on their subjective experiences, opinions, and preferences. Kuipers (2012) has evocatively described television buyers as a ‘cosmopolitan tribe’ sharing similar values in ‘highly networked’ groups. These networks emerged as important channels of viva voce that worked at international television marketplaces such as MIPCOM or between collegial friends on the telephone. Increasingly, social media platforms, such as filter blogs that record the blogger’s experiences and ‘finds on the Web’ from their own point of view (Rettberg 2014) have also become powerful channels of viva voce. Although we do not have any significant evidence of specific ‘influencers’ from the countries examined, some evidence of blogs encouraging viewers to watch the Danish TV series was found among Brazilian audiences (Jacobsen and Meleiro 2020). For example, grapevine proximity was activated in international television marketplaces, where buyers spoke of trending or quality television

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

181

content, prompting and directing curiosity for new television content—as given in the following example: We watching, checking English, like BBC and Sky TV and we check English entertainment site and then we see Killing is very popular in BBC 4 … we catch … interesting … what is The Killing? (Acquisition manager, SuperDrama channel)

Elsewhere, explicit references were made to the workings of grapevine proximity, as an example from Brazil shows: (…) that the ‘good content’ that we think would be good for our ‘customers’ often is identified through informal networks: there are ‘specialists’ that provide information on good content that we should watch. How do I know that content exists? Because someone at a personal level in social media recommended me and as curator, I took her advice and I love it… (Director of Programme and Contents, ClaroNet)

Franssen and Kuipers (2013) discuss the importance of the ‘gatekeeping network’ in their accounts of the decision-making processes that are involved in the global market for book translations. In a similar vein, grapevine proximity—based on private connections—has been vital in spreading Danish TV drama to new territories. Grapevine proximity may seem banal and everyday compared with the dazzle of the contemporary global television industry that is characterized by multiple technological access points, fierce competition, fragile loyalties, complex legal regulations, and a continual race to harness new business, marketing, and advertising models. However, in this climate of abundance and plenty, audiences grapple with what to buy and what to watch. Word-of-mouth recommendations appear to have been an effective mechanism to sort, dismiss, or engage in audiovisual content that was trending when we conducted our audience research on The Killing, Borgen, and The Bridge, all of which contributed to the emergence of Nordic Noir as a global brand.

Conclusion: Global Lessons for Proximity Theory First, our study supports established theories about how cultural proximity or distance influence the global circulation of audiovisual content. It cannot be denied that the further the Danish series travelled from their immediate Northern European geo-linguistic region and the more culturally distant

182 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

the importing territories became, the less significant impact they had when considering levels of media hype and the type of television channels they were broadcast on. With the exception of Germany, and partly Australia and the UK, Danish TV drama was niche-oriented both in terms of audience numbers and the nature of the channels that televised them (cf. Jensen 2016), Furthermore, many of the export-successful Danish series have been crime dramas, such as The Killing and The Bridge, this being in itself a popular genre that audiences all over the world are familiar with (Hansen and Waade 2017). The popularity of Danish TV dramas that distinguish themselves within the crime genre could easily be supported by theories of genre proximity. The theory of thematic proximity has also influenced the engagement of transnational audiences. Themes such as gender inequality, struggles between the private and the public, family tensions, migration, and the role of media in society repeatedly surfaced as reasons to watch the series (e.g. Jacobsen 2018; Eichner 2020; Jensen and McCutchon 2020). Finally, the exoticism and different aesthetics of the series, both in settings, colour, tone, pace, and mood, and the differences perceived in how the Danish characters behave (e.g. Esser 2017), have been repeatedly commented upon as something interesting and novel. Secondly, while our findings partly confirmed the conventional theoretical explanations of the importance of cultural, ethnic, geographic, or linguistic proximities (and distances) that influenced the transnational circulation of Danish TV drama, our findings also drew out some new lessons that augment and expand existing theories on the proximity concept as it has been used in theorizing transnational flows of audiovisual content. As we have shown throughout this chapter, drawing on the practices, readings, and experiences that were shared by viewers in the eight territories, it became vital to consider three other types of nearness and closeness that influenced the export of Danish TV drama. First, emotional proximity refers to the sentiments provoked by Danish series when they strike an emotional chord with their transnational audiences, a chord that seems to make obsolete any specific cultural connection and as such alludes to the portrayal of universal human emotions and conditions transcending cultures and languages. The feeling of emotional proximity is aided by the perceived authenticity and realism of the stories and characters that in fact make transnational audiences feel very close to the series’ narrative despite the cultural and linguistic distance. Secondly, cosmopolitan proximity, increasingly energized by new technologies that allow bodies and imaginations to travel further than before, connects

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

183

individuals with ‘distant others’ through stylistic curiosity, psychological capacities to embrace difference, and the recognition of similar ethical/ political interests. Third, grapevine proximities centralize the importance of the relationships of individuals and networks within the global media industry. They emphasize the continuing influence of the power of word of mouth in the decision-making processes that are integral to the acquisition, viewing, and positive reception of Danish television drama. In the current media climate of abundance, word-of-mouth recommendation from peers becomes a vital mechanism to sort, dismiss, or engage in a global overload of audiovisual content. Finally, our findings highlight how the ‘enforced proximity’ (Szerszynski and Urry 2002) or ‘banal transnationalisation’ (Esser et al. 2016) of the contemporary global television industry, characterized by multiple technological access points and fierce competition, has resulted in an increasing fluidity in viewer allegiances and preferences. The rules of the global television industry of yesteryear are in rapid flux, and the industry is populated by new actors and new agendas that the global travel of Danish television drama series has become part of. Theories of cultural and geo-­ linguistic proximities are based on assumptions of homophily (McPherson et al. 2001; Mark 2003), which describe a spontaneous attraction to and trust in people, places, and ideas that appear similar. Perceptions of proximities have become more complex today: they span recognized explanations as well as new explanations, such as emotional, cosmopolitan, and grapevine proximities, which address transnational television audiences as well as the transnational television industry.

References Ang, Ien. 1985. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. New York: Routledge. Astrupgaard, Cecilie, and Signe Sophus Lai. 2016. Seernes favoritserier – genrer, narrativer og kulturmøder. KOS 263. https://www.kosmorama.org/kosmorama/artikler/seernes-favoritserier-genrer-narrativer-og-kulturmoder Athique, Adrian. 2014. Transnational Audiences: Geocultural Approaches. Continuum 28 (1): 4–17. ———. 2016. Transnational Audiences. Cambridge: Polity. Atkinson, Paul, and Rebecca Strating. 2016. Cosmopolitanism on Demand? Television and the Narrowing of Mediated Social Connection. In Contemporary Publics: Shifting Boundaries in New Media, Technology and Culture, ed. P. David Marshall, Glenn D’Cruz, Sharyn McDonald, and Katja Lee, 129–144. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

184 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

Beck, Ulrich, and Nathan Sznaider. 2006. Unpacking Cosmopolitanism for the Social Sciences: A Research Agenda. The British Journal of Sociology 57 (1): 1–23. Berg, Christian E. 2011. Sizing Up Size on TV Markets. Why David Would Lose to Goliath. In Small Among Giants: Television Broadcasting in Smaller Countries, ed. Gregory F.  Lowe and Christian S.  Nissen, 57–89. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Bielby, Denise D., and C. Lee Harrington. 2008. Global TV: Exporting Television and Culture in the World Market. New York: New York University Press. Bore, Inger-Lise Kalviknes. 2011. Transnational TV Comedy Audiences. Television and New Media 12 (4): 347–369. Calhoun, Craig. 2008. Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism. Nations and Nationalism 14 (3): 427–448. Collins, Richard. 1989. The Language of Advantage: Satellite Television in Western Europe. Media, Culture and Society 11 (3): 351–371. Delanty, Gerard. 2012. A Cosmopolitan Approach to the Explanation of Social Change: Social Mechanisms, Processes, Modernity. The Sociological Review 60 (2): 333–354. Doyle, Gillian. 2013. Understanding Media Economics. 2nd ed. London: Sage. Eichner, Susanne. 2020. Life-World Relevance and ‘Practical Sense Making’: Audience Engagement with Danish TV Drama Series. In The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama, ed. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Esser, Andrea. 2014. European Television Programming: Exemplifying and Theorizing Glocalization in the Media. In European Glocalization in Global Context, ed. Roland Robertson, 82–102. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2017. Form, platform and the formation of transnational audiences: A case study of how Danish TV drama series captured television viewers in the United Kingdom. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 411–429. ———. 2020. The Appeal of ‘Authenticity’: Danish TV Series and UK Audiences. In The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama, ed. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Esser, Andrea, Pia Majbritt Jensen, Heidi Keinonen, and Anna Maria Lemor. 2016. The Duality of Banal Transnationalism and Banal Nationalism: Television Audiences and the Musical Talent Competition Genre. In New Patterns in Global Television Formats, ed. Karina Aveyard, Pia Majbritt Jensen, and Albert Moran, 295–309. Exeter: Intellect. Franssen, Thomas, and Giselinde Kuipers. 2013. Coping with Uncertainty, Abundance and Strife: Decision-Making Processes of Dutch Acquisition Editors in the Global Market for Translations. Poetics 41 (1): 48–74. Frau-Meigs, Divina. 2006. Big Brother and Reality TV in Europe: Towards a Theory on Situated Acculturation by the Media. European Journal of Communication 21 (1): 33–56.

9  AUGMENTING PROXIMITY THEORIES: INCLUDING OTHER PROXIMITIES… 

185

Grodal, Torben K. 2009. Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2002. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Durham: Duke University Press. Jacobsen, Ushma Chauhan. 2018. Does Subtitled Television Drama Brand the Nation? Danish Television Drama and its Language(S) in Japan. European Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (5): 614–630. Jacobsen, Ushma Chauhan, and Alessandra Meleiro. 2020. Appropriating Danish Content: Buyers and Bloggers in Brazil. In The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama, ed. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Jensen, Pia Majbritt. 2016. Global Impact of Danish Drama Series: A Peripheral, Non-Commercial Creative Counter-Flow. Kosmorama 263. http://www.kosmorama.org/Artikler/Global-Impact-of-Danish-Drama-Series.aspx. Accessed 21 July 2017. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. 2017. The ‘Three-Leaf Clover’: A Methodological Lens to Understand Transnational Audiences. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 430–444. ———, eds. 2020. The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, and Marion McCutcheon. 2020. ‘Othering the Self and Saming the Other’: Australians Watching Scandi Noir. In The Global Audiences of Danish Television Drama, ed. Pia Majbritt Jensen and Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. Journal of Popular Television 3 (2): 91–108. Khorana, Sukhmani, ed. 2013. Crossover Cinema: Cross-Cultural Film from Production to Reception. London: Routledge. Kuipers, Giselinde. 2012. The Cosmopolitan Tribe of Television Buyers: Professional Ethos, Personal Taste and Cosmopolitan Capital in Transnational Cultural Mediation. European Journal of Cultural Studies 15 (5): 581–603. Liebes, Tamar, and Elihu Katz. 1990. The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of Dallas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lippert, Bianca. 2011. Telenovela Formats: Localized Versions of Universal Love. Göttingen: Sierke Verlag. Mark, Noah P. 2003. Culture and Competition: Homophily and Distancing Explanations for Cultural Niches. American Sociological Review 68 (3): 319–345.

186 

P. M. JENSEN AND U. C. JACOBSEN

McFadyen, Stuart, Colin Hoskins, and Adam Finn. 2000. Cultural Industries from an Economic/Business Research Perspective. Canadian Journal of Communication 25: 127–144. McPherson, Miller, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M.  Cook. 2001. Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks. Annual Review of Sociology 27: 415–444. Miller, Toby. 2006. Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Television in a Neoliberal Age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Moran, Albert, and Michael Keane, eds. 2004. Television Across Asia: Television Industries, Programme Formats and Globalization. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Oba, Goro. 2009. Programming Strategies of US-Originated Cable Networks in Asian Markets. International Journal of Media Management 11 (1): 18–31. Olson, Scott Robert. 1999. Hollywood Planet. Mahwah: Erlbaum. Picard, Ricard. 2011. Broadcast Economics, Challenges of Scale, and Country Size. In Small Among Giants. Television Broadcasting in Smaller Countries, ed. Gregory F. Lowe and Christian S. Nissen, 43–56. Nordicom: Gothenburg. Plantinga, Carl. 2013. The Affective Power of Movies. In Psychocinematics. Exploring Cognition at the Movies, ed. Arthur P.  Schimamura, 94–111. New York: Oxford University Press. Raats, Tim, Tom Evens, and Sanne Ruelens. 2016. Challenges for Sustaining Local Audiovisual Ecosystems. Analysis of Financing and Production of Domestic TV Fiction in Small Media Markets. Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 129–147. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. 2003. The ‘Bollywoodization’ of Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4 (1): 25–39. Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2014. Blogging. Cambridge: Polity Press. Robertson, Alexa. 2010. Mediated Cosmopolitanism: The World of Television News. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sinclair, John. 2009. Latin America’s Impact on World Television Markets. In Television Studies After TV: Understanding Television in the Post-Broadcast Era, ed. Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay, 141–148. London: Routledge. Sinclair, John, Elisabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham. 1996. New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sobré-Denton, Miriam, and Nilanjana Bardhan. 2013. Cultivating Cosmopolitanism for Intercultural Communication: Communicating as Global Citizens. New York: Routledge. Straubhaar, Joseph. 2003. Choosing National TV: Cultural Capital, Language, and Cultural Proximity in Brazil. In The Impact of International Television: A Paradigm Shift, ed. Michael G. Elasmar, 77–110. London: Routledge. ———. 2007. World Television: From Global to Local. Los Angeles: Sage. Szerszynski, Bronislaw, and John Urry. 2002. Cultures of Cosmopolitanism. The Sociological Review 50 (4): 461–481.

CHAPTER 10

Key International Markets: Distribution and Consumption of Danish TV Drama Series in Germany and the UK Susanne Eichner and Andrea Esser

During the 2010s, Danish TV drama series unexpectedly achieved global success. A vital role in this journey by a small European country into the world is occupied by the German and British TV markets. The popular and critical acclaim of Forbrydelsen/The Killing (2007–2012) in the United Kingdom (UK) (BBC Four, 2011–2012) opened the door for Scandinavian series to television markets around the world (Aurø 2014). Its UK ‘success’ was read as evidence of quality. Equally important, it suggested the (hitherto uncharted) existence of an international audience for TV drama series from non-Anglophone countries, even in subtitled form. If Danish series worked in the UK—a country with no close cultural

S. Eichner (*) Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] A. Esser University of Roehampton, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_10

187

188 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

proximity to Denmark, a wealth of domestic TV fiction, and no history of subtitling on television—maybe they could appeal to audiences in other markets too? To understand the rise of Danish TV drama in the global market, this chapter argues, we must go further back. Before Forbrydelsen gained global visibility through its success in the UK, the German market played a path-breaking role. Triggered by two international Emmys for Rejseholdet/Unit One (DR, 2000–2004) and Nikolaj og Julie (DR, 2002) in 2002 and 2003 respectively, a close collaboration developed between the Danish and German public service broadcasters DR and ZDF. The collaboration led to sustained financial investment from ZDF, raising the production value of Danish TV drama and consequently its appeal beyond the country’s borders. The British market subsequently acted as a shop window, raising awareness globally: ‘BBC Four showed it, and it suddenly got this whole other life’ (Deeks 2016). This chapter examines how serialized Danish TV drama—particularly through Forbrydelsen, Borgen (DR, 2010–2013), and the Swedish-Danish co-production Bron/Broen/The Bridge (SVT/DR, 2011–2018)—entered these two instrumental markets in very different ways and was helped by each market in very different ways. It considers the specific German and British market dynamics alongside wider technological changes and attendant market transformations. The latter have radically changed television since the mid-2000s, as a result affecting the circulation of TV fiction from Denmark and also other countries. Importing channels, each with their own programme and scheduling strategies, also impact circulation in significant ways. The notable differences between the two markets explored here reveal the multiplicity of factors that determine programme imports, trade relations, and the audiences of imported (in this case Danish) TV drama. The two case studies also reveal the increasingly transnational character of TV production, distribution, and consumption. What we can take away from them is that cultural flows are highly complex, and so are explanations of them. Historically, and very broadly speaking, research on TV programme trade flows is underpinned by either political economy and cultural and media imperialism theories or by the works of scholars who reject these economic based macro-approaches. The first camp tends to highlight the hegemonic position of the United States (US) in the audiovisual sector. Explanations include the large domestic market, capable of providing the initial funding for production, and the well-established global distribution model of the US majors (e.g. Von Rimscha et al. 2018). Cultural critics

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

189

moreover attribute the global appeal of US TV fiction to their ‘culturally odorless’ (Iwabuchi 2002) or ‘de-culturalized’ (Bielby and Harrington 2008) nature. Collins (1989) aptly notes that English is the ‘language of advantage’, a claim that has since been supported by several studies (e.g. Moran and Keane 2006) and also explains, at least in part, why the US and Britain are the world’s No. 1 and 2 exporters (Steemers 2016). On the other hand, audience researchers have argued for decades that international audiences read imports differently, or in fact might not understand them at all, ‘let alone in dubbing or subtitles’ (Katz and Liebes 1990, 46). Most, Straubhaar (2007) and Sinclair et al. (1996), for example, maintain that audiences prefer media content that is proximate to them in cultural and linguistic terms. Some highlight the need for adaptation, including remakes and their notable differences (e.g. Mikos and Perrotta 2013; Moran 2009). Making allowances for this simplified account, what all scholars share is that they take the nation as their starting point, and this, we contend, has impeded more nuanced theorizations for a long time. In this chapter, we want to advance theory on TV programme flows by discarding both national and binary thinking, focusing instead on the complexity of flows. This includes the ongoing and deepening processes of ‘transnationalization’, a concept that raises attention to the fact that increasingly social, political, and economic forces are not bound by national borders but operate on supranational, transregional, and translocal scales and scopes (Levitt and Khagram 2007). In the case of ‘Danish’ drama, the transnational dimension can be traced at the level of production culture (e.g. DR’s showrunner system of ‘one vision’, adapted from the US; Redvall 2013) and, as the following will show, the production itself in the form of co-production and co-financing deals between Danish and German broadcasters (Jensen et al. 2016), and in distribution in the form of German ZDF Enterprises selling Danish programmes and the UK acting as a global shop window. Finally, the following will show that audiences too are transnationalizing. As a consequence, we argue that cultural flows must be understood as a form of circulation that is much more transnational, complex, dynamic, and multidimensional than the prevailing national approach suggests.1 The next three sections will illuminate this, first by tracing Danish series in the German market, with a particular focus on the influential time between 2005 and 2012. This is followed by an account of Danish series in the British market between 2011 and 2016, and in conclusion there is a short outline of circulation in the online era. Our analysis follows a

190 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

structure–conduct–performance analysis (SCP analysis), which considers technological changes, market structures, relevant media policies, and the strategies and performance of the pertinent players in each market (Wirth and Bloch 1995). Commensurate to our understanding of circulation as combining distribution and consumption, the SCP analysis is supplemented by an analysis of quantitative and qualitative audience data. Our empirical material stems from desk research, including ratings’ analyses, eight expert interviews with TV executives in Denmark, Germany, and the UK, an analysis of German media coverage between 2008 and 2014, 11 focus groups with viewers in the UK and Germany, and polls on English language fan sites on social media between 2014 and 2016 (Eichner 2017; Esser 2017).

