Increased investment across 2026 comes amid strategy to expand scripted production revenues

Ghosts Australia

Ghosts was produced for Australia’s Network 10 and Paramount+

BBC Studios will ramp up its development spending this year as part of a strategy to rapidly expand its scripted originals slate, with label acquisitions on the cards in Europe.

BBCS has been reshaping its strategy over the past 12 months with distribution and content sales being combined under the purview of Zai Bennett, BBCS Productions chief exec and chief creative officer.

The company is now looking to expand its scripted originals and Broadcast International understands the organisation will increase its development spend by more than 25% on 2025 to drive the slate.

Matt Forede

Matt Forde

BBCS, which this week unveiled a pair of greenlights in Germany, is also looking to increase revenues from scripted from 15% at present to 25%, with international productions a key focus.

“We think there’s a real opportunity to grow our revenues up to that 25% mark, which is quite a lot,” BBCS’s president of Global Productions, Matt Forde, told Broadcast International here at Series Mania in Lille.

“How much more than that figure depends on the market, but provided we can make a sound rationale for why a show can generate a commercial return or open up opportunity with great talent, we will put the money in.”

Forde pointed to shows including recent greenlight Breakers, which is being produced in Western Australia for Netflix by BBCS-owned Clerkenwell Films, as an example of a show that can deliver cost-efficient returns compared with series produced in the US.

Forde said BBCS Productions Australia, along with its 2024 acquisition Werner Film Productions, highlighted how BBCS is looking to grow, with Aussie shows such as Return to Paradise, the remake of Ghosts and SBS’s upcoming Guilt (known locally as Reckless) on the Aussie slate.

“That’s why the strategy works,” Forde continued, adding that another show is in the works with a “big piece of talent”, with details under wraps.

BBCS’ Bennett said earlier this year that label acquisition in Europe was a priority, adding that the company looks “underweight” in EMEA, and Forde said Italy was a country of particular interest.

“We are certainly looking to invest more,” he added, with the company also looking to expand its reach in the Benelux and Poland.

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