2.1 Location in the Research Field of “Quality TV”

The notion of “quality TV” is highly controversial—in parts of the German television industry, as several interviews showed, and in media studies. Critical reflections on, for example, the elitist and inevitably judgemental tendencies or the small, often seemingly arbitrary corpus of so-called quality TV (e.g. Dasgupta 2012) can be highly productive: these voices may prevent us from unquestioningly adopting this US-origin term when analysing German or European TV drama. Why, then, does this book refer to the controversial term “quality TV”, which is also now somewhat outdated (in referring primarily to a past era of US television). First of all, because of its “realpolitik” relevance: the discourse on quality TV drama had, and still has, quite a strong presence in the German television industry. This is evidenced by, for example, the titles of the talks I observed at various industry workshops: “Quality TV as a European co-production” (Blumenberg 2018), “Everywhere quality TV?” (Eschke 2018) and “German quality TV drama in pay TV” (Jastfelder 2018b). Furthermore, quality TV—that is, “high-end television [or] premium TV series production” (Szczepanik 2021, 14)—is an important field for today’s television industry in Germany and Europe. The negotiations on quality TV also have had an impact on screenwriting, as practitioners seek ways to increase aesthetic value specifically in the script development phase. In the context of this book, “quality TV” is also fruitful because this term is equally discussed in media studies. It thus reveals interfaces between the television industry and academia that are especially rare in the German context. My study aims at investigating these interfaces, making them productive and promoting further exchange between the two sides.

This book also looks to build on the concept of quality TV—as it can hardly be totally banished from television studies, even if some scholars (e.g. Borsos 2017, 20) have called for that. The motif of quality has historically and continues to play a major role in discussions of television—for example, when television was first differentiated from other individual media (Einzelmedien) such as film, which usually had higher cultural prestige (see Weber 2019, 231). More generally, the issue of quality characterises today’s society, which (at least in the Western context) clamours for uniqueness and “singular goods” (Reckwitz 2020, 148).

2.1.1 Television and Quality

From its beginnings, television found itself in a constant process of legitimisation (e.g. Newman and Levine 2012, 4). Debates about a “better” television, as echoed in the industry discourse on German quality drama analysed here, have thus taken place at different times, in various contexts and with diverse emphases (for example, in relation to individual programmes or broader programme structures and developments; see e.g. Gould 2002). In the context of current society’s “creativity dispositif” (Reckwitz 2017, 9), issues of quality have gained further importance. In some cases, the television industry itself has initiated these discussions, such as when seeking to improve the image of television or when certain TV channels wanted to distinguish themselves from competitors (e.g. Lentz 2000). Often programmes other than fictional series have been foregrounded; now, with the more recent debate on quality TV drama, these other types of programmes have been lost from view.

For a long time, the television series was considered low value—especially in Germany. Amid the influential television theories of the Frankfurt School in the 1950s, several scholars started emphasising its repetitive and uniform character in a negative light. According to Theodor W. Adorno (2009, first 1953, 68), it is precisely the formulaicness of productions of the “culture industry” that reinforces viewers’ conformism and thereby consolidates the status quo under capitalism. Against this backdrop, many academics saw television, and particularly TV series, as predominantly a commercial and mass cultural phenomenon, and therefore as a necessarily trivial form (see Engell 2012, 14).

Cultural studies, originated by British Marxist academics in the 1960s and gradually widely received in German-speaking media and communication studies, led to other perspectives on television, entertainment and seriality. For example, one central assumption of the Frankfurt School’s critical theories—that politics can be found in fiction and entertainment (see Knilli 1968, 7–8)—is represented in the later television and media theories of cultural studies. However, these cultural studies theories refrain from simple manipulation theories that attribute great power and a uniform character to mass media. Following Stuart Hall’s (2006, first 1973) influential “encoding/decoding” model and the reception studies that followed it, television viewers themselves came into greater focus. These theories and studies positioned them, at least to a certain extent, as active participants who ultimately “create” the meaning of the television text (see e.g. Johnson 1996, 97). In view of different readings and appropriation processes, scholars considered rash ideological and also qualitative classifications of television programmes to be increasingly questionable.

In discussions of quality TV, however, this problematisation of quality judgement is often not reflected. Furthermore, the term and its adaptation in German-language media studies more recently have been accompanied by yet another paradigm shift in the analysis of television. My work takes up this change in a critical way.