The German Television Market The German television market has long been determined by a dual broadcasting system, with the two big licence fee-financed public service broadcasters (ARD and ZDF) and two free-to-air commercial channel families, ProSiebenSat1 Media AG and the RTL Group, occupying almost equal market shares for audiences (each group has around 40%). Pay TV, despite continuous efforts, failed to gain ground until fairly recently, largely owing to the high number of free-to-air channels. After Germany’s sole pay TV company, Premiere, went bankrupt in 2002, it was acquired by Murdoch and integrated into his Sky empire in 2009 (Friedrichsen 2017, 88). Between 2009 and 2018, Sky Deutschland increased its subscriber base from 2.4 million to 4.8 million (Krieger 2018). Together with growing online subscription services, pay TV and video on demand (VOD) services today constitute a still small but growing third leg in the German television landscape. With 72 million viewers, 37 million television households (Mediametrie 2016, 212), and a total revenue of over EUR 22 billion annually, Germany is the third largest TV market worldwide after the US and China (Ofcom 2015, 139). In early 2019, the Commission on Concentration in the Media (KEK) listed on their homepage a total of around 400 private channels, of which the average household could receive around 80 free to air. Despite this plurality of channels, the market is still dominated by the four main players ARD, ZDF, ProSiebenSat1, and RTL.  Interestingly, the German television market, despite its size and substantial revenues, is markedly import oriented. It also takes prime place among European

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

191

countries when it comes to co-productions (Bondebjerg et al. 2017, 86). Owing to their financial strength, historically there has been no need for German broadcasters to supplement their income by selling content internationally. There have been a few successful exports, including the crime series Derrick (ZDF, 1974–1998) and action series Alarm for Cobra 11 (RTL, 1996–). But overall, German broadcasters have never displayed a strong export orientation. Recently, several German series have attracted international attention, critically acclaimed shows being Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter/Generation War (ZDF, 2013), Deutschland 83 (RTL, 2015), Babylon Berlin (Sky, ARD, 2017), and the Netflix production Dark (Netflix, 2017). Like the Danish exports, these productions as well as their transnational visibility can be considered manifestations of the changing media landscape, with its starkly rising demand for drama and what appear to be increasingly discerning audiences; audiences that seem less bothered by the ‘foreign’ origin than TV executives and scholars have long been assuming. In terms of their domestic programming strategies and performances, the German public service broadcasters (PSBs) historically provide a mix of their own productions (initially through a vertical integration model), co-productions, and licensed programming. Commercial free-to-air broadcasters primarily provide imported canned programmes, largely from the US and, to a lesser degree, from the UK, supplemented with original commissions produced by a network of domestic production companies (Windeler and Sydow 2001, 1046). All imported programmes are dubbed. As far as Danish series are concerned, ZDF and its subsidiary ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE), which is responsible for the broadcaster’s programme sales and acquisitions, co-productions, and merchandizing, play a pivotal role. ZDF and ZDFE have a long history of collaborating with Danish PSB DR, and since 2005 ZDF has been showing the majority of Danish crime series. ZDF has the highest audience share of all channels in the German market (13–14% of all viewers aged 3+; Media Perspektiven Basisdaten 2019), but it also has the oldest audience, with an average viewer age of 62 (the average in Germany is 44) (Mantel 2017). For a long time now, ZDF, and similarly ARD, have struggled to attract younger viewers and to overcome their ‘fossil’ structures while continuing to cater to their senior audiences. According to industry insiders, this leads to tensions in the creative process and hampers innovation (Wachholz 2014). Yet while creatives and critics denounce structural conditions and risk avoidance, it must be acknowledged that strong audience ratings prevent

192 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

innovation—despite shifts in viewing habits and platform use among the younger generations. With licence fee revenues of around EUR 2 billion and 150 original feature films a year, ZDF is Germany’s largest producer (Lehmann and Müller 2016), and despite its image as old-fashioned and conservative it supports a broad variety of fictional content. ZDF’s in-­ house produced fiction portfolio encompasses a mixture of light and more demanding entertainment, including among other things a category for fiction and documentaries by young writers and directors, romantic movies and comedies, movies for children and teenagers, event movies, miniseries, and crime series (listed as of 14 March 2019, on ZDF’s home page). Its import category ‘European Crime’, which has had a weekly slot for about 15 years, plays an important part in its fiction portfolio. It is here that ZDF placed Danish drama after its first collaboration with DR in 2004. As noted elsewhere (Eichner 2018), crime is the most popular genre in the market, attracting audiences across gender, age, education, and TV channels. A multitude of domestic productions and imports crowd German screens, and are enduringly popular. Tatort/Crime Scene (ARD, 1970–), Germany’s most successful crime series both in terms of audience ratings and running time, frequently hits the 10 million viewer mark, and with this achieves an audience share of up to 40%; something normally achieved only by major football events. Placed on the most popular Sunday night prime-time slot on ARD (8.15 pm), the series’ outstanding popularity forces all other general interest channels to adopt a counter-­ programming strategy. ZDF counters with its romance slot, but then continues at 10 pm with European crime. With this foreign crime slot, it aims to attract and benefit from ARD’s Crime Scene audience. It is this programming decision, we argue, that together with the long-standing popularity of Scandinavian crime novels created the possibility of a large German audience for Scandinavian series. Scandinavian crime novels, which have been popular in Germany since the 1970s, paved the way for their TV adaptations, including Swedish Beck (since 1998, first on ARD), Wallander (since 1998, first on WDR/ARD), and Maria Wern (since 2011, first on ARD) (Gamula and Mikos 2014). In many instances, ZDF re-ran these in their Sunday night crime slot. The ‘Nordic Noir’ label, which is said to have made its mark in around 2000, popularized representations of cold, dark, and desolate winter landscapes, explicit scenes of violence, and the bleakness of the crime genre (Bergmann 2014; Hansen and Waade 2017). The books of Larsson’s

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

193

Millennium trilogy (available in German since 2007) and the subsequent TV miniseries (broadcast in 2011) were highly popular with German audiences. Finally, the success of Danish TV drama series in the new millennium was prepared by the pioneers of the fertile crossover between cinema and television: these were Ingmar Bergman’s TV series Scener ur ett äktenskap (Scenes of a Marriage, 1973), shown in a shortened version on ZDF, and Lars von Trier’s Riget (The Kingdom, DR, 1994–1997), shown on the German–French PBS channel ARTE (1994–1997). When in 2002 the Danish public broadcaster DR won its first international Emmy for Best Drama Series with Unit One, and then in 2003 with Nikolaj og Julie, Peter Nadermann, then head of co-production and fiction at ZDF Enterprises, called Ingolf Gabold, then head of drama at DR, to suggest that ZDFE and DR should collaborate. Unit One was scheduled in 2004  in ZDF’s Tuesday late-night crime slot. After performing well, ZDFE started co-producing DR series regularly, as a minority partner. In exchange, it was granted the exclusive international distribution rights. Moreover, DR benefited from ZDFE’s stronger links with Central European and South European broadcasters (Gabold 2014). DR productions Ørnen/The Eagle (DR, 2004–2006), Livvagterne/The Protectors (DR, 2009–2010), and Forbrydelsen were all co-produced with ZDFE/ ZDF as well as other, mostly Scandinavian, partners, and broadcast in ZDF’s prominent Sunday 10 pm slot, with success. Roughly 50% of programmes in this slot come from Scandinavia, while the other 50% are either British productions or co-productions. Volker Lehmann, Vice President of Acquisitions and Co-productions, ZDFE, and Susanne Müller, Head of Fiction, ZDF, pointed out that ZDF is exclusively interested in crime series; other genres are mostly sold to French–German culture channel ARTE (Lehmann and Müller 2016). According to Müller, the cooperation was a ‘win-win situation’: DR benefited from ZDF’s substantial investment, which allowed for production values to be raised. ZDF benefited because, ‘for the quality of the programme we got’, the broadcaster had to invest less than would have been necessary for a domestic commission (Lehmann and Müller 2016). In fact, Danish drama turned out to be very popular: Forbrydelsen, in both 2010 (season 2) and 2013 (season 3), attracted around 3 million viewers. This equated to average audience shares of 14% and 14.7% respectively (all adults), matching and even surpassing ZDF’s annual overall market share. The audience share in the segment of viewers aged 50+ was 20%. The average audience ratings for The Bridge were slightly lower at around 2.8

194 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

million viewers, with average audience shares for the first season (ZDF, 2012) of 12.6% (all adults; 18.2% for 50+) and for the second season (ZDF, 2014) of 13.6% (all adults; 18.6% for 50+). According to Müller, this was a respectable success that exceeded their expectations. The two series, we argue, came to a well-prepared and suitable market. Apart from the popularity of Scandinavian novels and their television adaptations, ZDF’s core audience encompasses a notable audience segment that is highly crime literate. Moreover, German broadcasters’ established practice of co-producing with other European countries, plus the tradition of programme exchange among European PSBs via the European Broadcasting Union, meant that viewers in Germany were already familiar with TV fiction from across Europe when these Danish series made their mark in the new millennium. Finally, the personal relationship between Gabold and Nadermann meant that Danish series were successfully placed in a suitable niche at a time when frustration about domestic TV fiction’s inferior quality started to dominate public discourse around television. When Borgen was broadcast in 2012 by culture channel ARTE, the series was quickly picked up and hyped by the press as intelligent, high-quality television. A media coverage analysis of the German national press between 2008 and 2014 (Eichner 2017) revealed that the Danish series received enormous praise for their perceived quality. Moreover, it showed that the interpretative frame quickly shifted towards aspirations for better quality in domestic productions. The coverage of Danish drama was used to discuss the ‘poor’ strategy and output of the German PSBs and to demand better quality, more risk, and greater trust in what audiences want—a demand that, as Müller confirmed (Lehmann and Müller 2016), was acknowledged and discussed in the industry. Thus, at a time when German TV fiction was seen as being of poor quality and when the TV landscape diversified, Danish series functioned as a catalyst for public debates that paved the way for domestic programme innovation. By 2010, ZDFE, who had the worldwide distribution rights (excluding the Nordic region) for the majority of Danish series, had been selling Danish drama for five years. At the end of 2010, they placed their first deal with the BBC, which acquired Forbrydelsen for the digital niche channel BBC Four, where the programme achieved an unexpected ratings success. According to Tasja Abel, ZDFE drama Vice President (2013–2017), this ‘opened up the UK as a territory for Scandinavian series’. Moreover, Abel claimed that ZDFE benefited more generally from selling the Danish series alongside German content because they ‘opened up new

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

195

opportunities for us [ZDFE], new kinds of slots and territories’ (Abel 2014).

The British Television Market The British market has provided inspiration and served as a global shop window for international TV executives since the 1940s, owing to the global standing of the BBC and, during the past 15 years, the country’s outstanding success in growing independent production and selling reality and lifestyle formats globally (Chalaby 2016). But this major television market would not have been as influential in putting the spotlight on Danish TV series, we maintain, had it not been for the surprise at the popularity first of Forbrydelsen/The Killing (BBC Four, 2011–2012) and subsequently Borgen (BBC Four, 2012) and The Bridge (BBC Four, 2011–2018). The first season of Forbrydelsen attracted half a million people, and subsequent seasons of Forbrydelsen and The Bridge over 1 million. The executives responsible for buying these series, BBC Four Channel Controller Richard Klein and BBC Head of Programme Acquisitions, Films & Series, Sue Deeks, both conceded that they ‘had no idea The Killing would become iconic’ (Klein 2016). Their astonishment, which was shared across the industry can be explained with multiple factors: With 58 million viewers (4+), over 26 million TV households, and an annual TV broadcast revenue in the 2010s of EUR 15–16 billion, the British TV market is the fifth largest in the world (Mediametrie 2016, 544; Ofcom 2015, 139). After the US, if by a large margin, it is the world’s second largest exporter of TV content, with annual export revenues surpassing EUR 1.3 billion (Ofcom 2015, 158). Consequently, British audiences are accustomed to a wide choice of domestic drama. Of the five large European markets, the UK traditionally has the smallest share of imported TV fiction (Esser 2007). When importing, it does so from other English-language markets, mostly the US. In the mid-2000s, its average share of European imports was less than 1%, with European co-productions accounting for 0.5% (Esser 2017). Unlike viewers in Germany, the vast majority of UK viewers thus were strangers to Danish and other European TV fiction (subtitled or dubbed) when BBC Four bought Forbrydelsen. Furthermore, differently from the German scenario, British people were not generally knowledgeable about Denmark, nor did they feel culturally close. Historically, the cultural allegiance of the UK is with the US, Australia, Canada, and other

196 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

Commonwealth countries. Moreover, unlike in Germany, crime series in the UK did not dominate Top Ten programme lists (IP 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010). The UK’s highly competitive market structure rendered the success of Forbrydelsen even more surprising. In 2011 and 2012, when the first three seasons of Forbrydelsen, Borgen, and the first season of The Bridge were broadcast, viewers were able to receive around 50 channels on the FreeView platform, and the overall number of TV channels stood at over 500. Roughly half the population had FreeView, while half subscribed to pay TV.  Catch-up services were used by 29% of adults. As in Germany, very few people had a TV set with integrated online services, though. Digital streaming had not yet taken off: LoveFilm had a subscriber base of less than 2 million and Netflix only entered the UK in January 2012 (Ofcom 2012, 2018). DVD sales were still strong, according to Jon Sadler from Arrow Films, the first UK company to buy DVD distribution rights for Scandinavian TV series and vital in cementing the Nordic Noir brand through their website and Nordicana screen festivals. Arrow Films sold around 300,000 box sets of Forbrydelsen in the UK, he said, adding that this was more than a lot of English dramas achieve. Like Klein, he noted that binge watching was becoming popular, and so Forbrydelsen ‘hit a good market’ (Sadler 2016). While DVD sales were remarkable, television clearly played the most important role in the discovery of Danish series (Esser 2017). As noted above, the UK TV market is fiercely competitive. BBC One and ITV1, the two largest free-to-air channels, still have a combined share of 37%, but the other 63% are heavily fragmented: four channels have a share of between 2% and 6%, and the remaining approximately 500 digital channels have shares of below 1% each. BBC Four, too, had an average annual audience share of well under 1% when introducing Forbrydelsen in January 2011. The UK scenario was thus markedly different from the German market, where ZDF has the largest audience share and can hence also provide the largest potential audience for foreign drama. BBC Four was launched in 2002 as a free-to-air digital channel for viewers who want ‘a place to think’. It attracts the oldest, wealthiest, most highly educated viewers among Britain’s free-to-air channels (Esser 2017, 416), and they are ‘quite conservative’ according to Klein (2016). Before the series’ launch, BBC Four had shown about 20–30 subtitled films a year but, Klein said, ‘they all tanked’. As to imported serialized fiction, it had shown French crime drama Engrenages (Spiral) in 2006 (season 1) and 2009

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

197

(season 2), and two episodes of Italian TV detective series Inspector Montalbano in 2008. Moreover, several episodes of the Swedish film series Wallander with Krister Henriksson (Esser 2017, 419) had been broadcast in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Spiral, according to Sue Deeks, ‘did well enough’ to make them realize that ‘there was maybe something to this contemporary subtitled modern crime drama’, and so they looked for more (Deeks 2016). The next series they bought was Wallander (TV4, 2005–2013), and a single episode was broadcast to coincide with the British adaptation, starring Kenneth Branagh, on BBC One (2008–16). According to Klein and Deeks, this popular adaptation with the same title raised interest in the Swedish original. Timewise, Deeks also noted the rising popularity of Nordic Noir fiction, and Sadler the popular acclaim of the Millennium trilogy. Wallander’s audience increased from 147,000 for the single episode broadcast in 2008 to an average audience of 295,000 in 2009 in the Monday 9  pm slot. In 2010, the series was moved to the now famous Saturday prime-time slot, where the audience grew to 418,000 on average (Esser 2017, 419). As a result, Klein asked his team to bring him more ‘cheap’ series from around the world. Like Deeks, he highlighted financial, programming, and marketing benefits. On the one hand, these TV series were ‘peanut cheap’ because no other UK channels competed for them, while on the other, drama is a ‘very good way of giving a channel character’ (Klein 2016). Forbrydelsen, acquired from ZDFE, was scheduled to follow straight on from the final Wallander episode and was promoted by a trailer during the weeks preceding its launch on 22 January 2011. The day before the launch, Michael Hogan (2011), a culture journalist for the Guardian newspaper, introduced it as follows: ‘It’s been a cult hit in Europe, was nominated for the Best International Drama Emmy and is being remade by Fox in the US.’ Soon there was much favourable ‘noise’, as Gerard Gilbert (2011) wrote in The Independent. With 534,000 average viewers, audience ratings for the first season superseded those of the preceding Wallander episodes by more than 100,000 viewers. Dramatic change came with the second season, broadcast in November 2011: ratings doubled to average viewing figures of over 1.1 million. The first season of The Bridge, launched in April 2012, achieved nearly identical ratings; and even political drama Borgen, launched in January 2012, attracted almost 750,000 viewers on average.

198 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

All three series were shown as a double bill in the prominent Saturday prime-time slot (9–11 pm). For BBC Four these were outstanding results (Esser 2017, 422). To truly grasp the enormity of this popularity and the surprise it generated, we need to recall that these series were broadcast with subtitles on a niche channel. Moreover, we need to consider that even the most popular domestic TV series in the UK rarely reach the 10 million mark any more, and that entertainment formats and family friendly drama consistently outperformed crime fiction throughout the decade leading up to Forbrydelsen (Ofcom 2018; IP Network 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010). A ratings comparison illustrates and helps evaluate the success of Danish drama in the UK: In 2015, season 3 of The Bridge, which to date is the highest rating subtitled series on BBC Four, regularly attracted around 1.5 million viewers. Its launch episode attracted 1.78 million (7.6% market share), and this put the series in third place for the day’s prime-time ranking (viewers aged 16+), behind hit reality show I’m a Celebrity—Get Me Out of Here! (ITV1, 2002–present) with 8.65 million viewers (38% market share) and long-running UK medical drama serial Casualty (BBC1, 1986–present) with 4.65 million viewers (19.6%) (Esser 2017, 425). To dismiss this as a niche audience as many, following Bondebjerg and Redvall (2015, 231), have done, would hence be wrong. Attention to the market context, including BBC Four’s average audience share of around 1%, puts these ratings into a different light. In both nominal and relative terms, UK viewers of The Bridge and Forbrydelsen constituted a considerable audience, ‘tiptoeing into the mainstream’ (Deeks 2016). And like German viewers, they made up a substantial segment of Danish TV drama’s growing transnational audience. These ratings and shares furthermore suggest that, although the BBC Four audience for subtitled TV series was gradually built, it was the magnitude of the numbers for Forbrydelsen and The Bridge that explains how these series came to cement a programme slot for European subtitled drama on BBC Four. A second reason was that Klein, when he took over as Channel Controller in 2008, wanted ‘to make Saturday night an entertaining place to come to, to watch good telly’, but he had ‘no money’ (Klein 2016). The low acquisition costs for European series thus suited him, and even more so in 2010, when the Government demanded BBC cut its budget by 25%. Moreover, lobbied by the BBC’s commercial rivals, it pressured the Corporation to reduce spending on US acquisitions. BBC Four’s already minuscule annual budget of near EUR 60  million was affected as well, and its remit was shrunk as a consequence. Its original

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

199

remit had been to act as ‘a mixed-genre television channel for all adults offering an ambitious range of innovative, high quality output that is intellectually and culturally enriching’ (BBC Trust 2006, 1); one of its many objectives had been to show ‘the best international and foreign language feature films, programming and documentaries’. The revised service licence published in February 2011 stipulated that BBC Four’s primary role from that point on was ‘to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music and culture’ (BBC Trust 2011, 1). The state of affairs at the BBC, it should be noted, significantly impacts original programming in the market. Of the UK’s total non-news commissioning budget, 40% falls to the BBC; together with the other three main broadcasters (ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5), it accounts for 80% (Steemers 2016). In contrast to Germany, where the largest source of revenue is the licence fee, it is subscriptions in the UK (Ofcom 2015, 147); pay TV channels’ investment in original productions accounts for only 20%, though. According to Steemers (2016), this means that British broadcasters today struggle to bear the costs of drama production on their own. Between 2008 and 2014, their investment in domestic drama declined by a ‘whopping’ 44% (Steemers 2016). It is therefore reasonable to assume that the domestic drama offer in the early 2010s might not have been as attractive as in previous decades. In fact, members of one UK focus group (30 April 2015) bemoaned the lack of domestic quality drama, while others (focus groups on 15 December 2014 and 30 April 2015) remarked that many US quality series were now on pay TV and not available to them. The ‘dearth of domestic drama’ (Steemers 2016) as well as of US quality drama for around half the population is hence a likely contributory factor to the remarkable popularity of Forbrydelsen, Borgen, and The Bridge as well as other European subtitled series subsequently broadcast on BBC Four to popular acclaim. Quite a few attracted around 1 million viewers (Esser 2017). Despite the many notable differences in the two markets it seems that, similar to the situation in Germany, the comparative lack of domestic drama (and here for many also quality US drama) created the opportunity for programme buyers and audiences to discover and appreciate TV series from outside the Anglo-Saxon market(s).

