PSBs Fail To Bring Seasonal Cheer To UK Film Industry

A study by the UK Film Council analysed 156 films to be broadcast on the five terrestrial PSB channels between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, and found that UK films made in the last eight years comprised 5.13% of the total.

The Council say the figures are indicative of the lack of commitment by broadcasters to the UK industry. The research will no doubt will be put forward to Ofcom’s current PSB review.

However, it is unfair to heep all of the blame for a failing industry on broadcasters. Afterall, broadcasters rightly look to cater to audiences and probably use box office returns to gauge which films will be popular to the widest range of viewers. Good box office and UK films currently don’t seem to mix well. And since PSBs aren’t charities for UK film production there is an inevitable problem getting UK films off the shelves and onto the air.

In my mind this debate comes full circle. The UK Film Council would find more value in researching the way it (and others) allocate funding. Too many UK fully or co-funded productions are - in my view - not attractive to mass audiences. These are the audiences whose size and scale would enable UK film production to realise its full potential - providing the financial stability to cross subsidise important niche and specialist film projects.

UK producers too often seem to embrace the later without first embracing the former - this doesn’t make their efforts unworthy (far from it) just unlikely to get seen. Perhaps as an initial rule of thumb - ‘filmakers who make films with lottery money should make films lottery players might want to watch.’ Just an idea!