2.1.2 Quality TV

The quality TV drama has had increasing presence in German-language media studies from the late 2000s onwards, and many have hailed it as an aesthetic reinvention of television fiction and its narrative styles (see Schlicker 2016, 15). Television studies have also transformed, and, as a result of all this, the subject of television has become ennobled. But, as Herbert Schwaab (2010, 137) has critically commented, the research on quality TV tends “to deny television as television” (my translation) by placing such drama in the realm of the older and more “respectable” medium of film (e.g. Kinder 2008, 51) or the bourgeois novel (e.g. McGrath 2000) while separating it from “ordinary” television. “Quality TV is best defined by what it is not. It is not ‘regular’ TV”, states Robert J. Thompson (1996, 13) in the foreword to his anthology Television’s Second Golden Age, a text that anchored “quality TV” in the academic debate in the mid-1990s (see Schlütz 2016, 55). Thompson’s criteria for quality TV (drama) also include:

  • “a quality pedigree”; such shows are made by “artists”, who receive much greater creative freedom than is typical in television production;

  • a focus on viewers defined as academic, “well-educated, [and] urban-dwelling”;

  • low ratings and the related struggle against broadcasters and mainstream, “nonappreciative audiences”;

  • a large ensemble of characters and, linked to this, multiple perspectives and plots;

  • memorable diegetic worlds;

  • linked divergent genre elements;

  • high self-reflexivity;

  • controversial, taboo subject matter;

  • an aspiration towards “realism”;

  • critical acclaim and awards; and

  • a “literary” narrative style; here, “the writing is usually more complex than in other types of programming” (1996, 13–16).

The last point makes clear that Thompson’s criteria also touch upon writing and storytelling. Several academic works on quality TV have built on Thompson’s classification (e.g. Blanchet 2011). In the German television industry, too, practitioners sometimes refer to this concept to negotiate quality drama (e.g. Eschke 2018). However, Stefan Borsos (2017, 8) criticises the German-language literature for its often uncritical, ahistorical adoption of categories that neglect the region’s specific cultural context. Behind an enthusiasm for experimentation and complexity (e.g. Rothemund 2013), the economic background and origins of quality TV are often forgotten. Thompson’s criteria at least indicate economic conditions, through the mention of “an audience with blue chip demographics” (1996, 14). In the US television industry, the term “quality TV” initially referred—as early as the 1980s—to programmes for a small target group considered to be of “higher quality” primarily for economic reasons. The advertising industry was prepared to pay higher prices to address this affluent audience, which was generally more difficult to reach on television (Feuer 2007, 147).

Writing 12 years before Thompson, Jane Feuer, Paul Kerr and Tise Vahimagi contributed significantly to the migration of the quality TV concept from industry and journalistic discussions to academia with their anthology MTM: Quality Television. They use the term primarily as an evaluative judgement or aesthetic description but also to grasp the changed framework conditions in US television: “conditions which make ‘quality’ profitable” (1984, ix). Quality TV is thus related to an increased diversity of programmes, and thus target groups, that became apparent in US television beginning in the 1980s. In this respect, “quality” was above all a category of viewers, and as such related to the industry’s economically determined hierarchical structure—which we both should view critically and cannot ignore.

As discussed, my book extends the research on quality TV through the perspective of media industry studies, and I view quality TV less in terms of particularly “good” programmes (i.e. programmes deemed valuable in terms of aesthetic or content) and more as an industry discourse. The study’s particular focus is television fiction in Germany, which is in a current state of transition, and not contemporary US drama since the 1980s.

2.1.3 German and Public-Service Contexts

By concentrating on Germany, I do not intend to revive the anti-American stance that permeated former West German debates on US television shows (see Hallenberger 1990, 39–40). It is inarguable that many influential TV dramas, rich in both aesthetic and theme, of the present and recent past originate in the US. However, an evident US-centricity, including in recent German-language research on television series (e.g. Schlütz 2016), tends to naturalise and universalise quality and evaluation criteria specifically applicable to US productions. This puts alternative television cultures and traditions at risk of being forgotten. In the particular context analysed by this book, issues of television and quality have long been intensively negotiated—well before the German “quality TV” hype began in the 2010s (see e.g. Bolik and Schanze 1997). As such, the present study takes into account such traditions and specific frameworks in Germany.

A decisive difference between German and US quality TV—which most quality TV research touches upon—is, obviously, that public broadcasters play a central role in Germany but not in the US. To this day, they contribute to “auteur” and arthouse productions often regarded as quality (especially ZDF with its department Das kleine Fernsehspiel [The Little Television Play]) and remain by far the most important commissioners for fictional productions in Germany (see Castendyk and Goldhammer 2018, 35–36). For the analysed industry discourse on German quality TV drama, this tendency is relevant in two main respects. Firstly, public-service broadcasters are crucial actors in television as well as a primary object of debate regarding how to enforce quality in German TV drama. Secondly, certain conceptualisations of quality traditionally have been linked to public-service broadcasting: repeatedly, quality served to justify public broadcasters’ existence and was seen as something to be communicated to the audience (see Williams 1968, 131). Over time, however, such a conception of viewers and quality has come to be seen as elitist and paternalistic and thus outdated and problematic (Bennett 2016, 133–134).

