Anders Lorenzen: Strong demand for the Nordic brand

By Anders Lorenzen

The Nordic TV sector is in a healthy space despite peaking in 2022.

For some time, Nordic TV production has punched well above its weight, but it has now endured somewhat of a correction and is looking towards more sustainable production levels, according to analysis.

Several pieces of independent analysis point to declining numbers, some of it is following global trends and other more localised issues. “Production output in 2022 was exceptionally high – close to a bubble – so the drop that followed had consequences for production companies and their employees,” said Rasmus Andersen, head of research and projects at the Danish Producers’ Association.

Then a significant drop followed. Research carried out by the analytics firm Ampere Analytics found that unscripted commissions fell 21 per cent and scripted commissions by 29 per cent between 2024 and 2025. However, it was not an even drop across different genres, but showed evidence of a global trend that younger audiences are hard to retain. The biggest change was in the unscripted children and family genre, with a drop of 75 per cent.

Fjord. Photo: Tudor Panduru

Nordic Noir, which has been the regions strongest brand, seems in a good condition as scripted crime and thriller only dropped 13 per cent. Additionally, documentaries, another strong genre in the region, had an almost similar moderate fall of 14 per cent.

Another piece of analysis, carried out by the Swedish media analyst Mediavision, points to one of the reasons of the decline; global streaming services are pulling back on local production. In 2025, the number of new Nordic titles released by global players declined by about 20 per cent compared to 2024. This is a continuation of a downward trend seen in recent years.

Globally, the film and TV sectors find themselves in severe disruption volatility, much of these are technological shifts and advances happening so fast that many producers and broadcasters cannot follow that pace and the globalisation of the sectors.

But despite this, the Nordic TV sector is probably as healthy as anywhere in the world, due to the continuing strong demand for the Nordic brand, and the Nordic sectors are good at innovating and conceptualising new ideas such as the re-launch of Dogme as mentioned in the previous column, as well as staying on top of technological developments.