Netflix Canada eyes UK blueprint to deliver local hits

Netflix in Canada is looking to the UK as the blueprint for growing its international reputation after the string of hits that have emerged from the market, its content chiefs have said. 

Adolescence, Baby Reindeer and One Day were all held up by Danielle Woodrow, director of content at Netflix Canada, as prime illustrations of the streaming behemoth’s strategy for becoming the global content leader. 

“The UK [scripted] team has had an extraordinary year,” Woodrow told delegates at Netflix Spotlight Session on day one of the Banff World Media Festival yesterday (8 June). “They really focused on working with the best-in-class writers and looking for the shows they thought audiences were hungry for and were saying something really interesting.  

“They had a number of shows that played on international Netflix and really leaned into local specificity and great storytelling. We feel Canada is poised to do the same if we can find and tell great stories the audiences want to watch.” 

Woodrow’s local team has its own link to the UK with Mae Martin’s upcoming thriller Wayward (fka Tall Pines), which is co-produced by Objective Fiction, the same producer that was behind Martin’s Channel 4/Netflix series Feel Good. 

The exec has been building up a slate since she relocated to Toronto to spearhead Netflix’s push into Can Con. The principally scripted-focused local team recently launched its debut series North of North, and Woodrow emphasised how local content strategies are the launchpads for global success. 

“The best way to ensure an international hit at Netflix here is to have a big [focus] on a Canadian audience. In every local office we focus on quality and local specificity,” she added. “That seems to be the only…predictor of a show that might become an international hit.  

“Every so often we’ll get projects that are trying to game the system, trying to make something international, and [they] kind of feel like [they’re for no-one].” 

Canadian clamour for ‘conceptual IP’ 

Woodrow, who was joined on stage by fellow content director Tara Woodbury, also offered a strategy to counter the dominance of IP-led projects, which she noted the market would “never lose its obsession with”.  

“I want to give a shoutout to the power of ‘conceptual IP’, I’m obsessed with it. Think about [topics such as] ‘working mums’ or ‘alpha dads’. This is an idea where you’ve shortcut the audience to understand what they’re coming for: worlds that are relatable. People come to a show and get excited about it without knowing what it’s about.” 

She cited Netflix’s upcoming Newfoundland-set series from The Umbrella Academy scribe Jesse McKeown, which is based on local lore and specificity, describing it as “an homage to a ‘creature feature’” but “you know what it is as soon as you hear about it…that does a lot of work for us in terms of getting audience in”. 

Woodbury added: “For a while, we would pitch ourselves conceptual IP [ideas], trying to find this conceptual IP, it was a game among our team.”