The price of freedom 

8 December 2008 tbs.pm/989

Caught in the storm

Prior to the 1980s, UK TV broadcasting was predominantly a preserve of the BBC and regional ITV franchises plus a tiny number of cable TV channels, and this was largely because television studio, recording and transmission equipment was hugely expensive as well as the opportunities for broadcasting being strictly limited due to technical limitations.

Nowadays there are 650 different independent production companies – 319 of these produced programming for Channel 4 last year – ranging from one-man-bands to ‘superindies’ such as All3Media, and this sector has rapidly expanded due to very favourable terms of trade which were created as a result of intense political lobbying.

Freedom to make what you want and then sell it (and/or the format rights) on the open market can theoretically reap huge rewards, but the risk of failure can be equally great unless you have an ongoing commission with a major broadcaster. And now with an economic contraction taking place, this lack of security is now proving to be a huge liability.

Plus the increased overheads of external production (namely that the independent producer has to make a profit to survive) – along with the lost ability for broadcasters to directly profit from certain formats – are causing the likes of ITV and Channel 4 in particular real financial hardship as a consequence.

The Channel 4 question is particularly important given the risk that it now faces as the advertising market contracts, coupled with the fact that public service remits are also at risk as a consequence of budget costs and the requirement to make money just to survive.

This has left politicians and regulators with a real headache as a consequence of tipping the balance too much towards independent producers, since upsetting that particular sector will be unavoidable in order to secure the viability of existing broadcasters, let alone promoting so-called ‘plurality’ in public service broadcasting.

A member of the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Liverpool, Thursday 28 March 2024