Bold

Bold thinking today from the Culture Select Committee on improving the finances of UK film and tv producers, with more and bigger tax incentives; they're pretty dismissive of Screenskills (chair Lisa Opie); they dare to suggest we might rejoin 'Creative Europe' if only as an associate member, and they want a levy on streamers.... 

In HETV (High End TV), the balance between inward investment and domestic production is at a tipping point. It is time for streamers to put their money where their mouth is. They laud the UK’s mixed production ecology, with public service broadcasters and independent producers at its heart, but their business practices are putting that at risk. They need to step up their support for the making of culturally British content, and not just reap the cultural and training benefits it provides. Ultimately, they should then benefit from a healthier supply of PSB-made shows that they can license for their platforms.

We recommend that all subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms that operate in the UK pay a 5% levy on their UK subscriber revenue into a cultural fund administered by the BFI to support domestic HETV production. The industry should establish this fund on a voluntary basis;

however, if it does not do so within 12 months, or if there is not full compliance, the Government should introduce a statutory levy.

The specialist advisers have clearly worked hard - Dr Dominic Lees is Associate Professor of Film-making at Reading University, supported by Nick Mason Pearson, a corporate sherpa with media experience. Maybe this courageous Committee can come up with some novel way of funding the BBC; something the DCMS, BBC and Lisa Nandy seem incapable of at the moment.