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Larry Tanz, VP of Content, EMEA, Delivers a Keynote Speech at the Enders TMT Leaders Live 2026 Conference
Larry Tanz
Vice President, Content, EMEA
Business
04 June 2026
GlobalUnited Kingdom
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Good morning, everybody. Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
This year marks a decade since a big moment for Netflix.
In 2016 we made our first TV originals outside the US - Marseille in France, Cable Girls in Spain and, of course, The Crown here in the UK.
When I started here back in 2014, I heard a lot of talk about how Netflix would change the television industry. A lot of talk, actually, about how we'd ruin it. We would Americanise global culture. We'd be slaves to the algorithm.
But, I think it's safe to say those predictions didn't quite come true. From Heweliusz in Poland to The Leopard in Italy, Dear Child in Germany, Lupin in France and - a few weeks after Adolescence made BAFTA history - it's clear that incredible local storytellers have found a home, and an audience, on Netflix.
What people almost never asked back then was a different question: how would the TV industry change Netflix? Ten years on, I think that's the more interesting story.
In short, it forced us to transform our business model.
We started like any Hollywood studio: flying European producers out for meetings in LA, and flying Netflixers to Paris, Madrid or London. Apart from being exhausting, it didn't work.
Up to that point, we had some hits, but plenty of flops too. From California, we just had no way of knowing what people in Stockholm, Warsaw or Istanbul would want to watch when they sat down on the sofa at the end of a long day.
So, in 2019, I moved with my family to Amsterdam to build out our creative and production teams across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I've raised three kids here I'm an EU citizen and I'm already on my third Director-General of the BBC - which I think officially makes me part of the furniture.
And we've really evolved. We went from a programming hub in California serving a global audience to a team of local commissioners across the region, each focused on their own audiences, with local sensibilities, country-level budgets and decisions.
And we started making better programming choices. Most of the time, people watch shows in their own language, that reflect their own lives. And now we had the teams on the ground to make them.
Those local teams did know how to find those stories to develop and produce them with talented local writers, filmmakers and producers and to make them in ways that would resonate with local audiences. Shows like Tear Along the Dotted Line in Italy, The Empress in Germany, Forgotten Love in Poland, and countless others.
We also saw what happens when the best in local storytelling meets the best in global distribution. Casa de Papel broke out from Netflix Spain, Netflix Germany triumphed with All Quiet on the Western Front - and outside of EMEA, Netflix Korea gave the world Squid Game.
And Netflix UK well, where to begin? The Gentlemen, Black Doves, Supacell, Baby Reindeer, Adolescence, Grenfell all commissioned by a UK team, based here in London led by Anne Mensah.
Our biggest global hits all have deep local roots - from the commissioners to the producers to the casts to the crews. Audiences respond to cultural authenticity in storytelling, and they can spot it even when they don't know the culture well.
There has never been a show that went global that didn't work at home first. Let me repeat that - there has never been a show that went global that didn't work at home first.
How many of the people who loved Adolescence do you think have been to Doncaster? I'm pretty confident it's less than one percent. But the show has such a vivid sense of place that it just feels real. That's not something a Hollywood executive can fake - and it's certainly not something the algorithm can engineer.
I hear so much about this mythical algorithm. For the record, the algorithm has nothing to do with what we make or how we make it. Its sole job is to help you find something you'd love to watch.
Shows like Adolescence and Grenfell are the product of strong local industries: the soaps where actors get their first break the indie production companies willing to back risky scripts ... the grassroots drama clubs the skilled crews directors can rely on.
With its mixed ecology of public service and commercial networks, underpinned by strong incentives and a broadly stable regulatory environment, the UK has one of the healthiest TV ecosystems in the world.
It nurtures creative talent, it encourages risk and it rewards originality - which is why so much of the world's best television is made here. That ecosystem has been essential to Netflix's success over the past decade. We would not be the company we are today without it.
But we all know, the ecosystem is under pressure right now. Large numbers of skilled people are out of work. The middle layer of production has been hollowed out. It is becoming harder for new talent to break in.
I know what some of you are thinking: Netflix is part of the problem. An American business undermining British broadcasters. TV tourists not playing by the rules.
Perhaps if we had stuck with our 2016 model, that might have been true. But Netflix UK today is a UK-based business. Our teams are here. We pay taxes here. We work with over 200 British production companies. We have employed 50,000 people in the UK creative industry over the last decade. We make our shows here. We engage with unions and we respect the local talent community.
And the UK is just one example - we have local country teams right across Europe doing exactly the same thing.
To put it simply, our success de
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