10.13130/2036-461X/16388
Alongside the enduring interest in capitals, location strategies in European crime series production have showcased an increased attention towards stories from and topographies of peripheral, distant and rural locations. We define and discuss this transcultural and transnational trend through the concepts of peripheral locations and double marginality, in the sense that these locations are usually distant from both production hubs and the symbolic centres of the nations, thus providing a fresh, sought-after visual identity to new crime series.
Combining representational studies with a production studies perspective on Italian and Danish PSB crime dramas, including a media systemic exploration, we analyse the particular location strategies in a range of profiled series broadcasted by Rai in Italy and TV 2 in Denmark. In the end, we compare these strategies and reconfigure the notion of peripheral locations in the view of the analyses, while lifting the perspective to European level, thus showing how the tendency towards using peripheral locations in television dramas uncovers a new, European translocal sense of place and emphasize the role of TV series in forming a collective spatial imaginary of Europe.
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Translocal Spaces
Producing Peripheral Locations: Double Marginality in Italian and Danish Television Crime Narratives
Text.Serial.Journal
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Thematic issue / Section thématique
2021-11-17
2021-09-19
2021-11-17
2022-12-30
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Cinéma & Cie
Valentina Re
2021/11/17
10.13130/2036-461X/16388
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Translocal Spaces
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Producing Peripheral Locations: Double Marginality in Italian and Danish Television Crime Narratives
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                                                                                       Producing Peripheral Locations:
                                                                                       Double Marginality in Italian and
                                                                                       Danish Television Crime Narratives
                                                                                       Kim Toft Hansen, Aalborg University
                                                                                       Valentina Re, Link Campus University



                                                                                       Alongside the enduring interest in capitals, location strategies in European crime                           Keywords
                                                                                       series production have showcased an increased attention towards stories from and
                                                                                                                                                                                         Peripheral locations
                                                                                       topographies of peripheral, distant and rural locations. We define and discuss this
                                                                                       transcultural and transnational trend through the concepts of peripheral locations                 Production studies
                                                                                       and double marginality, in the sense that these locations are usually distant from                   Danish television
                                                                                       both production hubs and the symbolic centres of the nations, thus providing a                       Italian television
                                                                                       fresh, sought-after visual identity to new crime series.                                            Translocal spaces
                                                                                       Combining representational studies with a production studies perspective on
                                                                                                                                                                                                           DOI
                                                                                       Italian and Danish PSB crime dramas, including a media systemic exploration, we
                                                                                       analyse the particular location strategies in a range of profiled series broadcasted        10.13130/2036-461X/16388
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License




                                                                                       by Rai in Italy and TV 2 in Denmark. In the end, we compare these strategies and
                                                                                       reconfigure the notion of peripheral locations in the view of the analyses, while lifting
                                                                                       the perspective to European level, thus showing how the tendency towards using
                                                                                       peripheral locations in television dramas uncovers a new, European translocal
                                                                                       sense of place and emphasize the role of TV series in forming a collective spatial
                                                                                       imaginary of Europe.




                                                                                       INTRODUCTION1
                                                                                         For practical and historical reasons, location strategies in European
                                                                                       crime series production have catered to the capitals. Historically, the
                                                                                       crime genre has used the urban topography of big cities as a labyrinthine
                                                                                       backdrop for the dramatic events, while film and television production
                                                                                       hubs have found their natural production ecologies in and around central
                                                                                       urban areas. However, the place-bound nature of crime narratives has
                                                                                       also motivated local stories about crimes and investigation, a tendency that
                                                                                       has been reinforced by recent place-branding models in close interaction
                                                                                       with screen production. Alongside the enduring interest in European
                                                                                       capitals, there has been an increased interest in the stories from and
                                                                                       topographies of peripheral, distant and rural locations for crime series.
                                                                                       Internationally distributed titles, such as Hinterland (S4C, 2013-16), El
                                                                                       embarcadero (Moviestar+, 2019-20), La trêve (La Une/France 2, 2016-18),


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                                                                               
     Sorjonen (YLE, 2017-), Der Pass (Sky, 2018) and Wataha (HBO, 2014-), have
     in various ways used locations in the geographical national peripheries as
     an important ambience in the series. This article researches this tendency
     with a special, comparative focus on Italian and Danish crime dramas from
     the broadcasters Rai and TV 2, respectively.
       The two public service broadcasters (PSB) in focus in this article
     have not been compared in academic research before, since direct
     collaboration between broadcasters and production companies from
     the two countries is still missing. As we demonstrate below, though, the
     two media institutions share a number of similarities as corporations,
     which makes them interesting to relate academically. At the same time,
     crime dramas produced by or for the two broadcasters have moved
     towards peripheral locations in a significantly similar way. Since Italian-
     Danish television co-production or direct financial collaboration remains
     untested, a comparison of the location tendencies in crime dramas for
     the two broadcasters indicates a wider and consistent tendency in crime
     drama production in European television. Through a production studies
     perspective on Italian and Danish PSB crime dramas, including a media
     systemic exploration, this article provides insights into recent location
     strategies in contemporary European television production. Although
     the empirical material servicing the argument of the article comes from
     analyzing production, the overall argument remains aesthetic in the sense
     that the locative and cinematographic similarities between financially
     unassociated territories stress a tendency within television production
     cultures that reaches beyond creative co-production practices and direct
     financial collaboration (such as pre-buy and co-financing agreements).
     Relating Italy and Denmark launches an attention towards a transcultural
     aesthetic practice around choices of location and cinematographic and
     narrative treatment of places rather than maintaining direct transnational
     ties as indications of shared cultural sensibilities. In this sense, comparing
     Italy/Rai and Denmark/TV 2 serves as a metonymical argument for a
     larger, continental tendency towards utilizing peripheral, distant and rural
     locations in crime series and beyond.
       The core concept of the article is peripheral locations, i.e. the actual
     shooting location of a drama is placed in the geographical periphery
     of a nation state.2 The concept is developed from anthropology and
     ethnography of space,3 borders and liminality in geo-political television4
     and the combination of televised local colour, geography, tourism and
     policy studies.5 We identify the stylistic consequence of this transcultural
     trend in crime series as translocal spaces, i.e. a similar localization trend
     in European crime series. While locations are portrayed through vividly
     comparable stylistic qualities (city panoramas, landscape drone imagery,
     and locative place images), the exoticism and local colour of the places still
     mark the series as local productions. Peripheral locations, then, highlight
     a double marginality, i.e. production circumstances are influenced by the


58                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

geographical, physical distance, while such locations provide a fresh,
sought-after visual identity to new crime series. In this way, the tendency
towards using peripheral locations in television dramas indicates a
televisual Europe of regions associated with common, translocal place
imagery.



Defining Peripheral Locations
  With the rise of political interest in local media production and increased
regional funding for film and television, new research interests into
the circumstances, challenges and value of production in the national
peripheries document ‘how culture can foster economic development in
smaller regions’6 and ‘stimulate local employment.’7 Alongside, we have
seen a significant focus on locations as a focal point for such interests,
including the liminal character of the peripheries,8 coastal landscape
imagery,9 local identity constructions,10 and the relationship between the
national/regional success of a series and the region where it is set.11
  The notion of peripheral locations encompasses these perspectives,
but the concept also accentuates the consequences of the geographical
position of such locations. Such locations are often found far away from
both the regular production hubs (often situated in the capitals) and the
symbolic, ideological centres of the nations, producing a double marginality
in both a practical and a symbolic sense. For popular cultural imagination,
peripheral locations produce what Saunders refers to as liminal spaces with
a double geopolitical function as both ‘a barrier to movement as much as
gateway between these national spaces.’12 Placing narratives in peripheries
also motivates stories about such particular liminalities, including the
geopolitical concerns with borderlines, and, in crime narratives with
specific interest in legal thresholds, attention skews towards geographic

                                                                                Fig. 1: Translocal
                                                                                landscape imagery in
                                                                                four European television
                                                                                crime dramas: Frikjent
                                                                                (TV 2 Norway, 2015-),
                                                                                Ófærð (RÚV, 2017-
                                                                                ), Hinterland and
                                                                                Rocco Schiavone (Rai,
                                                                                2016-) shows visual
                                                                                similarities between
                                                                                otherwise unassociated
                                                                                productions.




