2023-07-03 17:51:54
Media crisis at Sky Germany
“Babylon Berlin” is no longer on here
Status: 09:00 a.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes
The ARD sticks by him: Volker Bruch as Gereon Rath in “Babylon Berlin”
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa/X-Filme/ARD/SKY
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Sky Germany is in a serious crisis. Now the entertainment group has stopped all in-house productions. The “boat” is leaving again, “Babylon Berlin” will probably be continued by ARD. An entire industry is on the alert.
The Originals are the stuff streaming platforms are made of. This refers to the series and films that entertainment giants such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney have produced exclusively for their users and that cannot be found anywhere else. Such highlights must attract new paying viewers and retain existing users, they are the breeding ground for a profitable business at some point.
The Pay channel Sky was more complex relatively late in production in-house productions entered – and was then able to present the successful series “Babylon Berlin” together with ARD. This was followed, for example, by the new edition of “Das Boot” and the alpine thriller “Der Pass”. Not everything Sky touched was a success, but that’s not possible in such a competitive environment.
In addition to the fictional material, one positive thing to mention is that Sky has recently come up with some excellent ones The documentation has excelled, for example on the 1974 Olympic assassination in Munich, a portrait of the Spanish monarch Juan Carlos and research on the Relotius case in the “Spiegel”.
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But now it’s over. Devesh Raj, the CEO of Sky Deutschland, announced last week that in-house productions would be stopped, only the fourth season of “Boot” would be completed, the dystopia “Heligoland 513‘ and the third season of the comedy The Wasp. “The entertainment industry, the content landscape and the usage behavior of the viewers” have “changed and developed rapidly”. Above all, the costs have increased significantly.
Ready to sail: scene from “Das Boot”
What: Sky
The decision came as a surprise and is a blow – for Sky Germany and for the production industry as a whole. Sky still have the important but expensive sports broadcasts and a well-curated range of films and series as arguments for subscribing to the offer. But whether that will be enough given the current oversupply on the market is very questionable. It is not officially known how many subscribers the German Sky offer has. It took the pay-TV provider many years to even become profitable, but then, just before it was finally profitable, it was put under pressure by the cheaper streaming providers.
Homemade Crisis
The withdrawal is largely home-made – the owner of Sky, which has been the American company Comcast for about five years, wants to separate from Sky Germany, according to industry reports. The private broadcaster group ProSiebenSat.1 was last traded as a buyer – but anyone who followed their general meeting last week must ask themselves whether that would be a good transaction. A shareholder representative certified the management to produce a “poorly staged reality show”. In the event of a takeover, Sky’s technology would be particularly interesting for a buyer – the production stop proves this assessment.
Dark fare: “The Passport”
What: Sky
But is the signal from Munich-Unterföhring also an expression of a larger trend? The announcement of a streaming implosion? Hard to say. It is clear that the offer is regulated – to the extent that the overwhelmed viewers are reflected in stagnant use. However, Sky’s decision is radical beyond greater cost discipline – and radically self-damaging. The manufacturing industry now has to deal with the side effects and interactions.
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“Sky Deutschland’s decision leaves a trail of devastation in the German producer landscape,” criticizes Björn Böhning. The managing director of Alliance of German Producers expects a “four-digit number of employees from the production companies who will not have any work in the short term.” And adds: “It is questionable whether producers, employees and creative people will still be paid by Sky.” The industry is “in an alarm mood,” says Böhning : “I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg here.”
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The competition for paying subscribers will continue despite the downpour on Sky. When asked about Netflix, for example, it says: “Netflix will also invest heavily in the German market in 2024 with series, films, reality shows and documentaries.” However, the company does not make any specific statements about the takeover of Sky formats.
But the fans will probably be able to see the well-running Sky fabrics elsewhere, where there are already talks in the background. And the ARD will probably continue the successful series “Babylon Berlin”, of which a fifth season was actually set – maybe with a new partner. The show must go on.
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