As early as the 1980s, the public-service concept of “audience-as-public” (Ang 1991, 29)—describing a national society that must be united, informed and educated—came under pressure in Germany due to popular US series imports, which filled the apparent gap in a market that was less audience- and entertainment-oriented (Hoskins and Mirus 1988, 508), and also in the face of the introduction of advertising-financed private television. The alternative configuration “audience-as-market” (Ang 1991, 29) now became formative and, with it, a long-running focus on quantity. Not long ago, all commissioners of TV series in Germany aimed at reaching a target audience that was as large as possible (Sydow and Windeler 2004b, 6). Similar to the US market, which once focused on maximising the audience and mainstream compatibility (Hoskins and Mirus 1988, 505–07), the German industry’s changing approach to the quality drama reflects a shift towards target-group-specific narrowcasting (Parsons 2003) and, later on, greater personalisation through online platforms (Holt and Perren 2019, 33), albeit under decisively different conditions: Germany’s television landscape is obviously much smaller than the US’s and more strongly characterised by public-service broadcasters. Ideally, public-service content should reach all citizens and not just a specific, economically attractive target group.

Another differing parameter, which the practitioners frequently brought up in their negotiations on German quality TV drama, is the continuing importance of the television film in Germany, especially in public-service fiction. Hybrid forms of the TV film also exist, such as loosely serialised 90-minute procedural programmes (Reihen), which receive more detailed attention in Chapter 4, surveying the television landscape in Germany and its production areas. The very successful Tatort/Crime Scene (ARD/ORF/SF, 1970–) is the best-known example of such individual films united by recurring characters (teams of investigators) and shared opening credits, but which are usually helmed by different directors and scriptwriters (see Hißnauer et al. 2014b). By involving ever-changing creatives, Tatort is also open to experiments in the popular sphere and can therefore be considered a long-standing German expression of quality TV (as producer Leibfried [2016] suggested).

Linked to audience and programme orientations, another prominent aspect of the discourse on quality TV drama is distribution. Supposedly valuable productions stand out as “events”, in contrast to daily, weekly and other more regular television. At the same time, especially in the case of fictional series, the current expansion of channels and platforms and the increase in online distribution in particular are coming to light. So-called binge watching—a practice strongly co-constructed and promoted by the industry—is in turn related to “quality”, as a certain valence and claimed difference to “conventional television” legitimises such concentrated reception of a series: “[I]f viewers stand to earn valued cultural capital, it is socially acceptable to binge, rather than watch several hours of scheduled television”, notes Mareike Jenner (2017, 305).

The quality drama thus also functions in Germany as an “agent of media change” (Beil et al. 2012, 197, my translation), in terms of programmes, distribution and audience orientation. My examination of local television’s transformations follows on from work that has considered quality TV as a particular historical development in television fiction (e.g. Logan 2016, 145). However, I try to avoid the tendency in much research on quality TV to assume too much about the central paradigm shift and a chronological progression while neglecting the heterogeneity of television. Particularly in public-service fiction from Germany, contradictory, parallel processes are visible alongside the rise in quality TV projects. We should not forget them. My study further counters potential problems of the “quality TV” approach by not ignoring the valuation stemming from this term. Instead, it explores a discourse of value contained to a specific context.

2.2 Quality TV Drama as a Discourse on Values and the Industry

“Quality TV (drama)” is a genre label unlike any other: it is automatically accompanied by valence and normativity (see Cardwell 2007). In this context, it needs a negative counterpart. The devaluation and appreciation of popular television—that is to say, its perception as trash or art—are simultaneously present and condition each other, states Brigitte Frizzoni (2014, 340). Seen from this angle, the idea of “quality TV drama” is closely linked to “distinction”. If we follow Pierre Bourdieu’s examination of questions of taste and class differences (2010, first 1979) as well as the heterogeneous cultural studies with their broad concept of culture (e.g. During 1993, 10), then we can say that aesthetic evaluations and demarcations are historically variable and integrated into broader social hierarchies. The TV practitioners’ judgements explored in this book are also related to sociocultural affiliations. The relevance of structural and institutional factors, in addition to subjective ones, has already been pointed out by Charlotte Brunsdon (1990), in her influential paper “Problems with Quality”. She accentuates the contexts of taste formation: “Quality for whom?, Judgement by whom?, On whose behalf?” (73).

2.2.1 Which Quality and Whose?

Not only can people with diverse interests, sociocultural position and backgrounds be differentiated, so too can the objects of evaluation. While the academic discourse on “quality TV” has mainly revolved around serial television fiction from the US, other focal points and yardsticks are conceivable. Take, for instance, discussions on the “public value” of public-service broadcasting, in which news in particular has been attributed great social significance (Mayer 2013, 81–82; 99–102). Given public-service broadcasting’s important role in the context of Germany, such questions of value to the public also shape the debate on quality drama, which is more aesthetic than political.

