We have to reset' UK's TV industry struggling in big-budget streaming era

From the star of the Golden Globe-winning Wolf Hall taking a big pay cut, to the BBC shelving premium TV projects because of a lack of funds, UK broadcasters are increasingly being priced out of the Netflix-fuelled golden age of big-budget drama.

- Mark Sweney

Over the past year some of the industry's biggest names have provided evidence to MPs on the culture select committee, painting a grim picture of the struggles of UK public service broadcasters - such as ITV, the BBC and Channel 4 - to fund the kind of high-end TV dramas viewers now take for granted in the streaming era.

Last month, Peter Kosminsky, the director of Wolf Hall, said he, its star Mark Rylance and others had to accept a "significant" reduction to their pay to get a second series of the BBC drama made because no streamer would agree to co-fund it.

Lindsay Salt, the BBC's director of drama, said late last year that there were shows it wanted to make but could not afford. "We need co-production at the BBC," she said. "We can't afford to fully fund shows."

The challenges facing Britain's domestic broadcasters were laid bare on Thursday when British Film Institute data showed the amount they spent on premium TV shows costing at least £1m an hour to make had fallen by a quarter last year to the lowest level since 2015.

Jane Featherstone, a co-founder of Sister, whose hit dramas include Black Doves and Chornobyl, has said the industry is at a "tipping point" and that the sustainability of the high-end TV production model for UK broadcasters is now in question.

Others argue the industry is working its way through market corrections and one-off impacts such as Covid production shutdowns and the Hollywood strikes, and that broadcasters and producers just need to adapt.

"There is a reset going on rather than a catastrophe," says Patrick Holland, the executive chair of Banijay UK, the production group behind shows including SAS Rogue Heroes for the BBC and The Rig for Amazon. "It is definitely the case that there is a huge amount of pressure in commissioning and the costs are very high. Drama costs have risen exponentially.