Advanced Television

BSkyB will be UK’s top production spender

August 30, 2011

By Chris Forrester

David Elstein, a former head of programming at BSkyB and now a media consultant, predicted that BSkyB is poised to become the UK’s biggest investor in UK programming.

Elstein, speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, stated that within two years Sky would be spending more per hour on British-made drama than its public and commercially-funded network rivals. Elstein predicted that by 2013, BSkyB’s rivals would complain that they were unable to compete with Sky’s programme budgets.

The same panel considered other genres, including comedy output which has traditionally been left to the BBC and ITV/Channel 4. Ash Atalla, who made The Office and who heads up independent Roughcut TV, said that by 2014, BSkyB would be spending more on scripted comedy than all the other British broadcasters added together.

 

 

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