A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
four new or enhanced centres of network
production, one in each nation and the new
Media City in Salford, would be established.
Thus real concentrations of craft and talent
could be created and developed.
There have been undoubted successes. The
targets for 2016 have been met and indeed
have been exceeded: as of 2014, the ‘out of
London’ spend was over 53% while Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland accounted
for over 18% of total spend. 368 Cardiff Bay
has built quite an industry around Dr Who,
Torchwood and Sherlock; in Northern Ireland,
strengthened BBC foundations (along with
a significant contribution from Northern
Ireland Screen and the Northern Ireland
government) have enabled the creation
of Game of Thrones (albeit for HBO) and
much more including the network series The
Fall; Question Time is now produced out of
Scotland which has also excelled at Saturday
night National Lottery programmes like In It
to Win It and Break the Safe.
And therein lies a major problem with the
existing nations and regions strategy for
network programming: that it may have
shifted elements of production out of the
capital but there is little guarantee that this
will lead to rich and complex representations
of the nations themselves. “While drama
production has been a beacon of success in
Wales”, argue Cardiff University’s Sian Powell
and Catriona Noonan, “this drama rarely
reflects life in Wales and Wales is solely a
location for filming rather than part of the
narrative setting.” 369 Angela Graham of the
Institute of Welsh Affairs told us that “it’s
ironic that BBC Cymru Wales is enjoying
such great and welcome success when
368
BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2014/15, p. 82.
369
Sian Powell and Catriona Noonan, submission to the Inquiry.
370
Comments at Inquiry event, Cardiff University, April 6, 2016.
its domestic output is tragically low.” 370 It
has made War and Peace, Casualty and Dr
Who but it lacks the resources to dramatise
experiences that more directly speak to
people from Cardiff to Caenarfon. Dr Who
may be about many things but it is not, at
least overtly, about the people of Wales.
There is also the problem, as with Scotland in
particular, that a ‘tick box’ approach to ‘out
of London’ programming may not necessarily
lead to the emergence of a sustainable
production infrastructure. Production has
indeed been shifted but often by temporarily
transferring labour and resources during the
programme run: the so-called ‘lift and shift’
strategy. Additionally, commissioning, finance
and most national channels remain within
the magic circle that surrounds W1A – a
pattern that is replicated by the vast majority
of big, successful, independent production
companies.
So despite the positive impact of increased
network spend across the UK, it can be
argued that the balance of power has not
fundamentally shifted. Key positions –
including those of director general, director
of television, director of England and director
of BBC Studios – are all still based in London;
network production in the nations is now
under the creative leadership of genre heads
based in London while the main conurbations
of England, with their massive populations,
are not directly represented at the BBC’s
most senior management table in London.
Meanwhile, funding pressures remain intense
both on the nations as well on the BBC’s
output across the English regions. Given all
these developments, one could make the
argument that power is now actually more
centralised inside the capital than it was
previously.
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