Written evidence submitted by David Smith, Managing Director of Matchlight Limited

4th September, 2015

 

“… how the policies of the UK government affect these industries and how they could better support the creative industries in Scotland.”

 

 

Introduction:

Matchlight is a Glasgow owned and operated television documentary production company. Formed in 2009 Matchlight supplies programmes to the BBC and Channel4. Matchlight produces observational documentaries, arts and history films as well as current affairs. Public service broadcasting is at the heart of our output and while the majority of that output is screened first on the UK wide networks Matchlight also works closely with BBC Scotland and BBC Alba.

 

Matclight has an average annual turnover of £1.7million and employs around 20 people at any given time, with around half of these jobs based in or around Glasgow.

 

2014/15 programmes and series made by Matchlight include:

 

  1. Mozart in London, BBC Four, 2016
  2. Cochlear Implants: The Switch On, BBC Alba, Nov 2015
  3. Ted Hughes, BBC Two, Oct 2015
  4. Transplant Tales, BBC Scotland/BBC One, Mon 29 Jun 2015
  5. Joan Of Arc: God's Holy Warrior, BBC Two, Tue 26 May 2015
  6. Suffragettes Forever! The Story Of Women & Power, BBC Two, Wed 25 Feb to 11th March, 2015
  7. Darcey Bussell’s Looking for Audrey Hepburn, BBC One, Mon 29 Dec 2014
  8. Russell Brand: End the Drugs War, BBC Three, Mon 15 Dec 2014

 

Matchlight is a TV production company so the following submissions is focused upon television broadcasting, production and commissioning policy but – from our brief list of recent projects – you will see that we are very much arts and culture focused and we do feel deeply that broadcasting in the UK is a key component in our broader creative industries and culture.

 

Submission

 

Background:

  1. Scotland currently lacks a domestic television market commensurate with its size as a Nation within the UK. BBC Alba is a part time service. BBC Scotland is an opt-out within the national BBC One and BBC Two schedules that amounts to 3 or so hours of non-news original programming a day. STV either retransmits ITV commissioned output or self-commissions from its internal production company, STV Productions.

 

  1. With the exception of BBC Alba’s commissioning team and Ewan Angus at BBC Scotland all BBC television content screened in Scotland is commissioned in London by commissioners who have little or no connection to or understanding of Scotland’s cultural life and creative economy.

 

  1. Channel 4 has no commissioners of content in Scotland, all of its output is commissioned in London by commissioners who have little or no connection to or understanding of Scotland’s cultural life and creative economy.

 

  1. To encourage London based commissioners to look beyond the M25 for ideas – to ensure diversity of supply, to ensure that all parts of the UK participate in and see their lives reflected within our broadcast culture and, in part, to promote the growth and stability of production businesses in the UK Nations and regions - the UK government has agreed quotas for either “out of London” or “UK Nations” original TV production with the BBC and Channel 4.

 

  1. The BBC aims (voluntarily, this is not currently enshrined in its Charter) to commission 17% (by volume and value) of its original out from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with just under 9% from Scotland alone (in line with Scotland’s share of the UK population).

 

  1. Channel 4 agreed with Ofcom under its most recent license settlement that it would commission 9% of its original output (by volume and value) from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined by 2020 (together these Nations provide 17% of the UK’s population).

 

  1. Once agreed these quotas have been subverted by both the BBC and Channel 4 via a tactic widely referred to as “lift and shift” which sees output originated elsewhere in the UK, displaced to Scotland and categorized as “Scottish”. While temporary production work is outsourced to Scotland as a result the value in these projects – profits and IP – flow back to the London. C4 quiz-show “15 to One” is counted as Scottish under Lift & Shift as is the BBC’s “Question Time”.

 

  1. “Lift and shift” helps neither the company that developed the project nor the Scottish production community:

 

    1. The originating producer is obliged to move the project to Scotland – thereby incurring additional costs and some uncertainty - rather than progress it from its home base.
    2. Scottish producers watch as a slice of the limited Scottish output quota is consumed by a displaced English production.
    3. Audiences’ interests are not served as diversity of supply is not promoted – hours of TV that could have reflected their culture, community, views or priorities are instead commissioned in London from London based producers. The “London to London” conversation continues.
    4. Sustainability in the Scottish production sector is undermined.

 

  1. Articles 4 and 5 of the Television without Frontiers (TWF) Directive require, amongst other things, that, European independent productions must account for at least 10% of transmission hours of each broadcaster established in the UK. Uniquely in Europe both STV and UTV escape this obligation by relying on ITV to meet the quota on behalf of all Channel 3 licensees. This reliance weakens Scotland’s domestic TV market by limiting access to our only domestic commercial broadcaster.

 

Recommendations:/…

 

Recommendations:

 

  1. The BBC’s current, voluntary Nations quota of 17% (9% from Scotland) by volume and value should be enshrined within the Corporations new charter.

 

  1. “Lift & Shift” projects commissioned by either the BBC or Channel 4 should no longer count against their respective Scottish commissioning quotas.

 

  1. Failing the outlawing of “Lift & Shift”, if a UK PSB broadcaster requires a project commissioned in London from an English production company to be made in Scotland they should make the commission conditional upon the originating producer co-producing that project with a genuinely Scottish head-quartered independent production company.

    As the broadcaster and English producer are accessing Scottish quota commissioning budgets they should sub-contract the production of the project to a Scottish production company, whilst retaining IP rights and profits.

 

  1. STV should open its schedule to independently operated Scottish production companies by complying with the Television without Frontiers (TWF) Directive and commissioning at least 10% of its original output, by volume and value, from the independent production sector.

 

 

4 September 2015