International sales of French TV shows topped €203M (U.S.225M) in 2023, but were down 5.3% with buyers more reluctant to splash the cash than in the previous year. The sales downturn comes after a bumper 2022, which made year-on-year comparisons tough, and the total still marks only the third time that French program exports have topped €200M.
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Unveiling the French TV export figures at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous event in Le Havre, the CNC’s Cécile Lacoue said the topline figure reflected the impact of both global and industry events. “There was a challenging market in 2023,” she said. “There were difficult economic conditions with widespread inflation and many changes among the buyers, downsizing, and the restructuring of major corporations such as Warner Bros. Discovery.”
Sales of French shows to the U.S. dropped across most genres and there was a sharp fall in revenue from global SVOD deals, which generated €15.6M, a whopping 43.1% decrease on the previous year. France still has the biggest share of any European country in terms of the volume of non-English-language series on streamers globally, accounting for 2.2% of the total.
Drama remained the top-earning genre in terms of French TV exports, accounting for sales of €74.5m in 2023. That makes 2023 the second-best year ever in revenue terms, but still down 7.7% year-on-year. Lacoue highlighted the success of French procedurals, which are doing good business internationally.
Docs were another other key genre in the 2023. Sales hit €47.2 million, a 3% decrease on 2022. Delving into the sales numbers, the CNC said docs focused on current events and hybrid projects combining genres, such as science and history, fared particularly well.
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France is renowned for animation and it remains the second biggest seller by genre, accounting for over a quarter of all sales, which were, however, down 11.2% at €51.2M. There was a notably dramatic fall in animation sales to North America of 69.7%.
By territory, Belgium was the top buyer of French programming with the UK in second and Germany & Austria third. The U.S. was in the top three in 2022 but dropped to fifth.
Lacoue said the figures were respectable seen in the context of a tough year and market conditions and a stellar 2022. Drama and docs the main drivers and a downward trend in animation sales continuing she added.
Asked by Deadline about the fall in sales to the U.S., the CNC official noted a drop in the number of big-ticket deals in the drama category and reduced acquisition budgets as consolidation took hold.
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