British indies experienced a “sluggish” rise in production revenues last year as broadcasters scaled back new commissions – but streamers’ spend in the UK hit a new high.
According to Pact’s UK TV Production Survey 2024, total TV production revenues hit £3.66bn last year – the second highest figure since 2022’s £3.94bn.
However, Pact chief executive John McVay highlighted that they grew by just 1.4% year-on-year, a far cry from the pre-pandemic annual growth levels of 5-8%.
“It’s now flattening off,” he said. “This may be the new business as usual or it may decline further – we don’t know yet”.
Primary commissions from UK broadcasters fell by £49m to hit a four-year low of £1.74bn, while streamers’ spend with UK producers was up 24% to £850m. Meanwhile, international sales of British shows fell by 26% to a 12-year low of £153m.
New commissions accounted for 29% of spend against 71% in returning programmes – down from 2023’s 36%/64% ratio.
McVay said the drop was “a bit concerning”, as “new IP is what drives the indie economy”.
He also rejected what he saw as a “snarky” attitude to streamers from UK broadcasters, singling out Channel 4 news head Louisa Compton’s description of Netflix as “TV tourists” for commissioning Adolescence from writer Jack Thorne, whose career was nurtured at the broadcaster.
“The streamers are not public service broadcasters, they are just not, but they will spend money on brilliant British creatives and independents like Jack Thorne, and we should welcome that,” he said. “A lot of the people who work on those shows are available for domestic production because they’ve been able to get a gig working for Netflix.”
McVay said British broadcasters need to face up to the competition from streamers.
“The PSBs always want to be positioned as the high priest who can get what they want and the talent they want whenever they want it,” he said. “Well, there are other people in town. And these others have maybe not deeper pockets but quicker pockets – you can get a commission quicker and get the show made.”
While drama hit a record high of 42% of spend – up from 2023’s 37% - McVay noted that three-quarters of this was spent with producers with revenues of more than £25m, which might find it easier to attract premium talent than smaller producers. Factual and factual entertainment get a 28% share of spend between them.
Meanwhile, 70% of C4’s budget went on shows from producers with revenues of more than £70m.
“Given Channel 4’s remit and the squeeze on out-of-London indies, this is probably why a lot of our smaller members are saying they ‘can’t catch a cold’ at Channel 4,” McVay said.
