The numbers are out. Barcelona’s vibrant on-site/online television festival, Selierizados, saw an 80% increase in in-person attendance to 16,000 from November 3 to 12. The online version, which ran from November 13th to 23rd and was hosted by premium SVOD service Filmin, recorded 194,000 viewers. This makes Selierizados the second most-watched film and television festival in Spain after San Sebastian, organizers announced on Tuesday.
“In this 12th edition, we have grown both in viewership and content, making a decisive leap forward into becoming the most important series festival in the country, with more than 35 premier series and the international conference for professionals, Serie Elizados Pro. This further positions the festival as a driving force in the series industry in Spain,” Betu Morello, co-director of Serie Elizados, said on Tuesday.
Selierizados’ attendance also highlights the contradiction. Launched in 2014, Selierizados won Sweden’s Pressure Point last year and established a reputation for its exquisite taste. The 2025 festival lineup also included Six Foot Under’s first masterclass in 20 years, Alan Ball’s The Danish Woman, its creator Benedikt Erlingsson’s masterclasses Reykjavik Fusion and Nepobaby, and a screening of Sally Wainwright’s BBC One series Riot Women.
Serielizados Pro was equally popular and generated high-quality discussion, with a large Scandinavian presence that included executives from SVT, DR and YLE, as well as representatives from BBC Studios, Arte France, Germany’s Beta Films and Paris-based Slot Machines.
Speakers included representatives from the TV operators Movistar Plus+, 3Cat, RTVE, Atresmedia and Filmin, as well as Barcelona’s producers (almost all women).
Now, who doesn’t want Barcelona’s sun in November? But there were other reasons for its leading presence in the industry. If this year’s Serie Elizados Pro sent a message, it’s that Europe, and Canada, still produce top-level series, but the industry needs to connect, and Barcelona did just that.
This is due to the dire situation in the international television industry. Symbolically, the Cerelizados Pro, held on November 6th, began with a near-biblical downpour rather than sun.
Here are some key points:
What the Serelizados PRO discussion group said about the current state of the international television industry
The short answer is: Yes, the industry is where it is. “Almost 18 months after we first identified the trend, we are still at 75% of peak TV.” In other words, the market has shrunk to 75% of its peak TV size,” Guy Bisson of Ampere Analysis said at Mipcon in Cannes in October. Much of the economic downturn is due to the streamer backlash, with original series commissions down more than 100% in early 2024, he added. Several more elements sketched in Serielizados Pro are added. For one thing, production costs have skyrocketed. Also, “streamers have great libraries, have much shorter distribution periods, are less obsessed with exclusivity, and are more open to selling their own content. MGM sells Amazon, so regular distribution is much more difficult,” Betafilm’s Christian Glockel said at Selierizados. The big question discussed in Selierizados is how players can react.
what buyers want
One response is that players are playing it safe. Rebecca Lansley from BBC Studios said: “Everyone is feeling the pressure so we’re rooting for shows that we know will be successful.” Buyers want crime, she added, whether it’s a “cozy crime” or “a place to lean into in shock.” Mr. Lansley cited the fact that “Death Valley,” starring Timothy Spall, was sold in 100 markets, and said that “the returnability of a talented crime series” was another plus point. “There is definitely a resurgence in the appetite for hyper-local, authentic storytelling that reaches around the world,” she continued, calling it “the ‘adolescent’ effect.”
There’s also a demand for uplifting entertainment, Gockel argued. “The world is in turmoil and there’s a lot of bad news. Maxima is a story about how a young woman becomes a princess and then a queen. If I had known that five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been interested.”
buzz title
Serielizados Pro had no formal market. That being said, the speakers talked about the show. Arte France’s Alexander Piel and Movistar Plus+’s Susana Herreras offer a sneak peek at excerpts from Killing a Bear, a wild bear murder mystery based on real facts that reveals deep social conflicts in the Pyrenean Highlands, and hints at one of the great appeals of international television: a great sense of local place. Four of the finished series were eventual winners: Norway’s “A Better Man” and Canada’s “Empathy” in the international contest, and “The Anatomy of a Moment” and “Jakarta” in the domestic contest.
