Turnover set to be cut in half at 25% of production companies
Recovery from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will take up to a year, according to almost half of production companies, while others believe it could require even longer.
Some 44% of the 70 respondents to Broadcast’s Coronavirus: Testing the Production Community survey said it will take between six-and-12 months to recover, while one-in-five (21%) believe it could take longer. Fewer than 10% feel their business will have recovered before this year is out.
The survey also reveals the scale of the challenge ahead: just more than a quarter of production labels expect their 2020 turnover to plummet by more than 50% on the previous year.
In addition, another third of respondents are forecasting a significant downturn of anywhere between 10% and 50%.
These findings are the result of an almost complete shutdown of production for three months as a result of the pandemic, and the 70 survey respondents provide a snapshot of the disruption.
The companies have had a cumulative £80m of work put on hold during this period, which translate to 1,400 hours of television. At the extreme end, one unscripted label revealed it has £11m of business on pause.
However, very few indies that took part in this survey reported productions had been completely cancelled due to coronavirus.
Despite the many challenges, indies were not too downbeat, with more (57%) saying there are ultimately confident about their prospects than admitted they are concerned (43%).
At opposite ends of this spectrum, 20% are ‘very confident’ about the future, while just 10% are ‘extremely concerned’.
The creativity and innovation of the production sector at times of strife was cited by several.
“I wish the industry was running the country,” said one high-end scripted producer. “There are top minds, a great deal of passion and organisation skills.”
Another described the sector as “reactive, inventive and a leading light”.
Broadcaster verdicts
Indie execs were split on the broadcasters’ handling of the pandemic.
Although there was general acceptance that ad-funded broadcasters such as Channel 4 are heavily up against it, one unscripted indie boss called on the PSB to “stop claiming it has big pockets when the reality is it’s broke”. Another added that C4 is “the most concerned about its prospects”.
The BBC was praised by respondents as being the most supportive broadcaster, potentially because its licence fee revenue is partly insulated from the economic downturn, and Sky was also credited.
But broadcasters across-the-board were variously chided for “time wasting and poor communication”, “sending mixed messages” and “not being vocal or pro-active enough to help indies”.
A number of smaller indies also raised concerns that the current strife is leading broadcasters to return to the ‘usual suspects’ – stymying diverse commissioning and hitting less-established producers hard.
“The four big channels have all pulled back to their core suppliers,” said the manager of a smaller nations and regions indie. “They didn’t put anything out to tender, so smaller indies had no chance of getting any commissions and have been excluded from these conversations.”
According to one smaller indie chief, there has been “all talk but little to no action” when it comes to broadcasters assisting smaller producers.
No comments yet