Lessons from Denmark: how to make a killing

DR, Denmark’s small public service broadcaster, has produced monster hits including The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge. Raymond Snoddy asks how they have pulled this off – and after hearing the organisation’s director of cultural affairs talk at IBC in Amsterdam, finds the answers are both extreme and surprising.

Do you want to know how the third series of The Killing ends? It’s dramatic, bloody and as you would expect, very surprising.

Just as surprising in a way as the story of the organisation which made the series – DR – Denmark’s small public service broadcaster. DR has made a string of drama hits – only hits so far – that have gone round the world, such as Borgen and The Bridge, despite having about one eighth of the revenues of the mighty BBC.

The last five minutes of The Killing were shown during a DR master class at IBC in Amsterdam at the weekend given by Morten Hesseldahl, who has the wonderful title of DR’s director of cultural affairs. It means that he is in charge of all DR programmes apart from news, sport and regional output, and that includes The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge.

Naturally, in the best tradition of football highlights shows, Morten advised his audience to look away for the next seven minutes if they haven’t yet seen the end of the third series of The Killing.

We will therefore look away also just in case you’re waiting to find time to watch the box set.

Hesseldahl, who is a novelist, former chief executive of a Danish daily newspaper, chief executive of a number of publishing houses and former chairman of the Danish Film Institute, was in Amsterdam to answer one very simple question: How on earth did DR do it?

It is a simple question to ask – a rather more complicated one to answer. The recipe that emerged, which is more of a drama manifesto, reflects how many in the audience thought broadcasters such as the BBC used to be. It is very much a back-to-the-future set of principles and values, which the modern world of television has, in the main, tended to disregard.

Some of them are really quite extreme.

First up, never trust your research department and certainly don’t let them inhibit your creativity. Numbers are good and reassuring, but they can only tell you about what worked in the past.

If you had asked researchers whether staging a drama about a Danish woman politician dealing with idealistic ideas for the future of Danish society was a good idea for prime time television…

Just as important is to stand behind the vision of the author at all times and make the writer centre-stage ahead of the producer and the director. Above all keep the senior executives as far away as possible. You have to choose the right author, of course, but that can be done on experience, track record and judgement.

Don’t, where possible, farm out production to independents. Internal production is the thing, according to Hesseldahl, perhaps influenced by his Danish roots. There, independents, he explained, are largely involved in film production, which is an entirely different thing. Within internal television production units you can nurture talent over time and build up skills and expertise.

And very surprising indeed for a novelist who has run publishing houses, there is what amounts to a ban at DR on adapting novels or using existing screen plays.

“We believe the TV-series is an art form in itself,” explains Hesseldahl. The DR executive argues that TV series, rather than movies, is where to be if you are interested in “complex characters, multi-level stories and the wonderful span of time you deal with when a series is running for several seasons.”

Look for what DR calls “the double story” – the layer of seriousness just below the surface of the entertainment. The second story can range from issues of prostitution in Denmark to social problems in Greenland.

“The dilemmas of our TV-series have set the public agenda for the Danes,” says Hesseldahl who acknowledges that after Borgen appeared Denmark elected its first woman Prime Minister.

It may not be a pretty word but DR believes in “glocalisation” – ignore the streets of Manhattan and believe in your own surroundings, your own atmosphere. You can find universal themes even in little Denmark which has apparently has been suffering from a bit of an inferiority complex ever since it allowed the Germans to seize Schleswig-Holstein in 1864.

Go global by staying local is therefore the DR mantra.

Finally, introduce material on current family structures such as single mothers and strong female characters whatever the genre, whether we are talking thrillers, comedies or political dramas. According to the DR executive it helps to add “a modern touch.”

Add to that a reluctance to keep churning out more of a series just because it has been successful. The third series of Borgen, which is expected to air on BBC Four in November, will definitely be the last no matter how popular it is. And with the Prime Minister falling for a British architect it could be very popular indeed.

Just as Hesseldahl made his approach admirably clear he then admitted that some things are already beginning to change.

In fact it is not clear just how closely the broadcaster sticks to its manifesto. The Bridge was made by two Danish independents and Sweden’s SVT.

DR has also commissioned an external company Miso Film to make its latest production 1864 – yes that war of 1864. It was partly about money. At €25 million the series is the most expensive ever made in Denmark but DR, despite now being much more willing to engage in partnerships than before, argues it will still retain editorial control and insist on “the final cut.”

Unsurprisingly German broadcasters have invested in 1864, probably because it was a war that the Germans actually won.

It remains to be seen whether there will be enough universal interest in the fate of Schleswig-Holstein to attract audiences outside Denmark and Germany.

DR’s next search for a hit should definitely go down well in the UK.

It’s called Follow the Money and it will investigate financial scandals in the City of London – which should be like shooting herring in a barrel.