Overall, the assignment of value is a relational and dynamic process. Quality results neither solely nor conclusively from an object but only from the interplay between offer and recipient, as Christoph Neuberger (2011, 28) summarises. The practitioners researched in the following are part of such an interplay. They evaluate programmes at their genesis (including during screenwriting) and, in addition, are consumers. My study takes up Brunsdon’s important interjection “Quality for whom?” (1990, 73) by focusing on the specific context of the television and film industry in Germany and the professionals who work in it.

2.2.2 Quality Judgements in the Television Industry

Brunsdon emphasises “[p]rofessional codes and practices” (1990, 77) as an elementary discursive framework in which television quality is negotiated. First, as already discussed, the industry produces “quality” in order to distinguish itself from competing products and earlier “ordinary” television. Moreover, quality judgements take place in the production processes themselves, as Sibylle Bolik (1997, 16) emphasised in her analysis of television-specific media valuation research many years ago: quality is negotiated and constructed in permanent, discursive production practices.

For researchers of TV series, listening to practitioners can be enriching, as it puts focus on further facets and criteria of quality and on embedded evaluations in production contexts. “If we are seriously interested in how television works and how cultural and the other values are arrived at, these are voices that need to be heard”, contends Máire Messenger Davies (2007, 172). These voices include “producers (whether writers, directors, editors, sound, music, costume, [or] makeup artists)”. When it comes to these different trades and production phases, the diversity and potential discord of quality judgements becomes visible, for in these varying contexts, different standards for “quality” may apply.

While academic discussions on quality TV share an overall focus on narration and scriptwriting, other areas, such as post-production, also can determine quality. That notions of quality are related to production techniques and their transformations is clear from John Thornton Caldwell’s reflections on “televisuality” as an “industrial product” (1995, 7). As technology and production methods changed in the US television of the 1980s—Caldwell’s object of study—so too did its aesthetic. Similarly, Janet McCabe and Kim Akass (2007a, 8) hold that, when it comes to serial quality TV, innovations in production techniques made visual effects possible that previously were achievable only in Hollywood films. Likewise, technical changes in viewers’ environments—with upgraded widescreen plasma and HD televisions and top-of-the-line sound systems—in turn resulted in demand for programmes with corresponding technical improvements. However, for practitioners, such quality demands from the audience or from the production process can mean immense pressure. When commissioners, viewers or production members want something that seems almost impossible to finance, quality becomes an economic challenge.

Television series from Germany are, obviously, created under economic restrictions. Accordingly, financial resources were a common subject in the examined industry discourse. On the one hand, the budget often functions as a decisive criterion for “top production quality drama series” (Hoskins and Mirus 1988, 502). On the other hand, what McCabe and Akass (2007a, 6) state is also true: “quality is ultimately censored by economic pragmatism, industrial trends and financial constraints”. Artistic-cultural aspects often exist in tension with economic ones—as is evident, for example, in the film and media funding of Germany’s various federal states and its consideration of “local effects” (i.e. economic benefits for certain regions and their media industries) alongside or instead of artistic success (see Hammett-Jamart 2018, 249). At the same time, German film and media funding’s increasing stake in TV drama production points to the economic relevance of supposed “quality” status, as such status can be a condition for securing subsidies. In 2020, for example, the federal government’s 50 million euro deficit fund—meant to compensate for production losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic—only went to films with a cinema release and “high-quality series” (“hochwertig[e] Serien”, Niemeier 2020c), without the latter being precisely defined.

Quality and economy are further intertwined because the reputation resulting from prizes, nominations and reviews can determine the remuneration of those involved in the production. In terms of payment as well as media funding, attempts to measure and reward artistic quality are multiple. Such remuneration practices also aim to address the tendency for production companies and their staff to hold little economic interest in the quality or success of a series, given that full broadcaster financing remains the dominant scenario in Germany (see Fröhlich 2007, 43). The “achievement model” (“Leistungsmodell”) of ARD, for example, aims to evaluate and accumulate “special qualitative achievements on behalf of public television, which are reflected in outstanding and prestigious awards and nominations of a production as well as in the number of broadcasts” (ARD 2019, 17, my translation). Producers earn points not only through linear broadcasting on channels that belong to or are co-organised by an ARD network (Arte, 3sat) but also through festival prizes and other nominations deemed relevant.

The importance of symbolic capital (Bourdieu 2010, first 1979)—which includes prestigious awards, at least within the industry (Szczepanik 2018, 159)—is particularly high in quality TV drama. After all, it is precisely in this programme segment that linear broadcasting and associated remuneration practices are losing importance, while other criteria are (once again) becoming more important. Additionally, some signs are emerging, in both the European and to some extent German quality TV drama segment, that financing methods are converging with those of independent cinema,1 for which festival funding has traditionally played an important role.