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     liminality (the place) underscoring the conflictual juristic liminality of the
     stories (the crime). In other words, placing stories in peripheral locations
     tends to stimulate stories about being in the periphery, including what
     lies beyond borders (external liminality) as well as being away from the
     symbolic centre of the nation (internal liminality).
       From a production perspective, peripheral locations are often considered
     expensive and practically challenging. In production, locations away from
     production hubs are often referred to as distant locations, which in our case
     is a competing term, but the idea of distance does not emphasize the notion
     of peripherality. Producing outside central production hubs without studios
     or technical facilities challenges the ordinary production procedures, while
     moving creatives and equipment from the centre to the periphery costs
     extra. Creatives often, however, accentuate visual innovation through the
     aesthetics of locations rarely used in screen productions, indicating that
     producing in the peripheries provides an opportunity to establish a ‘fresh
     look’ in a television series. Nevertheless, producers also highlight that the
     local funding opportunities rarely fully compensate for the extra expenses
     in using non-traditional, peripheral locations. In other words, the rise of
     local co-funding makes up for some of the additional expenditure, but
     fiscal incentives are by no means the sole reason why we see an upsurge
     in peripheral locations in television drama. Explaining encounters with
     specific locations, creatives often refer to special embodied and emotional
     experiences of local colour, nature and local identity, highlighting the
     aesthetic opportunities often sought out in producing a television series at
     a peripheral location. Peripheral locations appear to produce a tripartite
     opportunity to institute a self-reinforcing relationship between new visuals,
     new narratives and new story-worlds. At the same time, however, it is
     striking how innovative aesthetics shares a number of stylistic similarities
     across cultures (the visual way that local places are treated appear very
     similar), creating a translocal imagination around the stylistic treatment of
     peripheral originality influenced by landscape painting, place photography,
     tourist marketing material, and places and landscapes in popular television
     (see image 1).
       Below, we introduce the broadcasters Rai and TV 2, and afterwards we
     analyse the particular location strategies in a range of profiled series
     broadcasted by these television institutions. In the end, we compare the
     strategies and reconfigure the notion of peripheral locations in the view
     of the analyses, while finally lifting the perspective to a transcultural,
     European level.




60                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

Media Systemic
Differences and Similarities
  There are a range of media systemic differences between Denmark and
Italy, starting from the obvious acknowledgement of the different sizes
of the respective TV markets.13 One significant difference is also that the
position of commercial television and media is stronger in the Italian
media landscape than in the Danish one. The profiled position of two all-
commercial broadcasters, i.e. Mediaset (commercial broadcaster) and
Sky Italy (pay tv service), shows a significant difference in relation to the
comparatively strong position of public service broadcasting in Denmark.
The Danish broadcasting system is dominated by the DR corporation, a
100% publicly financed public service provider, and the commercial public
service television broadcaster TV 2 as well as a range of all-commercial
players with a comparatively low share of viewers. These differences create
a stronger position of public service broadcasting in Denmark than in Italy
and a stronger direct commercial competition in Italy.14
  On one level, Rai in Italy and DR in Denmark compares well as they
are both multimedia services (including television, radio, online media
and publishing), and they share a long pre-television history within
radio broadcasting. Nevertheless, the high level of public funding for DR
establishes a different position giving them an opportunity to navigate
more freely and with no direct ties to such commercial activities that fund
approximately a third of the annual Rai budget. In its financial organization,
Rai has more similarities with TV 2 that — until 2003 — was funded by 50%
license fee and 50% advertising. Today, TV 2 receives no public funding, but
the intermediary position between public service remits and commercial
activities highlights similarities between Rai and TV 2 and creates the main
reason for comparing these two broadcasters in this article. As table 1
shows, Rai and TV 2 are both 100% state-owned, and while privatization
has been suggested in relation to both institutions, this has not yet been
successfully attempted. Both institutions have regional obligations with
administration and production facilities placed elsewhere than in the
capital, although much organization planning originates from the capital,
including a historic tendency to place TV series production in the capitals.
Nevertheless, the strategic placement of regional offices highlights the
regional attention given to the policy background of both broadcasters.
Altogether they have a comparable audience share and similar policy
motivations and internal interests in profiling different regions of each
country. One main difference, however, is that the reach and organization
of Rai is transnational, predominantly in the neighbouring countries, but
also as pay TV in other territories, including Denmark.


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                                                                                                          
TABLE 1:
Comparison of the institutions Rai and TV 2 in Italy and Denmark, respectively.

Comparison
Rai And Tv 2                  Rai                                       TV 2
OWNERSHIP                     100% state-owned                          100% state-owned


PUBLIC SERVICE REMIT          All activities                            TV 2 Denmark (main channel)


FINANCING                     Licence fee and advertising               Subscription and advertising

                              Commercial public service (all            Commercial public service (only
BROADCASTER CATEGORY          channels)                                 main channel) and commercial
                                                                        activities (the rest)


PRIVATISATION                 Suggested, but never attempted            Suggested, but never attempted


MAIN OFFICE                   Rome, Milan and Turin                     Odense and Copenhagen

                              Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin and         Odense and Copenhagen (only news
PRODUCTION FACILITIES         17 regional offices                       production) and 8 regional offices


CHANNEL SYSTEM                Multi-channel system                      Multi-channel system


STREAMING                     RaiPlay (BVoD)                            TV 2 Play (SVoD)


MAIN LINEAR CHANNEL           Appr. 17% (Rai 2020)                      Appr. 25% (TV 2 Denmark 2019)
AUDIENCE SHARE
OVERALL AUDIENCE SHARE        Appr. 36% (all channels 2020)             Appr. 40% (all channels 2019)

                              They only concern regional,               ‘TV 2 Denmark must offer a wide
LOCAL CONTRACTUAL             public information and linguistic         societal coverage of Denmark […] in
OBLIGATIONS                   minorities. References to the             the different parts of the country.’
                              diversification of locations are
                              included in Rai Fiction production
                              strategies Nessuno escluso.

                              Rai must ensure ‘complete and             ‘The range of programmes must
NATIONAL CONTRACTUAL          impartial information, as well as […]     strive towards quality, versatility
OBLIGATIONS                   encourage education, civil growth,        and diversity. […] In programme
                              progress and social cohesion,             activities, special attention towards
                              promote the Italian language,             Danish language and culture must
                              culture and creativity, safeguard the     be emphasized.’15
                              national identity and ensure socially
                              useful services.’

                              To promote and support Italian            None
INTERNATIONAL                 culture and Italian excellences
CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS       abroad.


