Based on recent events, the next step for gargantuan OTT actors, like Netflix and Amazon, to conquer even larger market shares seems to be locally produced content. The trend of streaming giants producing local content is certainly gaining momentum. Netflix’ first Italian original production, Suburra, premieres today (October 6^th). The series is produced by Cattleya, the same company that created Gomorrah, which premieres its third season later this fall on HBO Nordic.

Furthermore, having recently announced Nordic original Störst av allt (Quicksand), Netflix is clearly making strides in Europe. But the trend is catching on closer to its US home turf too. Netflix has struck a deal with a Canadian organization to spend $500 million on local programming over a five-year period and set up a Canadian production company, aptly called Netflix Canada. According to Mediavision, approximately half of all upcoming Netflix original productions (as of September 2017) are local productions, i.e. produced outside of the U.S.

Amazon also walks along the path of “glocalization”, just having announced its first UK original drama production called Fearless. Fearless is a legal conspiracy thriller starring Helen McCrory and Michael Gambon produced by Mammoth Screen.

In other news, the top 3 social media platforms among Nordic users; Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, have all launched new functionalities. Snapchat continues to add to their AR offer with an integrated art viewing functionality. Instagram releases clickable ads in posts, facilitating sales of clothing, for instance, seen in pictures on Instagram. Facebook announced they will hire 1,000 new people to review ads, in an attempt to make it more difficult for advertisers and organizations to manipulate Facebook’s ad platform. This news came shortly after Facebook disclosed that fake Russian-backed accounts purchased about $150,000 of political ads between 2015 and 2017, a lot of which was aimed at influencing voters in the 2016 US presidential election.

For more information contact Sixten Ekström, Communicator at Mediavision.