In a tough market, drama producers are having to be increasingly inventive to piece together funding models and production savings. Pippa Considine reports
Scripted indies have felt the downturn, but the market appears to be steadying. Drama executives talk about ‘peak TV’ as it fades into the past and there are fewer commissions to go round a bigger pool of UK independent producers. But with audiences steadily migrating to on-demand viewing, more mainstream services are waking up to the importance of drama.
In the UK, the BBC is a bastion of British drama, ordering over 100 titles across the year, four times as many as the next largest commissioner, ITV.
The BBC’s return to Wolf Hall in November, says BBC director of Drama Lindsay Salt, is something only the BBC would do. “It’s a big part of our history, intelligently and brilliantly brought to the screen for a mainstream audience by some of the greatest creatives this country has ever produced.” Coming 10 years since the first Wolf Hall series, it’s also significant that the co-production cost double the original.
Channel 5, building its original drama slate from scratch four years ago, is set to continue expanding. Together with stablemate Paramount+ UK, its slate of originals will reach beyond 100 hours a year by 2026. “There’s only one way it’s going,” says C5 head of drama and deputy CCO of Paramount UK Sebastian Cardwell.
Channel 4 has doubled the number of scripted productions it will invest in each year, with Ollie Madden now at the helm of Channel 4 drama, as well as Film4. “It’s a very specific strategic bet on the importance of drama for our streaming service,” says Madden. Channel 4 wants its audience “to have a regular supply of original, bold, exciting drama, so that they can see Channel Four as a home for the best drama, rather than coming for a specific show.”
UKTV appointed Helen Perry as its first head of drama a year ago. In 2024, it rebranded with a focus on its U streaming service, across its free-to-air brands. It has had eight dramas in production this year.
Research from Ampere Analysis shows a noticeable dip in scripted commissioning in the last 12 months to November at the BBC, ITV and Sky, when compared with the previous 12 months, while Netflix and S4C saw a rise of over 35%.
“For both S4C and Netflix the rise in scripted commissions was due to an increased investment in the Crime & Thriller genre,” says senior analyst at Ampere, Zuzana Henkova.
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Pippa Considine
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