‘Culpables’ Producer On Breaking YA Before The Boom; Banijay’s Steve Matthews Discusses All3Media Merger — SkimNews
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- Carolina Bang, CEO of Pokeepsie, said she spent three years pitching the YA Culpables trilogy before Prime Video greenlit it, recalling that "five years ago, it was impossible" to sell YA content: "I spent three years trying to sell Culpables. Nobody wanted it at the very beginning."
- Prime Video reported the Culpables trilogy — Culpa Mia, Culpa Tuya, Culpa Nuestra, starring Nicole Wallace and Gabriel Guevara and adapted from Mercedes Ron's books — has surpassed 100 million viewers.
- Pokeepsie's latest YA Prime Video project Drawn Together (Enfrentados) debuted at the top of the streamer's chart, with no film update on Ron's fourth Culpables book published earlier this year.
- Steve Matthews, Banijay's Head of Scripted, Creative, rejected concerns that the All3Media mega-merger will damage creativity: "I don't have any concerns at all about this at Banijay because I don't think anything changes."
- Matthews flagged UK scripted as a priority for the merged company given the number of labels there, and said the broader scripted contraction is "forcing quality up" — "shows that are manufactured to be commercial will not" survive.
Why it matters: Bang's three-year slog turning into 100 million Prime Video views is concrete evidence that the Spanish YA pipeline now produces global hits, and Banijay's combined UK scripted stable positions the merged group to consolidate European production. Matthews' admission that contraction means "less work to go around" signals consolidation pressure on mid-tier scripted producers competing for a shrinking commissioning pool.
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