Nordvision’s Henrik Hartmann on the Nordic 12 Pubcasters’ partnership

Cross border production and distribution collaborations are common practices in the Nordics.  But thanks partly to the Nordic 12 (N12) alliance between DR, SVT, NRK, Yle and RÚV, drama offerings on the pubcasters’ linear and digital platforms, have reached new heights, with one new adult Nordic drama on average premiering each month and streaming rights on each broadcaster secured for 12 months.

N12 is coordinated by the long-running Nordvision public service partnership, headed by Hartmann.  Among the high-end TV series co-produced by N12 are the awarded-winning series Home Ground (NRK), Follow the Money 3 (DR), Invisible Heroes (Yle), Summer 68 (SVT), and four series selected for the 2020 Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize: the winning series 22 July (NRK) and nominated titles When the Dust Settles (DR), The Paradise (Yle) and Happily Never After (RÚV). 

Upcoming series on N12’s 2020 slate are DR’s Cry Wolf (DR), NRK’s For Life and Women and Wine, RÚV’s The Minister and Black Port, SVT’s A Hustler’s Diary, Dreaming of England and The Hunt for a Killer, and Yle’s Peacemaker.

Nordvision’s Secretary General highlights the role that N12 is playing in reinforcing Nordic culture, reality and identity through high quality storytelling, as well as co-productions and strategic partnerships between Nordic pubcasters. 

How long have you worked for Nordvision and what changes have you witnessed in recent years in terms of collaborations between Nordic public broadcasters?
Henrik Hartmann: I have been 13 years at Nordvision and in the position of secretary general since 2006. In the Nordics, we have a long tradition of creating high quality content with high relevance and public service value, recognised around the world. Today, we’re seeing a renaissance of Nordic collaborations, due to public service media’s financial pressure on a local level, and increased competition worldwide. 

Thanks to its decentralised system, Nordvision offers its broadcasting partners DR, NRK, SVT, Yle and RÚV continuous coproduction opportunities within seven strands: Children, Youth, Drama, Culture, Investigative Journalism, Factual and Knowledge. Within each strand we pitch new projects at least twice a year. On top of this, we have approximately ten different expert group meetings also twice a year.  What I’ve personally experienced in recent years is that public service media in the Nordic region have modernised their collaborations and moved from a high volume of programme exchanges, to more co-productions and strategic partnerships. This is what Nordic 12 is about. 

What triggered DR, Yle, NRK, SVT, RÚV's decision to launch N12 two years ago?
HH: Various factors triggered this decision. Firstly, heads of drama were unhappy about the short licensing period of TV dramas, available for only one month on the digital platforms, after the closing episode on linear TV. Then heads of drama would never know in advance if the partners would join in a coproduction or not. We needed earlier commitments to lift the projects.

A third issue was the need to have a bigger volume of quality Nordic drama throughout the year, to respond to viewers greater crave for high quality drama, and to fight off streaming rivals.

Furthermore, we noticed that people under 40 didn’t watch linear TV anymore.  After combining all these factors, we concluded that we needed a new vision and to create a home for the best Nordic drama.

That’s how Nordic 12 came to life. We said we needed 12 months right instead of three, and to create a line-up of 10-12 high end Nordic Drama series a year.

So far, we’ve had 11 N12 dramas in 2018, 10 in 2019 and we’ll have 11 in 2020. The rule is for DR, NRK, SVT to contribute with three dramas each, then two from Yle and 1 or 2 from RÚV.

On top of that, after the big success of SKAM, we saw that NRK was able to drive youth drama to unprecedented levels and the other Nordic public stations followed suit. Now we also have about 12-17 children/youth drama and documentary series a year.

How does it work in terms of commissioning? Who actually decides which series will be part of N12?
HH: There is a lot of trust among all Nordic public broadcasters, so we decided that each head of drama would choose the national projects that would qualify for N12. 

Can at least each broadcaster mention the genres that they would like to have for their drama slots?
HH: We do discuss genres and content, but have to accept each head of drama’s curated choice and belief in what’s good public service drama. What’s interesting is that the 2020 N12 slate is very diverse in genre with very few crime series. 

What is the investment of each co-production partner in N12 series?
HH: I’m not allowed to say the amount, but it is an average normal acquisition/coproduction fee. The original idea was for all five Nordic public broadcasters to pool their resources, to create high end drama of international standard. 

Have some shows performed better than anticipated across the Nordics? What travels best?
HH: I would say that Norwegian shows have performed remarkably well across the Nordics, such as Home Ground, 22 July, Exit, and Icelandic dramas are also attracting good numbers. Finnish drama on Danish TV is doing OK on DR’s digital platform DRTV, but not on linear TV. That said, it’s important to stress again that the main ideas behind N12 was to increase the volume of original Nordic drama on our five broadcasting partners, so that more viewers would want to come back and watch stories that reflect a Nordic culture, reality and identity. 

Were you pleased to see other European PSB pool their finances to create high end drama such as The Alliance [France Televisions, RAI, ZDF) or BRITBOX in the UK (BBC, Channel 4, ITV)?
HH: Yes it was interesting to get phone calls from France, Germany, Holland, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Italy etc as soon as we had set up N12. All wanted to understand how we had joined forces to fend off the giant US streamers.  We do have a mutual interest in collaborating with other EU alliances. 

What are the next steps for N12?
HH: The next stage would be to improve the marketing of N12, to discuss best practices in the publishing process and to find the very best Nordic projects. We could also look into using the N12 model for kids and youth programmes as we can see a need in that area as well.