Long before any awards are handed out or festival, television or subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) distribution takes place, quality judgements begin with the early selection processes for TV programmes. In purchasing, programme planning, concept and script selection and the screenwriting process, different practitioners and departments appraise content, each with different agency. Eva Novrup Redvall attributes the power of selection especially to producing and commissioning broadcasters, who decide “which ideas should be given the opportunity to move from pitch to production” (2013, 28).

Both in this selection process and the screenwriting that follows, existing television and film texts can be central forces that shape TV professionals’ ideas of quality. Incorporating initial findings from the interviews and participant observations, the following subchapter describes the analysed practitioners’ perspectives on transnational quality TV and its features. It explores what the industry representatives understood “quality TV” to mean and what content-related and aesthetic properties they attributed to it.

2.3 Concepts and Attributions: Quality TV Drama from the Practitioners’ Perspective

The scriptwriter Martin Rauhaus (2016) praised HBO productions, which at the time were repeatedly cited as quality TV, as “sensationally well written, made and acted” and compared them to “Swiss watches”. “One asks oneself, why should I buy German or Bulgarian watches?” Like Rauhaus, who came up with the concept for the German quality drama attempt Die Stadt und die Macht/The City and the Power (ARD/NDR/Degeto, 2016), many of the other interviewed and observed TV professionals discussed the content and form of foreign transnational quality TV dramas, including their aesthetic and narrative styles. Practitioners’ examination of these quality series and their textual characteristics veered into the glocal, since they were concerned with both national and transnational aspects.

2.3.1 The Quality Drama as a Transnational Discourse

Transnationality knows territorial boundaries. The TV creators referred exclusively to US series and (significantly less frequently) to Western European productions alongside German ones. In this context, the high regard for US dramas (as exemplified in Rauhaus’s earlier statement and also visible in many German-language analyses on quality TV drama) was striking. This enthusiasm for US series differs significantly from the anti-American resentments of the past. “US series were regarded exclusively as prime examples of the trivial and the ideological”, said Dietrich Leder (2015, my translation) in summarising the prevailing views found in German academia and feature pages during the heyday of Dallas (US 1978–91, CBS) and Dynasty (1981–89, ABC), both well-known prime-time soaps that had great success in West Germany in the 1980s. However, already back then some West German television producers were using “Americanisation” as a synonym for professionalisation in TV fiction (Hallenberger 1990, 40).

In the analysed discourse, TV professionals frequently relativised the idealistic notions of US series, arguing that only the cream of the crop makes it to Germany. When it comes to transnational streaming services, however, this diagnosis hardly seems to apply: the quantity or “inflation of series” (interview with von Borries 2019) available on these platforms counters the “top selection” argument. Additionally, the historical situation whereby a US series had to first run successfully on US television before potentially being broadcast abroad is often no longer the case thanks to synchronous distribution in different territories. The presence of US-dominated streaming companies in the German market means that German productions compete even more intensely and directly with foreign productions than they did in the past. In addition, practitioners can acquaint themselves with the products of other markets more comprehensively, more quickly and with fewer barriers.

In this context, television professionals are obviously also viewers, as they frequently emphasised and reflected on themselves. On several occasions, they considered engaging with other TV series and films to be an important part of their work. At industry talks, for example, producers cited “must-see” series and pointed out that younger writers are more influenced by high-end dramas from the US. The commissioning editor Liane Jessen (2019) argued in an interview that “you need to know what else is out there in the world to flavour your own product”.

The TV professionals also discussed foreign series’ perceived production conditions and compared these with the situation in the German TV industry.2 In respect to both production conditions and narrative styles, many considered the US television industry to be more progressive. Jörg Winger (2017), producer and writer of Deutschland 83/86/89 (RTL/Amazon Prime Video, 2015–20) and Sam—Ein Sachse / Sam—A Saxon (Disney+, 2023), for example, spoke of a “more mature television market that is a few steps ahead of us”. However, it is above all Danish series from the 2010s that Winger regarded as significant for the German industry, as they come from a small, non-English-speaking country with limited budgets: “Then suddenly you no longer had the excuse that these series come from another planet”.

Alongside US series, Scandinavian and especially Danish productions formed a central reference point in the practitioners’ transnational discourse on quality drama. With the focus on Danish drama, as well as in other respects, their negotiations overlapped with those found in newspaper feature pages and other television criticism. Journalists have repeatedly contrasted “smart Scandinavian television” (as exemplified in the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel by Diez and Hüetlin 2013, 133, my translation) with Germany’s supposedly stodgy and dated TV drama.

