London’s share of production budgets fell below 50% for the first time last year.
According to the latest edition of Pact’s TV Production Census, 51% of all television production budgets were spent in the Nations and Regions. While public service broadcasters (PSB) account for the majority of this increase, Sky, increased its share of production outside the capital to 17% (2020: 5%).
Pact, which represents the independent production and distribution sector, said that revenues had nearly returned to pre-Covid levels.
Growth of 13% in 2021 took total revenues to £3.251bn, just £79m less than 2019 income.
This is attributed partly to innovations by the sector and the Government’s Production Restart Scheme, which meant that filming was able to return to near full capacity. This was bolstered by productions which resumed following Covid-19 delays.
Domestic television revenues were up 30% to £2.196bn – the first time this has broken the £2bn marker.
“It’s encouraging to see that the production sector has made such a strong recovery following the pandemic, but clearly Covid-related challenges still remain, including a lack of viable insurance options for producers,” said Pact CEO John McVay.
“Although international revenue has some way to bounce back, UK indies still pumped close to £1 billion into the UK economy and the ability for the UK to get back into production quickly contributed to its strong recovery.”
PSB spend with indies grew 24%, while multichannel revenue was up 99%.
However, international revenues were down for the second year running, to £952m. Pact stated that this was due to the impact of the pandemic, as well as large shows coming to an end.
While international digital/streaming commissioning, from the likes of Amazon and Netflix, shrunk by £57m, UK digital commissioning for iPlayer, All4 and others was up 191%.
Drama was the most valuable genre, accounting for 35% of all UK spend. Entertainment was 28%, while Factual was 20%.
