![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1459460_johnmcvayhighres_232009.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPact has painted a picture of challenging market conditions for British indies, with the value of primary UK commissions falling and a downward trend of investment in new IP across the PSBs last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The trade body revealed the results of its UK TV Production Survey 2024 today (10 September, which shows total TV production revenues grew 1.4% year-on-year to \u00a33.66bn, marking the second highest figure behind the \u00a33.94bn recorded in 2022.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But chief executive John McVay contrasted the traditional 5%-8% growth of pre-pandemic years with the flat market of 2024, and primary UK commissions (from the PSBs and other domestic players) fell by \u00a349m\u00a0to \u00a31.735bn, the lowest level in four years. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In a press briefing, the outgoing McVay said that although \u00a33.66bn is a \u201cgood headline figure\u201d, it indicates a plateauing market and a \u201cmuch tougher\u201d landscape.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we were seeing year-on-year growth of about 5% previously, it\u2019s now flattening off, and this may be the new business as usual or it may decline further- we don\u2019t know yet,\u201d he said. He characterised the 1.4% growth as \u201csluggish\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New IP trends down\u00a0<\/p>\n
The amount of new IP commissioned last year was down pretty much across the board among the PSBs and other broadcasters (Sky and other multichannel groups), with 29% invested in new commissions against 71% invested in returning programmes. This 29% is a drop on last year\u2019s 36% spend and 2022\u2019s 34% spend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This three-year pattern plays out across the broadcasters: the BBC has fallen from 41% to 34% to 32% between 2022 and 2024; Channel 4 from 21% to 21% to 17% in 2024; 5 from 48% to 36% to 24% and Sky and multichannel groups from 48% to 37% to 32%. \u00a0<\/p>\n
ITV was the outlier as its three-year new IP percentages stand at 27%, 58% and 37% for 2022-2024, although its role as a commissioner of indies is limited given its significant spend with its own ITV Studios labels (which is not recognised in this Pact data). \u00a0<\/p>\n
While McVay noted the necessity of returners to the UK\u2019s production ecosystem, the other side to recommissions is that there is \u201cless opportunity\u201d for new ideas to break through, he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit concerning that BBC seems to be in decline, ITV seems to have gone for correction \u2013 it\u2019s still higher than 2022 \u2013 C4 seems to be more limited, the others are as well. Now, of course, this may be because broadcasters have invested in returners or they\u2019ve acquired more shows from elsewhere which are delivering for them, but new IP is what drives the indie economy,\u201d he warned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also took a moment to bite back at Ian Katz\u2019s statement last month that C4 is investing the most in British IP of all the PSBs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cChannel 4 has dropped to a very low level in terms of the new IP that it\u2019s commissioning. I agree with the statements that say we should be investing in new British IP, but that\u2019s looking quite worrying in terms of the opportunities. If you\u2019re a startup, then Channel 4 is maybe not as attractive as it once was,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drama hits record proportion of spend\u00a0<\/p>\n
McVay also highlighted that drama saw its highest proportion of spend ever at 42%, up on the previous year\u2019s figure of 37% and edging ahead of 2019\u2019s previous record of 40% spend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Pact census also revealed that production companies with revenues of over \u00a325m accounted for 75.5% of total spend on drama. Effectively, the most expensive genre to produce skewers towards the bigger production labels. \u00a0<\/p>\n
McVay pointed to this increase in drama spend impacted other genres, such as factual and factual-entertaimment, which saw a combined 28% investment last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [drama increase] is partly inflation, but it\u2019s also partly broadcasters flipping their budgets [and changing their strategies],\u201d he elaborated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at C4,\u00a0they\u2019ve just commissioned a whole range of drama, more than they\u2019ve ever ordered before. That money is\u00a0coming from somewhere.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
McVay also reiterated his call for all broadcasters to be more transparent with their future spending plans on genre and volume basis. He said sharing such data would allow indies and freelancers to react more effectively tomarket trends. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Challenging times for smaller indies\u00a0<\/p>\n
McVay attributed the fact that bigger indies are securing most of the drama commissions to their ability to draw talent that broadcasters want. This reflects the broader messaging that is becoming increasingly harder for indies with smaller turnover to grow their businesses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a growing company in those genres, you\u2019re in a very tough competition. It\u2019s a fierce competition in drama, and there\u2019s very, very good British and new producers working in drama,\u201d he remarked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to a question from Broadcast as to whether the pathway for smaller indies to grow has become harder to navigate, McVay said that it depended on the genre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed to lifestyle\/daytime as one genre that concerns him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was setting up a business which was predominantly focused on lifestyle\/daytime-type programming, I would be worried; I think it\u2019s going to be really hard to get the commissions and the growth,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pact has painted a picture of challenging market conditions for British indies, with the value of primary UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-14248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}