2.3.2 The Quality Drama as a Public Discourse

Generally, public media discourse on quality TV shaped the practitioners’ debates. Especially in the 2010s, the feature and media pages of Germany’s leading newspapers examined quality TV drama through a focus on storytelling and aesthetic. In the interviews, I myself introduced this public discourse by asking whether journalists’ complaints about the lack of German quality TV series were justified. While several interviewees agreed in principle with this diagnosis in the transnational context, UFA managing director Joachim Kosack (2019) had a harsh verdict on German TV critics: the journalists, he complained, often compare “apples to oranges” and are rarely aware of the different facets of German television fiction. However, Anja Käumle (2015), at the time head of corporate communications and marketing at UFA, pointed to how the PR strategy for Deutschland 83 took up the TV critics’ lamentations about the lack of German quality TV. Problem-centred debates in the feature pages can thus be constructively integrated into marketing campaigns.

In any case, the practitioners did not seem to be completely indifferent to the television critics. The media’s quality judgements can even serve as an important evaluation criterion (alongside others such as audience ratings and viewing figures) and thus as a “currency” of sorts. Anke Greifeneder (2017), vice president of original productions at WarnerMedia, pointed to aspirations of “critical acclaim” from both the industry as well as the media for the German productions of WarnerTV Serie and WarnerTV Comedy (formerly TNT Serie and TNT Comedy). Harald Steinwender (in the interview with Simionescu and Steinwender 2018), editor at BR—Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting), rated the humorous and locally tinged provincial political drama Hindafing (ARD/BR/Arte, 2017–19) a success because of positive reviews, including its categorisation as quality TV, despite disappointing viewer numbers in the linear broadcast. He additionally addressed the fact that public broadcasters collect and distribute television criticism to their teams and spoke of “internal distinction”. Within the complex federal structure of the ARD network, there seems to be competition between different local broadcasters (e.g. BR) and their editorial departments. According to Steinwender (in Simionescu and Steinwender 2018), the public-service backdrop also plays an important role: as a result of using public licence fees, “one wants to offer quality”. Furthermore, according to him, “an element of feedback” runs from the newspaper reviews to TV and film festival juries, on which critics often sit: “So you know what is being positively discussed there, and that is definitely reflected in the prizes”. Steinwender’s finding corresponds to the argument that film and television journalists are ultimately to be understood as part of the media industries (Waade, Redvall and Jensen 2020, 12) and underscores that discourses on quality TV drama within the industry and in the public media overlap. Similar to arguments in newspaper feature pages and in media studies, certain works repeatedly came to the fore when the practitioners explored the content and form of quality TV.

2.3.3 Quality TV Prototypes

In the TV professionals’ negotiations, certain US series took on the role of prototypes, in the sense of works repeatedly identified as “classics” of the genre and thereby conventionalised (Schweinitz 1994, 111). The television practitioners frequently referred to The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007), The Wire (HBO, 2002–08), Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008–13) and Mad Men (AMC, 2007–15) when exploring the supposed beginnings of quality TV drama and their personal enthusiasm for it. A European “best practice” example they often named and whose narrative they explored was the Danish political drama Borgen (DR1, 2010–13; Netflix/DR, 2022). More recent productions also represented central reference works, especially when their release coincided with the interviews and observations conducted for this study, such as the British police thriller Bodyguard (BBC One, 2018) at the turn of 2018–19. The practitioners’ quality TV canon thus continually expanded, through, among other things, Danish and British productions and based on trends perceived in the industry as well as the TV professionals’ individual reception.

2.3.4 Serial Storylines

An ingredient repeatedly attributed to quality dramas in the industry discourse, similar to in academia and the feature pages, were serial storylines across episodes or even seasons. In the eyes of the analysed practitioners, such ongoing dramatic continuity enables a broad, multifaceted narration, or a “lavish economy”. This feature, according to the screenwriter Bernd Lange (2018), does not exist in the same way in individual films. Mixed forms of ongoing and episodic narration, of series and serial, which Robin Nelson calls “flexi-narrative” (2007, 48), sometimes were forgotten in this enthusiasm for serial storylines. However, some practitioners (e.g. Kraus 2018) precisely pointed out these sorts of hybrids, which also reveal themselves through closer dramaturgical analysis of many well-known quality TV prototypes, such as Breaking Bad.

Episodic plotlines in series can be justified by distribution methods, as is well-known. Television broadcasters in Germany, often still oriented to linear distribution, have for years preferred the “monster of the week” structure in TV series, above the daily or weekly soap opera. Why? Procedurals with a strong focus on the respective case story enables flexible programming and reception—even broadcasting out of order. In the face of commissioners’ preference for procedurals, creatives until recently had to search for ways to integrate serial storylines into the script or “to weave them into the story”, as Winger (2017) put it regarding his earlier work on SOKO Leipzig/Leipzig Homicide (ZDF, 2001–).

