Skam Italia canceled. TimVision in crisis?

After retiring from the project of The brilliant genius, the platform decides not to renew the Italian remake of the Norwegian series. Speak Ludovico Bessegato, director, showrunner and creator of Skam Italia

On July 9, Rai presented its autumn program to the press, and among the TV series offer one of the most important titles is certainly "The brilliant friend - History of the new surname". This year, however, there was a novelty. The credits included Rai Fiction, Hbo and Wildside, the producing company. But the name of TimVision was missing, which until last year not only collaborated on the financing of "The brilliant friend", but also distributed it exclusively. There were no notes or official announcements. Tim's platform has simply disappeared from the producers of "The genial friend".

More or less during the same period, other voices have begun to follow one another: TimVision changes its objectives; will no longer produce only series and films (one of the last, "Bangla", produced together with Domenico Procacci's Fandango, won the 14th edition of Bimbi Belli and the Nastro d'Argento for the best comedy); but pure entertainment aquashow.

There was also talk of other projects, like a series of the collective The Pills. But even that, for now, is still: disappeared into thin air. The same acquisitions of international securities have stalled. The great successes, like "The Handmaid's Tale", have been reconfirmed. But there were no new announcements.

In short, TimVision is changing skin. And this is a fact. We tried to contact the company for a comment. The email sent to us reads: «With the recent agreement, Sky Tim has strengthened its content platform and confirmed the validity of TimVision's new industrial strategy, which aims to offer high quality digital entertainment for all families . Thanks to the partnerships signed with the most important players in the sector, TimVision is the main aggregator of contents in Italy, being able to offer TV series, films, entertainment, news and all the main national and international sporting events. With the quality of the ultra-broadband network and all the possibilities related to 5G, Tim is able to offer every possible content anywhere and at any time. The convergence between content, voice, fixed and mobile places the company as the industry leader ».

Everything, it seems, began with the arrival, last year, of Luca Josi who took over the Brand Strategy Media & Multimedia Entertainment and the responsibility of TimVision. Before him, there was always Annamaria Morelli: manager of TimVision Production, the woman who allowed the realization of the greatest successes of Tim's platform, which was able to focus on a precise target (the youngest, the teenagers), and that he had found, contrary to what was perceived by the company, a third way compared to those undertaken by Netflix and Sky. Thanks to her, with "L 'genial friend", TimVision - an Italian streaming platform - had gone to the Venice International Film Festival.

Since last Friday, Annamaria Morelli no longer works in TimVision. She resigned. And now the doubts accumulate. Above all, they accumulate after the news that "Skam Italia", the most successful series of TimVision, also reported by foreign newspapers such as BuzzFeed, trend topic anywhere in the world, appreciated and followed abroad, has been canceled.

"Monday - tells us Ludovico Bessegato, creator, director, co-writer and supporter of the Italian remake of" Skam "- we understood that even the last hope we were holding on to being able to shoot the fourth season of" Skam Italia "was nuanced. We had to become aware of the fact that we will not continue this series any more ".

The reason, says Bessegato, is not clear. "I don't know the exact reason, really. I'm the director and showrunner of the series. I only know that a paradoxical decision, given the success that the series has had this year ». "Skam Italia" has won many awards, including those for the best series at the first edition of Series Con and at the Diversity Media Awards, and a recognition from the Giffoni Film Festival. "And as visualizations, successes and positive criticisms increased, our broadcaster, TimVision, remained silent and the fourth season, in the end, was never confirmed."

Bessegato says he started working on it at the beginning of the year, around January 2, "immediately after delivering the last episodes of the second season and supervising the filming of the third." The series, he explains, was going very well: «The second season had doubled the numbers of the first, and even the third had achieved excellent results. We thought that the renewal was just a formality ». Since the fourth season of "Skam Italia" should have focused on the character of Sana, a second-generation Muslim girl played by Beatrice Bruschi, Bessegato began working with the Italian Islamic community and read up: "I started a very nice journey to write these new episodes. But as we prepared for the writing of the new season and the casting of new characters, we realized that things in TimVision started to change ".

And they have changed because of the arrival of the new management, and for the new balances that have thus been created within the company. «The internal interlocutors that we have always had, Annamaria Morelli first of all, and the communication staff with whom we have always worked very well did not have the same autonomy in the decisions. The first thing we noticed was that the new management was going to change the distribution formula of "Skam Italia" ».

The series has always been distributed in a certain way, with a clip a day, loaded at a certain time, according to the timeline of the story, and the whole episode at the weekend. Both of these contents were available in plain text. With the new formula, TimVision has decided not to reload more clips and episodes on the official website; the official site, in turn, has been closed, and all the contents have become accessible only upon payment of the subscription to TimVision.

