Haven't Ofcom only just increased the amount of ITV production which now has to be outside of London to 50% ?
Have they?
Yep - it's part of the trade-off for halving non-news regional output - there will have to be more network production in the regions.
i guess the regions mean leeds and manchester. mind you, there was an interesting article in broadcast late last year ...
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Central managing director Ian Squires has claimed the regional franchise will continue to pitch for network productions, despite halving its workforce and closing Nottingham Studios.
Staff at Central’s Birmingham and Nottingham bases had been under the impression that network development would be off the agenda following the axing of around 360 jobs and the closure of the Lenton Lane studios. Unlike other regions such as Anglia TV, Central does not have a network department.
However, Squires told Broadcast: "Central is going to continue to pitch from the Midlands to the network."
His comments have surprised Central staff. One producer said: "There is no sense in us pitching in for network production anymore. What are we going to make it with? There is so little left."
Meanwhile, Squires said he was pressing ahead with the controversial move of news presentation from Nottingham to Birmingham by January, despite rumours it will cost over £2m.
The new £9 million fund for network programmes from the regions specifically excludes the ITV centres in Manchester and Leeds.
This is what the Ofcom PSB review had to say about the dispersal of network production:
"In addition to seeking increases in ITV1’s and the BBC’s network spend outside London, we believe there is a need to improve the spread of production around the UK. In 2003, almost 70% of ITV1’s out-of-London network spend was in the north of England; nearly a quarter of it was accounted for by Coronation Street and Emmerdale alone. The level of ITV1 network production in the devolved Nations has declined every year since 2000. By 2003, just 2% of total network programme spend went to the three Nations combined, and almost all of that was in Scotland.
"We seek improvements in the dispersal of production of ITV1 network programmes around the UK over the next few years, and will work with ITV plc to achieve this. We suggest that the first priority is to return network production in the Nations to the levels of the late 1990s, when we estimate that on average the three Nations combined accounted for around 8% of total ITV1 network spend and hours of output; the network should seek to include programming from all three Nations in this total. We will review progress in 2007, including the option of introducing quotas thereafter if ITV plc’s own initiatives (such as the production partnership fund proposed below) do not secure improvement towards this target."
"ITV1 is therefore now required both to increase its out-of-London production for the network, and achieve a wider dispersal of that production.
3.29 As a means of supporting the objective of delivering these new requirements, ITV plc proposes to introduce a ring-fenced fund, available to producers outside London but excluding established ITV plc network production centres. This will help producers meet increased demand from the network, and assist in meeting the transitional challenges created by the changes in regional programming obligations.
3.30 The fund could be used to: • commission programmes from new-to-network regional producers; • make available one-off seed funding for independent producers to further develop a promising programme idea (for example to carry out research, find new talent or produce a non-broadcast pilot); • provide longer term investment in independent production companies, for example, by funding a development researcher or providing financing to allow selected producers to develop new ideas in a particular genre or for a particular strand; and • create mentoring opportunities and secondments, for example financing an experienced executive producer to oversee a project.
"3.31 ITV has proposed a fund of £9 million, to be drawn down over the next three years only. ITV expects the majority of applications to the fund to come from the regional independent sector. The fund could also be accessed by producers within ITV plc, but, as noted, this provision would explicitly exclude the company’s established network production centres.
"3.32 ITV would operate the fund with full transparency for Ofcom, in order to ensure that the fund is spent appropriately and that in-house producers are not favoured over independents."