In view of new commissioners and digital distribution forms that enable flexible reception, the industry has become considerably more open to serials with ongoing dramatic continuity across several episodes in the course of the period studied (2015–23). Writers often described serial storylines and the shift towards them as appealing. Against the background of his own series’ reception, screenwriter Richard Kropf, together with his co-writers Hanno Hackfort and Bob Konrad (2018), noted a wide narrative range: with cross-episode story arcs, it’s possible to establish images that the viewers cannot classify at first and that only make sense later. It’s also possible to convey aspects of the characters’ past and to “open up something new and trust that it will fit into the narrative flow”. Kropf’s statement parallels academic findings that quality TV dramas have a “memory” (Thompson 1996) and experiment with narrative time (e.g. Kelleter 2014, 20). Kropf’s words make one think in particular of the “complex narration” that Jason Mittell attributes to “complex TV” (2015) with its “ongoing stories across a range of genres” (2006, 32).

According to scriptwriter Annette Hess (2019), talk of complex narration has also circulated in the German television industry for the past several years. From her point of view, however, this notion is problematic because much of what is categorised as “complex” is ultimately badly told: “You can’t really get to any character, no subject has really been taken seriously and then they say it’s ‘complex’, or the viewer is too stupid. That kind of thing, I can’t stand that at all”. At this point, Hess brought the audience into play. Viewers presumably become more active when it comes to ongoing, “complex” narratives. They must weave different parts together and cannot complete the story after only one episode (Mittell 2006, 32). However, the audience also poses a challenge in this context. How many and which viewers will engage with a complex narrative across episodes, and when and for how long? In the discussion of serial storylines as a key aspect of quality drama, the practitioners repeatedly touched on the difficulty of reaching a larger audience. Here, they also repeatedly negotiated distribution. The TV professionals often considered linear broadcasting as the wrong, or at least a difficult, framework for dramas with strong serial story arcs. Creatives also complained about established German broadcasters’ long-standing scepticism towards serial storylines and their frequent assumption that such dramas do not work in Germany. Meanwhile, Hauke Bartel (2017), then head of fiction at the commercial broadcaster Vox (part of the RTL Group), argued in an industry lecture that dramaturgy must understand what linear television requires: serial plotlines across episodes that are as “low threshold” as possible and primarily confined to the level of characters.

2.3.5 Character Development

Again and again, the practitioners connected cross-episodic serial storylines with character development. Lange (2018), for example, distinguished serial dramaturgy from single film dramaturgy in this way: while the latter stays close to the main character and their life world and conflicts, serials generally narrate more broadly—through a larger arsenal of characters and by opening up the “temporal framework”.

Practitioners repeatedly emphasised the ambivalent nature of protagonists when it comes to cross-episode character development. For example, Bartel (2018) stated that many US cable productions “à la Breaking Bad” are strongly “concerned with illuminating the darkest elements of being human”, through “the long way down of a character”. Bernhard Gleim (2016), former commissioning editor at NDR – Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Northern German Broadcasting, a member of the ARD consortium), also attributed to Breaking Bad a “brokenness, ambivalence, contradictoriness of characters” that does not exist at such an intensity in German television fiction. Hess (2019) contrasted “profound” and “multi-layered” characters with the, in her view, problematic attribute of “complexity”, citing as an example of the former the character Dunja Hausmann, the dissident singer and civil rights activist in the drama Weissensee/The Weissensee Saga (ARD/MDR/Degeto, 2010–18), for which Hess was largely responsible: “This was totally important to me, that she is an asshole as a mother”. With such a focus on ambivalence, the studied professionals’ quality TV attributions once again resemble those found in the feature pages and media studies, where complex and nuanced characters have been noted and associated with novels (e.g. Ritzer 2011, 20–21). However, Claudia Simionescu (in Simionescu and Steinwender 2018), the head of TV films at BR, made it clear in a dialogue with her fellow editor Harald Steinwender that creatives have “always” striven for multi-layered characters.

Hess (2019) doubted to some extent the fundamental connection between character sketching and series dramaturgy that is often claimed: serial storylines obviously offer more time “to build up characters and then turn them around”. But even in a classic “monster of the week” crime procedural, it is, according to Hess, possible “to have multi-layered characters or not”. With regard to multiple perspectives through different characters and their storylines, she accentuated the dramaturgical challenge of making sure “it doesn’t fall apart”. According to this line of argument, a quality drama is not only characterised by multiple perspectives and plots, a notion that Thompson (1996, 13–16) already included in his well-known quality TV criteria; rather, these strands must also be meaningfully combined. In this respect, the practitioners’ negotiations also touched upon questions of craft and skill in dramaturgy and screenwriting.

In addition to multi-perspective and serial narration as well as multi-layered character development, the other well-known ingredients of quality TV that practitioners often highlighted were authenticity, realism and greater edginess.