FOUNDED                       1944 (as Rai)                             1988




62                                                                 Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

  Rai in the Italian Periphery
  The acronym RAI (Radio Audizioni Italiane) appeared in 1944 to replace
the previous EIAR (Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche), established
by the Fascist regime in 1927 with the radio broadcast monopoly license
for the Italian territory. From 1924 to 1927, EIAR was referred to as
URI (Unione Radiofonica Italiana). Upon the official launch of television
broadcast in 1954, the company once again reshaped the meaning of
Rai to Radiotelevisione Italiana, a term by which the PSB is still known
today. Currently financed by license fee and advertising revenues, Rai
has production centres in Rome, Turin, Milan and Naples and offers a
portfolio of 14 national free-to-air channels (generalist, semi-generalist
and special interest channels, 6 of them also distributed across Europe),
three international non-European channels, and two regional channels.
Since 2016 it has progressively strengthened its nonlinear offers through
the launch of the RaiPlay platform.
  Like many other European PSBs, Rai has obligations to deliver complete
and impartial information, promote education and social progress, and
stimulate Italian culture and creative industries. Among the obligations
deriving from being the exclusive concession holder of the Public Radio,
Television and Multimedia Service,16 two are particularly interesting in
the light of the objectives of this article. Firstly, Rai must reach the entire
national population and specifically guarantee public information at a
regional level too, including addressing and protecting linguistic minorities.
The national coverage happens through institutional presence in each
region with local seats and editorial offices, and through collaboration with
various cultural players in the territory. Secondly, Rai is obliged to support
the development of national audiovisual industries, including co-producing
with and supporting independent producers as well as stimulating the
Italian film industry.
  Through its production branch Rai Fiction (established in 1997), Rai has
become the leading player in television production. In the period 2017-19,
Rai offered no less than 74% of Italian serial content, compared to the 8%
by Mediaset (the main competitor and commercial broadcaster), the 7%
by Sky (the main pay TV service available in Italy), and the 6% by Netflix
(the dominant SVoD service).17 In the latest years, this leading position also
interrelates with an increasingly more dynamic and efficient collaboration
with independent production companies. Increasingly, ‘production
companies and broadcasters collaborate as a team on financing, creative
and production management, sharing risks and benefits,’ writes Luca
Barra.18 In relation to this, diversification of locations plays an important
role in Rai Fiction’s production strategies:




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                                                                               
              Rai Fiction wants to enhance the diversity of territories and
              territorial cultures, thus encouraging a process with a strong
              economic and more importantly cultural value. This process
              promotes inclusivity in the entire country and also from an
              international perspective. Local, in this sense, does not mean
              localism: rather, it means the accuracy of a reference point,
              and a setting that can become universal exactly because of its
              specificity.19

       According to Eleonora Andreatta, former head of Rai Fiction (now Netflix’s
     head of Italian original content), the representational strategy has been
     explicit: ‘To us, talking about Italy means representing it in its territorial
     diversity. The setting is not an appendix or a background. It contextualises
     and gives substance to the plot […]. In the last few years, we have been
     shooting in every region of Italy, telling the story of our country in all its
     cultural variety.’20



     TV 2 in the Danish Periphery
       Compared with the long pre-television history of Rai, TV 2 Denmark was
     born as a television broadcaster in 1988, breaking the PSB monopoly in
     Denmark held by DR, the traditional public service institution. TV 2 was
     introduced as a commercial alternative to DR, at first receiving funds
     from the Danish licence fee, but today its activities are funded primarily by
     advertising (since 2003) and by channel subscription (since 2012). From the
     start, TV 2 had regional obligations, predominantly materialised through
     eight regional, stand-alone channels that still today receive public funding
     from the media licence fee. TV 2 provides a multi-channel service for
     various target audiences, including the SVoD TV 2 Play, but only the main
     channel has a public service remit and broadcasts daily regional news. The
     public service remit for the main channel is essentially oriented towards
     a national context and holds no indications of international obligations:
     ‘In programme activities, special attention towards Danish language
     and culture must be emphasised.’21 However, according to the remit, ‘TV
     2 Denmark must offer a wide societal coverage of Denmark […] in the
     different parts of the country.’22 In other words, the primary public service
     obligations of TV 2 facilitate a national and a local coverage of Denmark.
       Besides news, all TV 2 programmes must be produced by external
     production companies, an obligation originally intended to stimulate
     independent production in Denmark, which it successfully did and still
     does. This includes fiction too. Originally, this was called the enterprise
     model, but today this model has been surpassed by a co-production model,
     since the amount of co-funding from TV 2 has been greatly reduced in
     favour of both local and international co-financing.23 From the first large-
     scale fiction productions, TV 2 has used local production in different areas


64                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

in Denmark as differentiation from DR that has been producing most of its
dramas in and around Copenhagen. On the one hand, TV 2 could in this way
uphold the obligation to regional coverage, and on the other hand position
offers from the fiction department in opposition to their main competitor.
TV 2’s first long-format crime series Strisser på Samsø (1997-98) was set
on small rural island, and since then the broadcaster has continued to
portray locations around Denmark, including peripheral locations in crime
series such as Norskov (2015-17), DNA (2019-) and Hvide Sande (2021-).
  For Katrine Vogelsang, the head of fiction, this has been a very conscious
strategy:

          I think that it actually springs from the story ideas. It has been
          a distinct agenda for me to get away from Copenhagen. If you
          want to get away from the stories about the system, often
          originating from Copenhagen where the Danish parliament is,
          then you need to pull away to get a different perspective on the
          Danes. TV 2’s main series have been situated much more in the
          provinces. TV 2 was born regional. We live in Odense, and we
          stand on the shoulders of the regions, reaching clearly beyond
          an audience in Copenhagen.24

  As we show below, the consequence has been a revised image of the
Danish peripheries that has been able to gain a voice through dramas set
in different Danish localities.



Exploring Italian Peripheral Locations25
  In recent years, Rai Fiction has re-evaluated and diversified its production
strategies, intensified in competition with original content produced by pay
TV (Sky) and SVoD platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime) and the increasing
circulation of formats from especially other European countries. This
process has offered interesting examples of balancing tradition and
innovation while ‘translating’ international variations into the Italian
cultural context.
  Rai Fiction’s production strategies, emblematically titled Nobody
excluded, refer to three main objectives: 1) to consolidate the traditional
broadcasting service while gradually renewing the offer of the main channel
(Rai 1), 2) to enhance narrowcasting by experimenting with formats, genres
and languages on channels like Rai 2 and Rai 3, and 3) to consolidate the
relationship with national audiences, while simultaneously strengthening
the capability to reach international audiences. According to the strategy,
two main traits must characterize Rai’s TV dramas: Firstly, authenticity is
maintained as key for international exposure, defined as e.g. ‘overcoming
cultural stereotypes’, ‘truthful representation of society’, ‘multiple points of
view’, and ‘strong identity connotation’. Secondly, in order to compete with
‘the best international television,’ Rai focuses on developing and updating


