The Israeli Format Export
Homeland, In Treatment, Fauda, Euphoria. The Israeli television format and adaptation business is now an established industrial category — the entertainment-side complement to Israeli technology export.
The category
The Israeli television export business operates at two layers: original-language formats licensed for adaptation in foreign markets (Homeland from Prisoners of War; In Treatment from BeTipul; Euphoria from the Yes drama; The Tutor and others), and direct-distribution Israeli series (Fauda, Tehran, Shtisel) that have built substantial international subscriber demand on streaming platforms.
The institutional cast
Keshet International (the international distribution arm of Keshet Broadcasting); Yes Studios; Reshet (now part of the broader Israeli broadcasting consolidation); the Israel Film Fund; and the production company cast that has cycled through the major formats — Endemol Shine Israel, Tender Productions, several US-Israel co-production vehicles.
Why it scales
Israeli television production combines a relatively low absolute-cost base, a writer-and-director cast trained in high-pressure short-cycle production, and storytelling templates that travel well across cultural contexts (the Israeli security context, the family-drama context, the broken-institution context). The result is a higher hit-rate on international adaptation than the size of the domestic Israeli market would suggest.
The 2024–2026 picture
Streaming-platform commissioning of original Israeli content reset materially in 2024 alongside the broader scripted-content reset. The format-licensing business held up better than direct-distribution streaming, in part because format adaptations transfer the production risk to the licensee. The Hollywood–Tel Aviv production corridor remains structurally intact but is operating at lower volume than the 2019–2022 peak.