Capital (UK):

• commissioned and originally broadcast by the BBC which gives the series brand identity internationally – particularly through its
subsidiaries BBC America and BBC Worldwide
• Kudos, the independent producer of the series, specialises in TV
series which can be sold or remade for the US market, making it
typical of contemporary media institutions which operate globally rather than nationally
• Freemantle (international production and distribution company), Pivot TV (US) and BBC Worldwide all in deals to distribute the series globally
• promoted in the UK as a ‘state of the nation’ event series
• themes and setting are also constructed to appeal to an international audience: setting includes recognizable London iconography, familiar to an international audience from film and TV. Themes span the domestic and global – family melodrama, romance as well as reference to the economic crash, terrorism and migration
• the series combines the national style of social realism with the
generic conventions of the crime drama and the focus on a crime to be solved
• multi-cultural, multinational cast of characters address an international audience with diverse cultural experiences.

Deutschland 83 (Germany):

• distributed by Freemantle, a British production and distribution
company, subsidiary of RTL media, a global company which is
designed to target an international audience
• it is a co-production of AMC Networks, SundanceTV (US) and RTL Television (German and American), positioning it to exploit the national and global market
• AMC and RTL were able to develop the series in the context of new opportunities for distribution and exhibition – e.g. the Walter Presents platform in the UK, which is a subsidiary of C4, exploiting broadcast and digital opportunities
• focuses on German – and European – history and politics
• the cast of relative unknowns – even in the country of production – were still used to promote the series through the focus on young, visually appealing male and female leads
• themes and setting are constructed to appeal to an international
audience through the familiar narrative tropes of an ‘innocent abroad’ and the “Romeo and Juliet” romance. The series is visually stylish using a familiar postmodern style which exploits the current popularity of retro styles in fashion and music
• exploitation of social media; part of the Sundance TV marketing
strategy was the use of historical sliders, live tweeting of the
programme by the actress who played the lead character, playlists of 1980s music linked to Spotify and through Twitter account.