Commissioning and producing public service content: British arts television

This article analyzes the commissioning and production of arts television in the United Kingdom. It identifies the drivers that shape output, including regulatory and economic forces, linking professional practices to the form and content of the programs that emerge. The research uses interviews with senior staff within the major broadcasters (BBC, Channel 4, and Sky Arts), the independent production sector, and arts organizations to critically interrogate changes in production practices. In particular, the research focuses on the decline in specialist independent producers and the ongoing emphasis on partnerships to reveal a genre ecology at a moment of crisis that necessitates complex modes of competition, codependence, and negotiation. The precariousness of the genre has implications for all public-service genres that are “at risk” of disappearing from our screens. Therefore, in what is a period of profound change, this article extends and deepens our understanding of professional practices within the contemporary television industry

The production of religious broadcasting: the case of the BBC

This thesis examines the way in which media professionals negotiate the occupational challenges related to television and radio production. It has used the subject of religion and its treatment within the BBC as a microcosm to unpack some of the dilemmas of contemporary broadcasting. In recent years religious programmes have evolved in both form and content leading to what some observers claim is a “renaissance” in religious broadcasting. However, any claims of a renaissance have to be balanced against the complex institutional and commercial constraints that challenge its long-term viability. This research finds that despite the BBC’s public commitment to covering a religious brief, producers in this style of programming are subject to many of the same competitive forces as those in other areas of production. Furthermore those producers who work in-house within the BBC’s Department of Religion and Ethics believe that in practice they are being increasingly undermined through the internal culture of the Corporation and the strategic decisions it has adopted. This is not an intentional snub by the BBC but a product of the pressure the Corporation finds itself under in an increasingly competitive broadcasting ecology, hence the removal of the protection once afforded to both the department and the output. Those who informed this study have responded to these challenges in a number of different ways. Of these, the two most important are the adoption of a discourse of ‘professionalism’ designed to underscore their creativity, knowledge and value to the BBC and overcome the ghettoisation of religious broadcasting and second, in the opening up of religion to a range of new formats and conventions which are designed to make the programming more audience, and thus commissioner, friendly. However, despite both these responses the long-term future of religious broadcasting and its suppliers is still far from clear. Therefore, using historical analysis, interviews with media professionals and a period of observational research this thesis offers critical insights into the private world of religious broadcasting at the BBC

Public service media and digital innovation. The small nation experience

This chapter identifies asymmetries of power in the network society and analyses the place of public service media therein. In doing so, we draw upon two bodies of literature – theoretical considerations of small nations, and minority-language media studies – which rarely inform international debates about the digital horizons of public service media. Through critical discussion of some of the digital myths that circulate in industry and academic discourse, we argue for greater attention to how the inequalities of global power that characterise the network society are negotiated. Using empirical research on and with TG4, the Irish language broadcaster and S4C, the Welsh language broadcaster, we demonstrate how digital platforms can, and already do, help achieve objectives that are core to public service broadcasting’s public purpose. However, significant structural issues remain which require careful intervention from policy-makers to ensure linguistic vibrancy and media plurality

Television drama production in small nations: mobilities in a changing ecology

For small nations, the television industry functions on a number of interlinking levels constructing a sense of identity, contributing towards a democratic public sphere, and providing an important cultural and economic resource. Television drama is particularly important to these functions due to its ability to tell stories about and for a nation. However, the ecology of television drama production is changing in terms of technological innovation, greater competition, downward pressure on costs, and evolving audience consumption patterns. Set within this context, this article investigates the television industry of a particular small nation, Wales, and its most recent creative infrastructure project, the BBC’s Roath Lock Studios. One of the key features of the Welsh production ecology is mobility, and the authors frame this research around three aspects of mobility, which condition the making of television drama: how production and symbolic value are mobilized in small nations, the consequences of production mobility between regions and nations, and the impetus for content mobility through the international sale of series and formats. These forms of mobility are intimately linked to the negotiation of power, which circumscribes all indigenous drama production, but which may be felt more acutely by smaller nations where access to talent, greater limits on resources and questions of sustainability condition the everyday realities of television professionals. Using interviews with key stakeholders in the field of television drama production in Wales, this article argues that the voice and lived experience of television practitioners and stakeholders is a vital element in the academic critique of cultural and industrial developments in television production. The research suggests that Roath Lock would seem to be a success within its principal term of reference, which is to house more efficient and well-made drama for the BBC network and for S4C. On a more subjective level, it has been used by a variety of stakeholders to create positive perceptions of Welsh creative industries and ‘put Wales on the map’, to compete with other locales within and outside the United Kingdom, for international productions, capital investment, talent and industry legitimacy. However, real concerns remain about whether it enables drama production that adequately represents contemporary life in Wales, and delivers on the cultural aspirations of television workers and viewers

'Not a museum piece': exploring the 'special' occupational culture of religious broadcasting in Britain

Religion is often regarded as posing a distinct challenge to the occupational norms of cultural production and journalism due to its subjectivities and complexities. Based on research with staff involved in the production of content for BBC television and radio, this article explores the occupational context in which they work. In particular, it focuses on the experiences and strategies of the BBC’s Department of Religion and Ethics as it attempts to secure its survival as an autonomous production unit. This group of executives, producers, presenters and production staff are in many ways unique because of the professional and social role that they fulfil, most notably through the close historical and ideological ties between religion and the principles of public service. This research finds a distinct professional identity built around a fusion of public service logic and commercialism, along with the mobilization of specialist knowledge. This allows the department to symbolically and discursively separate itself from other actors in this field as it attempts to reinforce religious broadcasting’s professional distinctiveness at a crucial time in the survival of the unit and to highlight the uniqueness of religion as a topic within cultural production

Public funding in a time of crisis: film funds and the pandemic

This essay will examine the role of publicly-funded film funds in small nations during the pandemic. Organisation like Det Danske Filminstitut, Hrvatski Audiovizualni Centar, Screen Scotland and Screen Ireland exist to support filmmakers in the realisation of their creative vision, to aid the circulation of national cultural resources and to provide audiences with the opportunity to access a diverse array of films. In small nations they are often the primary source of funding to the sector and so play a key role in building the capacity and international visibility of the nation and its film output. This contribution to the special issue will identify trends in the funding and support provided by these organisations during the crisis; for instance, in adjusting their funding strategies, but also in their advocacy efforts with those beyond the film sector to secure financial support measures for the sector. It identifies future roles for film funds including redistributing limited public funds, supporting creative labour markets that are sustainable and equitable, and communicating the message to international productions, potential co-producers and investors that the country and its sector is open for business. I conclude by also reflecting on the long-term threats that these bodies may themselves face in the coming years as a result of economic and political transformations that are occurring today

Small is beautiful? The salience of scale and power to three European cultures of TV production

As television production becomes increasingly global, television studies must advance its understanding of how the global and the local intersect and impact upon the cultures of production. Drawing on original comparative research of three small European nations - Denmark, Ireland and Wales – this article offers empirical insights into the distinct challenges and opportunities for non-Anglophone producers and public service broadcasters. The concept of small nations is employed critically to reveal how distinctions of scale and power make a tangible difference to how television is produced and distributed, and to how smaller, national PSBs are trying to secure a sustainable future