Most UK broadcasters ‘overdependent’ on larger producers as small indies suffer

Almost half of the value of TV commissions by the UK’s major broadcasters go to just 12 companies, despite those larger producers making up only 4% of the country’s indie production sector, with commissioners “overdependent” on a few companies, a report had found.

The latest report from The Media Reform Coalition, titled Who Owns the UK Media?, states: “The UK’s indie production sector is highly concentrated, with only a few companies receiving a vastly disproportionate share of both indie sector revenues and commissioning value from UK broadcasters.”

The report adds that the smallest indies, with annual revenues below £1m (US$1.3m), make up two-thirds of the sector, while those with turnovers over £70m comprise just 4% of all indie companies.

“However, this tiny handful of the largest independent producers (12 companies out of 341) accounts for almost half of the indie sector’s commissioning value generated from UK broadcasters,” the report says.

When including indies in the next largest turnover bracket, above £25m, 11% of the sector accounts for 81% of commissioning revenue, with the report highlighting that almost all the main UK broadcasters, with the exception of Paramount-owned 5, are “overdependent” on these companies “at the expense of commissioning opportunities for hundreds of smaller UK indie companies.”

The report also examines the rise of the global streaming platforms, noting that Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ account for 75% of all UK VoD subscriptions.

In the last quarter of 2024, there were over 50.2 million total subscriptions to SVoD services, according to the report, which is a 17% increase in household subs since 2023. Almost eight out of 10 households that use at least one SVoD subscribe to Netflix.

“The power imbalance between UK TV companies and their global competitors has widened significantly in the decade since our first media ownership report. National public service broadcasters and subscription TV companies are at a significant disadvantage against the financial clout and market control of a few international streaming companies and dominant global production studios,” the report said.

“Revenues for international video-on-demand services have risen dramatically over the last 10 years, with global turnover for Amazon, [YouTube owner] Alphabet and Netflix more than tripling since 2014. At the same time, income for domestic broadcasters has stagnated, driven by the ongoing decline in spending on TV advertising, the reduction in pay TV subscriptions and 15 years of cuts and freezes to the BBC’s public income from the TV licence fee.”

Meanwhile, the UK’s local TV sector is also subject to “extreme levels of concentration,” according to the report, which found that just two companies, That’s TV and Local TV, control 30 of the 34 local TV licences granted by Ofcom.

The report, funded by an award from the Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust, claims this highlights both a lack of public support for the sector and a “light-touch approach to monitoring and protecting plurality.”

The share of local TV licences held by independent operators fell from 50% in 2014 to 12% in 2024, as That’s TV took over licences from independents and subsequently reduced the number of studios creating content for those services.

As a result, 15 of the 21 That’s TV services do not have a studio or production centre located in the area they serve, according to the report, and dedicate “large swathes” of programming time to acquired films or entertainment rather than original local news, current affairs and local interest programming.

“Following successive rounds of consolidation and commercialisation, the local TV model that was conceived in 2011 has fallen massively short of its ambitions for invigorating local democracy, diversifying the supply of local media and empowering communities with public access services,” the report states.