Get the latest gossip
British TV Dramatists Lament “Austerity” Era As They Navigate Funding Crisis With No Easy Solutions
British TV drama is entering its “austerity” era amid a funding crisis for BBC and ITV series with no easy solutions.
Peter Kosminsky, the BAFTA-winning director, spoke of Oscar-garlanded Mark Rylance taking a pay cut to get Season 2 of Wolf Hall made — and even then, the Tudor drama was reworked into a “chamber piece” because budgets restricted exterior scenes. Patrick Spence, producer of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, tells us that the series, which feels like a sure bet to bag BAFTAs in May, would “not have been made today.” A24’s adaptation of beloved novel Shuggie Bain for the BBC has been in limbo for nearly three years as the zeitgeisty studio struggles to finance production. U.S. studios and streamers have pulled back on co-productions with UK broadcasters; distributors are stumping up lower advances; funding cuts and ad market woes have squeezed the BBC and ITV ’s income; and all the while, the drumbeat of chronic inflation continues to keep the cost of production prohibitively high.
Or read this on Deadline