200 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

Circulation in the Age of Online Distribution Following the high and stable ratings for subtitled TV drama series, other UK broadcasters and streaming platforms soon began to compete for high production value TV series from around the world, which resulted in the further growth of potential and actual audiences. Younger people began to be introduced to non-English language drama in 2016 on Channel 4, its niche channel More 4, and its advertising-funded VOD platform, All4. Under the label ‘Walter Presents’, All4 offers drama from around the world for box-set viewing, including Danish series Dicte (TV 2, 2013–2016), Norskov (TV 2, 2015–2017) and Herrens veje/Ride Upon the Storm (DR/ARTE, 2017). In Germany, the focus groups conducted in 2014 and 2015 revealed that Danish series had not only reached the regular, crime-literate ZDF viewers, but also educated cosmopolitan oriented viewers on Mediatheken, the public broadcasters’ joint online platform. When Forbrydelsen was first broadcast on ZDF in 2008, streaming was still a niche phenomenon. More than a third of the population was still offline and a third of internet users had not even heard about streaming services. Apart from some early adult adopters who used Mediatheken for non-linear television, only teenagers (14–19 years) periodically used video content on the internet, mostly via YouTube and the German-speaking video platforms MyVideo and Clipfish (Von van Eimeren and Frees 2010, 352–353). Accessing Danish TV series via Mediatheken, which also provided the original version with subtitles, thus became a marker of distinction. Similar to their positioning effect on some international niche channels (Jensen 2016), Danish series experienced a cultural mark-up for this young online audience. Interestingly, while watched and perceived differently, the topical themes, strong female lead characters, the specific Nordic Noir aesthetics, and the high production values constituted a product that, as in Denmark, worked for both more ‘mainstream’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ oriented viewers. With the market entrance of new players, the opportunities to discover Scandinavian and other non-English language TV series continued to grow. Netflix entered the UK in early 2012 and Germany in 2014. Amazon Prime Video entered both markets in 2014. In 2015 and 2016 respectively, the two VOD services began to invest in original, non-English language, serialized fiction, which is often offered in dubbed and subtitled form. By 2015, 26% of British and 16% of German viewers claimed to use

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

201

these two and other non-broadcaster subscription VOD services regularly (Ofcom 2015, 34). Moreover, in Germany, investment in pay TV and subscription video on demand (SVOD) services increased notably: UnityMedia KabelBW launched a pay TV service in 2015, Telecom and Vodafone followed in 2018. Over-the-top (OTT) media services, Maxdome, MagineTV, and Zatoo, which bypass cable, broadcast, and satellite platforms by streaming content directly to viewers via the Internet, were launched in 2013, 2015, and 2018 respectively (VAUNET 2018, 10). By 2018, the German market had over 8 million pay TV subscribers, 10 million SVOD subscribers, and many more users. The long-­lasting dual broadcasting system came to be superseded by a triple system. In the UK, where pay TV was successfully established much earlier, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, pay TV subscriptions (15.1 million households) were superseded by VOD subscriptions (15.4 million). By 2018, nearly 40% of all UK households had one or several VOD subscriptions (Ofcom 2018, 13). Compared with when Danish TV series entered the British and German markets, in the mid-2000s and early 2010s respectively, the situation had markedly changed, and of course it continues to change. One of the effects of this irreversible trajectory is the need for more serialized drama of a high production value. This vast increase in demand has further opened up and transnationalized markets—in terms of production, distribution, and consumption. The downside for broadcasters is that such series are now acquired in a highly competitive market. Prices no longer resemble the ‘peanuts’ originally paid by Klein and Deeks, and both PSBs who helped push subtitled TV drama into the global limelight have lost out to larger competitors on several accounts. Following the transnational hype around Danish series, other parties but ZDF and the traditional Scandinavian partners became interested in co-financing or coproducing with DR, with the result that ZDFE’s position weakened. For instance, Bedrag/Follow the Money (2016–2019), which premiered at the Berlinale Series Section in 2015, was presold on pitches. It was fully funded without German money, and the global distribution rights were awarded to DR Sales (Aurø 2014).

Conclusions Combining SCP-analysis and audience research, this chapter has shown that Danish TV drama’s transnational success story began long before Forbrydelsen achieved outstanding and wholly unexpected ratings in the

202 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

UK, and that multiple factors in both the UK and Germany facilitated its circulation. Danish TV drama series entered both markets at a very specific time when the ramifications of digitization were already being felt and when the offer of serialized quality drama in both markets was comparatively weak. Furthermore, in both countries the two importing channels’ public service remit, including the mandate to show European and other international programmes, facilitated decisions to invest in Danish series. In both markets, various precursors paved the way for Danish series’ popular acclaim in the 2010s. In Germany, these series in addition found a highly crime-­ literate audience and a well-established crime slot for European drama on ZDF. Personal connections were responsible for initiating the close collaboration between DR and ZDF. In the UK, Danish series encountered a ready-made educated niche audience on BBC Four, at a time when the broadcaster wanted to offer more drama on Saturday nights on a small budget and cuts in funding and remit were on the horizon. Both countries subsequently proved vital in pushing Danish TV drama series into the global limelight, if in markedly different ways: ZDF played a seminal role as transnational financier and distributor between 2005 and 2015, while the BBC’s decision to broadcast Danish drama increased global interest post-2011. As far as audiences are concerned, it is important to record that both Forbrydelsen and The Bridge each attracted around 3 and 1.5 million viewers in Germany and the UK respectively, rendering the notion of niche audiences in these two markets obsolete. In this context, we also argued that attention to programme placement is crucial for understanding audience ratings and dynamics. Apart from market size and timing, channels and schedule slots determine potential and therefore actual viewer numbers. For a meaningful assessment, a sophisticated analysis of ratings and shares is needed; something that is further complicated through the growing distribution via online platforms. Regarding the consequences of Danish series’ popularity for ZDF/ZDFE and BBC Four, we indicated that both parties have lost their privileged position. Competition for Danish TV series has increased in both markets, and ZDFE has lost its position as Danish drama’s exclusive distributor. A positive consequence is that different viewer segments now watch Danish and other foreign language drama, increasingly with subtitles and via online platforms. How television content is accessed and consumed has markedly changed—a result as well as a symptom of increasing audience transnationalization.

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

203

What can be inferred from all this is that the circulation of TV drama series is increasingly and thoroughly transnational, dynamic and multidimensional. Theories need to be revised to reflect this complexity. The success of Danish TV drama in the UK and Germany has shown that TV fiction travels in very different ways and sometimes for different reasons. It has also shown that TV fiction does not have to be ‘culturally odourless’ (Iwabuchi 2002) to appeal across borders, nor highly proximate in cultural and/or linguistic terms. The British case study has demonstrated that television fiction can remain free of localization strategies, bar subtitles, and still attract significant audiences. This means we need to rethink the quite common assumption that audiences might not understand foreign content, particularly if dubbed or subtitled (Katz and Liebes 1990). Whether a rise in the quality and the quantity of domestic ‘quality drama’ leads to a reduction in transnational circulation, as postulated by Straubhaar (2007) and Sinclair et al. (1996), remains to be seen. But we doubt it: economic pressures, technological developments, and the rise in audience expectations work against this. Finally, we can conclude that the theoretical–methodological approach of the ‘national’, and its concomitant attention to the cultural (presumed national), tends to overlook the complex interplay between technology, market structures, media policies, broadcaster performance, programme strategies, and audience dynamics. These are the driving factors of program circulation, and all increasingly operate on transnational levels or are affected by transnational forces.

Note 1. The notion of the transnational focuses on aspects of border crossings but does not deny the existence of borders. We deliberately speak of the German and British markets rather than Germany and the UK, though, to indicate that we refer to the operational level of the TV industry, not the two countries as such, nor to any mythological national cultures.

References Abel, Tasja. 2014. Interview by Pia Majbritt Jensen, Anne Marit Waade, and Susanne Eichner. Personal Interview. Skype Interview, Aarhus, June 20, 2014. Aurø, Helene. 2014. International Sale of Danish Television Drama. Lecture, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, October 24, 2014.

204 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

BBC Trust. 2006. BBC Four Service Licence. London: BBC Trust, December 18, 2006. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/regulatory_ framework/ser vice_licences/tv/tv_ser vicelicences/bbcfour_ servicelicence_18dec2006.pdf ———. 2011. BBC Four Service Licence. London: BBC Trust, February 2011. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/regulatory_framework/service_licences/tv/2011/bbc_four_feb11.pdf Bergmann, Kerstin. 2014. The Captivating Chill: Why Readers Desire Nordic Noir. Scandinavian-Canadian Studies 22: 80–89. Bielby, Denise D., and Lee C. Harrington. 2008. Global TV: Exporting Television and Culture in the World Market. New York: New York University Press. Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Breaking Borders: The International Success of Danish Television Drama. In European Cinema and Television: Cultural Policy and Everyday Life, ed. Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson, 214–239. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bondebjerg, Ib, Eva Novrup Redvall, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, Henrik Søndergaard, and Cecilie Astrupgaard. 2017. Transnational European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Chalaby, Jean. 2016. The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution. Cambridge: Polity. Collins, Richard. 1989. The Language of Advantage: Satellite Television in Western Europe. Media, Culture & Society 11 (3): 351–371. Deeks, Sue. 2016. BBC Head of Programme Acquisitions, Films & Series. Interviewed by Andrea Esser and Anne Marit Waade, London, July 18. Eichner, Susanne. 2017. The ‘Public Presence’ of Danish Film and Television: The Circulation of Discourse Between Cultural Journalism and Audiences. Presentation at 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association: Communication Research and Practice, San Diego, May 25–29, 2017. ———. 2018. “Crime Scene Germany: Regionalism, Audience, and the German Public Broadcasting System.” In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, Kim Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock, and Sue Turnbull, 173–192. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Esser, Andrea. 2007. Audiovisual Content in Europe: Transnationalization and Approximation. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 13 (2): 163–184. ———. 2017. Form, Platform and the Formation of Transnational Audiences: A Case Study of How Danish TV Drama Series Captured Television Viewers in the UK. Critical Studies in Television 12 (4): 411–429. Friedrichsen, Mike. 2017. Market Structure and Innovation Policies in Germany. In Innovation Policies in the European News Media Industry: A Comparative Study, ed. Hans van Kranenburg, 85–95. Springer.

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

205

Gabold, Ingolf. 2014. Interview by Pia Majbritt Jensen, Jakob Isak Nielsen and Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, March 21. Gamula, Lea, and Lothar Mikos. 2014. Nordic Noir: Skandinavische Fernsehserien und ihr internationaler Erfolg. Konstanz: UVK. Gilbert, Gerard. 2011. Wanted in Britain: Europe’s Must-See TV Thrillers. The Independent, March 5. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge. London: Palgrave. Hogan, Michael. 2011. The Killing: BBC4’s New Scandinavian Import. The Guardian, November 21. IP International Marketing Committee. 2003. Television 2003. International Key Facts. Paris: IP Network/RTL Group. ———. 2005. Television 2005. International Key Facts. Paris: IP Network/ RTL Group. ———. 2008. Television 2008. International Key Facts. Paris: IP Network/ RTL Group. ———. 2010. Television 2010. International Key Facts. Luxembourg: IP Network/ RTL Group. Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2002. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Durham: Duke University Press. Jensen, Pia Majbritt. 2016. Global Impact of Danish Drama Series: A Peripheral, Non-commercial Creative Counter-flow. Kosmorama 263. https://www.kosmorama.org/en/kosmorama/ar tikler/global-impact-danish-dramaseries-peripheral-non-commercial-creative-counter Jensen, Pia Majbritt, Jakob Isak Nielsen, and Anne Marit Waade. 2016. When Public Service Drama Travels: The Internationalization of Danish Television Drama and the Associated Production Funding Models. The Journal of Popular Television 4 (1): 91–108. Katz, Elihu and Tamar Liebes. 1990. Interacting With “Dallas”: Cross Cultural Readings of American TV. Canadian Journal of Communication 15 (1): 45–66. Klein, Richard. 2016. Interview by Andrea Esser and Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. London, February 24. Krieger, Jörg. 2018. Netflix Overtakes Sky Deutschland in Customer Numbers. Broadband TV News, October 15. Lehmann, Volker, and Susanne Müller. 2016. Interviewed by Susanne Eichner and Pia Majbritt Jensen. Skype Interview, Aarhus, June 24, 2016. Levitt, Peggy, and Sanjeev Khagram. 2007. The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations. London: Routledge. Mantel, Uwe. 2017. Wie die Sender gealtert sind  – und wer sich dagegen stemmt. DWDL.de, March 14. https://www.dwdl.de/magazin/60418/wie_die_sender_gealter t_sind_und_wer_sich_dagegen_ stemmt/

206 

S. EICHNER AND A. ESSER

Media Perspektiven Basisdaten. 2019. Daten zur Mediensituation in Deutschland. ARD-Werbung. https://www.ard-werbung.de/media-perspektiven/basisdaten Mediametrie. 2016. Eurodata TV Worldwide. One Television Year in the World 2016. Levallois Perret Cedex/Paris: Mediametrie. Mikos, Lothar, and Marta Perrotta. 2013. Stilvarianten – Ästhetische Differenzen und Gemeinsamkeiten in nationalen Adaptionen von Yo soy Betty, la fea. In Transnationale Serienkultur. Theorie, Ästhetik, Narration und Rezeption neuer Fernsehserien, ed. Susanne Eichner, Lothar Mikos, and Rainer Winter, 249–268. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Moran, Albert. 2009. Global Franchising, Local Customizing: The Cultural Economy of TV Program Formats. Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 23 (2): 115–125. Moran, Albert, and Michael Keane. 2006. Cultural Power in International TV Format Markets. Continuum 20 (1): 71–86. Ofcom. 2012. Communications Market Report 2012. London: Ofcom. https:// www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/20218/cmr_uk_2012.pdf. ———. 2015. International Communications Market Report 2015. London: Ofcom. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/31268/ icmr_2015.pdf. Accessed 31 July 2017. ———. 2018. Media Nations 2018: UK. London: Ofcom. https://www.ofcom. org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand/media-nations. Accessed 14 March 2018. Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. ‘Dogmas’ for Television Drama: The Ideas of ‘One Vision’, ‘Double Storytelling’, ‘Crossover’ and ‘Producer’s Choice’ in Drama Series from the Danish Public Service Broadcaster DR. Journal of Popular Television 1 (2): 227–234. Sadler, Jon. 2016. Interview by Andrea Esser and Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. London, April 13. Sinclair, John, Elizabeth Jacka, and Cunningham Stuart. 1996. Peripheral Vision. In New Patterns in Global Television, ed. John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham, 1–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steemers, Jeanette. 2016. International Sales of UK Television Content: Change and Continuity in the ‘Space in Between’ Production and Consumption. Television & New Media 17 (8): 734–753. Straubhaar, Joseph. 2007. World Television: From Global to Local. London: SAGE Publications. VAUNET. 2018. Pay-TV in Deutschland 2018. Vaunet. https://www.vau.net/ pressemitteilungen/content/pay-tv-celebrates-new-audience-recordsinvests-local-house-productions Von Rimscha, M. Björn, Johanna Möller, Denise Voci, Pamela Nölleke-Przybylski, Klaus-Dieter Altmeppen, and Matthias Karmasin. 2018. Can Digitisation Help Overcome Linguistic and Strategic Disadvantages in International Media

10  KEY INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION… 

207

Markets? Media, Culture & Society. Online First, July 5. https://doi. org/10.1177/0163443718787614. Von van Eimeren, Birgit, and Beate Frees. 2010. Bewegtbild im Web  – Multioptional im digitalen Zeitalter. Ergebnisse der ARD/ZDF-Onlinestudie 2010. Media Perspektiven 7–8 (2010): 350–358. Wachholz, Marc. 2014. Von Netflix den Spiegel vorgehalten. Genrefilm, September 19. https://genrefilm.net/von-netflix-den-spiegel-vorgehalten/ Windeler, Arnold, and Jörg Sydow. 2001. Project Networks and Changing Industry Practices  – Collaborative Content Production in the German Television Industry. Organization Studies 22 (6): 1035–1060. Wirth, Michael, and Harry Bloch. 1995. Industrial Organization Theory and Media Industry Analysis. Journal of Media Economics 8 (2): 15–26.

CHAPTER 11

Bridging Cultures: Transnational Cultural Encounters in the Reception of The Bridge Ib Bondebjerg

The Danish–Swedish crime series, Bron/Broen/The Bridge (2011–2018) is not just a European co-production that involves several national funding sources. It has also prompted quite an active response among transnational audiences, critics, journalists, and creative industry people, further expanding and consolidating the Nordic Noir phenomenon (Hansen and Waade 2017). This chapter addresses cultural encounters as a creative dimension of co-production, but focuses mainly on the cultural encounters of reception. The success of the series demonstrates the value of co-­ production between small European nations. The series has had very wide global distribution, and remakes have been made by the United Kingdom– France, the United States–Mexico, Estonia–Russia, Singapore–Malaysia, and Germany–Austria. As a bilingual Scandinavian co-production, The Bridge has clearly proven the global value of such local–national stories. It has also proven to be a Nordic co-production with a universal and generic formula that may be remade in other cultural contexts. As a case study, this

I. Bondebjerg (*) University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_11

209

210 

I. BONDEBJERG

series teaches an important global lesson, confirmed by others (see Esser 2017): we are witnessing a change in global television, where local and national formats from many more countries play new and stronger roles. In this chapter, I look at the creative formula and production of The Bridge and the reception of this series in three countries (Denmark, United Kingdom, and Sweden). I do this by analysing the audiences’ demographic profiles and the discourses in the series’ reception by select newspapers and social media. The reception of the series shows a fascination with Nordic Noir as a genre, and the transnational cultural encounters of the series also involve social, political, and cultural themes, and exchanges of different norms and lifestyles related to existing notions of national identity and transnational otherness. The global value of such series from small countries, normally at the margins of the global media culture, is that they offer opportunities for cultural encounters that may challenge established patterns of national understanding and create new networks of creative co-production. Such transnational mediated encounters relate to universal dimensions of stories, and also initiate a cultural encounter between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Television Drama as a Transnational Cultural Encounter Social and cultural encounters are fundamental to human interaction and communication. This is true of real-world encounters with other people in our routines of everyday life, but also of extended forms of ‘mediated’ encounters that play an increasing role in our media-saturated reality. What we sometimes call ‘stereotypes’—perhaps with negative implications—are in fact what sociologists call social and cultural categories, or schemas. They are ‘ways of talking about our expectations’, because whether we like it or not, ‘we all make assumptions about other people, ourselves, and the situations we encounter’ (Fiske and Taylor 1991, 97). Such schemas and categories may be fuzzy and vague, based on minimal experience in real life or through media, but as social and cultural individuals we need such schemas. They provide shorthand categorization in everyday life and they reduce complexity. The interaction between our prior experience and already-established schemas, and what we encounter out there in the world is an ongoing process, and cognitive psychologists sometimes talk about ‘the predictive brain’ (Hinton 2015, 24). We try to

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

211

predict and imagine encounters with phenomena in the world by using our social and cultural schemas. Our predictions may not always be correct, but they have a top-down influence on perception and the way information is remembered. Media narratives may be powerful tools for challenging and changing our schemas, and for affecting our understanding of others. We know that humans are very much ‘storytelling animals’ (Gottschall 2012), and that stories in all sorts of mediated forms have a powerful influence on our way of understanding ourselves and others (Bruner 2002). The Swedish–Danish crime series The Bridge seems to confirm this hypothesis: mediated, transnational, cultural encounters can help us to recall and reproduce the kinds of stereotypes we have of other nations and cultures. However, they can also enrich, change, and challenge such stereotypes. What we see in the production of this series is a deliberate, creative use of national stereotypes in a story, building on how Danes and Swedes imagine each other. This transnational meeting within the narrative has been reproduced in the discussion and reception of the series, as reflected by audiences and critics in the two nations. Scandinavian stereotypes are also to be found in the wider, transnational reception of the series, as I will demonstrate with a description of the British reception. A very graphic, provocative, and satirical example of the British reception of The Bridge is British journalist Ben Machell’s article in The Times, ‘Døwnton – the Dånish Versiön’ (Machell 2013, 5), where he combines elements of Downton Abbey (2010–15), 1864 (2014), and The Bridge by playing on national stereotypes of drama from Great Britain and Scandinavia. This is satirical, and it starts by deconstructing national stereotypes—a reflexive and also self-satirizing way of confronting these stereotypes as caricatures. Machell looks ahead to 1864 on British screens, but combines Nordic Noir into imaginary scenes for his Døwnton Åbbey. His nonsense version of 1864 transforms its interiors into ‘a heady world of low sofas, wall-to-wall striped pine, clean lines, and functional, tastefully lit, eco-friendly, open-plan living’, Danish–Scandinavian design cool, quite different from the heavy English country style. We hear the Earl of Grantham from Downton Abbey in conversation with a sulky Lady Sarah Lund (from The Killing), who informs him of how ‘socially enlightened’ Denmark is. In another scene we meet Lady Saga Norén (from The Bridge), in ‘tight black leather trousers and acting a bit aspergery’, asking Matthew Crawley (from Downton Abbey) if he would like to come back to her flat to have sex.

