“Black Doves” and “Kaos” producer Jane Featherstone has admitted she is not “confident about the sustainability” of the high-end TV production sector in the U.K.
Featherstone, who is the COO of transatlantic prod-co Sister, was speaking as a witness into the U.K. parliamentary inquiry into the sector. Among the concerns she highlighted for U.K. production were increasing costs and budgets, changes in viewing habits and the way in which technology has turned the industry on its head.
“We’re now at a tipping point,” Featherstone told the Culture, Media and Sport committee. “Costs below the line have gone up around 40% and below the line is everybody. That is the production costs. So that doesn’t include cast, writers, producers; and those costs are called above the line. They’ve gone up even more, probably 50 to 60%. So we’re at a place now where budgets have become so high that that’s priced the public service broadcasters pretty much out of the market.”
The impact meant that whereas in the past getting a green light for a project was a cause for celebration, now it’s a cause for concern, with the first question producers asking themselves being “How are we going to fund it?” Featherstone revealed. “Because a green light is not a green light. It’s ‘Here’s 30% of the budget.’”
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The industry veteran revealed that currently the BBC have “a multiple number of shows which, through absolutely no fault of their own, they can’t fund.”
At an industry confab last December, the BBC’s director of drama Lindsay Salt said the same. “We need co-production at the BBC,” Salt said. “We can’t afford to fully fund shows.”
Making things trickier still, Featherstone told the committee, is that uniquely British content doesn’t sell well internationally. “British content is very hard now to sell abroad in the way that it used to,” she said. “Something like ‘Mr. Bates,’ for example … didn’t sell to many countries at all.” She clarified that there was a distinction between British content and global content made in the U.K.
Featherstone’s proposed solution is to reform the current high-end TV tax incentive to look more like the 40% indie film tax incentive, which would apply to “specifically public service broadcasting and nations and regions out of London.”
Other industry figures who have given evidence in the inquiry include “Slow Horses” director James Hawes, “Doctor Who” producer Jane Tranter and “Top Boy” director Myriam Raja.