Banijay’s Steve Matthews on Why Spanish Content Is “Bold,” “Naughty” and Just Getting Started

Steve Matthews is attending the fifth edition of Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid this week to bring a taste of superindie Banijay Entertainment, the France-headquartered international content production and distribution giant behind such hits as Survivor, Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders, MasterChef andBig Brother, to the gathering for Spanish- and Portuguese-language content producers and other attendees.

Hired in early 2023 as content partnerships executive in the company’s central scripted department, the former executive of Octagon Films in Dublin and consulting producer on all three seasons of Showtime’sThe Borgias was promoted to the role of head of scripted, creative — partnered with Johannes Jensen as head of scripted, business — in January.

In a Tuesday “Spotlight: Banijay” session, Matthews and Pilar Blasco, CEO of Banijay Iberia, will share insight into their content strategy and collaborations across markets.

Ahead of his Iberseries appearance, Matthews talked to THR about the appeal of Spanish-language content, its “operatic” quality, Banijay’s Spanish hits and what’s next.

Spanish-language content has, in recent years, shown such broad appeal around the world. How does it fit into Banijay’s scripted strategy?

At Banijay, we’re doing 1,000 hours across 60 labels as the biggest scripted producer in Europe. I have this helicopter analogy, which still prevails. There are now more people in the helicopter, and we’re a little bit tighter and a little bit more disciplined on what the helicopter is there to do. But the helicopter flies to a production banner, and we open the door and ask if they need anything. If they do, we try to help. If they don’t, we go on to the next banner.

So, to stick with this metaphor, we go across the labels, we open the door, we look down, and we say: “Hi, guys. Do you need some help with a tax incentive? Do you need some help getting that agent in New York to call you back about that book? Do you need me to help you set up a writer’s room? Do you need help to get that French format?

Banijay has made a very big thing out of lots of little things. So the game and strategy is all about maintaining the ability of the production companies to work in their markets, tell the stories that they’re specialists in, maintain their creative identities, and not get in the way too much, but help and connect if we can. It’s about [managing] the whole scale of it.

English-language content has certain advantages. The U.K. remains our biggest territory, but Spain and Italy are close behind.

There are four primary scripted companies that we have in Spain. There’s Pokeepsie Films, founded by [director, screenwriter and producer] Álex de la Iglesia, who I love, having already done 30 Coins with him. He makes big, bold, theatrical stuff. We also have Diagonal TV, which has done great premium stuff, such as The Patients of Dr. García. There’s Dlo [Producciones], which produces brilliant genre content, such as [Netflix series] The Gardener. And there is the lovely Portcabo up in Galicia, which is doing unpretentious, excellent, well-crafted crime stuff. So, our Spanish production businesses are not a homogeneous thing. It’s not just one thing, and I think that’s how it’s kind of endured.

What do you see as the drivers behind the global success of Spanish content in recent years?

For the rise of Spain over the last 10 years, distribution comes in. A third of the world speaks Spanish. So there’s an automatic advantage there for Spanish content. Also, in Spain, the regulatory environment is great, there is an excellent tax systems. All of these are conducive to encouraging the excellent storytelling in Spain.

It’s a pretentious thing to say, but I think any movement in art usually has elements of finance or technology. However, I think it’s never just that. There’s also been a burst of storytelling that’s come out of Spain. When I first started in Spain in 2016, I was reading scripts and saying to a colleague, “These scripts, they don’t have any subtext. And he said: “You don’t understand, Steve, we don’t have subtext.” And I said, “Oh, I see, you write in a different way.” There’s no ”set it up really slowly and hold back the motivations.” At the start of a Spanish story, you just go. You go to the front of the stage and sing.

It’s not like Tony Soprano where you wonder: “Is he happy or is he sad?” There’s something operatic in Spanish storytelling. And I think that’s something that has fit these times — of people wanting something a little bit less pretentious, a little bit brash. There’s an operatic storytelling that just fits the time.