212 

I. BONDEBJERG

Although the foregoing example is satirical, it is obvious that the reception of all types of television series and other cultural and social encounters build on a meeting between something quite culturally specific and something more universal. As a narrative, The Bridge is in many ways explicitly the result of a creative construction based on Swedish–Danish cultural encounters (Bondebjerg 2016b). In interviews given to the press by many of the key creative writers, producers and directors of the series have testified to this (see Rosenfeldt 2014; Scherfig 2012, 2015; Ehrhardt 2015). In the Danish newspaper Information, Charlotte Sieling, one of the series’ Danish directors, confirms the creative use of national differences, but also emphasizes the element of universal modernity as being strongly present: The team behind The Bridge has worked actively with the differences, which Danes and Swedes imagine exist between them. But we have done so to find the similarities. […] We have deliberately focused on the universal similarities. Therefore, national icons are completely absent from the series […] we have tried to create a visual form that gives the impression of a series that could take place in any urban space […] in the darkness of the city we are all alike. (Sieling as quoted in Rasmussen 2011)

Although Sieling and the creative team behind the series stress the universal, modern appeal of the story, the reception of the series clearly indicates that cultural difference is as important—if not more important. This creative formula of national differences and universal, human similarities may be clearly traced in theories of transnational reception and cognitive sociology. Such forms of cultural encounter are part of the general way we map each other—a mapping that may change more than shared experiences and encounters, but is nevertheless something that is universal to all human beings (Fiske and Taylor 1991, 96). Understanding transnational cultural encounters is as much about those very specific and particular reactions that are marked by cultural difference as about those that make it possible for us to engage with other stories. The Machell example, funny as it is, identifies a dimension of transnational encounters where stereotypes of both the national cultures involved are explicitly challenged. As the reception of The Bridge shows, mediated cultural encounters are about both cultural and generic proximity, and distance and difference.

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

213

Co-Production: Creative Encounters in a Global Context The aim of the producers, directors, and screenwriters behind The Bridge was to use the unique bilateral cultural similarities and differences of two neighbouring countries. They hoped that by using a story, setting, and a group of characters that crossed the border between two cultures they could create something that would work for both countries, and possibly also in other Scandinavian countries. Since 2000, the Scandinavian countries have moved towards a broader European network of co-production, as data and analysis from the MeCETES project show (Bondebjerg et al. 2017, 79–80).1 This involves a network of not only the Scandinavian countries, but also Germany; in fact, the Scandinavian–German axis is a new European creative co-­ production power structure, which also includes France, Belgium, and to a lesser extent Great Britain. This broader European co-production pattern is beginning to influence and change the production of television drama in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia. If we want to understand cultural encounters in connection with production and reception, we need to look at the general pattern of crime series consumption. In Fig. 11.1 we see that between 2005 and 2014 Danes were exposed to a British– American–Australian crime culture. The percentage of national, Fig. 11.1  Total shares of American and British crime series in Denmark. Based on MeCETES data 2005–2015

US 25%

alia Austr 7% Denmark 3% UK 50%

Swed en 4%

Rest of Europe 9%

214 

I. BONDEBJERG

Crime Fiction Average share & rating 2005-2014 (first-runs) Rating (000)

2000

Share %

100

80

1600

60

1241 50

800

40

400 320 0

20

20

Sweden

15

14 121

Denmark

Share %

Rating (000)

1200

Norwayt

113 UK

9

108 US

12 4 60 Canada

52 Australia

33 4 0 Rest of Europe

Fig. 11.2  Average shares and ratings for crime series on Danish television, 2005–2014. MeCETES data

Scandinavian, and European crime series was not a very large part of the national screen time. But if we look at consumption patterns and audience preferences (Fig. 11.2), this is reversed. Scandinavian crime series is the most popular content: we seem to prefer television crime dramas that reflect our national and Scandinavian reality. The local, regional, and national play important roles in audience reception. There is strong evidence that audiences all over Europe primarily prefer their own nation’s films or television dramas (see Bondebjerg 2016a; Lange 2015). This accords with Joseph Straubhaar’s (1991) cultural proximity theory, and the still-dominant cultural role of national identity in a globalized world. Although today we are exposed to global connections and stories, we are still very much immersed in our national cultures. The fact that many so-called national crime series on television, such as The Killing, are transnational co-productions does not really influence their national popularity and reception, as long as the narratives reflect a national reality, perhaps connected to something more global. All domestic crime series in most European countries have much higher shares and ratings than foreign drama (Redvall 2013; Buonanno 2000; Lange

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

215

2015; Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015). So the actual viewing pattern in Denmark clearly underlines the proximity thesis—that audiences take a very regional stance on crime series, and although they watch a lot of transnational crime series, ultimately, they seem to prefer their own nation’s. We have to consider this from a distribution perspective too, because the Nordic Noir phenomenon is also about breaking patterns of normal national and transnational relations. In quantitative audience terms, Nordic Noir may be a niche phenomenon, but nevertheless many of the series included in this category have had rather broad distribution. This in turn may create larger transnational production and distribution networks over the long term, and may also affect patterns of consumption and reception. Co-productions and transnational distribution challenge established cultural values and traditions, creating fruitful tensions and negotiations between what we have identified as ‘our’ culture and the culture of ‘others’. Such encounters are a necessity if we want to change or challenge global dynamics, power structures, and social and cultural relations. If we take a closer look at the co-production, and co-financing and co-­ producing partners, of The Bridge (see Fig. 11.3), we find a very broad and diverse transnational pattern. The interesting thing is that we see national partners (Nimbus, Filmlance, DR, SVT, ZDF, NRK) together with regional funds and Nordic, European funds, and on the distribution side we find a rather broad network of course. In the case of The Bridge, the network of co-production and distribution clearly shows that the creative control follows the story: it is a Swedish–Danish series. But financially, the network is much broader, and this is also the case with distribution. It is important to note that the intuitive notion of the creative production team behind The Bridge was that local–national roots should be at the centre of the narrative (Hochscherf and Philipsen 2017, 121–122). Transnational co-production structures were not to interfere too much with the basic narrative and thematic universe. Stories can travel all over the world, but trying to make stories universal and international may ruin authenticity, originality, and global diversity. Studies of discourses on reception, focus groups, surveys of the transnational reception of popular films, and quantitative audience studies show a strong identification with the local and national (Bondebjerg et al. 2017, 129–130). As we will see in the study of audiences and the reception of The Bridge, discussed later, we all negotiate what we see on the screen from a specific position that has a strong national component, but

216 

I. BONDEBJERG

Fig. 11.3  Structural diagram of production and distribution companies involved in The Bridge

we are also able to compare our own imagined national framework and experience to a product with some specific otherness. This means that the local–national value of television drama is actually more likely to lead to transnational cultural encounters than would some form of bland international value. As one of the two main writers of the series, the Danish Nikolaj Scherfig, has said, For me […] co-productions are interesting, if they can help develop authentic stories. It is very important to create co-productions that make stories possible that build on and use cultural and national differences. The fantastic thing about The Bridge was that we did exactly that, and that people in Denmark totally accepted it as Danish and the opposite in Sweden. At the same time, it was a real, authentic, transnational story and reality we dealt with […] There are cultural borders everywhere, and the way we relate to people at the other side of a border is based on some specific local/national

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

217

differences, but the way we relate is pretty universal, and people everywhere can read their own situation into it. (Scherfig 2015)

Scherfig’s point reflects a well-known fact from reception studies: people understand story worlds from other cultures because narrative structures and genres have universal dimensions, but at the same time they also read their own experiences into them (Katz and Liebes 1993; Bondebjerg et al. 2017). The international interest in Danish television drama clearly proves that local–national stories can create global fascination and interest.

Reception and Transnational Cultural Encounters In Katz and Liebes’s (1993) study of the transnational reception of Dallas, one of the main findings was that this American series was understood without difficulty by a wide variety of audiences with rather different social and cultural backgrounds. The series speaks to and expresses fundamental psychological, cultural, and social norms and roles related to family, and to broader structures and power relations. The story’s American context and specific characters, settings, and local references were not themselves problematic. But when asked to retell the story, audiences did so in ways that differed, reflecting the different cultural backgrounds of the audience groups. Their reception of the series was a result of a cultural encounter and negotiation between the screen story and the audience’s reality (Katz and Liebes 1993, 76–77). This same mechanism may be found in the processes defined by Katz and Liebes as referential, ludic, and critical readings. Here, active cultural, social, and psychological encounters take place at many levels, as direct commentary on the correspondence or difference between audience reality and screen reality, commentary on the aesthetic and narrative forms, likes or dislikes related to the characters and their actions, and so on. Katz and Liebes did not directly use the word ‘universality’ when discussing the reception of Dallas by very different audience groups around the world, but they spoke of ‘primordiality’ (Katz and Liebes 1993, 144–145). This refers to those elements in a series that reflect and echo human nature, and speak to our elementary understanding of kinship, interpersonal relations, and the deeper emotional and psychological layers of characters and character relations. A series of focus groups and surveys,2 done for the MeCETES project (Bondebjerg et  al. 2017, 153–154), on historical drama, contemporary drama, and crime drama, and comparing various Danish and European

218 

I. BONDEBJERG

series, confirmed that the transnational reception of a series is based on universal categories related to genre, character types, basic narrative forms, and conflicts. At the same time, reception takes the form of a negotiation based on the perceived degree of cultural closeness, recognition, and difference. Difference is not necessarily a negative thing, although in some cases it may reduce viewer interest. It is also a question of fascination with something that is understandable, yet simultaneously different from viewers’ own reality and everyday life. As an example of the foregoing, when Danes compare a Danish crime series such as Forbrydelsen/The Killing (2007–2012) with the long-­ running and very popular British series, Midsomer Murders (1997–), Danish viewers relate to the British series as something rather close and familiar, even though it is very different from traditional Danish crime series. The genre is familiar, as are the character types, and the fundamental plot is as crime plots tend to be, with variations and sub-genres. The focus group members related to Midsomer Murders as a crime genre with a British touch, and noted that the depiction of crimes is not as violent and graphic as the Danish series. So, in this case, the cultural encounter has to do with something that is familiar in terms of genre and storytelling, but fascinates because it has a different national flavour. Thus, this particular cultural encounter works both ways: the audience recognizes a familiar genre with its specific characters and plots; they reflect on the cultural and social differences, but also see similarities between provincial, small-town life and culture in Denmark and Britain (Bondebjerg et al. 2017, 167–168). The findings indicate that genres have transnational, universal elements, which are clearly recognized by audiences, but we also negotiate foreign fare by applying our own experiences. This ‘universality in diversity’ echoes Katz and Liebes’s findings, and is confirmed by large-scale studies of transnational film reception, such as Martin Barker and Ernest Mathijs’s Watching the Lord of the Rings (2008). Here, different kinds of national reception are regarded as representing variations and combinations of ten categories of reception (Barker and Mathijs 2008, 153–155).3 Here, I simply summarize their categories with two super-categories, defined by me. The first category, self and others, has to do with personal, psychological, or social reasons for a particular experience and audiences’ receptions of the film, with a more interpersonal and collective reference to other persons and groups. The second category, experiential and generic qualities, relates to how audiences experienced the film and its impact on them,

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

219

something that has social, emotional, and cultural dimensions and is related to narrative, genre, themes, style, aesthetics, characters, and so on. These empirical, qualitative reception studies underline what cognitive sociology tells us about the formation of social imagination and social mindscapes across national differences (Zerubavel 1997; Taylor 2004) and about genre and narrative as fundamental, transnational categories (Bruner 2002; Gottschall 2012). Although cultural difference and diversity are central to contemporary global media culture, transnational cultural encounters are also possible, because as humans we share common ground. This means that national and transnational screen encounters with television narratives always play out on at least three basic levels. 1. Subjective encounters, where we react to and interpret a particular screen narrative through very specific, personal experiences or events that mirror our own lives (e.g. a statement such as ‘my brother also died of cancer’). 2. Collective encounters, where reception and reactions are based on shared local, regional, national, or transnational patterns of recognition, or collective identities related to class, gender, media interests, and so on, either by identifying (e.g. something such as ‘this is something we have in common, even though I am a Dane and this is about Swedish culture’) or by negotiating some combination of identification and difference (e.g. ‘very British small town culture, but it reminds me of small-town Jutland, where I grew up’). 3. Universal cognitive, emotional screen encounters, where reception and reactions are based on the fact that we, as human beings, have the same bodies, brains, and emotional systems (‘this series makes me cry or laugh, or I empathize with those characters’).4

Transnational Reception of The Bridge: Audience Data Quantitative audience data from Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom show that without a doubt the Swedish and Danish success of The Bridge far exceeded its success in any other country. This reflects the well-known fact that series fare considerably better in their own national and regional contexts. The first season had a share of 24.5% on the Swedish

220 

I. BONDEBJERG

channel SVT and 29% on the Danish channel DR. Following its switch to the premium Sunday drama slot, the average share for season 2 rose to 32.4% in Sweden and 38% in Denmark—figures that remained high for season 3 (Hedling 2015). It is difficult to compare the Danish and Swedish data—as these are from broadcasts on the main public service channels— with the British data, as BBC 4 is a niche digital channel. So the BBC 4 rating of 6.2% seems low, but is in fact a very high share for a foreign series on this channel. This number definitely tells us that even a successful series such as The Bridge becomes more of a niche success abroad. Compared with the average shares of national crime series in Denmark and Sweden, the difference is remarkable. In Denmark, The Killing had an average share of 62%, and other national prime-time series confirm such figures. So even a Swedish–Danish co-production has lower shares and ratings in those two countries than national series. The Bridge was a success in both Sweden and Denmark, but not a success in line with series that had casts entirely from the nation in which they were broadcast. The British shares for The Bridge are much lower than similar figures in Scandinavia. Nordic Noir is still ‘exotic’, but as Sue Deeks (BBC) noted in an interview, ‘Subtitled dramas have been out of fashion on British television for the best part of two decades, before The Killing helped to change the attitude of viewers and commissioning editors in 2011 […] there is a line back to the UK release of The Spiral and Wallander’ (Plunkett 2013). In the United Kingdom, The Bridge is still an elite phenomenon, but a phenomenon that may nevertheless change national attitudes to foreign-­ language television drama. Format trading is already changing the global landscape and bringing a broader variety of national cultures into play. This happens mostly with entertainment formats, but also to a certain extent with drama (Esser 2017). This niche status is reflected by the fact that the high-quality broadsheets are the newspapers that predominantly deal with the series in a substantial way, with only a handful of articles appearing in tabloids (Bondebjerg 2015). Although national crime series appeal in different ways to different social groups, they still tend to cut across demographic divisions. However, in the United Kingdom, the demographic for The Bridge was predominantly upper middle class and middle class. The share of the AB group was 10% for the first season, five times higher than the average for this group, and for season 2 the share was 14.1%, more than twice the average (BARB-­ data/Overnights TV). Interestingly, during the more successful season 2—following the pattern in Sweden and Denmark—there was a levelling

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

221

of social group differences, with more people from the lower middle classes (C1) tuning in. So subtitled content seemed to catch on more broadly in the United Kingdom. Cultural screen encounters do matter, and viewer patterns may change if people are exposed to this kind of foreign content over a longer period, and begin to appreciate what they see, as also noted by Andrea Esser (2017).5 The longstanding co-production and distribution of television drama in Scandinavia and the increased intra-Scandinavian distribution of crime series has probably increased cultural encounters among Scandinavians. Scandinavians have national identities, but The Bridge shows a cross-­ national Scandinavian crime tradition that has also reached a much broader European and international audience. Eurobarometer data (see Fligstein 2010, 141–142) indicate that social mobility, transnational communication, education, and work often develop a more cosmopolitan outlook, a broader understanding of other Europeans. Eder also notes the role of mediated narratives: Europeans telling each other their past is a mechanism of identity construction […] Collective identity […] is a learning process in terms of narrating each other’s particular past and to this extent creating a common ground in which to see each other as particular others. (Eder and Spohn 2005, 213)

In other words, cultural encounters matter, and along with other forms of cross-national contacts—including drama and all forms of narratives that travel—are important for better understanding in global contexts. The local and national are important to all human beings: the world immediately around us is that which we use to define ourselves. However, it seems that our global media culture has recently developed a much greater capacity for the exchange of national stories, stories that will help us to develop new ways of understanding and seeing each other.