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                                                                               
     the most popular international genres through high production value and
     quality TV. Our attention towards peripheral locations in Italian crime
     narratives must be understood within Rai’s attention towards authenticity
     and ‘quality’ for audiences in both a national and an international context.
        Although the primacy of Rome as a location and production centre is
     attested — both in economic and symbolic terms — throughout Italian
     film and television history,26 Rai has previously diversified locations in two
     ways. Firstly, the representation of rural suburbs, especially picturesque
     medieval towns, leads to narratives about crimes and mysteries with minor
     effects on reassuring and conservative environments, e.g. Il Maresciallo
     Rocca (1996-2008) set in Viterbo, Don Matteo (2000-) set in Gubbio, later
     Spoleto, and Carabinieri (2002-2008) set in Città della Pieve. Secondly, in
     portrayals of Southern Mediterranean areas the outcome is often stories
     about the contrast between the gorgeous natural and cultural heritage and
     the brutality of crime, e.g. Il commissario Montalbano (1999-). However,
     localisation strategies in these productions tend to consolidate, rather
     than subvert, cultural and visual stereotypes, while the locations often
     remain simple, albeit splendid narrative backdrops with no strong narrative
     motivation for the storyworld. Without the complexity and visual style of
     international television, these examples do not correspond with the social
     negotiation of spatial identities here associated with peripheral locations.
        Set in Bologna with production facilities hardly available and broadcast
     on Rai 2, a pioneering exploitation of a peripheral location can be found
     in the primetime crime series L’ispettore Coliandro (2006-). The series is
     marked by the cinephile style of directors Marco and Antonio Manetti and
     the irreverently ironic and politically incorrect approach of screenwriters
     Carlo Lucarelli (author of the Coliandro novels) and Giampiero Rigosi, who
     claims: ‘There is a Rome-centred imaginary [...] In my view, diversification
     is the answer. Nowadays, Coliandro represents Bologna more than
     Balanzone! When he comes to Bologna, Giampaolo Morelli [the actor
     playing Coliandro] always goes around only wearing Coliandro’s leather
     jacket’.27 Over the years, in fact, the shooting of Coliandro has become a
     collective ritual for the city, and the last episode of the fifth season was
     screened at the Bologna film archive, simultaneously with the television
     broadcast. The city of Bologna is depicted in a ‘fresh’ and unconventional
     way, emphasizing everyday life atmosphere. As Marco Manetti underlines:
     ‘We were asked to film the exteriors in Bologna, but we wanted to shoot
     everything in Bologna, also the interiors, because we wanted the city to be
     felt, that Bologna could be glimpsed behind the windows. Localizing is an
     incentive for the circulation of Italian works.’ And Antonio Manetti remarks:
     ‘In Scandinavian thrillers, the smaller the locations, the more they work. If
     I had to choose between Stockholm or an isolated Scandinavian village, I
     would choose localizing.’28
        Collaborating with screenwriter Sofia Assirelli, Lucarelli and Rigosi
     created the crime series La porta rossa (2017-), a series with a gloomy


66                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

atmosphere, combining the realism of the detective story with a supernatural
storyline. Although originally set in Bologna, the setting temporarily moved
to Turin, but in the end it was produced in Trieste, motivated by director
Carmine Elia who explains:

          I fell in love with the fact that it was a border town, a city
          suspended between the sky and the sea, between Mediterranean
          and Northern Europe. A true border town, as if it were the delta
          of a river that enters the sea. I proposed to shoot in Trieste
          because it seemed to me a geometric, sharp-cornered city that
          could become a key part of our story. And Maurizio [Tini] was
          able to understand this.29

  Producer Maurizio Tini confirms: ‘It was necessary to find a place that
was as little “seen” as possible precisely because we were going to tell a
story atypical for Italian serial production, so we also had to stand out from
that point of view. We needed a city with its own characteristics, its own
history, its own character.’30 Simultaneously with the Rai 2 premiere, the
last episode of the second season was screened in the city at the Rossetti
theatre on 20 March 2019. Furthermore, fans of the series organized a
convention on 19 October 2019 in Trieste to celebrate the engaging location
that provided a key contribution to the visual identity of the show.31
  The literary origin of the storyworld often determines the location of a
crime series. Rocco Schiavone, adapted from Antonio Manzini’s literary
series and set in Valle d’Aosta, and L’alligatore (2020) based on Massimo
Carlotto’s novels and set in the lagoon landscapes of Northern Italy both
provide great examples of this trend. In both Rai 2 series, peripheral locations
establish an influential ambience around the protagonists (the Deputy
Commissioner of the State Police Schiavone and the sleuth nicknamed
‘Alligatore’, respectively), emphasizing their main characteristics by
analogy or contrast. Such adaptation processes also facilitate peripheral
locations in the more conventional series produced for Rai 1, e.g. Imma
Tataranni – Sostituto procuratore (2019-) based on Mariolina Venezia’s
novels. The protagonist offers a challenging representation of the female
detective, corresponding with the representation of the Southern city of
Matera, disputing a range of Mediterranean stereotypes tied to both place
and people.
  Besides influences on the female detectives, the two series Non uccidere
(2015-18) and Bella da morire (2020) clearly display the international
impact of Nordic crime series often referenced as Nordic Noir on the
representation of Italian locations. From the interval between the two
series, we may highlight how the international influential genre variation
have been elaborated and adapted into the Italian cultural context. In Non
uccidere, the storyworld is permeated by an oppressive and excruciating
atmosphere emphasized by the ‘Nordic’ urban setting in Turin in Northern
Italy and the dark colour tones of the imagery. In production paratexts (e.g.


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                                                                                                    




Fig. 2: Based on         interviews),32 actors and creatives make explicit references to the ‘Nordic’
Massimo Carlotto’s
                         visual style of the show as a ‘disruptive’ element in the Italian context.
novels, L’alligatore
(2020), whose             Five years after the premiere of Non uccidere, Bella da morire presents
eponymous hero is        another and slightly more balanced attempt to ‘translate’ Nordic Noir’s
played by Matteo
Martari, is set in the   genre variation into the Italian context. In the narrative, the tough and
lagoon landscapes        solitary police detective Eva Cantini (Cristiana Capotondi) returns to her
of Northern Italy:
                         native town Lagonero (literally dark lake). The imaginary Lagonero differs
the protagonist’s
gloomy attitude and      from the original ideas presented during the writing process that staged
his nickname are         the story near lake Como in Northern Italy. As the screenwriter Gravino
deeply related to
the environment.         recalls: ‘We had set the story in a more British world. We imagined a very
                         gray, rainy, foggy lake, [...] a location that immediately referred to Nordic
                         and British tales, which immediately placed the series in this great trend.’33
                          The eventual locations became lakes Albano and Bracciano, combined
                         to create a unique fictional lake. Although they are closer to Rome, the
                         specific representation of these more Mediterranean locations avoids the
                         pitfall of visual stereotypes and, indeed, adds some Nordic nuances. As
                         director Molaioli claims:

                                  The suburbs have been often represented only as a
                                  reassurance, a little false place. Here, there were suburbs to
                                  tell too. Economic reasons led us to shoot close to Rome, but I
                                  was fond of the original idea of Nordic suburbs and I have tried
                                  to conceive the locations as Nordic: although illuminated by
                                  the sun, they are never completely clear and limpid. Therefore,
                                  while remaining close to Rome, we have moved away from the
                                  concrete geographical places.34


68                                                               Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

  ‘In our first ideas’, continues producer Cotta Ramosino,

          The Nordic-European model was also reflected in the
          locations, and the idea was to describe Northern Italy by the
          lake. The water and the lake have always been important, and
          we have managed to maintain them by using the lakes near
          Rome. In order to reach this slightly Nordic atmosphere, we
          have created a place that does not exist: a fictional lake but
          with recognizable, real elements, faithful to the original Nordic
          inspiration.35

  Running through these arguments regarding producing at peripheral
                                                                                Fig. 3: Bella da morire
locations, we find a sometimes embedded, sometimes explicit authenticity
                                                                                reworks Nordic Noir’s
claim: although some series have been remarkably influenced by                  genre variation into
international genre stylistics, the sense of real places and representative     the Italian context by
                                                                                telling the story of the
storylines permeate the placement strategies of the series. This complex        tough and solitary police
relationship between influential intertextuality and authenticity also imbue,   detective Eva Cantini
                                                                                (Cristiana Capotondi)
as we shall see below, the recent localisation trends in series produced for    returning to her native
and broadcast by Danish TV 2.                                                   town Lagonero.




