Was talking about this to a writer mate earlier. If you’re used to making affordable telly with solid cultural values - comedy, say - you have nobody to talk to with any cash to pay for it, now that all television has to be entirely international and more expensive than God. - ThreadSky

gralefrit.bsky.social • 2 days ago

Was talking about this to a writer mate earlier. If you’re used to making affordable telly with solid cultural values - comedy, say - you have nobody to talk to with any cash to pay for it, now that all television has to be entirely international and more expensive than God.

Reposted from Debbie Moon

"I see articles about factory closures when 100 people lose their jobs, and it makes national news. It’s 40 times worse for the film and TV industry, and nobody seems to notice.”

Same thing came up in a WGGB town-hall meeting this week. Politicians assume we're all rich, or forget we exist.

Comments

brekkiebb.bsky.social•19 hours ago

I think the last few weeks especially has shown what a price we're paying as a society for basically allowing international corporations to come in and strip the country of competing local businesses and TV is a good example of that.

brekkiebb.bsky.social•19 hours ago

For years the core of the industry was protected so it remained largely British, even as it became less local and more national, but the streamers were able to come in and play by their own rules. Fewer bigger productions ultimately means fewer opportunities and nlander television.

brekkiebb.bsky.social•19 hours ago

A reduction of course also reflected in adult TV - would be 3 or 4 sitcoms a werk in the BBC1 schedules of the 90s, now it's more like 3 or 4 a year. Drama going that way too. ITV's Spring slate is just more derivative crime drama which all feels the same to me.

abbytoir.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is super interesting, the narrative here in the states, at least for post production, is all those jobs are going to the UK. Most of my day jobs are a lot of reality tv though which you would think we'd be making more of with scripted being so expensive now, like you said, but it's all dead

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

I heard jobs are going to the UK because of the fallout from the writers strike. Without those protections over here (pay, residuals, room sizes) we’re easier to employ, in small numbers, in industries which don’t really want to employ *anyone* to feed their content pipes, in an ideal world.

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

The people I know who *are* making stuff are being absolutely hollowed out by the workload. So much pressure, because everything that is being made is so high stakes, so high budget…

robertwilfort.bsky.social•2 days ago

And what is the most popular scripted British show of recent times? Gavin and Stacey, set in incredibly specific locations with incredibly specific references yet, oh, somehow that's universal. People *like* specifics, because that what our lives are like

cameronyardejnr.bsky.social•19 hours ago

As an outsider looking in, looks like commissions have an eye on international sales, which means some programmes won't stand a chance of getting made.

gralefrit.bsky.social•19 hours ago

It’s impossible to make anything to the high grade now demanded by audiences (thanks to streaming) without co-funding. Co-funding is international money. It’s that stark.

If everything now has to be Game of Thrones, it’s hard to make The Likely Lads.

stuartmanning.bsky.social•18 hours ago

I don't believe that super-high-grade production is actually demanded by audiences. UK soaps look the same as they did 15 years ago… Benidorm trended on Netflix last year, despite looking like it was shot on a camcorder. Is a joke funnier in 4K? Commissioners have just decided that This Must Be.

jonnymorris.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Benidorm would have been £250,000 an episode, at least!

cameronyardejnr.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Cheaper than a studio sitcom?

jonnymorris.bsky.social•18 hours ago

About the same.

recombobulating.bsky.social•17 hours ago

Yeah. It's the people at the top assuming that they must know what everyone wants and needs and ignoring anything that contradicts that.

jonnyexists.bsky.social•17 hours ago

Correct. I suspect if asked the majority of the audience would prefer 13 episodes of a show annually produced in 1080p, to six episodes every three years produced in 4K.

In fact, the majority probably have no idea that most of it is produced in 4K to start with.

jonnyexists.bsky.social•18 hours ago

There are like 9 people on earth who demand 4k television content, but streaming companies can charge an extra fiver a month for it so the entire earth has the wait three years between six-episode series that cost more money than actually landing on the moon.

cameronyardejnr.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Was reminded on the other place of how good TV shows with 20+ episode seasons used to look. Now we have 6 episode auteur series every 4 years.

jonnyexists.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely don't need a 22-episode run of anything, but at least give me a selection of things with 12-13 episodes that returns every year for 5/6 years.