Negotiating Cultures: Television Drama as Transnational Dialogue The Øresund Bridge, the bridge that connects the Copenhagen area in Denmark with the southern part of Sweden, is a strong symbol in The Bridge. It is a bridge and open border that connects two countries with very similar societies and cultures. However, the opening scene emphasizes the border, with a woman’s body placed exactly at the invisible

222 

I. BONDEBJERG

middle, with one half of the bisected body in Sweden and the other in Denmark. The dead body is in fact a composite of two bodies—a Swedish politician and a Danish prostitute. During the series, we witness the unfolding of a transnational conflict, negotiation, and collaboration. Swedes and Danes gain insights from observing the small or large differences in each other’s norms for ways of working and acting, language differences, and daily private and public rituals; for non-Scandinavians, the feeling of entering a different world and reality is probably even stronger. The series’ principal Swedish writer, Hans Rosenfeldt (2014), mentions the professionalism and quality of the series’ narrative structure and visual style as key to its international success. But he also sees the characters’ psychology and depth in the unfolding social and cultural themes as important. The series’ characters and themes prompt cultural observations, and social and psychological negotiations. The series invites audiences to position themselves by referring to aspects of everyday life, and through social and psychological realism. Moreover, the series clearly presents transnational cultural negotiations of a more directly cultural nature: the landscapes and urban spaces, the design of public buildings and institutions, and the design of private spaces become a part of what viewers see and compare with how they themselves live. In the British reception of series such as The Bridge, The Killing, and Borgen, we find a clear tendency to compare the British national identity with the Danish/Scandinavian ones. The ‘Nordic’ element becomes ‘exotic’, relative to the reality of Great Britain, and gives rise to a fascination with Scandinavia and critical British self-reflection, for instance in relation to welfare-state politics and gender roles (Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015). Articles on The Killing and Borgen, particularly in The Guardian, see the Nordic series as presenting images of a more advanced modern society than British series offer. Generally, the themes raised in the more than 200 articles on Borgen in The Guardian (2011–2012, see Bondebjerg and Redvall 2015, 232–233) reflect this main tendency, although more trivial points of interest are also examined (Sarah Lund’s jumper, bicycles, etc.). Again, what we see is the dual effect of mediated cultural encounters: the interpretation of (and fascination with) the Nordic Other prompts a self-reflexive discussion of British culture and society. As described by two other researchers (Sparre and From 2017), in the British press a Danish series such as Borgen manages to establish quite strong cultural negotiations between its fictive universe and interpretations of Danish

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

223

society and culture, which are also mirrored in Danish ways of seeing British culture and politics. In the United Kingdom, newspaper reviews of The Bridge follow the same general patterns and themes of reception as those discussed above, as it too offers a strong combination of a universal crime genre and quality markers, together with something more culturally specific. In other words, the series addresses both the particular and universal dimensions of a narrative, characters, setting, and themes. This drew praise for its visual, narrative, and aesthetic qualities and professionalism. The reception also prompts reflections on the cultural specificity of the series as a representation of Nordic culture and society, and those things that define British everyday life and society. A statement such as ‘a gripping, enthralling, well-written, knife-edge drama’ (Brown 2012) is an example of the universal—something focused on the general dimensions of the series. The same goes for this more elaborate argument for a quality that captures the viewers in general: a gripping mix of thoughtfully drawn characters, a slow-burning pace and plots with more twists and turns […] fascinating female lead […] viewers are quickly drawn in by a tangle of subplots […] there is also an attempt to reflect the uneasy fault lines in society, from immigration to inequality or sexual exploitation. (Donaghy 2012)

In contrast, a statement such as the following already starts to map the social and cultural differences between a traditional British crime drama and a Scandinavian one, and how they impact the production: It is a fresh idea to have a female cop with no insight at all in how others might feel [...] it is a superior cop show, with a running theme about communication: how Danes and Swedes struggle to understand one another’s language and accents; how different age groups tell each other off for using redundant slang. The palette is all washed-out pale greens and pinks among the 40 shades of Scandinavian beige, classily photographed by Jørgen Johansson, and the plot is genuinely exciting. (Walsh 2012)

Here, the visual representations of the Scandinavian city and landscapes, and the encounters between Danish and Swedish characters, prompt transnational reflection, which at the same time represents an underlying demarcation of the British context. We see this mechanism in foreign crime series, resulting in discussions of British series, and questions of

224 

I. BONDEBJERG

crime and the police; for instance, in a more general article in The Guardian (Preston 2011). Preston describes the new wave of European series on British screens as ‘Europe’s brutally bleak dramas that reflect the loss of trust in our own police’, while criticizing the British tradition as ‘the genteel Gently’s best of British’, referencing Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse (1987–2000), and Inspector George Gently (2000–2017). This point of view garnered more than 100 comments on the article. Looking at the Danish reception of The Bridge, the relationship between universal genre elements and more specific national differences is also high on the agenda. In Information, Rune Lykkeberg (2011) defines the series as ‘a meeting between the Swedish mental condition and obsession with rules and the Danish looseness and laissez faire’, but he also sees a much more general pattern in the story, ‘where the all too human Dane has created a monster, which only the inhuman Swede can save him from’. Lykkeberg describes Saga Norén as a character who is unable to read the human codes of interaction, but is a more efficient cop than Martin Rohde, who is too emotional and messes things up. The characters become symbols of not just national differences, but something much broader than that: ‘This is of course not about Denmark and Sweden. The clichés of national characters become metaphors for the collision between civilization and emancipation which runs through all cultures that consider themselves enlightened’ (Lykkeberg 2011). This is a voice from a niche intellectual newspaper’s reading of the series with very reflexive cultural and critical perspectives. In contrast to this, tabloids such as BT also praise the series (Andersen 2011), but with reference to television drama’s capacity to unite the nation, to create that common public sphere that is otherwise threatened—‘the big TV drama that can tell us a bit about how it is to be a Dane’. The article barely notes that this is a Scandinavian co-production; instead, it is seen as part of a long national tradition that addresses modernity and how difficult it is to combine the public and the private. Here, we clearly see how national television drama can bring out deep ideological differences in a national audience, between the intellectual, more centre– left audience, on the one hand, and the more mainstream–centre audience, which the two newspapers address, on the other. The very positive reception of The Bridge in Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom continued into the third season, and the number of discussions in newspapers and on social media also intensified. But the reception of the third season also revealed some national differences in discussion

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

225

themes. In Denmark, Politiken’s Henrik Palle concluded his evaluation with words such as a ‘stunningly beautiful piece of television’ and ‘a dark sublime thriller’ (Palle 2015). His colleague, Marcus Rubin, criticized the series for an increasing lack of realism and narrative coherence, and the respected film magazine Ekko expressed the same criticism (Palle and Rubin 2015; Petersen 2015). Leading critics therefore began to question the series’ quality. On the other hand, in Sweden much of the discussion dealt with a very different aspect of cultural realism (Hedling 2015): the use of standard, non-dialectical Swedish by most of the Swedish characters was criticized as unrealistic, given that the series is set in southern Sweden, where dialects are common. This indicates that cultural encounters are not just transnational; they may be national and even regional, and involve social and cultural power struggles between the centre (Stockholm) and periphery. In the British reception of The Bridge’s third season, we see another effect of cultural encounters. The general fascination with the series, its characters, and plot continued and intensified, and the intense interest in Scandinavian culture and social phenomena in general has not declined. As Pei-Sze Chow (2016) has noted, British coverage of the series also seems to have led to a rising general interest in Swedish and Danish news. Such news articles include coverage of Sweden’s gender-neutral policy, its coining of the gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’, and the European migrant crisis (2015–), which has actually led to increased border controls between Denmark and Sweden, and a now not-so-open Øresund Bridge. This indicates that Nordic Noir is now so firmly established in its imaginary, fictional form, at least among some segments of the British population, that it has affected the general news agenda. Mediated cultural encounters do matter.

Not Lost in Translation: The Global Value of Television Drama in Cultural Encounters Regional collaboration and integration may lead to changes in forms of cultural identity, to a greater combination of various cultural experiences and identities. At least, this is what sociologist Klaus Eder claims in Collective Memory and European Identity: The Effects of Integration and Enlargement (Eder and Spohn 2005). His main point is that if deeper European integration continues at all levels, including cultural

226 

I. BONDEBJERG

collaboration, and if viewers throughout Europe watch programmes from other countries more often, this could lead to various ways of combining national and regional identities: a strong national identity with a weak transnational one as an addendum; forms of restructuring the national that incorporate stronger transnational elements; or a much more flexible combination of various forms of national and transnational identity. The immense popularity of Nordic Noir throughout Europe and elsewhere—and, indeed, other European co-productions in film and television—represents a move towards broader and more complex patterns of transnational collaboration and audience screen encounters with series from many parts of Europe. The producers and the creative team behind The Bridge seem to have managed to create a transnational story in which national differences are presented in a very overt and self-conscious way, but where this transnational story also has a strong and deeper universal dimension. Perhaps the secret recipe for transnational success is to find authentic local stories. Perhaps making stories that emphasize cultural differences and local, regional specificity is internationally attractive. After all, beneath our national identities we are all pretty much alike, but differences, variations, and local–national perspectives are what create diversity. Mediated cultural encounters are not about making artificial, transnational stories, because viewers in front of the screen seem perfectly capable of grasping various realities. As a creative, collaborative project, The Bridge is an example of a close, transnational collaboration between two similar and closely linked media cultures and societies. Mediated cultural encounters between Europeans, and between Europeans and non-Europeans, are important, since they may help people to understand each other in a deeper way, by emphasizing that, despite cultural differences, we have much in common. The global lesson to be learned from this case study of a Danish–Swedish co-production and its creative use of a genre with universal appeal seems to be clear. It is better to tell a story rich in national and local cultural markers than to try to construct a universal story. The Bridge and other new European series with a local authenticity matter in a global context: they have changed European and global media culture by making it more culturally diverse.

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

227

Notes 1. The MeCETES project is an acronym for Mediated Cultural Encounters Through European Screens, which was a HERA/EU-funded research project (2013–16) that studied the production, distribution, and reception of European film and television drama. Three research groups collaborated: from York University (UK), Copenhagen University (DK), and the Free University of Brussels (BE), http://mecetes.org 2. All in all, there were eight focus groups, with groups of different ages, educational backgrounds, and genders. Before the live session of roughly two hours, the groups were asked to complete a simple survey covering their viewing habits, backgrounds, and experience of the genres in question. Transcriptions of all sessions were coded with respect to certain themes, such as genre, characters, recognition, otherness, and social settings. 3. Barker’s categories, based on a large-scale transnational survey, are called ‘vernacular categories,’ and there are ten of them: self-definition, experiential qualities, outcomes, envisioning, filmic qualities, the makers, filmic comparisons, reservations, recuperations, and significant others. 4. The statements presented here are not verbatim quotes from actual focus groups, but they represent types of remarks heard in the focus groups. So, they are hypothetical examples with a background in actual focus-group interviews. 5. The UK demographic categories used by the NRS are: A (upper middle class, higher managerial, administrative, or professional); B (middle class, intermediate managerial, administrative, or professional); C1 (lower middle class, supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional); C2 (skilled working class, skilled manual workers); D (working class, semi- and unskilled manual workers); E (state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest-grade workers).

References Andersen, Olav Skaaning. 2011. Fællesskabet. BT, November 24. Barker, Martin, and Ernest Mathijs. 2008. Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s World Audience. New York: Peter Lang. Bondebjerg, Ib. 2015. Bridging Cultures: Transnational Aspects of the Production and Reception of The Bridge. Paper Presented at the New Directions in Film and Television Production Studies Conference, Bristol University, Bristol, UK, April 14–15. https://www.academia.edu/28676554/Bridging_Cultures._ Transnational_Aspects_of_the_Production_and_Reception_of_The_Bridge._ IB._Bristol_conference_paper._2015

228 

I. BONDEBJERG

———. 2016a. Transnational Europe: TV-drama, Co-production Networks and Mediated Cultural Encounters. Palgrave Communications 2 (16034): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.34. ———. 2016b. The Almost Nearly Perfect Swedish-Danish Co-production: The Bridge – Season 3: A Danish Perspective. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. http://mecetes.co.uk/the-bridge-3-a-danish-perspective/ Bondebjerg, Ib, and Eva Novrup Redvall. 2015. Breaking Borders. The International Success of Danish Television Drama. In European Cinema and Television. Cultural Policy and Everyday Life, ed. Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall, and Andrew Higson, 214–238. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bondebjerg, Ib, Eva Novrup Redvall, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, Henrik Søndergaard, and Cecilie Astrupgaard. 2017. Transnational European Television Drama. Production, Genres and Audiences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Brown, Gill. 2012. You Say. Sunday Times, June 3. Bruner, Jerome. 2002. Making Stories. Law, Literature, Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Buonanno, Milly. 2000. Continuity and Change. Television Fiction in Europe. Luton: University of Luton Press. Chow, Pei-Sze. 2016. The Bridge – Season 3: Perspective from the UK. MeCETES, March 3. http://mecetes.co.uk/the-bridge-season-3-perspectives-from-theuk/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Donaghy, James. 2012. The Bridge: Season One, Episodes Seven and Eight. The Guardian, May 12. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/may/12/the-bridge-season-one-episodes-seven-eight Eder, Klaus, and Willfried Spohn. 2005. Collective Memory and European Identity. The Effects of Integration and Enlargement. Aldershot: Ashgate. Ehrhardt, Bo. 2015. Interview by Ib Bondebjerg. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, June 2015. Esser, Andrea. 2017. TV Formats: History, Theory, Industry and Audiences. Critical Studies in Television 8 (2): vii–xvi. Fiske, Susan T., and Shelley E.  Taylor. 1991. Social Cognition. New  York: McGraw-Hill. Fligstein, Neil. 2010. Euro-Clash. The EU, European Identity and the Future of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gottschall, Jonathan. 2012. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston: Mariner Books. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to the Bridge. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Hedling, Olof. 2015. The Bridge –Season 3: A Swedish Perspective. MeCETES, September 15. http://mecetes.co.uk/the-bridge-season-3-a-swedish-perspective/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019.

11  BRIDGING CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS… 

229

Hinton, Perry R. 2015. The Perception of People: Integrating Cognition and Culture. London: Taylor and Francis. Hochscherf, Tobias, and Heidi Philipsen. 2017. Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television Drama. London: I.B. Tauris. Katz, Elihu, and Tamar Liebes. 1993. The Export of Meaning. London: Polity Press. Lange, André. 2015. Fiction on European TV Channels 2006–2013. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. Lykkeberg, Rune. 2011. Farlige forbindelser. Information, November 24. https://www.information.dk/kultur/anmeldelse/2011/11/farlige-forbindelser. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Machell, Ben. 2013. Døwnton  – The Dånish Versiön. The Times, March 15. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ar ticle/downton-the-danish-versiongsw755gtp6s. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Palle, Henrik. 2015. Broen III star tilbage som et bragende flot stykke tv-­ underholdning. Politiken, November 29. Palle, Henrik, and Marcus Rubin. 2015. Skal Fiktion være realistisk? Politiken, December 2. Petersen, Brian. 2015. Broen III. Ekko, December 1. https://www.ekkofilm.dk/ anmeldelser/broen-iii2/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Plunkett, John. 2013. Channel 4 Aims to Make a Killing with Subtitled French Drama. The Guardian, May 23. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/ may/22/channel-4-french-drama-subtitled. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Preston, Peter. 2011. Cops That Fit the Mood. The Guardian, December 4. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/04/cops-fitmood. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Rasmussen, Anita Brask. 2011. Rejsende mellem sorte huller. Interview med Charlotte Sieling. Information, October 5. https://www.information.dk/kultur/2011/10/rejsende-mellem-sorte-huller Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From the Kingdom to the Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rosenfeldt, Hans. 2014. The Bridge: Writing My Favourite Scenes. BBC Blog, January 24. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/entries/4188f661-b751-3ce5a50c-c63974cb1b54?sortBy=Created&sortOrder=Ascending&filter=none. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Scherfig, Nikolaj. 2012. Broen til suksess. Rushprint, December 6. https://rushprint.no/2012/12/broen-til-suksess/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. ———. 2015. Interviewed by Ib Bondebjerg. Personal Interview. Copenhagen. Sparre, Kirsten, and Unni From. 2017. Journalists as Tastemakers. An Analysis of the Coverage of the TV Series Borgen in a British, Swedish and Danish Newsbrand. In Cultural Journalism in the Nordic Countries, ed. Nete Nørgaard Kristensen and Kristine Riegert, 159–178. Göteborg: Nordicom.

230 

I. BONDEBJERG

Straubhaar, Joseph. 1991. Beyond Media Imperialism: Asymmetrical Interdependence and Cultural Proximity. Critical Studies in Media Communication 8 (1): 39–59. Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham/London: Duke University Press. Walsh, John. 2012. A Schlock and Dance Number. The Independent, April 22. Zerubavel, Eviatar. 1997. Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

CHAPTER 12

‘Just Follow the Trail of Blood’: Nordic Noir Tourism and Screened Landscapes Anne Marit Waade

Introduction ‘Welcome to Ystad: home of sea, sand – and slaughter.’ This was the opening sentence of an article published for international readers of the Swedish online magazine The Local back in 2008 (Wiles 2008). That same year, the BBC Wallander (2008–) series premiered in the British and the Nordic markets, and both critics and viewers were very enthusiastic about it. BBC Four followed up by showing the Swedish Wallander (2005–2013), and a few years later series such as Forbrydelsen (2007–2012) and Borgen (2010–2013) hit the market (Image 12.1). The title of the news article just mentioned was ‘Discover Ystad: Just follow the trail of blood’: it was less about the Wallander series and more about Ystad and familiar locations mentioned in the bestselling books and the television series, each of them actual places that one may visit. The delicate balance between the gruesome crime scenes (known from the fictional stories) and the

A. M. Waade (*) Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8_12

231

232 

A. M. WAADE

Image 12.1  Visit Denmark (2017) promoting Forbrydelsen tours on their website (Peter and Ping, Copenhagen)

locations (which exist in the real world), and the fact that you can visit the places and re-experience the scenes on location, is something the author plays with throughout the article: ‘Why not bring some friends and recreate the slaughter? Or do as another Wallander tourist did, and spend the night in the deserted car park, reading the book by torchlight to soak up the real terror of this isolated spot?’ (Wiles 2008). In this chapter, I focus on Nordic Noir tourism as fan culture, long tail marketing, and a strategic collaboration across industries (screen production and tourism), and describe how Nordic Noir tourism has developed since the early 2000s. This study is based on interviews with industry representatives from the screen industry and tourism, and on selected paratexts that demonstrate the framing and marketing of the series and their distinct use of place. The main cases are Wallander, Forbrydelsen, Bron, and Dicte, each of which sheds light on particular aspects of Nordic Noir tourism.

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

233

Screen Tourism as a Market Strategy Audiences’ increasing fascination with the places and landscapes in bestselling books and popular television series, and the fact that these popular stories may lead to on-location screen tourism (Beeton 2005), is something that authors, producers, and broadcasters have realized attracts extra attention and adds appeal. HBO’s Game of Thrones’s effective use of European filming locations (Northern Ireland, Dubrovnik, Malta, Girona, and Reykjavik), which later became attractive screen tourism destinations, is a well-known example of this. In general, film and television drama have the effect of creating marketing windows for places and destinations. In Scandinavia, the growing crime fiction tourism in Ystad contributed to the media attention surrounding the Wallander series in the early 2000s; it was something the journalists wrote about, the viewers discussed, and the producers highlighted in their marketing (Waade 2013). Since the early rise of Wallander tourism and the significant global popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction in general, we have seen many examples of Nordic Noir tourism in the Nordic region, for example Millennium (2009–2010) in Stockholm, Forbrydelsen in Copenhagen, Bron/Broen/The Bridge (2011–2015) in Malmö and Copenhagen, Dicte (2012–2016) in Aarhus, Fjällbacka Morden/Fjällbacka Murders (2012–2013) in Fjällbacka, and Ofærð/Trapped (2015–) in Reykjavik. Such tourism is not limited to the crime genre, and in the Nordic region, series such as Borgen in Copenhagen, Badehotellet/The Seaside Hotel (2013–) on the Danish west coast, and SKAM (2015–2017) in Oslo also attract tourists (Visit Oslo 2017). Nevertheless, Nordic Noir-inspired tourism is still a smallscale industry, primarily run by one-person enterprises and enthusiasts working in tourism or employed by municipalities, and the number of tourists involved is still quite small. However, film tourism is something journalists often want to write about, and thus Nordic Noir tourism attracts public attention to both the producer and the destination in question. In Europe, series such as Harry Potter, James Bond, Inspector Morse, and more recently Game of Thrones have led to large-scale, on-location tourism. It is easier to attract screen tourists when it involves television series with a significant global audience, or filming locations that are already popular destinations.