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                            Exploring Danish Peripheral Locations36
                               Even if TV 2 as a broadcaster was born with regional obligations, and even
                            if the break-through television series was a crime drama in the Danish
                            periphery, it took over a decade before the regional shift in TV 2 dramas
                            kicked off. Surprisingly, the broadcaster neglected to follow up on Strisser
                            på Samsø’s significant audience success. A decade later, three crime
                            series premiered on TV 2. Anna Pihl (2006-8), Blekingegade (2009) and Den
                            som dræber (2011) all take place in Copenhagen, though Anna Pihl directs
                            attention towards peripheral Copenhagen (the so-called Western District).
                            The watershed was, however, the engagement of Katrine Vogelsang in 2011
                            as head of fiction at a time when broadcasters realized that television series
                            was a significant asset in the ensuing digital turn of television viewing. Her
                            regional philosophy quickly impacted series produced for TV 2, including
                            Badehotellet (2013-), their absolutely most popular television series. This
                            historical drama is set in the Northern Danish periphery around the popular
                            tourist town Skagen, although primarily shot in studios in Copenhagen and
                            selected exterior scenes and breakers on-location.
                               Earlier the same year, TV 2 premiered the successful crime series Dicte
                            (2013-16), adapted from novels and characters by the crime writer Elsebeth
                            Egholm. Although set in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark,
                            the series put focus on provincial Denmark and included, already in the
                            international promotion material, a heavy accentuation of spatiality. The
                            material, for instance, refers to voyeur-breaks as a visual concept: ‘We
                            will implement a more stylised visual layer showing the city as it appears
                            in-between the street and the rooftops in order to get a distanced gaze
                            into people’s homes. The visual layer is meant as transitional and ambient
                            images that embrace the city and reminds us of the life lived around our
                            characters.’37 Flanked by efficient locative imagery from Aarhus, Dicte
                            appears as much framed by place as by character in the promotion leaflet.
                               After Dicte’s success, fuelled by the prerequisite to boost international
                            co-funding for increasingly expensive television series, crime narratives

Fig. 4: Badehotellet is a
comic period drama, but
the peripheral imagery
— a contemplating
character with back
turned towards the
camera standing at the
literal periphery — is
part of the title screen
of the series, too.




70                                                                 Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

have since been the most profiled genre in the broadcaster’s fiction
portfolio. As stated by Pernille Bech Christensen, executive producer at TV
2, ‘crime is clearly still the genre that works best. It is the easiest one to co-
produce.’38 Two miniseries, Kriger (2018) and Efterforskningen (2020), take
place in Copenhagen, while the long-form crime series Greyzone (2018)
is situated in a North-European transnational space motivated by the co-
production model between primarily Denmark, Sweden and Germany.
Since 2015, the broadcaster’s five additional crime series in different ways
implement Danish peripheral locations, enabling local municipal financial
and practical support for all five productions. Coastal municipalities and
resultant coastal landscape imagery are common features of all five
series: Norskov (2015-17) was produced on-location predominantly in
Frederikshavn in Northern Denmark; DNA (2019-) was a large-scale
Danish-French co-production, but the series involved profiled on-location
shooting in northern Denmark; both Sommerdahl (2020-) and Alfa (2020)
contain settings in Northern Sealand, Helsingør and Gripskov, respectively;
and Hvide Sande (2021-) is shot on-location in primarily Hvide Sande on the
Danish west-coast. Often producers claim authenticity when asked about
the effect of peripheral on-location shooting, e.g. Thomas Radoor, Nordisk
Film’s executive producer on DNA: ‘This “the local is global” has been widely
used, but I still think that there is more to it. I think that we are suckers for
authenticity and that we have become more conscious about “bullshit”. I
think that we have become better at recognizing a story that feels real.’39
The authenticity claim frequently reverberates in close association with
the emotional experience of something original and prominent about a
new, fresh location. This includes the opportunity for characters to have
a ‘fresh’ start as well; for instance, the development material for Hvide
Sande refers to the peripheral location as ‘the geographical version of a
“factory reset”.’40
  The two productions Norskov and Hvide Sande share a number of
remarkable similarities. As the only two long-form Danish series so far,
they have both been shot entirely on-location in and around small coastal
towns, based on what Hansen and Christensen (2017) refer to as stories
from below: stories echoing real stories discovered by researching the
topography, demography and local identity of a place. In early development
material (dated April 2012), Norskov’s creator and scriptwriter Dunja Gry
Jensen indirectly makes the authenticity claim: ‘We have a great desire
for reality. Real police work. Real crimes. The real Denmark. Real Danes.
We believe that others feel the same. That they are actually interested in
how police work takes place in reality.’41 Morten Rasmussen, producer on
Hvide Sande, highlights a reversed development process for the series:
‘Normally, we start developing story and character, subsequently finding
locations for the narrative and universe. This time it was in reverse order.’
Per municipal association to Aarhus as the Municipal Capital of Culture in
2017, ‘writer teams were invited to Hvide Sande with the set assignment to


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                                                                                                        




Fig. 5: Translocal            create a fiction series based on the area’s nature, culture and population.’
imagery in Norskov,
                              The result was ‘a strong foundation for an original, international series with
once again a
contemplating                 local anchorage.’42 In this way, on-location shooting and stories from below
character standing at         resonate with the embedded reference to authenticity. At the same time,
the literal periphery,
marking the darkened
                              it appears clear from statements like these that the physical movement of
liminality of the location.   stories to peripheral, coastal locations induced an opportunistic possibility
                              to discover new, untold stories.
                               In both cases, the creators spend considerable time sourcing local
                              narratives and atmospheres, either by travelling to and researching the
                              locality (as the creator of Norskov did), or by actually spending time living
                              in the area (as the writers of Hvide Sande did).43 In this way, municipal
                              participation in local crime productions serves an opportunity to contest
                              the territorial stigmata sometimes attached to peripheral locations,44 while
                              also establishing a reasonable opportunity for enriching tourist activities
                              and local place branding. In such cases, there are obvious benefits for the
                              creatives as well as the local environment with an interest in attracting
                              such a production. Creatives behind both Norskov and Hvide Sande stress
                              the remarkable opportunity to uncover stories that they were unable to
                              come up with themselves, while there are natural obstacles, including
                              basic challenges of the local weather conditions. For instance, producing
                              sunny blue sky crime in Hvide Sande during the coldest summer in 29
                              years created some trouble for the Hvide Sande crew. During a local online
                              premiere event for the series Hvide Sande (May 2 2021), the producer Morten
                              Rasmussen maintained that the challenges were clearly outweighed by the
                              local support (including hiring a location manager with local knowledge for
                              the production) and the effect of on-location shooting:


72                                                                   Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

          We were met with open arms out here, which makes a difference,
          because so many gifts come from working on location. You get
          a 360° space to work in, and you get an authenticity, which is
          hard to create in a studio. […] You can feel these gifts throughout
          the series. You can feel that we are in a real place.

  During the same event, the municipal head of culture Per Høgh Sørensen
highlighted the intense participation of 1,400 local extras and hundreds
of volunteers working for the series, stressing how such participation
establishes local pride and community building. In fact, something similar
took place during the local production of Norskov, which shows how new
television series — expensive as they may be — also involve a hidden
economy of precarious labour and voluntary participation. Essentially,
when creatives highlight the additional uncovered expenses for shooting
at distant or peripheral locations, local production holds a conspicuous
difference from the production environments in production hubs where it
is not as effortless to engage a local free labour-force. Such production
stories about visual gifts and helpful local volunteers are, however,
widespread realisations from on location television production in peripheral
Danish areas. In the public invitation to the Hvide Sande premiere event, it
was stressed how the final premiere of Hvide Sande shows that ‘Western
Jutland equals a vigorous drive and the art of pulling together’, which is a
sense of community that reverberates through many local Danish television
productions.



