Major broadcasters, streamers, producers and creatives descend on Cologne this week for SerienCamp (June 9-11), arriving at a moment when the foundations of TV drama are shifting under everyone’s feet. Commissioning budgets are shrinking, audiences are scattered across social platforms and games, and the cultural weight that prestige television once carried automatically now has to be earned — often with less money than before. From microdramas to AI, IP universe-building and new financing models, here are five issues that will be on everyone’s mind this year.
1. Surviving the Post-Commissioning World
For decades, the logic was simple: producers pitch to broadcasters, broadcasters commission and fund, and the marketing and distribution problem belongs to the channel. That model is now structurally inadequate for the ambitions — and economics — of high-end drama. Commissioning budgets have contracted, the window between greenlight and audience discovery has narrowed, and the channels that once guaranteed cultural reach can no longer deliver it reliably.
“I don’t think quality overall has declined. There are still a lot of great shows out there,” says SerienCamp artistic director Gerhard Maier. “I just think that for those that exist, it’s becoming much harder to find their audience. The cultural impact [of social media or games] is often much higher than that of high-end drama series.”
