This article presents findings from a production analysis of the Danish public-service tel -evision channel DR3’s fiction production Anton 90, which was made in cooperation with asmall independent production company called New Creations. In the context of intensifiedcompetition on the Danish market for fiction series, the ambivalent cooperation behindthis production exemplifies the low-budget efforts of a traditional public service institutionto produce the fiction series that their younger target audience desires. The article uses anarrative-discursive approach to creativity and develops the term creative assumptions inorder to analyse how media professionals’ implicit assumptions about conditions for crea -tivity can influence the production process, and can generate disagreements. The analysisshows that the value of Anton 90 as a product is negotiated socially by the involved par -ties who have quite different assumptions about how production conditions can promotecreativity, and suggests that a low-budget production can still be labelled as “successful”.