2.3.6 Authenticity and Edginess

“Pay TV is characterised by being more explicit, […] in the depiction of sex or violence, in language”, said Frank Jastfelder (2018a), director of original drama productions at Sky Deutschland, in regard to the area of pay TV that he represents, which is considered decisive in recent historiographies of quality TV from the US. The pay cable channel HBO, in particular, is said to have deliberately used sex and swearing to set itself apart from other programme providers (McCabe and Akass 2007b, 63). However, most higher-budgeted fictional productions from German broadcasters, especially the public-service ones, aim for an age rating of 12 and above so as to qualify for prime-time linear broadcast slots, between 8 and 10 p.m. (in accordance with German media regulations). But in this respect, too, Germany’s TV series landscape is in flux. More drastic depictions of violence and sexuality can be seen in “high-end” prime-time productions such as the gangster drama 4 Blocks (TNT Serie, 2017–19) and the thriller Parfum/Perfume (ZDFneo/Netflix, 2018–), which have higher age ratings. The aim, now, is often not to reach the largest possible cross-generational audience, including young people and even children, but to hit specific target groups.

This shift in audience orientation also concerns authenticity and realism, which several practitioners identified as further important characteristics of quality drama in terms of content and form and often associated with edginess. Smaller, narrower audiences (another important aspect in their attributions of quality series) make more specific narratives possible—for example, in terms of authenticity. Several interviewees mentioned dialogue in particular, pointing to difficult-to-understand expert jargon that refrains from explaining everything as well as locally inflected language. Steinwender (in Simionescu and Steinwender 2018), for example, highlighted the “Baltimore vernacular” in The Wire and “the nastiest Southern drawl” in True Detective (HBO, 2014–19), adding that such linguistic specifics were “a bit of a niche thing after all”.

Like Steinwender’s reference to the niche, the practitioners did not stop at content and form but also discussed reception and production when exploring the quality TV drama. “In the meantime, viewers are spread out over series that appeal very, very specifically to their personal interests”, Winger (2017) summarised the landscape in 2017. Editors at public broadcasters, however, described their differentiated framework conditions and the pressure “to not only address individual groups” (Steinwender in Simionescu and Steinwender 2018). With the dramas of the Danish public broadcaster DR, the interviewed and observed practitioners also brought up quality dramas that, at least in their nation of origin, are intended to reach the widest possible audience in an established prime-time slot, on Sunday night.

Unsurprisingly and influenced by their own interests, the TV professionals associated quality series with a comparatively high budget, which is reflected in meticulous research and the resulting authenticity as well as in a striking visuality—the “special look”, in the words of commissioning editor Johanna Kraus (2018). “Quality, of course, means money”, pointed out the writer Hess (2019) and, in keeping with her profession, emphasised script development in particular. More financial resources allow for “a longer development of concepts and stories”, but money often flows more into “visuals, settings, casting […], that is visual appeal (Schauwert)”. Hess’s statement implies that a costly “glossy” look is not enough and that often the script behind it lacks substance. With perhaps a similar impetus, director and screenwriter Achim von Borries (2019), one of the key creatives behind Babylon Berlin (ARD/Degeto/Sky Deutschland, 2017–), distinguished between television with a high production value and “real” quality television. According to him, the latter does not have to be “expensive at all” but is characterised by a “courageous and special” approach.

When it came to aesthetic, authenticity and the means of production, practitioners repeatedly identified deficits in German television fiction. Certain German series functioned in their negotiations as negative, almost “trashy” foils, which the classification “quality” generally requires, establishing its meaning through contrast (see Frizzoni 2014). Hess (2019), for example, called the medical procedural In aller Freundschaft/In All Friendship (1998–, ARD/MDR), for which she herself once wrote, a “commercial series” and spoke elsewhere of the “conventional […] dignified, old German television”. Kraus (2018), head of the fiction department at MDR—Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central German Broadcasting, another member of the ARD network), discussed long-standing formats of the Tuesday night prime-time slot on ARD’s national channel Das Erste (The First), such as the procedural Um Himmels Willen/For Heaven’s Sake (ARD/MDR, 2002–21), as “standard series, more conventional, solid, well told” but lacking the “exceptional” aspect that distinguishes quality from ordinary TV. Thompson’s well-known quality TV postulate—“It is not ‘regular’ TV” (1996, 13)—returns here, adapted to German TV drama.

In addition to existing TV series and films, individual TV professionals are an important aspect in the practitioners’ notions of quality and can function as another selection criterion (see Redvall 2013, 30). Alongside scripts and drafts for broadcasters and already available works, practitioners evaluate actors and institutions and their combination in individual “project networks” (Sydow and Windeler 2001) and “screen idea work groups” (Macdonald 2010). The following chapter outlines these two network models as the central starting points for the production study and, following on from this, explains the study’s methodological approaches.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Chapter 5 takes a closer look at producers’ negotiations on financing quality TV drama.

  2. 2.

    Chapter 8 deals with the practitioners’ discourse on screenwriting and production cultures in greater detail.