Comparing Italian and
Danish Peripheries
  Despite obvious differences in the institutional histories of Rai and TV 2,
and the apparent variations in Danish and Italian demographics and
topographies notwithstanding, it becomes clear from the above that there
are striking similarities between Italian and Danish location strategies in
crime series produced by or for the PSBs. Although no direct collaboration
between the two broadcasters or between production companies in the two
countries has appeared, we see highly noticeable parallels between the
stylistic and narrative results in the series produced as well as in the raison
d’être behind the production and location strategies for the series presented
above. Rooted in PSB obligations to represent the entire composition of the
nation, both Rai and TV 2 have purposefully motivated serial content in the
peripheries of the countries, resulting in an increasingly multi-faceted and
varied location awareness in representing rural and urban areas. Here, the
indicative point is that the lack of direct co-production links between Italy
and Denmark points towards a more general movement especially in TV
crime series, but also in TV serial content in general.


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                                                                               
      The representational intention in using peripheral locations in TV series
     is often flanked by two additional and associated motivations embedded
     in the location strategies. On the one hand, producers often express a
     wish to avoid stereotypical portrayals of the series’ settings and in this
     way circumvent the heavy connotations often tied to the production hubs
     of the productions cultures through years of utilizing the same locations,
     cities and settings for TV content. On the other hand, creatives regularly
     reveal an experience of ‘freshness’ tied to new, fallow locations, which for
     them — and intentionally also for audiences — results in an ambient sense
     of authenticity. In this way, producers and creatives establish a sharp
     distinction between the originality and authenticity of peripheral locations
     and the stereotypical character of conventional and mundane drama
     settings. Essentially, this is both a neutral way to describe the ambience of
     the location strategies behind contemporary TV series as well as a salient
     part of outspoken branding strategies behind the exposure of the series,
     including the cultural and economic conditions behind the production.
       Depicting the local colour of a specific location has, conceptually, been
     closely entangled in this contradistinction between showcasing something
     real(istic) and authentic, on the one hand, and the stereotypical pitfalls of
     turning places into commodities, on the other.45 Wedged between these
     assumptions regarding peripheral locations, we need to pose an obvious
     question regarding the authenticity claim: What happens to authenticity
     when otherwise unassociated productions exploit peripheral locations
     in such a similar manner? As the stylistic treatment of the locations are
     very much alike, such artistic creations of authenticity give the clear
     impression of moving towards stereotypical or formulaic representations
     of peripheries in Italy, Denmark and elsewhere. Is it, then, possible to
     maintain the authenticity claim when ‘authentic’ seems to become a
     translocal conventional style?
       This is, in fact, a very complex question that needs to be untangled in two
     stages. Firstly, we need to stress that the ‘freshness’ often mentioned by
     creatives refers to the unmediated places, i.e. the new locations discovered
     as untainted by mediation. In other words, the authenticity claim maintains
     newness based on the places’ lack of mediation, which then embraces an
     intricate idea about how mediation may tamper with authenticity. Secondly,
     what we notice in the Italian and Danish examples (as well as other
     European examples) is that it is not the places per se that are caught in this
     complex web of authenticity and mediation; rather, it is the way that a place
     is stylistically treated, e.g. the overall impact of Nordic Noir stylistics on
     European television crime series. In this way, the translocal vocabulary of
     television style becomes a common, transcultural language, establishing
     an international way to tell stories about very different places from the cold
     North to the warm South.


74                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

Peripheral Locations in
European TV Crime Series
  Despite media systemic differences and maybe through very similar
location strategies, places in Italy and Denmark rarely used for large
scale international co-productions are now to a greater and greater extent
supplementing the production hubs, as local production of television crime
series appears to be a trend across Europe. As we suggested throughout
the article, this European tendency may be interpreted at two distinct and
yet deeply interrelated levels.
  At the level of production strategies, and besides the well-researched
positive impact (both in social and economic terms) of audiovisual
productions on territories, the increasingly important role of regional funds
and independent producers (and their international networks)46 must be
stressed. As Barra punctually observes about current trends in Italy, ‘the
producer takes a share of the business risk, develops ideas, submits them
to its partners, acquires intellectual properties and collaborates with top
authors, showrunners, head writers, directors and actors. The broadcaster
relinquishes part of the control and acts as project and team leader.’47
Something very similar characterizes the circumstances around series
production for TV 2 in Denmark. Represented by the Italian and Danish
cases above, this increasingly dynamic audiovisual landscape connecting
the national with the regional (and the international) may be extended
across the continent. At the same time, the PSBs’ utilization of expertise
and creative skills from a stimulated media industry may also have an
aesthetic impact, promoting the above mentioned ‘televisual Europe of
regions’ associated with a shared, translocal place imagery.
  Perceivably, such a locally and internationally rich dialectic may also
prevent the shared, translocal TV aesthetics from becoming a formulaic
translocal style and may even foster a perceived sense of authenticity.
In this respect, the cooperation between national and regional players
may reinforce the relationship between fresh visual identities, innovative
narratives and complex story-worlds, which are genuinely grounded —
rather than merely situated — in peripheral locations. Most importantly,
this rich cooperation may also facilitate a conceptual transition from a
‘glocal’ to a ‘translocal’ perspective. Where glocalisation predominantly
refers to the localization process in format trade,48 translocalism may
suggest a different strategy where stories originate from the distinctive
features of their settings (stories from below), while still succeeding in
circulating internationally, thanks to the familiar and recognizable frames
represented by popular genres (and especially the crime genre).
  Given its popular and engaging plots, the crime genre may also
strengthen the social, economic and political implications of placing
stories in peripheral locations. At the same time, such processes foster


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                                                                               
     stories that are also about being in the periphery with particular reference
     to experiencing borders, i.e. what we have previously termed ‘external
     liminality’. In this regard, the European dimension becomes even more
     relevant. In many cases, peripheral areas (with relation to the nation’s
     both geographical and symbolic centre) are also border areas, close to the
     frontiers between two states: In all these cases, the cultural representation
     of internal marginality corresponds to a tentative opening towards external
     areas. The story of Rocco Schiavone, for instance, unfolds in the Aosta
     Valley region, bordering with France to the West and Switzerland to the
     North; La porta rossa is set in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, sharing a
     frontier with Austria to the North and Slovenia to the East. In both cases,
     the cross-border dimension is thematized in the plot.
       Other examples engage more strongly and directly with borderline
     issues and tensions, thus stressing the continental (more than national)
     negotiation of peripherality and demonstrating that the double marginality
     of peripheral locations can resonate further on a continental (and even
     trans-continental) scale, and may represent a challenge in the European
     audiovisual sector. The Finnish crime drama Sorjonen, for instance, set in
     the city of Lappeenranta, focuses on Russian border, the Spanish-French
     crime series Hierro (Moviestar+/ARTE, 2019-) deals with the geopolitical
     complexities of crime and immigration on the Canaries outside the African
     coast, and the Polish series Wataha tackles the issue of Eastern European
     migrants into Poland through a setting at the Ukrainian border. Other
     cases, although not specifically set on the boundary between national
     states, use peripheral locations to elaborate on the geopolitical role of
     Europe. The Icelandic tv series Ófærð, for instance, negotiates the island’s
     intermediary Atlantic position between Europe and North America, while
     the Belgian series La trêve, filmed in the Ardennes and set in the imaginary
     small town of Heiderfeld, addresses the relationship between Europe and
     immigration through the investigation on the death of Driss Assani, a young
     African football player in the local team.



