WRITTEN BY: Annika Pham
Køhn who led NRK’s drama department in the peak golden age of the Nordic drama boom, gives his take on the state of TV drama and unveils his projects at Rubicon.
You took part in the drama boom as head of drama at NRK between 2013-2022. How do you see the current state of the drama industry in Norway and in the Nordics?
Ivar Køhn: Everyone in the industry could feel that the drama bubble was about to burst. But nobody wanted to be the catalyst for this. I guess everyone was just hoping the drama boom would last a bit longer.
When I told NRK I was leaving in February 2022, things were still good. By mid-February, we heard that Netflix’s shares were going down. In June, HBO Max closed in the Nordics and this is when reality started to hit the industry. Viaplay’s drastic fiction cutback announced in June/July was the biggest shock.
On a personal level, it’s been a steep learning curve as I landed my job at Rubicon after eight years at NRK. I see the challenge of raising financing for development and production from a new perspective, and when the new perspective is also different from what it was a couple of years ago, it is even more daunting. But that’s also very stimulating.
How does the new drama reality look like from your point of view?
IK: The market is tough, particularly for projects in development, which wasn’t the case a few years back. Before, you just needed a good idea, solid writer, director names, and you could get people to commit. Now you need to package projects much more. Commissioners are more conservative, more aware of the audience, so they want projects with a broader appeal.
Opportunities for experimentation, newcomers are more limited. This is the new reality unfortunately, not only in the Nordics but everywhere, although with our reputation at Rubicon, I think it’s still right to also continue to focus on new, original IP and fresh ideas.
On top of that, the Viaplay crisis has flooded the market with projects. When Viaplay started to close their doors to fiction producers in the Nordics, many projects in development, or optioned by Viaplay, or that people were thinking of pitching to Viaplay, all of a sudden had to find new financing options. At the same time, all broadcasters had to face new financial headwinds.
Looking ahead, the market will hopefully stabilise. Perhaps the number of productions won’t be that different from today, but the financing will evolve, and slates in development will slim down.
You are talking packaging. Will there be more opportunities on the international market?
IK: I believe this is also changing. The financing is getting more local. Platforms, broadcasters think first of their primary audience and what fits their core audience.
Today, we might go back to the old days, where the bulk of the slate was local, and only a handful of TV projects were international.
For the ambitious international projects, co-productions and soft coin will be more important than ever. Yet again, it might be harder to sell them to local broadcasters who will be looking at quicker turnaround options.
Tax incentives to lure foreign investors are also a big part of the financing packaging…
IK: Yes. But from the Norwegian perspective, we have to find new ways to look at incentives for international financing. So far, we’ve focused on how to get Hollywood and international producers to come to Norway. The biggest issue today is how to keep productions here and develop our national industry to make it more sustainable.
Your situation at Rubicon is different than for most Norwegian indie producers as you’re part of the mega group Banijay. What are the clear advantages for Rubicon?
IK: It feels good to have a powerhouse behind us, and to be part of a community, a family of content creators. Platforms and broadcasters also want to feel safe and value the group’s financial stability. This is a plus in our contact with customers.
Banijay allows each production label to be independently-run which is great. At the same, within the group, we have great opportunities to collaborate with our international production colleagues on a creative and financing standpoint. This opens the door to bigger financing constellations and co-productions.
My wish is to grow within Banijay, get closer to their labels as well as to partners in the Nordics. We need to stick together in these challenging times, make greenlighting easier.
Since you took over as CEO, what have been your priorities?
IK: My main priority since joining has been to build a truly diverse slate. To widen our drama slate we have boosted our in-house team with new hires. Lars Gudmestad has recently joined Rubicon’s team of outstanding writers Ann Bjørnstad and Eilif Skodvin. We are therefore developing projects in-house, but also collaborating with external talent.
Does Banijay Rights have a first look on your projects?
IK: We have open discussions and if our project doesn’t fit their slate, we can approach other distributors. That’s fair enough.
How does your slate look like today?
IK: We are currently in production with a big Netflix series called Billionaire Island (Lakseøya), co-created and co-written by Anne and Eilif. It’s about a handful of salmon billionaires, living on small islands off the Norwegian coastline. We focus on two families, competing to be the biggest in the world. It’s a drama about powerplay in the Salmon industry in Norway, with Anne and Eilif’s special humorous touch.
We started filming in August and hope to deliver the show sometime in 2024 - See our separate story: CLICK HERE.
Rubicon collaborated with Netflix on Lillyhammer, their very first original foreign language show.
We’re super excited to work with them again. Netflix is among the most stable partners in the Nordics.
What’s the update on your NATO-related spy thriller E14 Unit for Special Intel commissioned by TV2?
IK: It is still at script stage. War in Ukraine has forced us to make re-writes, but the new version is actually better. We hope to secure the last pieces of financing this fall and to go into production in the fall 2024.
Do you have other projects in development and what budgets are you looking at?
IK: We have 7-8 projects in our pipeline, across entertainment, drama, crime, and humour. It’s very varied. We are in tight discussions with platforms to see how we can create high quality content for a lower cost.
In a way, the ‘new normal’ has forced people to rethink the way drama series are made. On the positive side, everyone is more experienced than 6-7 years ago and we have a wealth of talent. Platforms and broadcasters are looking for more realistic budgets. We have to respond to that, develop projects in a smart way. Basically, we must be able to continue to produce premium projects on the kind of local budgets that broadcasters and platforms are looking for. And luckily, with the people we now have on board, I think Rubicon is in a good position to do so.”
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