Slow production is choking the supply of scripts
In one of the first sessions at the Series Mania Forum conference leg in Lille, France, Ampere Analysis research manager Olivia Deane took the stage on Tuesday with a presentation titled “A Year in Series: The Post-Peak-TV Era,” armed with data that is reshaping the industry’s current malaise. The upside is not just that there is less money. It’s because television production has become so slow that the market cannot feed its own appetite.
Deane’s argument is that the conventional Peak TV is over narrative ignores the underlying structural problem. “Only 2% fewer Western European scripted TV commissions were announced in 2025 than in 2020,” she said. Variety“but they take on average 40% longer to make.” That bottleneck, and not the decline in deployment itself, is what is choking the supply chain.
Turnover: lower, but not where you think
Revenue growth in the Western European media industry fell from $15.2 billion during Peak TV (2020-2022) to $9.3 billion in the post-Peak TV era (2023-2025). But Deane pointed out a crucial wrinkle: “While everyone thinks original spending is falling at the same rate, it is actually a much, much smaller reduction.” Spending on originals fell by only 3%, while total sales fell by 53%.
The growth that remains comes from new models. VOD and FAST advertising was the only business line that accelerated post-Peak TV, but these platforms are buyers, not makers. Of the 43,000 TV seasons on FAST channels in Western Europe last year, none were original. SVoD was still responsible for 75% of all revenue growth, but 73% of the $7 billion in SVoD profits came from ad-level subscriptions, a boost Deane suggested may be short-lived given market saturation. And because platforms no longer need shiny originals to attract subscribers they already have, they too are shifting toward acquisition. Among the largest global streamers in Western Europe, most have cut commissions and increased acquisitions, with HBO Max being a notable exception as its rollout continues.
The bottleneck
The average time from order to release for a scripted series in Western Europe has increased from 288 days in 2020 to 404 in 2025. Per-episode budgets soared during Peak TV, from $11 million for “The Crown” season 4 to $58 million for “Rings of Power,” and with that came longer, more complex productions that the industry has not handled.
“I think this is where the biggest problem comes from,” Deane said. “We have a bottleneck and therefore the current production status cannot take advantage of what is actually a very good and healthy global acquisition market.”
Commissioners change tactics. Second season renewals have fallen from 32% to 19% between 2020 and 2025, with platforms focusing on long-term returners rather than betting on second seasons. Genres with the longest production times, such as sci-fi and fantasy, are hit hardest, while fast-turnaround unscripted formats, such as entertainment and documentary, are flourishing.
The keynote also pointed out the uneven distribution of expenditure on Peak TV. Streamers poured money into scripted content for subscription decision-makers, while children and family programming were largely bypassed. SVoD accounted for just 7% of child and family commissions during the boom. “Those parts of the market are suffering the most right now because they haven’t even seen the good times,” she noted.
Asia Pacific is getting on board
The supply crunch in Western Europe and North America has opened the door for content from the Asia-Pacific region, which overtook both regions in scripted, unoriginal acquisitions that premiered globally in 2025. Romance, buoyed by K-drama, was the only genre to show positive acquisition growth between 2024 and 2025, up 18%. But Deane urged caution: when Ampere asked consumers to name their favorite genre worldwide, crime and thriller still topped the list at 11%. Romance came last with 6%.
“It’s really good that there are a lot of romantic script titles available to help people fill their script catalogues,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it’s not really what viewers worldwide want to see.”
Why crime is the sweet spot
Crime and thriller are at the crossroads of audience demand, short production times and international sales potential. It accounted for 28% of all scripted titles with a production time of less than two years, the largest share of any genre, most of which came from Western European public broadcasters, led by ARD and ZDF.
“The hot topic at the end of last year that everyone was talking about was cozy crime, and I thought, where did this come from?” Deane said. “But once you start looking at the production times, and you see that they don’t have time to make science fiction. They don’t have time to make action and adventure. And then you compare the popularity of crime and thriller with the amount of time it takes to make, then it’s the obvious choice.”
Deane concluded by looking ahead to microdrama, with content on the two largest US platforms having grown to 4,332 titles and consumer appetites remaining ‘insatiable’. The next growth markets, she predicted, will be Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, where telenovela traditions align with the format’s themes of wealth and revenge. Her advice: Prioritize production efficiency, design for an acquisition-oriented market, and explore the limits of vertical displays while keeping barriers to entry low.
