Following its seismic $2.2 billion takeover of Endemol Shine, unveiled in late 2019, French TV giant Banijay instantly became a small-screen colossus, spanning some 150 production companies across 22 territories.
Just under a year after the deal was first made public — and a few months after it formally closed in the summer of 2020 — Lars Blomgren, who had been leading Endemol Shine’s non-English scripted production division, was officially named head of scripted across the whole of Banijay. An experience TV veteran who had previously headed the Swedish production house Filmlance and with a wealth of credits that includes overseeing the Scandi hit that was The Bridge and its numerous international iterations, he now works with in excess of 50 scripted labels. Their upcoming shows include Steven Knight’s sixth and final season of Peaky Blinders and his follow-up, the BBC’s all-star war drama SAS: Rogue Heroes, plus Marie Antoinette, the female-focused retelling of the life of one of France’s most infamous queens, heading to Canal+ and the BBC later this year.
Blomgren is also heading to the Berlinale to speak on a panel discussion as part of the festival’s growing Berlinale Series TV programm.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter from Stockholm ahead of the festival, Blomgren discussed how Banijay is trying to turn issues with mental health in the industry into a selling point for the company, the impact of British writer Jack Thorne’s powerful MacTaggart Lecture at the 2021 Edinburgh TV Festival and why many of his European colleagues thought he was shorter than he is.
How have the 18 months been since you joined Banijay?
Well, of course it’s been a challenge for all of us to do a merger in the middle of a pandemic. I’m part of the group management, and some of the people I’m only meeting now, 14-15 months later. It was a funny experience, because we’ve only seen each other on Zoom. And I have a big screen, so I’m looking up at my camera, and when I came to Paris people were saying, “you’re much taller than we thought.” But I don’t see a big culture clash. We’re French now, and they’re really trying to understand the different culture. We’re in 22 territories, and every country is unique — some are directors driven, others are writers driven. We’re past the merger now, so we’re looking ahead and trying to make the most out of this new world.
You’ve got more than 50 different labels under your belt. How do you juggle that?
First of all, the production companies are really independent. They drive their own slates, they have their own relations with the broadcasters and so forth. We try to navigate this new landscape with all the streamers by sharing best practices. We’re all used to co-productions, but we’re trying to work out how to make the most out of this new model. The other thing we try to do is keep track of the slates. Finally, everyone understands now that a hit can come from anywhere. So if we see an idea from one of the smaller territories, we can step in and invest more in development and take it to a more evolved state before we bring it to broadcasters and try to get better bargaining power.
Do you have any examples of this?
The one we recently announced from Endemol Shine Finland, [young adult dance drama series] Dance Brothers. Finland is a really good territory for producing on a low budget, out of necessity, and we have a young, really good team there. And they had this project and were struggling to get the financing in place, because it’s out of the box and not the usual genre. So we brought in Kai Finke from the Netflix co-production department and managed to create a co-production between [Finnish broadcaster] YLE and Netflix. It was quite unusual, but the only way to get the show made. It’s something we also did a few years ago with Caliphate.
What are the big projects coming up that we’re going to be talking a lot more about?
I think the obvious one is SAS: Rogue Heroes from Steven Knight, and the other is Marie Antoinette. We’ve seen a rough, rough, rough cut, but it’s so good.
When you have so many labels, and are still out acquiring more, how do you ensure all the talent and creatives feel loved?
One thing we’re trying to do as a group is to find a sustainable business, especially with everyone working 80 hours and feeling quite miserable. So we’re trying to avoid that and actually make it a selling point. Because while we believe that it’s very difficult to predict trends, the one thing you can predict right now is that quality and karma is going to be really important. We’re all fighting to get access to the right talent, and if you put them under a lot of pressure, then that’s not sustainable. So we need to create a working environment that works for the talent. And the broadcasters now have to fight to get the projects, so the talent goes to the broadcasters that treat them the best. So it’s a win-win.
So what sort of practices have you put in place?
The challenge is that it if you’re in the middle of something, you’re just reacting to things, but we’re trying to create a way of being proactive and stop this from happening. So for instance, a lot of times the broadcasters will come to us and say, “We’ll take this project if you deliver it in August instead of December.” So you just have to take that fight and find the right arguments. But there are no losers in this.
Diversity has been a huge talking point over the last few years. How have this impacted what Banijay does?
I was really impressed by how one man can influence the industry, like Jack Thorne’s MacTaggart Lecture (at the Edinburgh TV Festival) about disability. It’s not fair to let the disabled carry the burden to change the world, that’s for everyone to do. But oh my God, he made a difference, and it’s going to have an effect on everything. We have a diversity and inclusion board, but now it’s like, should we change it to diversity, disability and inclusion? It adds something to the game. For me, it was a big learning process.
What’s the one non-Banijay show that you’ve been binging that you’d have loved to have worked on?
The last show I binged was [HBO Max’s post-apocalyptic miniseries] Station Eleven. I really appreciated watching it for many reasons. They had this idea to take down the view on reality that comes from Lord of the Flies, that after a pandemic or disaster society will fall apart. I really enjoyed it.
Are we ever going to see any more Black Mirror, or with Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones leaving their [Endemol-owned] production company, is that it for the show?
I honestly don’t know. It’s written in the stars.
Source: Hollywood