234 

A. M. WAADE

Screen Tourism as a Field of Interdisciplinary Research Parallel to the increasing popularity of screen tourism as a global phenomenon, in recent decades academia has demonstrated a growing interest in screen tourism. Screen tourism is a well-established field of research in tourism studies, and draws on disciplines such as service management studies, marketing, geography, anthropology, and film studies (Beeton 2005; Kim 2012; Roesch 2009). However, from a media studies perspective, the phenomenon has only recently attracted academic interest (Lee 2012; Reijnders 2011; Waade 2020). In general, although tourism scholars approach screen tourism as being particularly interesting in terms of tourist experiences, and destination development and place branding potential (Tzanelli 2007; Månsson 2015; Gyimóthy 2018), media scholars’ interest in the phenomenon instead lies in considering long tail marketing, fan engagement, and market potential for media franchises (Grey 2010; Hills 2002; Hill 2019), media technology and format-specific conditions (van Es and Reijnders 2018), and new ways of attracting funding (location placement as a kind of product placement) (Hansen 2018) and engaging in cross-sector collaborations (Ibrus 2019; Waade et al. 2019). Serialized screen productions have the advantage of making it possible to plan for long tail marketing and tourism development that follow the seasons (Turnbull and McCutcheon 2017). Globally recognized franchises and their locations, such as Lord of The Rings in New Zealand (Carl et al. 2007; Roesch 2009), Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland (Tzanelli 2016; Joyce 2019), Harry Potter in London (Lee 2012), and The Da Vinci Code at Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland (Månsson 2010) have attracted significant academic interest, whereas Nordic screen tourism and small-­ scale screen tourism have so far attracted less attention. There is also a general tendency for screen tourism studies to focus mainly on single cases and rarely to examine more general cultural, economic, and industry-­ related trends and conditions. In this chapter, I intend to narrow this knowledge gap by looking at Nordic Noir tourism more generally, as it has developed throughout the Scandinavian countries as small-scale side businesses to television production, and thereby contribute to the media-­ specific approach to screen tourism as a cultural and industrial phenomenon. With regard to Nordic Noir tourism, Scandinavian crime fiction as a global bestseller industry and the ‘Nordic Noir’ brand’s associations with transnational, high-quality subtitled drama offer some significant

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

235

advantages for developing screen tourism and fan tourism in Scandinavia (Sjöholm 2010; Waade 2016). Furthermore, the Nordic countries are already popular tourist destinations that attract domestic and international tourism. In the following sections, I provide some examples of how Nordic Noir tourism has developed since the mid-2000s, and map the branding values and cross-sector collaborations that this small-scale side business to television production encompasses. The Wallander Paradox: How Can Blood and Crime Attract Tourists? It may seem paradoxical that brutal crime and bleak landscapes attract tourists, but the crucial point is that the stories and the settings are associated with fictional worlds known from bestseller literature, popular film, or television drama series. From the tourists’ point of view, this distinction is important, because they understand that the crime narratives they know from the stories will not pose a threat in real life. Instead, the fascinating and engaging fictional narratives they know from literature and television drama add a layer of storytelling, an augmented, narrative-setting experience (Sandvik 2015). The crime scene itself is a crucial part of the crime narrative and plot structure, and an investigation often focuses on this particular place. The crime scene reveals traces of blood, fingerprints, and DNA, and therefore is of considerable interest; this is reactivated when a viewer visits the places in person (Sandvik and Waade 2008). In Ystad, there are small street signs and guidebooks that take you to all the crime scenes and other locations known from the Wallander series (Ambrius 2004; McClintock 2010). In general, there are many examples of how crimes have been used to promote destinations and nations, and this includes historical crime (e.g. war zones, memorials, the Holocaust), fictional crime (settings and crime scenes from literature, film, and television drama series), and mythological and supernatural crime (e.g. ghost tourism) (Waade 2010; Tzanelli 2016). In the popular history book and tour guide Bloody Britain (Robinson 2002), the authors combine historical crime, fictional crime, and supernatural crime when they take the reader on a tour across the country, and tell the ‘history of murder, mayhem and massacre’ in the United Kingdom. Jack the Ripper provides a well-known example that combines historical facts and myths about a serial killer who is used to promote tourism, and this has given rise to several Jack the Ripper guided tours in London. In

236 

A. M. WAADE

the news article that I referred to earlier, the journalist draws a parallel to another well-known crime series, in which a rural idyll is mixed with (fictional) murders: This southern Swedish seaside town, previously best known for its fine beaches and quaint timber-framed houses, has become synonymous with murder. You could be forgiven for thinking that the only place in Europe statistically less safe to live was Detective Superintendent Barnaby’s Midsomer. (Wiles 2008)

The contradiction between the (actual) picturesque landscapes and the innocent, rural idyll on the one hand, and the (fictional) serial killers and evil individuals murdering their neighbours and relatives on the other, is used to market and frame the series and its setting. Wallander’s Ystad illustrates this in excellent ways (see, for example, the two feature films The Wallander Look, 2009,  and Wallander Country, 2010). Crime fiction researcher Kerstin Bergman (2011) believes that the Wallander series introduces a neo-romantic tendency in Swedish crime fiction, of which the rural settings and landscapes are a crucial element. She explains that Swedish procedurals are characterized by their strong focus on setting and the anxious, suffering hero. They were traditionally set in modern and urban locations, but more recently it has become more common to use rural settings (Bergman 2011, 34–35). Before Wallander tourism developed in Ystad during the 2000s, the town was already a well-known tourist destination. Then German tourists started turning up at the local tourist office and at the local police station, asking for Wallander and Mariagatan. The head of tourism at that time, Itta Johnson, seized the opportunity to develop screen tourism in the town; she invited a group of German journalists to Ystad and gave them a Wallander tour (Johnson 2009). This was the beginning of Wallander tourism. By this point, the Ystad Studio had been established, and Film in Skåne and the Øresund Film Commission played a significant role in supporting screen productions and working closely with the local authorities. Later, the tour operators in Ystad started offering Wallander weekend packages, opened the studio to visitors, organized bus tours, published guidebooks, and created booklets such as In the Footsteps of Wallander (Waade 2013). Since the late 2000s, the municipality has hosted Mixed Reality, an annual conference that brings together screen professionals and tourism. Simultaneously, the municipality developed a ‘Film friendly

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

237

policy’ strategy that, among other things, aimed to teach schoolchildren how to make a film, train the staff of the local government administration in public relations and film-making, establish the Film University in Ystad, and host an award event for extras in the Wallander productions (Waade 2013). In 2018, the municipality opened Ystad Studio Visitor Center. The British adaptation of Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh as the main character and shot in Ystad, hit the market in 2008. This included a new window for the branding of Ystad, while attracting new groups of tourists. In fact, the British Wallander, as part of the BBC brand—which is known internationally for its high-quality drama—was distributed worldwide, and thus provided windows to many different markets, providing an extensive branding effect for the town of Ystad (Hansen and Waade 2017). However, in order to build up a sustainable screen industry and related tourism, it was important to focus not only on Wallander, but also on all film and television series produced in the region. In general, the Wallander case illustrates how a film location may be turned into a tourist destination. This idea was in fact evident in the subtitle of the first Mixed Reality conferences in 2009 and 2010: ‘From location to destination’ (Waade 2013). The production was an eye-opener for the two industries, showing how media and tourism could work together and develop a town’s (region’s, nation’s) brand, and a series’ long tail marketing (see for example The Film about Ystad, Ystad Kommun 2010). The Forbrydelsen Tour: Growing Small-Scale Nordic Noir Tourism Based on the success of Wallander tourism in Ystad, the rest of the Nordic region started to experience the effects of Nordic Noir tourism, inspiring various tourism organizations and entrepreneurs to develop strategies and launch enterprises related to film tourism. As mentioned earlier, exported Scandinavian crime series that emphasized the region’s locations, landscapes, and climate were the point of departure for these new initiatives (Reijnders 2011; Agger 2013; Hansen and Waade 2017). Forbrydelsen was a global game changer. The surprising British success of this subtitled Danish television drama series, when the BBC presented the show in 2011, paved the way for Danish drama series in a global world (Jensen 2016, 4). The international export of not only Forbrydelsen, but also more recent series has had a positive effect on the Danish and Nordic brands, and on the media’s focus on the region. However, the Danish public

238 

A. M. WAADE

service broadcaster, Dansk Radio (DR) does not have the ambition of promoting the country or attracting tourists through its productions, and DR has not worked closely with tour operators and tourist organizations in the same way as the producers of Wallander. Instead, DR focuses on developing high-quality drama for the domestic market, and telling stories that challenge audiences and reflect society in critical ways (Redvall 2013). In other words, DR wants to tell the stories that commercial broadcasters and producers are unwilling to take risks on. Paradoxically, the results of these ambitions also seem to attract and fascinate an international, middle-­ aged, and well-educated niche audience (Jensen 2016), a segment with a lot of potential for Scandinavian tourism. In Denmark, a number of niche initiatives and enterprises have been launched to profit and make a living from film tourism. Following Brand Manager Sfyrla and International Project Manager di Liberto at Visit Denmark, the most important element in this development is the branding value for Denmark as a country and a destination (Sfyrla and di Liberto 2015). As already mentioned, screen tourism in the Nordic countries is still a niche market, and as such it does not attract significant numbers of tourists. Instead, the value of film tourism is (a) the indirect branding of a country and a destination in a drama series, (b) the news media and social media attention that film tourism attracts, (c) the promotion of series by media producers, and, finally, (d) a new, niche market for creative entrepreneurs developing tours and events. The main players in this market have been the national tourism organizations (Visit Sweden, Visit Denmark, etc.) and their regional branches, the film commissions (in particular the Øresund Film Commission), and the local tour operators. Visit Sweden has worked closely with Ystad municipality and other Nordic Noir destinations in Sweden, such as Fjällbacka, Stockholm, Malmö, and Gotland. For instance, it has organized promotional events abroad, such as release events for the Millennium series, and more recently, in 2014, a Broen event in London with the popular actress Sofia Helin. In Denmark, Visit Denmark established a partnership with the media industry and collaborated on marketing campaigns related to specific series. They also produced extensive texts and images on their website, which showed where the various series were shot in Denmark, and included images from the series together with behind-the-scenes glimpses and facts. Visit Denmark does not organize Nordic Noir tours, but it promotes such tours and collaborates with tour operators throughout the country. During the last decade, we have seen the rise of some Nordic Noir tour operators

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

239

and tourism agencies, many of which are one-person enterprises and enthusiasts. Some of these tour operators are local enterprises, such as the In-Sight Tours in Malmö, Peter og Ping in Copenhagen, and the Camilla Läckberg Murder Mystery Tour; more recently, Nordic Noir Tours has started to organize tours in Malmö and Copenhagen, and SKAM Safari has started to offer a location tour in Oslo (Visit Oslo 2017). There are also national enterprises that organize film tours, such as Guide Service Denmark, which offers Dicte and The Danish Girl on-location tours. In general, this business depends greatly on local enthusiasts and the timing and international attention to each series; many of the agencies and tour operators need to develop a more sustainable business model that includes services and experiences that supplement the film tours. In 2017, the private tour agent Exploring Iceland started offering a film tour related to the crime series Trapped, a series that makes significant use of Iceland’s dark and cold winter landscapes, and which has been successfully exported. The tour, which focuses on locations used in the series, includes accommodation, a guided tour of the Troll Peninsula and Eyjafjordur regions, and a round-trip Reykjavik–Akureyri flight. This tour takes you through an untamed region of powerful nature: scooped-out glacial valleys, rugged fjords and vast volcanic beaches. These are the looming landscapes featured in the popular Icelandic BBC series Trapped, or Ófærð in Icelandic. Luckily, we have left out the dangerous elements, focusing on North Iceland’s beautiful landscapes, charming towns and the locations important to the filming of Trapped. (Exploring Iceland 2017)

The tour is offered all year round, and it takes eight or nine days. Far longer and more expensive than the other tours mentioned so far, it stands out in the context of Nordic Noir film tours. The obvious reasons for this are that Iceland is already a popular tourist destination with visitors from the entire world, Nordic arctic (winter) tourism has grown extensively during the last decade and most tourists stay for several days, and finally, Iceland already has a well-developed screen industry and provides locations, support, and expertise for global media producers (Jörgensen and Tómasson 2016).

240 

A. M. WAADE

Bron Tourism: Transnational Fan Tourism and Long Tail Marketing Filmlance is the Swedish production company that developed and produced Bron/Broen. At the time this took place, it had been producing the Beck series—based on the bestselling Swedish novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö— since 1997, and knew the market and the genre quite well. The producers created a series based on well-known elements from popular Scandinavian crime series, such as strong female characters, a prominent use of locations and climate, the Nordic welfare system, Nordic gender roles, and Nordic design elements that they hoped would export successfully (Hansen and Waade 2017). To reach the international markets and brand the series internationally, it was important for the Danish broadcaster DR to be on board, as well as the Swedish broadcaster SVT (Ehrhardt 2014). In 2010, Filmlance became part of Metronome Film & Television, which is owned by the global media player, Endemol Shine Group. Bron was produced as part of this international collaboration and ambition, and the distribution and the sale of series remakes have benefited significantly from this. The producers of Bron already knew about Wallander tourism and the extra public attention and local support this meant for the production, so when they were developing Bron it was natural for them to implement some of the same ideas, and to develop relationships with some of the same partners. Instead of the picturesque medieval Ystad, they chose green-grey industrial Malmö and the Øresund region, embracing both Swedish and Danish locations and thereby attracting extra audiences, industry partners, and funding opportunities. Filmlance worked closely with Film in Skåne and the Øresund Film Commission, and with the tour operators and municipalities in the region, many of which had been previously associated with the production of Wallander. The series includes significant and iconic settings, together with buildings that reference popular earlier series and destinations; for example, the neoclassical building that houses the police headquarters in Copenhagen (known from Forbrydelsen), the Turning Torso in Malmö (a Swedish landmark), and of course the Øresund Bridge, a well-known tourist site. When the first season premiered in 2011, on-location tours were already being offered, with the local tour operators in Malmö taking a leading role, later followed by Visit Denmark and Visit Sweden, whose websites offered information about the locations and who facilitated longer-term strategies and partnerships with the media industry (Sfyrla and di Liberto 2015). On DR’s

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

241

website, the broadcaster offered a map showing all the main locations used in the series, and the film locations themselves were emphasized by the producers and distributors when they marketed the series. Arrow Films, the DVD distributor of Bron to the British market, drew a clear connection with Forbrydelsen and the Nordic Noir brand when they underlined the series’ rainy and dark mood and setting: ‘It’s windy, cold, grey, pouring with rain and the setting is pretty dramatic on location with popular Swedish–Danish crime drama Bron’ (Agorelius 2015, 4). One of the tour operators that offers a Bron tour in Malmö is In-Sight Art of Guiding, founded and run by the Swedish guide Eva Roos Davidsson. Her company also offers historical tours to old castles, gardens, and sites in the region, and specially designed tours and lectures. The Bron tour is a bus tour that takes the visitors to the best-known locations in the series, such as the police station, Saga’s apartment, the Turning Torso, and of course the Øresund Bridge. During the trip, she tells her audience about the characters and the locations in the series, shows clips and images from it, recounts anecdotes from its production, and gives general information about the region, the places, and their history. In general, fan tourism is a way to extend and augment the viewers’ and readers’ experience. You can see the places with your own eyes, feel them on your own body, revisit the scenes, and re-enact them. Hills (2002) describes on-location tourism as cult geography, a way to reinforce the authenticity of the fictional narrative. By seeking out the actual locations which underpin any given textual identity, the cult fan is able to extend the productivity of his or her affective relationship with the original text, reinscribing this attachment within a different domain (that of physical space) which in turn allows for a radically different object-relationship in terms of immediacy, embodiment and somatic sensation which can all operate to reinforce cult ‘authenticity’. (Hills 2002, 149)

Television series fandom also involves a fascination with the media industry and celebrities in general. Fans seek information about their favourite series, the production, and the casting, and they share their knowledge and discuss details with other fans (Jenkins 2006, 291). These driving forces behind television series fandom are often evident in online fan communities, but are also part of on-location fan tourism in which the tourists hear details about the studio and on-location shooting, anecdotes about

242 

A. M. WAADE

Image 12.2  Bron tour: One of the stops is the building used as the exterior of the police station in the series, originally the local health centre, located close to Møllevångstorget in Malmö. The guide is Eva Roos Davidsson, and she is the founder of the tour guide company In-Sight Art of Guiding. (Private photo)

the productions and actors, and other information, and have a opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise with other committed viewers and visitors (Image 12.2). On the Bron tour, you can revisit the scenes in the series, take a look at clips and stills from the series while watching the actual location used in the scenes in question, and discuss the differences and similarities with other fans and viewers. In 2015 the local museum in Malmö opened an exhibition based on Bron, which showed props and costumes, behind-the-­ scene glimpses and ‘making of’ clips, and maps and images of the various locations (similar to the Wallander exhibition at Cineteket in Ystad). The producers already knew from Forbrydelsen that a stand-out prop or costume that stands out (Sarah Lund’s sweater, for instance) would make it

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

243

easier for the series to travel and attract public attention, an element that is easy for buyers, journalists, and audiences to pick up on and share by word of mouth. The producers wanted the green Porsche to become such an element, as it echoed the series’ distinct colour design and emphasized Saga’s complex character (Ehrhardt 2014). The Porsche is used in the promotional material created by the producers and broadcasters, it has been mentioned in news articles, and it is often mentioned in journalists’ reviews. Fans have also picked up on the car. In other words, the car has become a crucial element in the international export of the series and the ‘thing’ that you talk about and comment on, both as a professional and as a spectator. The car is also referenced by fan tourists, and it is one of the main attractions in the exhibition in Malmö (Image 12.3). To develop screen tourism related to popular television drama series, it is important for tour operators and organizations to have access to props, set pieces, and images. Sometimes this needs to be specified in the agreements between the partners involved from an early stage of production, for example, including particular permission in the contract with the

Image 12.3  The Bron exhibition at Malmö Museumin in 2015, showed the car and Saga’s costume from the series. (Gillberg 2015)

244 

A. M. WAADE

artists so the tourism organizations may use the press material and artists in destination marketing events and promotion. For instance, permission is needed to use Saga’s car and costume in a museum exhibition, or for Eva Roos Davidsson to use clips and stills from the series when taking fan tourists on a guided on-location tour. This kind of collaboration and co-­ branding was part of the production of Bron right from the outset. The strategic collaboration and partnership across industries that is illustrated by both Wallander and Bron has become part of the Nordic Noir industry and production mindset. In particular, this is the case for independent production companies such as Filmlance and Yellow Bird (Wallander), which need to think creatively when it comes to finances and marketing. Public service broadcasters such as DR are less dependent on funding and support from local authorities, local funds, and tourism organizations. The series format makes it possible to carry out long tail marketing strategies in which screen tourism, remakes, adaptations, new seasons, and reprints of novels can hold the audience’s interest and the public’s attention. Furthermore, the fans are marketing pillars online and offline, and it is important for the industry to generate and stimulate fandom by offering on-location tours, exhibitions, merchandise, behind-the-scene books and documentaries, and other kinds of paratexts and online platforms for fan activities and communities. Simultaneously, Nordic Noir tourism has made it possible for small tour operators as well as national tourist organizations to capitalize on Nordic Noir series, and fashion brands, breweries, designers, and architects now offer Nordic Noir products (Hansen and Waade 2017). A good example of how fan tourism has become part of a long tail strategy in relation to Nordic Noir is the Nordic Noir and Beyond website hosted by the British DVD distributor Arrow Films, targeting fans and audiences by keeping them updated on new releases, new seasons, trailers, images, and interviews with the actors and producers. Furthermore, for three consecutive years, starting in 2013, Arrow Films organized Nordicana, a London event for British fans, in which Sofia Helin (Bron), Sofie Gråbøl (Forbrydelsen), and others participated, and met the fans (Solum 2016). Of particular relevance in this context is the fact that Nordicana focused not only on Nordic television series and crime novels, but also on the Nordic lifestyle and destinations (Sadler 2016). In general, the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, and Germany have been significant markets for Nordic crime novels and crime series, as well as being the most popular Nordic Noir tourist markets (Johnson 2009; Hansen and Waade 2017).