For the publication of the social content of the characters, one of the most original and loved features of the format, there was no longer a responsible editorial staff. "We tried to have a meeting to discuss these strategy changes, and it was the first time we found ourselves in the same room with the new management team. I tried to explain the importance of updating social profiles in "Skam Italia" but in the end the only way to save them from deletion was to offer to publish these photos and videos in person, directly from my smartphone. The only thing I managed to achieve was the creation of an Instagram page, where the chats of the characters that were previously uploaded to the site were loaded ".

"We tried to explain that these changes in the distribution of" Skam Italia ", without adequate communication, with windows that would still allow the public to see the series in the clear, would have been lived very badly by our fans," continues Bessegato. "But it is also true that TimVision, as a broadcaster, had all the rights to proceed as it did. And for us the problem was never the choice they made. But the ways in which this choice was communicated ».

But when were the first doubts about renewing "Skam Italia" born? "In April, TimVision did not exercise the option it had, and which expired in the middle of the month, to make the fourth season. They asked for a waiver, and Cross Productions granted it. We were then told that they were no longer in a position to produce a new season of "Skam Italia" - which, I remember, is not a high-cost series - and that they were looking for partners. At this point, we also set about looking for other broadcasters and other realities. And it was not difficult to find them given the success of "Skam Italia" ».

The player who was approached, says Bessegato, is a very important international streaming platform. It does not tell us the name, since no agreement has been concluded. But it is clear that this is an absolute protagonist of the world market. "This platform was very interested and made an important offer to TimVision to acquire the previous seasons of" Skam Italia ". In the end, however, no agreement was found ".

What was it that TimVision wanted? "I think he wanted to give up the three seasons only if the new player agreed to co-produce the fourth season together, sharing its distribution as well. But it is something that has not been evaluated strategically by the other player ». After all, why spend money to buy a product if you don't have the exclusive exploitation? "The negotiation lasted until yesterday, but beyond the distance between what was offered and what was required the approaching deadline to start shooting forced the new player to withdraw his offer. It almost seems that on the one hand TimVision did not want to proceed with "Skam Italia" and that on the other it did not want to let someone else do it. He was looking for a middle ground, which was not found ».

This, says Bessegato, is a definite no to "Skam Italia". "Because of the characteristic of the series, which is shot in real time. This year, 2019/2020, would have been the last year of the high school of the protagonists. Turning it now, in October, was the last chance to stay in this timing ".

During the first half of 2019, however, the works went ahead and all the costs were covered by Cross Productions, co-producer of "Skam Italia". "They paid me to do research in the Muslim community, write and work in season four, and paid a first casting for this series. However, we are happy to have spent money, because they have allowed us to discover an Italy that has never been told. " And to work this season, Ludovico Bessegato - like many others on the "Skam" team - had to refuse any offer. Even rather important proposals, he says. "I wanted to finish this series. And I owed it to the actors, I owed it to Beatrice Bruschi, who would have been the protagonist of the fourth season and who deserved to have her space; I owed it to the many Muslims who opened with me and who were now looking forward to being told in a sincere and out of stereotype way. And I owed it to the fans, of course ».

"Now that I know it won't be done anymore, I have to enter the order of ideas of having to work on something else," he explains; and his voice, in saying it, becomes dirty with bitterness. «I am convinced that the work we have done has demonstrated our abilities. There are still so many stories that deserve to be told. I need a moment to recover from this blow. From September back to writing. Even with this "virtual" mourning on him ".

In the end, Bessegato says, what remains is sorrow. "And there are three things that hurt me more in this story. The first was to disappoint our fans, who are many and who loved us and pushed us in a way that I had never seen before on Italian television, and who deserved to see the conclusion of "Skam Italia". The second was to have said three times to Beatrice Bruschi that this season would be done, and then it was not made. It was particularly difficult and painful. But besides her, all the cast boys, after the news of the cancellation, called me in tears. They are fantastic people, who really loved this project. The third disappointment is a disappointment towards the system ". Or? "That a series does not go on is part of the game. The absurd thing, however, is not being able to find a way to go on when a series goes well, it has the fans, the listenings, the prizes and the favorable press. You lose confidence in the Italy system. In the rest of the world "Skam" goes on. And in our country, with one of the most appreciated remakes, with one of the most famous international series, we stop. And we don't even know why. "

It is not clear if TimVision is in crisis; probably this is just a drastic change in strategy, and a different awareness of the content to be offered and the public subscriber. The fact remains, however, that one of the most interesting realities that have appeared on the Italian scene, that have succeeded before and better than others to say something - to tell the very young, and to tell them without prejudice - seems to be back on its feet. Years and years back.

TimVision had the opportunity to establish itself, to build a concrete and tangible alternative to competition. And instead, today, everything seems to be at a standstill. And the cancellation of "Skam Italia" is not just bad news for those who worked on it and for the fans, and for the producers. But also, however extreme it may sound, for the entire industry. "Skam" was a unicum, an example; excellence. And, as Bessegato emphasizes, he demonstrated the inability of the Italian system to protect its talents.

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