A packed audience for “Anatomy of a Moment” at Barcelona’s Serie Sados
Collaboration: Key from Jail Card
In many ways, co-production is now seen as the most important step forward for the European television industry. First, it serves an important purpose in Europe’s often supervisor-driven industry. With “The Danish Woman,” produced by Paris-based Slot Machine and Iceland’s Garslotid & Zikzak Filmworks, “the main goal has always been to preserve Benedikt Árlinsson’s very original and unique voice, and to do that we needed some form of independent financing,” said Slot Machine’s Marianne Slot. The underlying funding came from the slot machines themselves and Iceland’s public broadcaster RÚV, followed by funds such as European Broadcasters and the EU Creative Media Programme.
IP retention
A patchwork of public market financings also allows producers to achieve what was until recently considered the holy grail: IP retention. Distributed by Beta Film, “Pubertat” was funded by Catalan pubcaster 3Cat, HBO Max for Spain, the Catalan government’s soft money, including €1.5 million in subsidies and tax credits, as well as Yuri Image and Media Programme, said Miriam Porte of Distinct Film. “We are lucky to keep about 99.5% of our IP, which is quite amazing. Of course, the important question is whether the series will sell or not, but recent sales have not been easy, suggested Serelizados PRO.”
Collaboration: default mode
“At SVT, we rarely make fully funded projects. No co-productions, no shows,” said Sonja Hermele of Sweden’s SVT. As pointed out by Jarmo Lampella of Finland’s YLE, the five Nordic national public broadcasters have been working together for many years, launching Nordic 12 in 2018 to produce 12 premium dramas a year, and in 2023 they will join ZDF (Germany), NPO (Netherlands) and VRT (Belgium) to create New 8 and co-produce eight series a year. Lampella pointed out that ZDF also works with France Television and RAI in the alliance.
Listen on Global Streaming Services: How It Helps You Collaborate
Disney+ and Hulu have internationally picked up SVT and Stockholm-based Dramacorp’s Cold War comedy-thriller “Whiskey on the Rocks,” which won the 77th Italian Award for Best Television Drama in late October. The series is based on the 1981 incident in which a Soviet U-137 “Whiskey” class submarine ran aground on a rock deep in Swedish territorial waters during a dangerous Swedish naval exercise. Its background is largely unknown to modern Swedish audiences. “What Disney felt would attract audiences to the show globally was actually something that would also benefit Swedish audiences,” said SVT’s Elmere.
partnership
In such a pressurized market, “what really matters is the partnership. As you know, our business is all about relationships,” said Lansley, citing the relationship between BBC Studios and Germany’s ZDF, which has produced “The Famous Five,” “Chelsea” and “The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.”
The first session of Serielizados Pro delved into one of Europe’s key partnerships between Spain’s Movistar Plus+ and France’s Arte France, co-producers of “Yerro,” “New Years,” “Anatomy of a Moment” and “Killing a Bear.” This is an alliance of like-minded titles. “At Movistar Plus+, we talk a lot about what’s commercial. Often it’s not the most open series. It’s more about promoting social conversations and what we think people should watch our series. It’s very important to find people in Europe who understand things like we do,” said Herreras of Movistar Plus+.
For Arte France, Pierre said, the partnership is also about access to talent. “It was about talent and content. Talent has a vision, they have a different vision of how to create a TV series, and something deep within them creates content that is singular and unique. So I guess we had two dreams: to work with Rodrigo Sologoen and Alberto Rodríguez,” Pier said.
And what about the future?
Looking to the future, Glockel said, “streamers will focus on big IPs that get subscribers, and we’ll see more co-productions with great distribution companies and studios to package their work.” Beta Film is therefore increasingly involved in upstream production. “Previously, we would wait until the product was complete before deciding whether to distribute it or not. Now, with co-production, we can start much earlier at the screenplay stage,” he said.
