Sweden’s national public broadcaster SVT is enjoying strong domestic ratings for the event drama Blackwater (Series Mania Best Series Int’ Panorama), and just announced a slew of upcoming high-end series.

Croneman who is heading SVT’s drama department since 2017 spoke to us.

Firstly, could you update us on your Drama department? Who are your closest collaborators evaluating the scripted projects with you?
Anna Croneman: On the strategic side I work with our programme director Eva Beckman and together we take all commissioning decisions. But my partners in crime are Malin Nevander, head of development, as well as my five executive producers - Kristian Hobersdorfer, Sonja Hermele, Göran Danasten, Amna Maksumic and Peter Zell. Then Charlotta Denward who joined us in 2020 is in charge of Feature Film within SVT Drama, and Andra Lasmanis is in charge of Moving Sweden. We are a very small group of people who evaluate things thoroughly.

How fast is your decision-making process?
AC: I think we’re quite fast. What happens is that we first commission a storyline and pilot script. When this comes in, I decide quite early in the development process, whether this is something that can be pushed forward or not. I look at our overall slate, if the project will fit our programme in the coming years, working closely with the writers and producers to make it happen. In that sense, we’re a sort of development department, and producers - or most of them (laugh), seem to find this helpful.

What is your development budget for 2023 and overall drama budget?
AC: Our development budget is around €1.4 million a year. This includes costs for freelance script-editors, research, analyses and evaluations, so it’s not only for development costs. The full drama budget has been pretty much stable since 2009. We have around €24 million for drama series and €5.5 million for features, which includes the talent programme Moving Sweden, jointly run with the Swedish Film Institute.

What is your editorial strategy?
AC: If you boil it down, we basically work with two editorial lines:

  • the first one is called ‘we pick up where journalism ends’. Basically, it’s a strand for shows that resonate with our society, like Caliphate, Thin Blue Line. We want to continue to do these high quality thought-provoking, surprising and entertaining series.
  • The second strand is dedicated to series that create a sense of community, with stories that engage, entertain, and touch people.

Innovation is what everyone is looking for, and at SVT, we have to be brave, bet on new talent and ideas that aren’t so mainstream, across both strands.

Youth drama commissioning isn’t part of your brief then?
AC: No. It is the responsibility of SVT Malmö. I can see that in the rest of the world, there has been a lot of YA series made in the last couple of years, that seem to have performed below expectations. I’m not sure young adult need to be a separate strand. If we have a show that is good, young audiences - between 16-25 - will watch it too. They are a challenging group, but simply want the best. Below 16 is a different thing.

In terms of TV drama volume what is your goal?
AC: Ideally, we’d like to have 7 series a year within the two strands mentioned earlier.

What is the status of linear vs online viewership on SVT?
AC: We are actually just now experiencing the big drop on linear TV. This is due to the 50+ audience, that has also gone online. So far digital hasn’t compensated what linear has lost due to the fierce competition in the drama space. That said we’ve had fantastic numbers with several of our event series.

Could you give examples?
AC: Thin Blue Line (Tunna blå linjen) for instance has been amazing for us with a total average rating of 1,315,316, and now Blackwater (Händelser Vid Vatten) is doing extremely well. So far episode one has had 2,214,000 viewers and nearly 1 million comes from the Player.

Is representation a priority for you? How was for instance the response to your series Detective #24 (Detektiven från Beledweyne) with a real Somali refugee in one of the title roles?
AC: It is of course our mission as a public broadcaster to provide for all types of audiences, with a wide range of shows. I can’t yet talk about results for Detective #24; it was commissioned within a traditional format - the procedural, but with a twist. It was therefore genre-wise a risky project, but we have had a great recognition for its uniqueness. People do talk about it as a ‘fresh take on procedural’.

What is your strategy to remain competitive when budgets for premium drama are spiralling? Less episodes and less locations, as Amazon Studios' James Farrell suggested at Series Mania? Balancing small budget shows with few event series with co-pro partners?
AC: We have already gone down from 8-10 episodes to 6 episodes, and from 60’ to 45’, now even to 30’ for some series, not only to save money, but also because we’ve had a strategy to invest in event shows for the last three years. The 6-episode stand-alone has been perfect for testing our differentiated audience.

There is a lot of talk about creating cheaper series, with less characters, less locations etc. But it isn’t that simple. Good screenwriters want the freedom to write the story they are burning to tell. And we want to be the best partner for that kind of writers.

We are indeed experiencing a 25% increase in costs, with inflation on top. But I can’t see how I could go out and say let’s make cheaper shows right now. It’s more about finding the key gap financing, which is harder and harder as there is so much volume on the market and the MGs have decreased.

Co-producing can be a way forward, with a mix of regional, pan-Nordic and/or European public support. There is always a risk of creating Euro-pudding, but not if we stick to supporting organic stories, either initiated by us or by others. There are more opportunities now and openness from other European pubcasters for all sorts of projects and stories beyond the Nordic noir.

The TV project This is Not Sweden is your first minority co-production with Spain. How did you get involved?
AC: We’ve had discussions with RTVE’s Head of Drama [Jose Pastor] about possible partnerships, and I said I would join them on this project which has a clear Swedish angle, and Swedish talents such as Liv Mjönes and Ia Langhammer. It was a fun project to get to know each other as broadcasters, and to get a co-pro going between Spanish production companies [Funicular Films, Nanouk Films] and a Swedish one [Anagram]. It’s a win-win situation.

Are you looking into co-producing with France?
AC: We do have a major co-production show lined up with France, that will premiere in 2024. But I can’t announce it yet.

How are your relationships with global streamers? Are you flexible re exclusivity - 1st-2nd window options? Can you give examples?
AC: We are open to having 1 or 2 collaborations with global streamers a year, but we will never give away the first window. It has been a bit of a challenge recently, with local original commissioning from global streamers taking off. We did a lot of stuff with Viaplay when they started, but haven’t done anything together recently. The same goes with Netflix.

That said, we do have a show close to greenlit, with a global streamer where they have the second window in Sweden.

On a Nordic level-what could be improved?
AC: The N12 collaboration [with DR, NRK, Yle, RÚV] has been really good. The best thing is that we now have a much better understanding of what works - or not - in each Nordic territory. We will soon make an announcement regarding upgrades within the N12.

I wish we would all jointly invest in bigger Nordic co-productions. Producers should reach out and work with creatives from all over Scandinavia to try to corner the right pan-Nordic story. There is great potential there, whatever the genre.

What is your biggest wish for 2023 and onwards?
AC: My biggest wish for the future is that the inflated egos take a walk and every writer, producer, director would work together in a beautiful triangle of peace, love and understanding. Now is the time to take a breath, and with respect, enhance each other’s different skills, in order to be able to make great shows.

There are a lot of fights going on, about small things, that take away creativity, the fun, the passion of why we’re all in this business. It has to do perhaps with the drama boom, post-Covid, the global geo-political climate. People are tired, stressed out, and the work environment hasn’t been good. I really wish that people would treat each other better as we are in the privileged position of creating content for people to enjoy. And reflect upon.