     Conclusion
       In this article, we have understood peripheral locations as a creative
     stimulation of stories about internal and external liminality as well as a
     practical decision to produce television series in the periphery away from
     the geographic and symbolic centre of the nation. Through analyses of
     two otherwise directly unassociated production environments, i.e. Italian
     and Danish television industries, we have emphasized an increasing
     attention towards producing television crime series not only away from the
     production hubs but in the literal peripheries. By creatives, the result is
     often referred to as ‘fresh’ locations and as a way to gain access to new and
     untold stories. In other words, we see a new creative stimulation through


76                                          Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

the liminality of the practical locations for the specific television series.
  The choice to analyse Rai in Italy and TV 2 in Denmark, respectively, has
been to uncover very similar trends in television industries, despite the fact
that we have not yet seen direct collaboration or co-production of television
fiction between neither the two broadcasters nor the two countries.
However, this article clearly shows that the two production environments
share an aesthetic vocabulary as well as an interest in perceived authentic,
local stories about crime and regional cultures.
  At the same time, our research for this article indicates that the similarities
between localisation processes in Italy and Denmark allude to a general
tendency in European television crime series. At a time marked by ‘too
much TV’,49 new stories springing from new peripheral places contribute to a
differentiation process on a potentially saturated marketplace for television
drama. Popular television drama in general and crime series in particular
appear to be mapping Europe by scrutinizing and recording unheeded stories
from places that rarely get the screen time that they may deserve.




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Notes
 1
      The research presented here has been financed by the research project DETECt — Detecting
Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives (Horizon 2020, 2018–2021) [Grant
agreement number 770151]. While working in close collaboration on all aspects of the present article,
the two authors divided the work as follows: Kim Toft Hansen wrote the introduction and sections 2,
4, 6 and 7; Valentina Re wrote sections 1, 3, 5, 8 and the conclusion.
   2
      Massimiliano Coviello, Valentina Re and Luca Barra, ‘Innovative Use of Peripheral Locations in
Italian Crime Narratives: The Case of La porta rossa’, in Location Marketing and Cultural Tourism:
Crime Narratives as Destination Branding, ed. by Cathrin Bengesser, Kim Toft Hansen and Lynge
Stegger Gemzøe (DETECt Horizon 2020 research report, 2020, pp. 59-64) https://www.detect-project.
eu/deliverables/ [accessed 9 February 2021]; Massimiliano Coviello and Valentina Re, ‘Translocal
Landscapes: La Porta Rossa and the Use of Peripheral Locations in Contemporary Italian Tv Crime
Drama’, Academic Quarter, 22 (2021), pp. 1–19.
   3
     Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture, ed. by Setha M. Low and D. Lawrence-Zúñiga
(Hoboken: Wiley, 2003). Setha M. Low, Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place
(London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
   4
     Robert A. Saunders, Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tells
Us about World Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).
   5
      Kim Toft Hansen and Anne Marit Waade, Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
   6
     Pei-Sze Chow and Stine Agnete Sand, ‘Regional Screen Ecosystems at the Peripheries: Production
and Talent Development in Tromsø and Aarhus’, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 10.2 (2020), pp.
169–189 (p. 170). Regarding relationships between audiovisual production and economic development
in smaller Italian regions, most research focus on the film sector, e.g. Marco Cucco and Giuseppe
Richeri, Il mercato delle location cinematografiche (Venezia: Marsilio, 2013) and Giulia Lavarone,
Cinema, media e turismo (Padova: Padova University Press, 2016).
   7
     Sue Turnbull and Marion McCutcheon, ‘Quality vs Value: The Case of The Kettering Incident’, in
A companion to Australian cinema, ed. by Felicity Collins, Jane Landman and Susan Bye (Hoboken:
Wiley Blackwell, 2019), pp. 391–415 (p. 206).
   8
     Saunders, p. 104.
   9
     Anne Marit Waade, ‘Screening the West Coast: Developing New Nordic Noir Tourism in Denmark
and Using the Actual Places As Full-Scale Visual Mood Boards for the Scriptwriting Process’, in
Locating Imagination. Popular Culture, Tourism and Belonging, ed. by Nicky van Es, Stijn Reijnders,
Leonieke Bolderman and Abby Waydorf (London and New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 99–117. For an
overview about the relationships between Italian landscapes and television dramas, see Geo-fiction.
Il volto televisivo del Belpaese, ed. by Teresa Graziano and Enrico Nicosia (Roma: Aracne, 2017).
   10
      Kim Toft Hansen and Jørgen Riber R. Christensen, ‘Local Noir and Local Identity: Norskov and
the Spatial Implications of Branded Content’, in European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed.
by Kim Toft Hansen, Sue Turnbull and Steven Peacock (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp.
213–231. Most research in Italy focus on the relationship between national and regional identities and
on the film sector, see for instance Cinema e identità italiana, ed. by Stefania Parigi, Christian Uva
and Vito Zagarrio (Roma: RomaTrEPRESS, 2019). A general overview related to Italian TV dramas is
provided in Milly Buonanno, La fiction italiana. Narrazioni televisive e identità nazionale (Roma-Bari:


78                                                               Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

Laterza, 2012). Further specific insights can be found in Luca Barra and Marco Cucco, ‘Tra “orribile
pubblicità” e attenzione globale. Gomorra – La serie e il rapporto problematico con il territorio’, in
Universo Gomorra. Da libro e film, da film a serie, ed. by Michele Guerra, Sara Martin and Stefania
Rimini (Milano-Udine: Mimesis, 2018), pp. 67–80; and Cinergie, Global Italy: rappresentazioni
transmediali dell’italianità, ed. by Giuliana Benvenuti, Giacomo Manzoli and Rita Monticelli, 18 (2020).
   11
      S Giorgio Avezzù, ‘Italian Fiction as Viewed from a Distance: Anomalies in the Correlation Between
National and Regional Success’, Series, 6.1 (2020), pp. 91–106.
   12
      Saunders, p. 114.
   13
      For an overall population of almost six millions people, approximately ten Danish seasons of TV
series are produced each year, while for a population of sixty millions people, around forty seasons
are produced for Italian audiences. Source: Gilles Fontaine, Marta Jiminez Pumares and Christian
Grece (2018): The production and circulation of TV fiction in the EU28. Television and VOD. European
Audiovisual Observatory, p. 19. https://rm.coe.int/the-production-and-circulation-of-tv-fiction-in-
the-eu28-television-an/1680946229 [accessed 20 April 2021].
   14
      In 2019, the overall Italian audience share was 35,7% for Rai, 31,6% for Mediaset and 7,2% for Sky
Italy. The three main players represented the 85% of the total revenues in the Italian TV sector. Source:
AGCOM, Relazione annuale 2020, pp. 137 and 134, https://www.agcom.it/documents/10179/4707592/
Allegato+6-7-2020/983e88a4-16cf-48b7-b618-f3c9ae06fa2b?version=1.1 [accessed 7 May 2021]. In
the same year, the overall Danish audience share was 36% for DR, 40% for TV 2 and 10% for the
commercial NENT group. In Denmark this means 76% public service based broadcasting, including
TV 2’s all-commercial activities. Source: TV 2 Danmark – Public Service Redegørelse https://
slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/Tv/Landsdaekkende_tv/Public_Service_
redegoerelser_2019/Public_service-redegoerelse_2019.pdf [accessed April 20 2021].
   15
       Quotes about the legal obligations for TV 2 are taken from Tilladelse til TV 2 DANMARK A/S
til at udøve public service-programvirksomhed 2019-2023, pp. 3–4, https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_
upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/Tv/Landsdaekkende_tv/Public_service-tv/TV_2/Public_service-
tilladelse_2019-2023_-1.pdf [accessed 22 April 2021]. The quote about Rai has been translated from
Italian and taken from Separate and Consolidated Interim Financial Statements as at 30 June 2020,
p. 18, https://www.rai.it/dl/doc/1608662040653_Rai%20-%20RFS%202020%20UK.pdf [accessed 7
May 2021]. See also Nessuno escluso http://www.rai.it/portale/Nessuno-escluso-86dc82f3-3f7a-
4f7a-9b06-bf21e4185832.html [accessed 9 February 2021]. For the term BVOD (broadcaster video on
demand) see Christian Grece, Trends in the VOD market in EU28, European Audiovisual Observatory
2021 https://rm.coe.int/trends-in-the-vod-market-in-eu28-final-version/1680a1511a [accessed 7
May 2021].
   16
      The most recent documents regulating the relationship between Rai and the Italian government
are: Affidamento in concessione del servizio pubblico radiofonico, televisivo e multimediale ed
approvazione dell’annesso schema di convenzione, 2017 http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/1544541789953_
GU%20Concessione_170525.pdf [accessed 9 February 2021] and Contratto di servizio 2018-2022
http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/1607970429668_Contratto%20di%20servizio%202018-2022.pdf [accessed 13
June 2021].
   17
      See APA (Associazione Produttori Audiovisivi), 2° rapporto sulla produzione audiovisiva nazionale,
2020       https://ricerche.apaonline.it/ricerca/la-produzione-audiovisiva-nazionale-valori-economici-
tendenze-e-sfide-di-un-settore-in-rapido-sviluppo-2020/ [accessed 9 February 2021].
   18
      Luca Barra, ‘Commissari, camorristi, e poi ancora commissari. Modelli produttivi e distributivi
della fiction italiana crime contemporanea’, in Sulle tracce del crimine. Viaggio nel giallo e nero Rai,