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

245

Dicte: Screened Landscapes and Location Placement in Screen Productions The final example I present in this chapter is the crime series Dicte, shot in Aarhus, Denmark, and developed in close collaboration with local partners in much the same way as Bron and Wallander. I use this case to illustrate another perspective on Nordic Noir tourism: the way in which landscapes and locations have become commodities and an increasing part of place branding and local policy strategies. With regard to Nordic Noir, screened landscapes are an asset for the places and destinations concerned, in terms of both general branding and tourism. Furthermore, Nordic landscapes have become part of the Nordic Noir phenomenon and brand, thereby contributing to the production values and market position of the series themselves (Creeber 2015; Chow 2016; Roberts 2016). In this context, landscapes are not exclusively natural landscapes, but also include city panoramas, heritage sites, museums, architecture, industrial cityscapes, harbours, and everyday sites that represent a city, a region, or a nation. Location placement is a marketing strategy linked to branded entertainment and destination branding, in which places and locations are positioned in screen production (as products are in product placement and brands in brand placement) (Lehu 2009). Cities, nations, and regions can collaborate with film and television producers, and invest in productions to make sure that their locations are displayed in favourable ways to a specific target group. Location placement (or location positioning) may also be a strategy for private companies such hotels, tourist resorts, and heritage sites. For instance, in 2017 the National Trust in the United Kingdom developed a location placement strategy, and now hires out locations to production companies. Dicte is based on Danish crime author Elsebeth Egholm’s bestselling series. The story takes place in Aarhus and is also shot there. In the series, several of the city’s well-known sites and buildings are used as film locations, for example, the famous art museum ARoS, the city hall, the popular cafés along the canal that runs through the city centre, the harbour, the local police station, Salling supermarket, and Mølleparken, a park in the city centre. On the Visit Aarhus website, all the main film locations in the series are described and certain routes and activities are recommended: After a visit to ARoS Art Museum you could take a break in the Mølleparken park, which has appeared several times in the TV series ‘Dicte’. Mølleparken

246 

A. M. WAADE

is next to the Aarhus river, close to ARoS – take in the park and the river, watch the city life passing by. (Visit Aarhus 2017)

Dicte tourism is part of the more general ambition of the city and the region to develop screen tourism, of which Filmby Aarhus, Visit Aarhus, and the organizers of Aarhus as a European Capital of Culture in 2017 have been the driving forces. The handbook Film skal ses i virkeligheden (‘Films need to be seen in reality’, Filmby Aarhus 2014), was published as part of this collaboration, and the partners have worked closely with production companies and broadcasters. Dicte is the biggest television drama production in the Aarhus area to date. Filmby Aarhus has organized premiere events that gather broadcasters, producers, actors, tour managers, local politicians, and ordinary viewers to celebrate the fact that the series has generated significant revenue for the city. They have also produced promotional material and postcards showing locations from the series (see Image  12.4) and have tried out various options for on-location tours, such as a film tour app, engaging local guides, collaborating with local cultural institutions, and providing a thorough description of the locations on the Visit Aarhus website. In an extension of this, the local branch of TV 2 has produced two one-hour documentaries on the Aarhus locations used in Dicte, based on interviews with the location manager, producers, and actors, showing clips from the series, the studio, and the locations used (TV 2 Østjylland 2013 and 2014). Miso Film produced Dicte for the Danish commercial broadcaster TV 2. Recently, TV 2 has developed a strong local profile for its drama series, with local partners who contribute significant funding, marketing, and practical support throughout the production process. Badehotellet/The Seaside Hotel, a nostalgic drama/comedy set in a fictional beach hotel that explicitly references the popular Svinkløv Badehotel on the Danish west coast, is one example. Another example is Norskov, a crime series shot in the coastal industrial town of Frederikshavn in northern Jutland, with the local municipality and Frederikshavn Harbour as the main local partners (Hansen and Christensen 2017). TV 2 has developed an Advertising Funded Programming division, specializing in creating partnerships and attracting funding for television productions. For Dicte, the local partners have been Aarhus municipality, the Central Denmark Region, Filmby Aarhus, the local film foundation, and Visit Aarhus. If local partners are to commit themselves to supporting drama series such as Dicte, it is important that the producer be able to convince them that they will see a

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

247

Image 12.4  This Dicte postcard promotes the Aarhus locations used in the series, as well as Filmby Aarhus, the local screen industry hub. Part of the text is in Danish, indicating a Danish/Nordic target group. ‘Du står på film-settet’ means ‘you are on the set’ and ‘Iben was here’ refers to the popular Danish actor Iben Hjejle, who plays the main character, Dicte, in the series

significant return on their investment in the series. For Dicte, Filmby Aarhus engaged Edmund Consultancy to give an idea of how much money the series would pay back to the region. The report stated that the municipality’s investment of DKK 4.5 million for the third season of Dicte had a return on investment (ROI) of 30.5, a total of DKK 137.5 million. This includes marketing value (8%), branding value (69%, inclusive Dicte tourism), PR (11%), and turnover (12%) based on the money the production spent while shooting in the city (Filmby Aarhus 2016). Edmund Consultancy used the arguments presented in previous reports on the potential for tourism and ROI with regard to location placement in films and television series; similar reports were made for Wallander and Bron, for instance (Hedling 2010; Månsson and Eskilsson 2013; Waade 2013). These figures may be measured, interpreted, and criticized in many

248 

A. M. WAADE

different ways. However, the interesting thing in this context is how tourism and place branding have become distinct values when developing drama series. From a local policy point of view, place branding, tourism, job creation, and growth in the creative industry are of significant value when it comes to investing in television drama series. In other words, this strategic collaboration is a win–win situation for all partners.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have focused on Nordic Noir tourism as something that is more than just a spin-off of popular crime series and police procedurals from the Nordic region, but has rather has become a distinct aspect of the Nordic Noir brand itself. The series’ significant use of Nordic locations, climate, light, and seasons is linked to the development of Nordic Noir screen tourism, and should be regarded as a market strategy for both the media and the tourism industries. I have given examples of tourism related to the Wallander, Forbrydelsen, Bron, and Dicte series, using them to pinpoint four aspects of Nordic Noir. First, the delicate and fascinating balance between factual and fictional places engages screen tourists and is emphasized in screen tourism marketing. Secondly, Nordic Noir tourism has developed over the last decade, embracing small enterprises and enthusiasts throughout the Nordic countries. Thirdly, Nordic Noir fans have stimulated tourism and long tail marketing. Finally, Nordic Noir tourism and location placement represent new sources of funding for television drama productions, and new cross-sector collaborations and strategic partnerships. My aim is to contribute to the media-specific approach to screen tourism research by analysing the emergence of Nordic Noir tourism as a particular small-scale sideline for television production in Scandinavia.

References Agger, Gunhild. 2013. The Killing: Urban Topographies of a Crime. Journal of Popular Television 1 (2): 235–241. Agorelius, Monika. 2015. Dangerous Crossings. Nordic Noir and Beyond # 5. Folder in the DVD Box Set The Bridge – The Complete Season Three. Arrow Films. Ambrius, Jonny. 2004. Wallanders Ystad, Sportförlaget i EUROPA AB in Collaboration with Ystad Allehanda. Ystad: Reuter Media Group.

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

249

Beeton, Sue. 2005. Aspects of Tourism: Film-Induced Tourism. Bristol/Buffalo/ Toronto: Channel View Publications. Bergman, Kerstin. 2011. “The Well-Adjusted Cops of the New Millennium: Neo-­ Romantic Tendencies in the Swedish Police Procedural.” In Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Andrew Nestingen and Paula Arvas, 34–45. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Carl, Daniela, Sara Kindon, and Karen Smith. 2007. Tourists’ Experiences of Film Locations: New Zealand as ‘Middle-Earth’. Tourism Geographies 9 (1): 49–63. Chow, Pei Sze. 2016. Traversing the Øresund: The Transnational Urban Region in Bron/Broen. In Global Cinematic Cities: New Landscapes of Film and Media, ed. Johan Andersson and Lawrence Webb, 36–58. London/New York: Wallflower Press. Creeber, Glen. 2015. Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetics, Philosophy and Influence of Nordic Noir Television. Journal of Popular Television 3 (1): 21–35. Ehrhardt, Bo. 2014. Interview by Jakob Isak, Nielsen, Pia Majbritt Jensen and Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, March 21 2014. Exploring Iceland. 2017. Trapped in Iceland. https://www.exploringiceland.is/ trapped-in-iceland.html. Accessed 4 Jan 2020. Filmby Aarhus. 2014. Film skal ses i virkeligheden – En håndbog om filmturisme. http://www.midtjyskturisme.com/media/519682/Film-skal-ses-ivirkeligheden.pdf ———. 2016. Samlet værdi for Aarhus af Tv-serien Dicte sæson III. December 8, 2016, http://filmbyaarhus.dk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Rapport_ værdien-af-Dicte3_Aarhus_F2.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Fjällbacka Information. n.d. Camilla Läckberg Murder Mystery Tour. https://fjallbackainfo.se/camilla-lackberg-murder-mystery-tour/. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Gillberg, Jonas. 2015. Nu öppnar ‘Bron’-utställningen på Malmö museer. Sydsvenskan, September 14. http://www.sydsvenskan.se/2015-09-14/nuoppnar-bron-utstallningen-pa-malmo-museer. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York University Press. Gyimóthy, Szilvia. 2018. The Indianization of Switzerland. In Routledge Handbook on Popular Culture and Tourism, ed. Christine Lundberg and Vassilios Ziakas, 376–388. Milton Park: Routledge. Hansen, Kim Toft. 2018. Local Noir and Local Identity: Norskov and the Spatial Implications of Branded Content. In European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, eds. Kim Toft Hansen, Sue Turnbull, and Steven Peacock, 213–231. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, Kim Toft, and Jørgen Riber Christensen. 2017. Norskov and the Logic of Place: The Soft Effect of Local Danish TV-drama Production. Series: International Journal of TV Serial Narratives 3 (1): 11–25.

250 

A. M. WAADE

Hansen, Kim Toft, and Anne Marit Waade. 2017. Locating Nordic Noir. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hedling, Olof. 2010. Murder, Mystery and Megabucks. In Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media, ed. Erik Hedling, Olof Hedling, and Mats Jönsson, 263–290. Stockholm: Royal Library of Sweden. Hill, Annette. 2019. Media Engagment: Engaging with Drama and Reality Television. London/New York: Routledge. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Culture. London/New York: Routledge. Ibrus, Indrek. 2019. Emergence of Cross-Innovation Systems: Audiovisual Industries, Co-innovating with Education, Health Care and Tourism. Croydon: Emerald Publishing. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press. Jensen, Pia Majbritt. 2016. Global Impact of Danish Drama Series: A Peripheral, Non-commercial Creative Counter-flow. Kosmorama 263. https://www.kosmorama.org/tags/kosmorama-263. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Johnson, Itta. 2009. Brand Manager and Strategy Ystad Municipality. Interviewed by Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. Ystad, October 16, 2009. Jörgensen, Guðrún Birna, and Einar Tómasson. 2016. Interview by Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade. Personal Interview. Reykjavík, November 18, 2016. Joyce, Stephen. 2019. Experiencing Northern Ireland as Game of Thrones Destination. In Ireland and the North, ed. Fionna Barber, Heidi Hansson, and Sara Dybris McQuaid, 95–118. New York: Peter Lang UK. Kim, Sangkyun. 2012. The Relationships of On-site Film-tourism Experiences, Satisfaction, and Behavioural Intentions: From the Film-tourism Perspective. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 29 (5): 472–484. Lee, Christina. 2012. ‘Have Magic, Will Travel’: Tourism and Harry Potter’s United (Magical) Kingdom. Tourist Studies 12: 52–69. Lehu, Jean-Marc. 2009. Branded Entertainment: Product Placement and Brand Strategy in the Entertainment Business. London: Kogan. Månsson, Maria. 2010. Negotiating Authenticity at Rosslyn Chapel. In Re-Investing Authenticity, ed. Britta Timm Knudsen and Anne Marit Waade, 169–180. Bristol/Buffalo/Toronto: Channel View Publications. ———. 2015. Mediatized Tourism: The Convergence of Media and Tourism Performances. Ph.D. Dissertation, Lund University. Månsson, Maria, and Lena Eskilsson. 2013. Capitalising on Screen Tourism: The Attraction of Screen Destinations. EuroScreen report, Film London and the EuroScreen Partnership, Pracownia Pomysłów. McClintock, Annika. 2010. Wallander’s World. Malmö: Roos & Tegnér. National Trust. 2017. Filming Locations. http://www.nationaltrustimages.org. uk/filming-locations. Accessed October 29, 2019.

12  ‘JUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BLOOD’: NORDIC NOIR TOURISM… 

251

Nordic Noir and Beyond. n.d.. http://nordicnoir.tv. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Nordic Noir Tours. n.d. Screen Tour Operator. http://nordicnoirtours.com. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Redvall, Eva Novrup. 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From The Kingdom to The Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Reijnders, Stijn. 2011. Places of the Imagination: Media, Tourism, Culture. Surrey: Ashgate. Roberts, Les. 2016. Landscapes in the Frame: Exploring the Hinterlands of the British Procedural Drama. New Review of Film and Television Studies 14 (3): 364–385. Robinson, Tony. 2002. Bloody Britain. Slovenia: AA Publishing (MKT Print). Roesch, Stefan. 2009. The Experiences of Film Location Tourists. Bristol/Buffalo/ Toronto: Channel View Publications. Sadler, Jon. 2016. Interview by Anne Marit Waade and Andrea Esser. Personal Interview. London, April 13, 2016. Sandvik, Kjetil. 2015. Plot til lyst: Spilbare mordgåder på tværs af medier. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Sandvik, Kjetil, and Anne Marit Waade. 2008. Crime Scene as Augmented Reality On Screen, Online and Offline. Crime Fiction and Crime Journalism in Scandinavia, Working Paper No. 5. Aalborg University. Accessed 6 Feb 2017. http://www.krimiforsk.aau.dk/awpaper/KSAWcrimesceneas.w5.pdf Sfyrla, Anja Hartung, and Signe Lüth di Liberto. 2015. Interview by Anne Marit Waade, Pia Majbritt Jensen, Ushma Chauhan Jacobsen and Iris Rittenhofer. Personal Interview. Copenhagen, May 13, 2015. Sjöholm, Carina. 2010. Murder Walks in Ystad. In Re-investing Authenticity: Tourism, Place and Emotions, ed. Britta Timm Knudsen and Anne Marit Waade, 154–169. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Solum, Ove. 2016. What Is It About Nordic Noir? In Perspectives on the Nordic, ed. Jakob Lothe and Bente Larsen, 109–126. Oslo: Novus Press. The Wallander Look. 2009. Extra Feature Film, 12 Minutes. Wallander DVD box (Left Bank Pictures/Yellow Bird). Turnbull, Sue, and Marion McCutcheon. 2017. Investigating Miss Fisher: The value of a television crime drama. Media International Australia 2017, 164 (1): 55–70. TV 2 Østjylland. I Dictes fodspor. Documentary, Part 1 (26. October 2013, 19:40–20:55) and Part 2 (20. September 2014, 19:40–20:55). TV2. 2013–2014. Tzanelli, Rodanthi. 2007. The Cinematic Tourist: Explorations in Globalisation, Culture and Resistance. London: Routledge. ———. 2016. Game of Thrones to Games of Sites/Sights: Framing Events Through Cinematic Transformations in Northern Ireland. In Event Mobilities: The

252 

A. M. WAADE

Politics of the Everyday and the Extraordinary, ed. Kevin Hannam, Mary Mostafanezhad, and Jillian Rickly, 52–67. London: Routledge. van Es, Nicky, and Stijn Reijnders. 2018. Making Sense of Capital Crime Cities: Getting Underneath the Urban Facade on Crime-Detective Fiction Tours. European Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (4): 502–520. https://doi. org/10.1177/1367549416656855. Visit Aarhus. 2017. Walking in Dicte’s Footsteps. http://www.visitaarhus.com/ ln-int/central-jutland/culture/walking-dictes-footsteps. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Visit Denmark. 2017. Killing-Forbrydelsen. http://www.visitdenmark.com/denmark/culture/killing-forbrydelsen. Accessed 29 Mar 2017. Visit Oslo. 2017. http://www.visitoslo.com/skam. See also https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g190479-d12154473-Reviews-SKAM_SafariOslo_Eastern_Norway.html. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. Waade, Anne Marit. 2010. Dæmoniserede destinationer  – morderisk plot på Højriis slot og blodsporsturisme i Ystad. In Fingeraftryk – studier i krimi og det kriminelle, ed. Jørgen Riber Christensen and Kim Toft Hansen, 136–164. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. ———. 2013. Wallanderland: Skandinavisk krimi og filmturisme. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. ———. 2016. Nordic Noir Tourism and Television Landscapes: In the Footsteps of Kurt Wallander and Saga Norén. Scandinavica 55 (1): 41–65. ———. 2020. Mind the Gap: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Media and Tourism. In Routledge Companion to Media and Tourism 2019, ed. Maria Månsson, Anne Buchmann, Cecilia Cassinger and Lena Eskilsson. London/New York: Routledge (forthcoming). Waade, Anne Marit, Jens C.  Pasgaard, Mathias Meldgaard, and Tom Nielsen. 2019. Nordic Landscapes in Collaborative Place Making Interventions. In The Nordic Wave in Place Branding: Constructions, Appropriations and Articulations, ed. Cecilia Cassinger, Andrea Lucarelli, and Szilvia Gyimóthy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Wallander Country. 2010. Extra Feature Film, 16 Minutes. Wallander DVD box (Left Bank Pictures/Yellow Bird). Wiles, David. 2008. Discover Ystad: Just Follow the Trail of Blood. The Local, 3. Accessed 29 Oct 2019. https://www.thelocal.se/20081103/15404. Ystad kommun. Film about Ystad. Posted March 11, 2010. YouTube Video, 6:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC8yRj9HJTQ. Accessed 29 Oct 2019.

