The Politics of Transnational TV Production: Interdependent Relations and the Power of the Local

Television production conglomerates, such as Endemol Shine Group, are increasingly organized as transnational networks. Consisting out of an international (distribution) office and multiple production companies, they operate simultaneously on a global and local level. Within these networks, collaboration and synergy is encouraged and facilitated through the international exchange of content, information and knowledge. However, we do not know much about the beliefs, values and routines that guide the internal network relationships. How do network structures and management processes affect the activities and priorities of local production companies that operate within global conglomerates? We will level this research question at three TV production groups and their Dutch and Belgian subsidiaries, combining a critical media industry studies approach with insights from economic geography and (media) management studies. Based on industry documents and interviews with international and local managers, the relationships, collaborations and tensions between the global and the local level are analysed. Results show that strategic objectives of efficiency and synergy are pursued through centralized network coordination and control. However, because this collides with local characteristics of TV production as well as with beliefs around (managing) creativity, industry members on both levels emphasise subsidiaries’ autonomy and the decentral operation of the network. The localness of content development and the essential close connections with broadcasters, form arguments for flexibility and decentralisation - giving subsidiaries the autonomy and trust to manage local activities. Simultaneously, conglomerates’ objectives of generating and exploiting intellectual property internationally, imply interferences in subsidiaries’ activities, such as directing R&D processes or ‘pushing content down into the network’. Because of the interdependency between group and subsidiary, tensions between them are carefully managed. We argue that transnational interdependencies have an impact on priorities and practices in TV production. Hence, transnationalisation not only implies integration but also negotiation between global and local actors and objectives.