Why Series Mania Has Grown So Big, This Year’s Buzz Titles and Other Takes on the Top European TV Festival
15.03.2024 - 18:57
/ variety.com
Series Mania will kick off its 15th edition on March 15 in Lille, Eastern France, reconfirming it status as the biggest dedicated TV festival in Europe. It does so with a bang, with the European premiere of one of the biggest series of the year, Netflix’s “3 Body Problem,” which “cements ‘Game of Thrones’ creators as masters of adapting the unadaptable,” Variety announced. Delegate accreditation at Series Mania’s Forum, its three-day industry event running March 19-21, is on track to pass 4,000 participants, an all time record, and a huge step-up, say, from 2016, when attendance was limited to around 300 executives.
That same edition sneak-peeked Netflix’s first French original, “Marseilles.” Since 2010, Series Mania has grown in synch with the world’s fast-ramping premium cable TV, and then U.S. feeding frenzy for high-end drama, powerful new OTT entrants, and a content-creation reaction among incumbent TV operators and new SVOD players around the world. So how does that leave Series Media is post-Peak TV? The brief answer is that the event’s still growing.
10 takes on that, other trends and highlights at the 15th Series Mania, which ends March 22. The Bigger Picture There’s a bigger picture. Ampere Analysis forecast a few days back that in 2024 51% of Netflix’s $15.4 billion film and TV budget will be spent on titles made outside the U.S.
Global content spent, excluding sports, will soar 40% over 2022-28, while U.S. spend will plunge 20%. Reasons? One is that much of international, led by Central and South America (+19%) is less sub-saturated, Variety’s VIP+ suggests.