A good number of the major U.K. and European distributors, as well as a good sprinkling of U.S. studios, will be screening their wares in London between February 27 and March 3, 2023, with BBC Studios hosting a London-based showcase that same week.
A total of 24 distribution companies will be at these informally organized London TV Screenings, including Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and Cineflix. They will be scattered among various venues such as the Soho Hotel, the Ham Yard Hotel, the Groucho Club, and the Dean Street Townhouse. Lionsgate and NBCUni will host cocktail parties. Some companies will host screenings for the first time this year, including Red Arrow, Newen, and Abacus, and all will have English-language drama series to sell. Buyers will arrive from across Europe, plus the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
What is now called the London Screenings began in Brighton in 1976 as a BBC Showcase for 25 European buyers. During the 1980s, the event moved around to Sussex, Bournemouth, Edinburgh, Bristol, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and Harrogate before returning to Brighton. In 2012, it found a new home in Liverpool. It went virtual in 2021 and 2022 because of COVID, as so many other events did.
When it first started, the London Screenings originally took the slot immediately after the BBC Showcase market, which was then held in Liverpool in February. But three years ago a group of U.K. TV content distributors, including All3Media, Banijay Rights, eOne, Fremantle, and ITV Studios, got together to coordinate their screenings around the BBC Showcase and established the London TV Screenings as they’re known today. Reportedly, ITV functioned as the clearing house to coordinate the screening dates and times and also posted the screenings calendar online. An estimated 700 total buyers are invited by the distributors (although the exact number is not clear), and this year, space is expected to be at such a premium that some distributors will only allow one buyer per company.
Last year, when the BBC canceled its in-person Showcase due to COVID worries, other distributors took up the BBC’s calendar dates for their London Screenings, which lasted a full week in London.
This year, the BBC will be back, but with a shorter Showcase that it’ll host in conjunction with the London Screenings. It will last all day Monday, and continue into Tuesday morning. The Tuesday screenings will be somewhat problematic since time slots will overlap despite the fact that distributors did try to coordinate their schedules so that that wouldn’t happen. Each of the screenings will be within a five-minute walk of each other in London’s West End.
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