I do see your point. From my understanding talking to people in the "industry" though, the pan-European problem here is that programming executives are such total cowards.

They might steal a format if it's successful in another country, and they're happy to put foreign productions in post-prime slots and niche broadcasters, but the very thought of putting foreign content into a high-profile slot is enough to make them mess themselves.

Certainly in Germany, the public broadcasters are as risk-averse as the private-sector ones.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman