Advanced Television

BBC’s Davie backs UK creativity

October 16, 2018

Colin Mann @ MIPCOM

Declaring himself to be “really passionate about UK creativity”, Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Studios, has suggested that the unit’s success will come from a focus on British-driven creativity, “absolutely” looking for the finest premium content.

“We’re a global company, but we’re powered by British creativity,” he asserted. “We are very, very focused on high-end, British-driven creativity of the finest quality, underpinned by BBC values, and editorial values that we care about.”

BBC Studios was created in April 2018 following the merger of BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios with the aim of bringing the BBC Group into line with the rest of the industry and ensure the creative and commercial success of the organisation. BBC Studios will see content through the full life cycle of development, commissioning, production and co-production, sales and distribution and will underpin the creation of new BBC-owned IP.

According to Davie, the move enabled BBC Studios, “the biggest distributor in Europe”,  to offer “scale and muscle”.  Suggesting that BBC Studios stacked up by “any metric” in terms of creativity, Davie felt that it offered something deeper than that. “I think we’re in a position where we can make ideas happen, and we can make them happen fast.”

In terms of the importance of British talent and how BBC Studios supported the British TV industry on the global market, Davie said he was “really passionate about UK creativity,” and with home-grown IP, the one thing he could do was grow young talent through that. “It’s incredibly important that we keep the skills going, the craft skills,” he said, suggesting that the BBC gained its best financial return on programming where there was a focus on high quality. The editorial values are outstanding, and I think you have to fight for that. You have to fight for homegrown storytellers and we’re creating a company of global scale which can do that. It’s going to be a battle at times; we are in a battle to secure talent to make sure we are winning projects.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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