Opinion
David Wood
Broadcaster focus
on how the
financial woes
of commercial
terrestrial
broadcasters
may impact on
The broadcaster crisis
independent
producers
For some time now, commercial terrestrial broadcasting has been weathering
a storm with seemingly no end in sight. The sharpest recession in the media
sector in decades and long-term structural change in commercial
broadcasting has seen an alarming downturn in advertising and swingeing
job cuts across the board at ITV, Five and C4.
The proposed solutions involve some of the most drastic changes to
the UK broadcasting landscape ever seen. Who would have thought a
year ago that a joint venture between C4 and BBC Worldwide would be DAVID WOOD
on the cards? Yet, it’s one of the options to help solve C4’s £150m funding Industry journalist
gap, providing it with a stake in a distribution business to offset its shortfall. David Wood is a TV
The alternative for C4 is a hastily convened merger with Five, which and technology
has also been hard hit by the downturn and is currently in the process of journalist and former
axing one quarter of jobs; 87 positions cut from a total workforce of 354. editor of Broadcast
In fact, all the commercial terrestrials have been forced to take the axe who regularly writes
to their workforces, with ITV proposing to reduce its total headcount from for Televisual, The
5,500 in early 2008 to 3,900 by this summer, with a £65m cut in its budget. Guardian, Broadcast,
The repercussions haven’t gone unnoticed amongst the independent and World Screen.
programme making and freelance community which supplies the networks.
ITV in the regions has been particularly hard hit, with the loss of 430 jobs
in regional news and 180 out of 600 jobs at its Yorkshire-based ITV Television
Centre in Leeds, home to shows such as Emmerdale (pictured) and Countdown.
The cancellation of ITV dramas such as Wire in the Blood – a big employer
of freelance staff in the north east – has helped precipitate a talent exodus,
according to local media development agency Northern Film and Media.
Over a third of production staff – more than 100 media workers – have
relocated in the last 18 months.
But the emphasis on cuts might not necessarily be all bad for indie
producers. With reduced headcounts, freelancers and indies could benefit.
So far, that hasn’t been the case at ITV, where the turmoil has caused a
limbo situation, with decision making on hold until consultation over jobs
losses has concluded. While there will be opportunities in the long term,
the downturn has placed renewed pressure on programme budgets and
expensive genres such as drama are out of favour. ITV, traditionally a big
commissioner of UK drama, is definitely reigning back on the genre.
With programme budgets cut, low cost production techniques are also
in vogue, with hire companies and resellers reporting more interest from
producers looking to get the most out of the lower cost camera formats.
The upturn over the next year or so is likely to be in lower-cost genres,
particularly high volume entertainment and factual entertainment.
Another silver lining for indies, at least those with a sizeable inventory
of programmes, is a surge in demand for finished programmes. The logic
at the recent MipTV programme market was why buy formats when the
finished article is sitting on the shelf – and it’s cheaper. in my view
Spring 2009 theproducer 7
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