These days when something comes back I have absolutely no idea what happened previously as it was so long ago.

andrewhickey.500songs.com•17 hours ago

I'm *hoping* that's a temporary blip. Like there were four years between seasons of Succession but I don't think they *wanted* it to be that long. Just the first season was disrupted by covid and then there were all the Hollywood strikes.

gralefrit.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Stuff is just very expensive now. Inflation, skills, kit, stars. The economies of scale that you get from centralised production are all gone. And comedy traditionally is made on a fraction of a drama budget: so it crossed a line to plain unaffordable. So you need co-pro. And there isn’t.

gralefrit.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Anyone making comedy in the UK market is doing it out of love - cos there won’t be a big return on investment. Everyone is taking a pay cut. So any talent / prod team will naturally prefer to be making drama, with international money behind it. Cos that’s a proper living. So that’s what happens.

gralefrit.bsky.social•18 hours ago

While streamers rely on a base of much loved old comedy to give their subscribers an illusion of a healthy long tail, and it seems that’s what people like to watch a lot, most of that has been bought at a knockdown price in bulk. It’s not a healthy model.

stuartmanning.bsky.social•18 hours ago

I don't disagree with any of that. But broadcasters, particularly the public service ones, shouldn't set unrealistic benchmarks that actively price them out of making things. As much as the BBC likes to harrumph about its rich history, most of its 'classics' were proudly cheap and cheerful.

gralefrit.bsky.social•18 hours ago

And impossible to make now. It’s simply not an option. Believe me I’ve been trying to make this argument for many decades but it’s not one that stands up. When something looks old or cheap, nobody responds warmly.

i-jamieous.bsky.social•17 hours ago

We say the biggest streamer is Netflix, but this is only true if you don't count YouTube, where production values are often an iphone, a ring light and a tidy hobby room.

theangelofhistory.bsky.social•16 hours ago

It’s interesting that the streamers mostly don’t make comedy and when they do it mostly is rubbish…

cameronyardejnr.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Or dramas with a few jokes that they enter in comedy categories because they didn't want to face Succession.

gralefrit.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Because Succession has millions of jokes in it.

cameronyardejnr.bsky.social•16 hours ago

It made me laugh more than some comedies in places.

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

Also, now all television is more expensive than God, fewer chances are taken. Add in the hierarchical nature of the arts, the magic star people system, and the same few people are attached to make the risky things seem less risky. They get worked to a frazzle. Everyone else? Stacking shelves.

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

That’s an exaggeration but that squeezed middle is where lots of solid, workable, decent careers were. Same as in most arts fields. It’s all or nothing. A top tier, and then a huge drop off.

johnhudgens.bsky.social•2 days ago

Back in 2011, I had a great job as the senior promotions producer at a local TV station - great station, good benefits, creative freedom to put almost anything I wanted on the air (GM trusted my judgement), looked forward to staying there a LONG time, as I'd already been there 14 years.

johnhudgens.bsky.social•2 days ago

Station got sold, new owners moved all operations except local sales staff to another state where they were programming/running seven or eight stations from one central hub. Boom, everything gone in a heartbeat.

johnhudgens.bsky.social•2 days ago

Was out of work for 2.5 years before I found something anywhere near as good, and that got hosed at the end of 2018 when Comcast decided they didn't want to renew our contract for production all throughout the southeast, and pulled things in-house to (wait for it) regional hubs...

johnhudgens.bsky.social•2 days ago

Luckily, the clients I was working with at the time STILL needed the same productions and preferred me and my partner, so I've been doing those freelance ever since, but.... I'm still looking for something stable - which is ever doubtful, these days....

TV ain't what it used to be.... :(

mckelvie.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yep. Novels, film, comics, everything.

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

It’s like this system where money just goes upwards is eventually quite damaging to… everything.

mckelvie.bsky.social•2 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/mckelvie.bsky.social/post/3ljrvnojvys27

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

I wonder who’s in favour of the money going upwards, and whose ears they’ve got? It’s a mystery.

eddierobson.bsky.social•2 days ago

Music. A handful of artists can charge three-figure sums for gig tickets and make millions a year from streaming, most of the rest are lucky if they're breaking even.

mattleys.bsky.social•2 days ago

One of the biggest victims in all this is children's, which really breaks my heart (as well as my bank balance). There's no way a show like Millie Inbetween, a sitcom about kids with divorced parents in Glasgow, would see the light of day now. That's our kids' culture.

brekkiebb.bsky.social•19 hours ago

Even long before the current issues felt us kids of the 80s and 90s were better served by the limited afternoon slots than the multiple channels of recent days with new scripted and entertainment shows most days across Childrn's BBC/ITV.

mattleys.bsky.social•19 hours ago

It really was a culture, and kids felt a sense of ownership of it. It's heartbreaking to see it wither away.

brekkiebb.bsky.social•18 hours ago

The irony being of course is those who shout loudest about patriotism and being proudly British are the first to wave through the ownership and domination of UK media by US companies.