That may explain why I have noticed friends getting fully drawn in and really caring about characters in more and more Spanish dramas. One recently mentioned that years ago they used to watch a Spanish show only here and there for the sun and fun and, I hate to say it, the pretty people. I wonder if more opportunities to watch such content has allowed a fan base to go deeper and look beyond the surface?

Yes, you can go beyond Spain to Mexico and Latin America and the telenovela. I have watched some of the shows from our colleagues in Brazil. With the telenovela, it’s wrong to think of it as bright and colorful, just pretty people, and that’s the only reason you watch. It does have all of those things, but it’s also got a joyful operatic story. Otherwise, you wouldn’t sit and watch 40 episodes of it.

So, pretty people and sunshine are a superficial symptom of something much deeper. I love working with these guys. They are great and have this boldness as well. As things were already slowing down and a bubble was about to burst heading into the run-up to 2020, I was working with Alex, and these scripts were coming through. Reading them, I was like: “We can’t do this, can we?” And you know, you’re in a good place when you’re reading a script, thinking that, and they are letting us do this. There’s a confidence there. And there’s a naughtiness about them as well, which I think is good.

Since we just mentioned Latin America, and co-productions have been one key topic at Iberseries & Platino Industry, are there co-productions between Banijay production banners in Spain and Latin America in the works?

Over the last two to three years, co-production is very much back on the table, and you find it’s the Swedes, the Dutch, the Central Europeans. It’s the smaller companies and markets that have a kind of memory for what it was like before the streaming boom, because they have to as there isn’t enough money like in the bigger territories, which sometimes stay a little bit more within themselves.

However, that’s one of the things that we’re building. Are there a lot of developments between Spain and Europe and Latin America? No, not as many as I would like to see. But equally, it’s a mistake to assume that they are the exact same countries just because they share a language. Because their Spanish is actually different, and Brazil is, of course, Portuguese, so it’s a completely different language, a completely different thing. So you can make a kind of lazy assumption. But it’s not quite as simple as that. And that’s the game for us. It’s really about how much to push in, how much to encourage? How much glue should there be between the whole thing to get the balance correct?

What are some of the Spanish Banijay shows you can highlight?

The big one really is the third in the Culpa trilogy, which comes out [on Prime] soon from Pokeepsie. So that’s been for us, a really good example of a new [hit] from a company known for horror and psychological thrillers. I think the success comes from how they have worked with the same kind of theatricality. That is why they have been so successful. So that’s the big one coming up.

We’re also very happy with an important show for us, even though it’s relatively small compared to the scale of the stuff from Pokeepsie. Weiss & Morales is made by Portocabo. It is a cop show that we’re proud of because it’s a pure, old-fashioned, two-territory co-production with ZDF in Germany and RTVE in Spain. It’s a German cop and a Spanish cop investigating crimes. Again, it’s unpretentious, and there’s a lot of business entrepreneurialism there as well.

And Dlo has [psychological thriller series] La Caza, which has traveled to France and had remakes.

You know what I love about Spain? It’s not stuck. They do their book adaptations, but also more. Diagonal did Dr. García and those literary and historical things, but then did The Gardener, a cracking little contemporary psychological thriller with all this kind of Hitchcockian vibe to it, a big show on Netflix.

And there’s more coming from all those guys.

Beyond your on-stage appearance, any other big plans for Iberseries and Madrid?

They have asked me to meet with some young writers. I always meet with young writers and really read their pitches, so I’ll do some of those sessions. I take opportunities to be on the road, and I use those very much for face time with the labels. We’re very spread out, so the more we get to know each other, the better.

We do lots of panels and talks and discussions and pitches and showcases, but we also all get together and say, “Hey, you’ve got a thriller. Have you met the guys from the Nordics? These guys have got a great idea.” There are two projects in development right now between territories, which came entirely out of that. So I take any opportunity to go and see them and ask: “What do you need? What are you working on? Can I help you with that?”