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                                                                                                     
ed. by Maria Pia Ammirati and Peppino Ortoleva (Roma: Rai Libri, 2020), pp. 177–188 (p. 186) (the
quote has been translated from Italian).
  19
         Nessuno      escluso      http://www.rai.it/portale/Nessuno-escluso-86dc82f3-3f7a-4f7a-9b06-
bf21e4185832.html [accessed 9 February 2021] (the quote has been translated from Italian).
  20
     Fabio Guarnaccia, ‘Intervista a Eleonora Andreatta’, Link, 23 (2018), pp. 15–24 (pp. 19–20) (the
quote has been translated from Italian).
  21
     TV 2, ‘Tilladelse til TV 2 DANMARK A/S til at udøve public service-programvirksomhed 2019-2023’,
(2018), p. 3, https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/Tv/Landsdaekkende_tv/
Public_service-tv/TV_2/Public_service-tilladelse_2019-2023_-1.pdf [accessed 9 February 2021].
  22
     TV 2 2020, p. 4.
  23
     Kim Toft Hansen, ‘Glocal Perspectives on Danish Television Series: Co-producing Crime Narratives
for Commercial Public Service’, in Danish Television Drama: Global Lessons from a Small Nation, ed.
by Anne Marit Waade, Eva Novrup Redvall and Pia Majbritt Jensen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2020), pp. 83–101.
  24
     Vogelsang, Katrine. Interview conducted by Kim Toft Hansen (the quote has been translated from
Danish). TV 2, Copenhagen, 4 November 2015.
  25
     All series mentioned in this section have been broadcasted by a Rai channel.
  26
     See Avezzù, p. 92.
  27
     Rigosi, Giampiero. Interview conducted by Luca Bara, Federico Pagello and Valentina Re. Bologna,
7 May 2019. Balanzone is a Commedia dell’Arte regional ‘mask’ (the quote has been translated from
Italian). A special thanks for his support to Federico Poillucci, head of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film
Commission.
  28
     Manetti, Antonio and Marco. Interview conducted by Monica Dall’Asta, Federico Pagello and
Valentina Re. Bologna, 29 August 2019 (the quotes have been translated from Italian).
  29
     Carmine, Elia. Interview conducted by Massimiliano Coviello. Siena, 19 January 2020 (the quote
has been translated from Italian).
  30
     Tini, Maurizio. Interview conducted by Massimiliano Coviello and Valentina Re. Roma, 14 May 2019
(the quote has been translated from Italian).
  31
      See the Facebook private group ‘Fan della porta Rossa’ https://www.facebook.com/
groups/715798332149168/ [accessed 9 February 2021].
  32
     Available on RaiPlay [accessed 9 February 2021].
  33
     Gravino, Filippo. Online interview conducted by M. Elena D’Amelio and Valentina Re, 24 November
2020 (the quote has been translated from Italian). A special thanks for their support to Karen Hassan
and Giada Giannecchini from Cattleya.
  34
     Molaioli, Andrea. Online interview conducted by M. Elena D’Amelio and Valentina Re, 8 December
2020 (the quote has been translated from Italian).
  35
     Cotta Ramosino, Laura. Online interview conducted by M. Elena D’Amelio and Valentina Re, 15
December 2020 (the quote has been translated from Italian).
  36
     All series mentioned in this section have been broadcasted by a TV 2 channel.
  37
     Undated concept leaflet for the Dicte series, courtesy of Miso Film.
  38
     Christensen, Pernille Bech. Interview conducted by Kim Toft Hansen, Anne Marit Waade and Vilde
Schanke Sundet (the quote has been translated from Danish). TV 2, Copenhagen, 24 September 2018.
  39
     Radoor, Thomas and Trin Hjortkær Thomsen. Interview conducted by Kim Toft Hansen (the quote
has been translated from Danish). Nordisk Film, Valby, 2 November 2018.
  40
     Quote taken from an internal development document entitled ‘Arenas Hvide Sande’, courtesy of


80                                                                Hansen, Re, Producing Peripheral Locations

Michael Rasmussen, Deluca Film. The quote has been translated from Danish.
  41
     Kim Toft Hansen and Jørgen Riber Christensen, ‘Norskov and the Logic of Place: The Soft Effect of
Local Danish Tv Drama Production’, Series: International Journal of TV Serial Narratives, 3.1 (2017),
pp. 11-26 (p. 14).
  42
     Lone Leth-Larsen, ‘Vestkysten danner rammen om TV 2s nye krimiserie “Hvide Sande”’, https://
omtv2.tv2.dk/nyheder/2020/06/vestkysten-danner-rammen-om-tv-2s-nye-krimiserie-hvide-sande/
[accessed 9 February 2021].
  43
     Jensen, Dunja Gry. Interview conducted by Kim Toft Hansen and Jørgen Riber Christensen.
Nørresundby, 16 September 2015. Klarlund, Anders. Interview conducted by Kim Toft Hansen, online,
12 February 2021.
  44
     Jørgen Riber Christensen and Kim Toft Hansen, ‘Territorial Stigmatisation and the Negotiation of
Place: Tainted Locations in Danish Television Documentary’, Academic Quarter, 17 (2019), pp. 10–22.
  45
     See Locating Nordic Noir (pp. 30–32) for the complex genealogy of local colour.
  46
      See Cineregio (European network of regional film funds), https://www.cineregio.org/; CEPI
(European audiovisual production association), https://www.cepi-producers.eu/ [accessed 9 February
2021].
  47
     Barra, p. 186.
  48
     This is a point raised in Elke Weissmann, ‘Local, National, Transnational: Y Gwyll/Hinterland as
Crime of/for All Places’ in European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. by Kim Toft Hansen,
Sue Turnbull and Steven Peacock (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 119–37. However, see
Hansen pp. 85–88 for a further development of glocalisation as a concept for researching international
TV series.
  49
     Amanda D. Lotz, Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television (Ann Arbor, Michigan
Publishing: 2017), unpaginated. Maize Books.




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