louiestowell.bsky.social•21 hours ago

Thanks for mentioning kids, Matt. I have a lot of friends who work in that part of the industry and it's pretty heartbreaking seeing how hard it is to get anything made, even for the ppl with stable jobs. And kids are losing out.

mattleys.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I think we're losing something important. Everyone remembers the shows they watched when they were growing up, their world on screen. American sitcoms and Tiktok won't give them that.

bobjohnstonbooks.bsky.social•20 hours ago

May have said "remember that meme of a girl running away from a house on fire and grinning? Well it was like that..." recently... #NewNostalgia

louiestowell.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Well and some australian telly

louiestowell.bsky.social•20 hours ago

The weirdness of 1980s UK tv definitely shaped me!

danwhitehead.net•19 hours ago

Kids is definitely where you can see the decline of Reithian thinking most plainly. Used to be that producing a show with the sole purpose of entertaining UK kids for six weeks was an end in itself. Now, with the loss of regional production and the rise of external commissions, it's all about ROI.

danwhitehead.net•19 hours ago

Can't get made without international co-pro deals, streamer buy-in, or some long-term IP pitch. And the number of kids shows that reach that level are miniscule, so it's easier for the BBC, ITV etc to just...cut back on kids programing. And keep cutting back, until it's bare bones.

danwhitehead.net•19 hours ago

And it's hard to argue this point without coming across as parochial or just blindly nostalgic, but it's enormously important for kids to have media that was made specifically for them - not just in terms of age, but for how and where they live in the 2020s.

hirsutable.bsky.social•2 days ago

The games industry is getting there right now. Around 60,000 jobs were erased in the last 12 months. Game flops, mass layoffs. Game hits, massive layoffs. The industry is making record profits and killing jobs at every turn.

agatiefan.bsky.social•20 hours ago

And the squeezes run all the way through as well, not just at the level of lack of commissioning for high / mid / even low level shows. So many companies are also cutting back on support and promotion and even the number of people they employ did what *does* get commissioned.

agatiefan.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I’m a producer with 20+ years of experience in a fairly low level genre of broadcast TV that, with budget squeezes over the past few years, simply doesn’t exist any more. It’s not like there’s corner to be turned where it’ll all hopefully come good again. It’s just not there.

agatiefan.bsky.social•20 hours ago

And the idea of pivoting to a different variety or genre is almost unthinkable considering how many other people with far more specific experience are also out there and looking for work.

gralefrit.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I had this conversation with a producer. In the face of a brick wall selling writing, I was looking for some more script editing work. Trying a slight pivot. She said, “Yeah. Good luck. But you’re in the queue behind me.” Which was spot on. You can’t just steal someone else’s spot.

agatiefan.bsky.social•20 hours ago

The worry is that these careers effectively ended five years ago without us realising and all we’ve been doing is trying to manage (rather than arrest) the decline. The concern is that, when the end comes, we’ll have burned through all resources and goodwill just trying to stay in the game.

antiquesforgeeks.bsky.social•2 days ago

I’m guessing many may have read that piece and thought “so what?” - the same people who may have grown up with Monty Python, Red Dwarf and The Office. Blissfully unaware that all those shows would not have been commissioned had an international audience needed to be considered.

That’s what…

alexpartridge87.bsky.social•2 days ago

bleak given how well British stuff made for the British market, C4 comedies say, or middlebrow ITV drama, does on the big streaming platforms!

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yeah. But it’s hardly disruptive is it? That’s the issue I think. People watch it, but they don’t subscribe for it. It doesn’t win glitzy awards. It doesn’t shift the share price.

Again: not attaching a direct monetary value to art - unit sales or ad sales - makes it seem worthless.

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

The problem is that the parasites on the arts are now the only ones with a business plan. So the art itself, the audience, the creators, aren’t even factored in. There’s an aggregate of “content” that needs to exist in order to underwrite associated trades, and industries; buyouts, speculation etc.

edsinclair.bsky.social•2 days ago

It’s interesting - I’m camera dept, usually on TV drama. I’ve had no work for nearly a year, and my brain insists (via stress dreams) it’s because I’ve catastrophically fucked up or upset someone without noticing, and it’s just me specifically. Then I’m reminded the industry’s gone weird.

edsinclair.bsky.social•2 days ago

I suspect many of us will get normal jobs, with normal hours and predictable income, and not go back. So how does stuff get made in the future, in that case?

gralefrit.bsky.social•2 days ago

There’s been a massive abandonment of an industry with a world class skillset.

Hey, but this stuff just appears on YouTube and on tech turds’ hard drives. Nobody makes it. Just forms naturally.

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