After a production boom in recent years that had some industry insiders fretting about an unsustainable glut of content, the Serbian TV biz appears to be headed for a course correction, with local producers and commissioners pointing toward a shift in emphasis from quantity to quality.
“Over the past decade, the Serbian TV industry has experienced a significant expansion — particularly in the volume of series produced,” says George Makris, programming director at production and distribution heavyweight United Media.
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“What we’re seeing now is a notable shift: the overall pace of production has slowed somewhat, but the bar for quality is rising,” he adds. “There’s a more curated mindset at play — fewer projects, yes, but more thoughtfully developed and better positioned to travel beyond national borders.”
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With the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbia emerged as the region’s dominant political, economic and cultural force, making it the de facto powerhouse for film and television production in the Balkans.
In recent years, the industry has witnessed staggering growth, thanks in large part to competition among rivals United Media, public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia and telecommunications giant Telekom Srbija, which singlehandedly produced more than 200 titles in the past six years.
That, in turn, has reshaped the TV industry. “Two years ago, we had new production companies and new producers growing like mushrooms,” says Snežana van Houwelingen, of leading Belgrade-based production outfit This and That Productions. “Everybody became a producer overnight. It was really not a natural situation. There were more TV shows than audience [to support them].”
Buoyed by several international breakout hits, however, the industry is now scaling back, with Marina Garović, the head of content sales at Telekom Srbija, noting that her company, which is Serbia’s biggest commissioner, is shifting its focus toward “high-quality, internationally relevant projects.”
“Over the past few years, we’ve built a strong catalog of films and series, and our current priority is quality and global reach rather than quantity,” she says.
Foreign buyers have certainly been circling the Serbian market, drawn to what United Media’s Makris characterizes as drama that is “regional at its roots, but with the kind of scope and craft that speaks to a global audience.” Among the broadcasters and streaming platforms coming on board are HBO Max, Channel 4’s Walter Presents, Globo TV and Amazon Prime Video, a partner on the Serbian-Spanish crime drama “Scar,” an ambitious co-production between Canal Plus, RTL Hungary, Spanish broadcaster TVE, Prime Video and Telekom Srbija.
What those buyers are witnessing is the evolution of an industry that is becoming part of the global conversation — but doing it on its own terms.
“What we’re seeing is not just a fleeting curiosity about Serbian drama, but a genuine appetite for stories from this part of the world — stories that offer a different emotional cadence and cultural lens,” says Makris, citing United Media’s “Time of Death,” adapted from a novel by Dobrica Ćosić, as an example of a “bold piece of storytelling rooted in Serbian history” that shows how local creators are striking a balance “between the intimate and the universal.”
“What’s crucial is that these stories are no longer being shaped to imitate global trends,” he adds. “Instead, they are confidently expressing their own identity. And that confidence is starting to be recognized.”
While Serbia is yet to produce its own “Squid Game” or “Money Heist” — bar-raising series that can singlehandedly define a country’s TV industry and turbocharge production — it’s certainly reaching new heights. Last year, “Operation Sabre,” a buzzy crime thriller produced by This and That Productions and Agitprop for Radio Television of Serbia, premiered in competition at Canneseries — an industry first — and will be the first Serbian drama to compete for Best Foreign TV Series at the Shanghai TV Festival.
“With ‘Operation Sabre,’ we really managed to reach a much wider net of broadcasters, distributors and countries than we ever did before — and certainly than Serbian television ever did before,” says Goran Stanković, who created and directed the series alongside Vladimir Tagić. Veronika Kovacova, EVP of international sales and acquisitions at Beta Film, which has sold “Operation Sabre” to HBO for CEE, SBS Australia and Filmin for Spain and Portugal, notes how the show, which centers on the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, offers a “powerful example of how a local narrative can carry a strong global appeal.”
“I believe Serbia’s greatest strength today lies in its rich history and the many untold stories from the region,” Kovacova says. “The TV industry here — and across the Balkans — is progressively growing, with an increasing number of strong scripts and exciting ideas emerging from local creatives. And I see that the international industry has started to notice how many exciting stories are coming out of this part of the world.”
There’s more to come, with hopes high for upcoming series including “Constantine’s Crossing,” a supernatural WWII thriller produced by Telekom Srbija and Firefly Productions and repped by Mediawan Rights, and “Pink Panther,” an ambitious co-production between United Media and the U.K.’s MetFilm that will be released as both a docuseries and scripted drama.
The challenge now for Serbian creators is “standing out in an increasingly crowded global content landscape,” says Aleksandra Martinović, director of the multimedia division at Telekom Srbija. “There is a lot of great television being produced everywhere — and getting visibility on major platforms is no small task.”
“We’re not trying to mimic what’s already been done elsewhere — we’re trying to offer something distinct,” adds Makris. “The challenge is to convince global players that there’s value in that distinctiveness — and to consistently deliver work that proves it.”