Index1

A Aarhus, 3, 233, 245–247 Abel, Tasja (ZDFE), 194, 195 Aberystwyth, 75, 76 Acting, 49, 126, 133, 136–138, 141, 175, 177, 178, 189, 211 Aesthetic, 5, 6, 32, 34, 49, 57, 65, 106, 107, 110, 113, 155, 172, 177, 179, 182, 200, 217, 219, 223 Aesthetic strategies, 35 Agger, Gunhild, 6, 10, 15, 16, 19, 27, 34, 36, 38, 237 All3Media, 70, 74 American television drama, 5, 30, 31 ARD, 51, 73, 190–192 Arvingerne/The Legacy, see The Legacy Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne (ARTE), 50–52, 193, 194, 200

Audiences global, 13, 107, 110, 172–174, 233 international, 9, 18, 125, 148, 152, 187, 189, 221 national, 127, 224 Audiovisual signature, 111, 113 style, 3, 105, 113 texture, 104, 113 Authenticity, 71, 77, 106, 157, 176, 182, 215, 226, 241 Autocommunicative, 33, 34, 37 B Badehotellet/The Seaside Hotel, 233, 246 Bang, 68, 70, 76, 77 Bardhan, Nilanjana, 177

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 A. M. Waade et al. (eds.), Danish Television Drama, Palgrave European Film and Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40798-8

253

254 

INDEX

BBC Cymru Wales, 69, 72, 74, 75 Four, 51, 67, 71, 73, 74, 77, 127, 187, 188, 194–196, 198, 199, 202, 231 iPlayer, 69, 71 One, 71, 196, 197 production, 67, 70, 72 Bernth, Piv, 38, 140 Best practice, 17, 55, 128, 147, 158 Better Call Saul, 130 Bielby, Denise D., 170, 172, 189 Bilingual, 16, 63, 70, 71, 74–77, 209 Bingewatching, 151 Bjørn, Camilla (NRK P3), 158, 160n2 Bjørnstad, Anne (Rubicon TV), 152, 160n2 Blomgren, Lars (Filmlance International), 110 Bodnia, Kim (actor), 111 Bondebjerg, Ib, 1, 3, 6, 18, 34, 46, 106, 127, 134, 147, 191, 198, 213–215, 217, 218, 220, 222 Bordwell, David, 104, 105, 109, 121 Borgen, 7, 16, 25, 35, 43–60, 110, 127, 129, 139, 170, 172, 175, 176, 179, 181, 188, 194, 196, 197, 199, 222, 231, 233 Bourdieu, Pierre, 16, 43–49, 54–56, 58 Breaking Bad, 130 The Bridge, see Bron/Broen British television market, 14, 195–199 Broadchurch, 2, 13, 36, 75 Bron/Broen, 2, 13, 14, 17, 18, 25, 35, 36, 77, 107, 110, 111, 113–116, 120, 121n3, 125, 127, 129, 136, 170, 172, 175, 181, 182, 188, 193, 195–199, 202, 209–226, 233 Bronze Age, the, 29 Brostrøm, Mai (screenwriter), 128, 130–133, 136–139, 142

C Calhoun, Craig, 174, 178 Caughie, John, 30, 32, 39 CBC, 52 Celtic Noir, 64, 70–77 Chalaby, Jean, 5, 49, 130, 195 Channel 5, 65, 71, 199 Channel 4, 65, 68, 199, 200 Charlot og Charlotte/Charlot and Charlotte, 35, 107 Christensen, Pernille Bech (executive producer), 34, 48, 246 Code-switching, 70, 75–77 Colour design, 107–112, 117, 120, 121, 243 Colour strategy, 114, 116, 117, 121 Communication, 67, 74, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 139, 141, 142, 210, 221, 223 Contact zone, 63–78 Cooke, Lez, 31, 32, 39, 104 Copenhagen, 35, 48, 108, 111–114, 133, 221, 232, 233, 239, 240 Copenhagen Film Fund, 133 Co-production European, 213, 226 Nordic, 209 transnational, 36, 126, 214, 215 Cosmopolitanism, 177–179 Craith/Hidden, 70, 71 Creeber, Glen, 2, 10, 13, 25, 35, 64, 110, 245 Crime drama, 16, 37, 63–78, 125–142, 182, 196, 197, 214, 217, 223, 241 fiction, 2, 10, 198, 233–236 narratives, 235 scene, 192, 231, 235 Crossover, 106, 128, 133, 193 Cross-sectional collaboration, 19, 234, 235, 248

 INDEX 

Cultural encounters, 16, 18, 51, 59, 126, 133, 141, 209–226 Cultural landscapes, 51 D Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), The, 2, 7, 12, 14, 15, 25, 26, 34–40, 44–46, 49–51, 53–55, 58, 59, 73, 106, 107, 109–111, 122n5, 125–129, 131, 132, 136, 137, 139, 140, 147, 159, 188, 189, 191–193, 200–202, 215, 220, 238, 240, 244 Danish Council for Independent Research, see Independent Research Fund Denmark Danish drama series, 9, 10, 15, 103, 106, 237 Danish television drama, 1–14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 25–27, 33–37, 39, 40, 81, 147, 167, 169–171, 173–175, 180, 183, 237 Danish television series, 3–5, 7, 15, 18, 26 Danish TV drama, 3, 4, 15, 26, 34, 36, 37, 172–176, 178, 180–182, 187–203 Davidsson, Eva Roos (In-Sight), 241, 242, 244 Deeks, Sue (BBC), 188, 195, 197, 220 Denmark, 2–4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 37–39, 43, 47, 48, 54, 56, 59, 73, 106–109, 111, 113, 125, 127, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139, 140, 169–171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 188, 190, 195, 200, 210, 211, 213, 215, 216, 218–222, 224, 225, 232, 238, 240, 245, 246 Den serbiske dansker/The Serbian Dane, see Serbian Dane, The

255

Dicte, 200, 232, 233, 239, 245–248 Digital distribution, 147–160 Digital flagship media, 148–151, 154, 158, 160 Digital media, 36, 151 Discursive, 64, 65 Doctor Who, 66, 73 Domestically-based production, 37, 39 Domestic audiences, 35, 78, 180 Domestic drama, 65, 195, 199 Double storytelling, 49, 128, 137 Downton Abbey, 66, 211 DVD, 46, 107, 196, 241, 244 E E-castings, 137 Edderkoppen/The Spider, 107 Egholm, Elsebeth, 245 Ehrhardt, Bo (Nimbus Film), 110–112, 212, 240, 243 Eichner, Susanne, 18, 175, 176, 180, 182, 190, 192, 194 Episodes, 32, 34, 38, 43, 52, 56–59, 71, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 129, 132, 133, 136, 139, 140, 151, 153, 157, 160n3, 179, 197, 198 Esser, Andrea, 1, 5, 18, 27, 52, 104, 127, 173, 175, 180, 182, 183, 190, 195–199, 210, 220, 221 Europe, 43, 51, 52, 64, 68, 130, 131, 134, 138, 139, 194, 197, 214, 224, 226, 233, 236 European Broadcasting Corporation, 126 European series, 126–131, 136, 137, 139, 140, 198, 217, 224, 226 European Series Drama Lab, The, 125 Euro-pudding, 126, 138, 140, 141 Exploring Iceland, 239

256 

INDEX

F Fan culture, 18, 232 Fan tourism, 235, 240–244 Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels (FIPA), 49, 50 Filmby Aarhus/ Filmcity Aarhus, 9, 246, 247 Filming locations, 73, 233 Film in Skåne, 236, 240 Filmlance International, 35, 110 Fjällbacka Morden/Fjällbacka Murders, 233 Flagship productions, 17, 147–160 Flesjø, Nicolai (NRK), 154, 160n2 Forbrydelsen, see The Killing Foreign language drama, 73, 202 Fortitude, 2, 13, 36 Fresh off the Boat, 77 Funding local, 10 national, 209 Furevold-Bold, Marianne (NRK), 160n2 G Gabold, Ingolf (DR), 38, 45, 107, 110, 193, 194 Gammeltoft, Thomas (Copenhagen Film Fund), 133 Generation, 28, 29, 38, 157, 192 German television, 127, 129, 190–195 Germany, 4, 11, 51, 73, 131, 136, 139, 170, 173, 174, 176, 182, 187–203, 203n1, 213, 244 Gitlin, Todd, 148–150 Global market, 14, 15, 46, 47, 65–68, 181, 188 Global television production, 64, 74 Glocal, 16 Glocalization, 43–60 Golden Age, 15, 16, 19, 25–40

Golden era, 25, 39 Gråbøl, Sofie (actor), 244 Great Britain, 211, 213, 222 Green hues, 108, 109, 116, 117, 120, 121 H Habermas, Jürgen, 53 Habitus, 46–52 Hall, Tony (BBC Director), 66–68 Hammerich, Camilla, 43, 45, 48, 51, 55, 58, 110, 117, 118, 122n5 Hansen, Kim Toft, 2, 6, 10, 11, 16, 27, 49, 64, 65, 110, 111, 114, 125, 147, 155, 182, 192, 209, 234, 237, 240, 244, 246 Harrington, Lee C., 170, 172, 189 HBO, 14, 15, 32, 37, 155, 233 HBO Nordic, 7 Helin, Sofia (actor), 111, 238, 244 Helsingen, Arne (NRK), 154, 160n2 Herrens veje/Ride Upon the Storm, 51, 200 Hesiod, 26–30, 39 Hill, Annette, 49, 110, 234 Hinterland/Y Gwyll, 68, 71–74, 76 Hjejle, Iben, 247 Hochscherf, Tobias, 2, 25, 27, 54, 55, 110, 215 I Independent Research Fund Denmark, 3, 172 Influence, 6, 10, 12, 34, 37, 70, 113, 129, 140, 170, 176, 178, 181, 183, 211, 213, 214 In-house, 34, 49, 54, 111, 128, 129, 131, 136, 139, 192 In-Sight Tours, 239 Iron Age, the, 29

 INDEX 

J Jacobsen, Ushma Chauhan, 3, 6, 12, 17, 25, 35, 73, 75, 173, 174, 180, 182 Jane the Virgin, 77 Jensen, Pia Majbritt, 2, 3, 6, 10, 12–14, 17, 25, 27, 35, 44, 46, 47, 52, 70, 73, 75, 110, 127, 147, 173–176, 180, 182, 200, 237, 238 Johansson, Jørgen (cinematographer), 110, 111, 113, 114, 223 Johnson, Itta, 154, 236, 244 Jörgensen, Guðrún Birna, 239 K Katz, Elihu, 172, 174, 177, 189, 203, 217, 218 The Killing, 1, 7, 13, 18, 25, 35, 36, 38, 54, 109, 110, 125, 127, 170, 172, 174, 175, 179, 181, 182, 187, 188, 193–202, 211, 214, 218, 220, 222, 231–233, 237–242, 244, 248 Kingdom Hospital, 35 Klein, Richard (BBC), 195–198, 201 Køhn, Ivar (NRK), 154, 158, 160n2 Kristiansen, Kriger Pål Kruke (Rubicon TV), 152–154, 160n2 KRO, 73 L Landscape, 2, 10, 16, 17, 31, 51, 63–78, 125, 127, 130, 141, 190–192, 194, 220, 222, 223, 231–248 Language preservation, 69 Larsson, Stieg, 192 Lassen, Stina (producer), 129, 133–135, 138

257

The Legacy, 2, 37–39 Lehmann, Volker (ZDFE), 192–194 Lehu, Jean-Marc, 245 Liberty, 39 Liebes, Tamar, 172, 174, 177, 189, 203, 217, 218 Lilyhammer, 17, 148, 149, 151–159, 160n1, 160n2 Linguistic landscape, 63–78 Livvagterne/The Protectors, 127, 193 Location placement, 234, 245–248 Location Study Model, The, 10, 11, 19 Long tail marketing, 18, 232, 234, 237, 240–244, 248 Lotman, Jurij M., 26, 30, 33, 34, 36, 39 Lotz, Amanda, 2, 148, 149, 151 Love is a Four Letter Word, 36 Lund, Sarah, 176, 211, 222, 242 Lykke/Happy Life, 129 M Magnus, Mari (NRK), 157, 160n2 Malmö, 111–113, 233, 238–243 Mammon, 37 Månsson, Maria, 9, 234, 247 Marketable, 30, 32 McCabe, Janet, 16, 67, 77 McElroy, Ruth, 3, 16, 72 Media market, 6, 169 Media narratives, 211 Mediated, 51, 55–59, 178, 210–212, 221, 222, 225, 226 Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens (MeCETES), 143n3, 213, 217, 227n1 Millennium, 193, 194, 233, 238 Millennium-trilogy, 193, 197 Minority language, 16, 64, 69, 74

258 

INDEX

MIPCOM, 180 Miso Film, 155, 246 Mixed Reality, 236, 237 Motivation artistic, 105, 108, 121 narrative, 105, 120 realistic, 105, 106, 116, 120 transtextual, 105, 107, 115 Müller, Susanne (ZDF), 192–194 Myth of the Ages, 28, 29 N Nadermann, Peter (ZDF), 127–133, 137, 139, 193, 194 Narrative patterns, 27 National Film School of Denmark, the, 133 Netflix, 2, 7, 14, 15, 17, 32, 66, 68, 73, 107, 148, 151–159, 160n3, 191, 196, 200 Nielsen, Jakob Isak, 2, 16, 17, 27, 35, 107, 155 Nikolaj og Julie/Nikolaj and Julie, 36, 38, 188, 193 Nimbus Films, 35, 110 Noir Celtic, 63–78 style, 2, 27 Welsh, 63 Nordic crime drama, 16, 125–142 design, 3, 240 gender roles, 240 locations, 10, 248 Other, 174–177, 222 region, 2, 3, 37, 127, 194, 233, 237, 248 Nordicana, 55, 196, 244 Nordicness, 36 Nordic Noir brand, 27, 127, 196, 234, 241, 248

fans, 248 products, 244 series, 2, 10, 127, 155, 244 tourism, 2, 18, 19, 231–248 tours, 238 Nordic Noir and Beyond, 244 Norén, Saga, 111, 176, 211, 224 Norskov, 106, 200, 246 North America, 51, 52 Norway, 10, 16, 26, 45, 69, 73, 148, 152, 155, 158, 171 Norwegian TV drama, 27, 37 NRK, 17, 37, 73, 148, 149, 151–155, 157, 158, 160n2, 160n3, 215 Nyborg, Birgitte, 48, 57–59, 176 NYPD Blue, 109 O Ofærð, see Trapped Ofcom, 67, 190, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201 One vision, 54, 111, 128, 129, 132, 133, 141 Online era, 189 On-location tourism, 233, 241 Øresund bridge, 111, 117, 221, 225, 240, 241 Film Commission, 236, 238, 240 Ørnen/The Eagle, 37, 127, 193 Overt style, 17, 104, 106–108 P Pakt, 37 Pantone, 108, 115 Peter and Ping, 232 Philipsen, Heidi, 2, 25, 27, 54, 55, 110, 215 Price, Adam, 45, 51, 55

 INDEX 

Production culture, 6, 16, 17, 26, 34, 35, 37, 39, 49, 125–142, 147, 189 practices, 17, 107, 170 studies, 4, 5, 26, 149 Productive period, 26 Proximity/proximities cosmopolitan, 170, 177–180, 182 cultural, 3, 135, 171, 181, 187, 214 emotional, 18, 170, 174–177, 182 genre, 172, 182 geo-linguistic, 173, 183 grapevine, 18, 171, 174, 180–181, 183 thematic, 170, 172, 182 theory, 18, 169–183, 214 value, 170, 172 Public Service Broadcasting (PSB), 15, 17, 43–60, 65–68, 78 Public service television, 3, 44, 46, 47, 51, 53, 54, 59 R Real-time format, 158 Redvall, Eva Novrup, 1–3, 7, 13, 17, 25, 27, 36, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 55, 111, 125–129, 133, 147, 155, 157, 189, 198, 215, 222, 238 Rees, Amanda (director), 72 Rejseholdet/Unit One, 35, 127, 188 Reykjavik, 233 Riget/The Kingdom, see Kingdom Hospital Rigshospitalet, 35, 108, 114, 115 Rita, 129 Rohde, Martin, 111, 175, 224 RTÉ, 51 RTL, 190, 191 RTV, 73

259

S Sadler, Jon (Arrow Films), 196, 197, 244 Sandvik, Kjetil, 235 Sånger från andre våningen/Songs From the Second Floor, 112 Scandinavian, 2, 17, 45, 55, 72, 121, 126, 127, 134, 136–138, 171, 187, 192–194, 196, 200, 201, 209, 211, 213, 214, 221–225, 233, 234, 237, 238, 240 Scandi television, 147 Scherfig, Nikolaj (screenwriter), 212, 216, 217 Screen Ideas System, 3 Screen tourism, 9, 19, 233–244, 246, 248 Screenwriting, 3, 27, 36, 55, 136 Sejer, Niels (production designer), 110–114 Serbian Dane, The, 107–110, 113, 115 Sex Education, 66 S4C, 65, 67–72, 74–76 Shetland, 2, 36 Showrunner, 8, 32, 54, 152, 189 Sieling, Charlotte (conceptual director), 111, 113, 114, 212 Silver Generation, the, 29 Singing Detective, the, 34 SKAM, 13, 17, 148, 149, 155–160, 160n1, 160n2, 239 Sky, 190 Sky Atlantic, 36 Sobré-Denton, Miriam, 177 Sommer/The Summers, 37 Speechless, 77 Staiger, Janet, 105 Storytelling, 7, 27, 44, 49, 137, 139, 140, 149, 157, 158, 172, 218, 235 Stougaard-Nielsen, Jakob, 27, 74

260 

INDEX

Strategic collaboration, 18, 232, 244, 248 Straubhaar, Joseph, 3, 135, 169, 171, 172, 178, 189, 203, 214 Streaming services, 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 19, 149, 151, 153–155, 157 STV, 67 Stylistic devices, 104, 109 Stylistic practices, 106, 110 Subtitles, 52, 65, 77, 140, 153, 155, 198, 200, 202, 203, 237 Sundet, Vilde Schanke, 17, 147, 149, 152, 154, 155, 157, 159, 160n1 Sweden, 10, 45, 69, 111, 113, 127, 171, 210, 216, 219–222, 224, 225, 238, 240 Szerszynski, Bronislaw, 170, 183 T Talfan, Ed (director), 71, 76 TAXA, 35, 37 Team, The, 17, 36, 73, 125–142 Technological changes, 18, 188, 190 Television (TV) consumption, 188 drama, 1–19, 23, 25–27, 30, 31, 33–37, 39, 40, 63–65, 72, 76, 77, 81, 126–129, 133, 142n2, 147–150, 152–154, 159, 167, 169–183, 210–214, 216, 217, 220–226, 227n1, 233, 235, 237, 243, 246, 248 distribution, 188 production, 6–8, 16–18, 64, 66, 74, 106, 128, 133, 141, 188, 234, 235, 246, 248 Thiemann, Per, 140

Thomas, Ed (executive producer), 73, 74 Thompson, Kristin, 105 Thorsboe, Peter (screenwriter), 128, 130–133, 136–140, 142 Three-leaf clover audience study model, the, 19 Tolonen, Kristian (NRK), 154, 160n2 Tómasson, Einar, 239 Tourist destinations, 10, 235–237, 239 Transformation, 4, 18, 34, 44, 149, 177, 188 Transnational audiences, 12, 154, 159, 172, 174–177, 182, 198, 209 collaboration, 141, 226 collective, 58 co-production, 36, 126, 214, 215 crime drama, 63–78 cultural encounters, 51, 209–226 cultural exchange, 27, 33–37 dimension, 189 distribution, 172, 215 drama, 142 financing, 142 flows, 16, 60, 169, 171, 182 mediated encounters, 210 productions, 32, 34, 36, 129, 138, 215 stories, 216, 226 television drama, 1–19, 142n2 travel, 169–183 Trapped, 233, 239 Trickle-down effect, 109–114, 121n1 Tunnel, the, 14, 36 TV4, 197 TV 2, 246 Twin Peaks, 34 Tzanelli, Rodanthi, 234, 235

 INDEX 

U Udvikling/Development, 40 Un Bore Mercher/Keeping Faith, 71 United Kingdom (UK), 2, 4, 11, 26, 35, 45, 52, 64–71, 73–75, 77, 104, 127, 173, 182, 187–203, 209, 210, 219–221, 223, 224, 227n5, 235, 244, 245 United States (US), 4, 11, 31, 34, 35, 45, 48, 52, 77, 127, 154, 158, 160n3, 171, 173, 174, 188–191, 195, 197–199, 209 Urry, John, 170, 183 UTV, 67 V Video On Demand (VOD), 190, 200, 201 Viewers, 1–3, 5, 45, 52, 58, 67, 68, 104, 105, 108–110, 113, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 127, 139, 140, 151, 155, 157, 172–174, 176, 179, 180, 182, 183, 190–200, 202, 218, 220–223, 226, 231, 233, 235, 241, 242, 246 Visit Aarhus, 245, 246 Visit Denmark, 232, 238, 240 Visit Oslo, 233, 239 Visit Sweden, 238, 240 Visual style, 16, 17, 103, 136, 137, 222 Von Trier, Lars, 35, 114, 115, 193 VRT, 73

261

W Waade, Anne Marit, 2, 6, 10, 11, 18, 27, 49, 64, 65, 70, 110, 111, 114, 125, 147, 155, 182, 192, 209, 233–237, 240, 244, 247 Wallace, Petter (NRK), 152, 160n2 Wallander, 18, 127, 192, 197, 231–233, 235–238, 240, 242, 244, 245, 247, 248 Weissmann, Elke, 5, 6, 51, 75, 127 Welsh audiences, 64 drama, 71, 73 language, 16, 63, 67–70, 72, 74–76 medium channel, 68 Noir, 72 places, 66 Windfeld, Kathrine (director), 128, 136–138, 142–143n3 Works and Days, 28, 29 Y Yellow Bird, 244 YLE, 51, 73 YouTube, 156, 200 Yr Heliwr/Mind to Kill, 71 Ystad, 231, 233, 235–238, 240, 242 Z ZDF, 36, 45, 51, 127, 133, 140, 141, 188–194, 196, 200–202, 215