Alice was one of more than 20 people due to start production on Channel 4’s Four Weddings, a Come Dine With Me-style show where four couples attend and rate each other’s weddings. “I turned down other work to commit to the contract,” she explains, but was told in May the show had been cancelled.
“Usually the winter is a quiet time,” Alice* points out. “I save money to get through it then work like crazy over spring and summer. But there’s almost no work around at the moment.”
At the end of May, Channel 4 surprised producers when it cancelled Four Weddings, made by ITV Studios-backed MultiStory Media, and reduced two other shows thanks to falling ad revenue. Josh Widdicombe’s comedy show The Last Leg was cut from nine episodes to seven, while daytime series Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas, with Kirstie Allsopp, will not be made — although there will be a primetime version. The company also put a short-term halt on commissioning.
The cuts are a result of falling TV ad revenue, with analysts forecasting it will be down between 10 per cent and 20 per cent in the first half of the year as inflation hits consumer spending. At the same time, inflation is hitting TV production as hard as any other sector, forcing costs up.
News of the cutbacks coincided with announcements that other shows — including The Big Narstie Show, Rescue: Extreme Medics, The Big Blow Out and non-celebrity versions of Hunted and SAS Who Dares Wins — were ending, although those decisions had been made some months before.
Some producers complained that Channel 4 cancelling or halting shows at the last minute meant people have lost projects, while planning ahead is impossible. Allsopp told Deadline that up to 30 production crew would lose work as a result of the cutback: “I am very upset for anybody — not just my colleagues, not just the lovely people that I work with — but anybody in the industry who is struggling for work. I know there are quite a few.”
After the network’s torrid two years fighting off privatisation, using the argument that its finances are in good shape and it supports the UK’s independent production sector, the news shocked many.
“We are concerned that there is a freeze, and we wish Channel 4 had spoken to us earlier,” says John McVay, chief executive of the producers’ association Pact. “We spent a lot of money helping to stop the channel’s privatisation in 2021 and 2022 and we were pressing them to speak to us sooner. But they were saying things were OK then suddenly they were not OK. It was a shock. The communication could have been better so that businesses could plan better. If I put a lot of freelancers on hold for a show and then have to let them go, it’s hard on everyone.”
Channel 4 insiders are optimistic that the broadcaster’s 2023 content budget will be in line with last year’s record spend of £700 million. “We see this as a short-term challenge,” one source said, but admitted “this has been an evolving situation — we endeavoured to be open and direct with our indie partners.”
On June 14, Channel 4’s chief content officer Ian Katz sent a letter to producers, seen by the Evening Standard, in which he outlined a programme of support for freelancers and assured them “normal service will resume”.
This week, Channel 4 began recommissioning with a new daytime gameshow presented by Sue Perkins called Double the Money and a three-part documentary on false grooming allegations, Web of Lies.
Producer resentment had been exacerbated by Channel 4’s top executives being offered six-figure retention payments after the privatisation battle. At the start of last month, Channel 4 said that Mr Katz, chief executive Alex Mahon and chief operating officer Jonathan Allan would defer taking the retention payments indefinitely and have declined a pay rise.
In a chat with Broadcast, Mr Katz said he did not want to diminish the impact on independent production companies, “but this impression we’re on our uppers — it’s simply not the case. We’ve taken some prudent, really measured steps … But we have to act decisively and move quicker than others because of the direct relationship between advertising and our content budget.”
Despite Channel 4’s problems, insiders and analysts are confident about the network’s creative health, not least because of its best haul of Baftas in 22 years and new hits such as The Piano. The channel also had its highest ever streaming figures in April.
Channel 4’s issues, according to Tom Harrington of Enders Analysis, are “one part market forces, one part existing commissioning changing and one part the fact that Channel 4 is always under greater scrutiny by producers, the media and government. If ITV cancels stuff or — as it is at the moment — delays broadcasting shows they already have stockpiled because they pay for the shows when they go out, no one kicks up a fuss. The truth is, the entire British TV industry is facing a very tough year.”
In March, the BBC announced cost-cutting plans sparked by a frozen licence fee and higher costs. It will slash its original programming by 1,000 hours a year. In May, Channel 5 boss Ben Frow said the network was pausing commissions to “save money” for autumn and Christmas. Over the weekend, ITV axed the third season of talent show Starstruck. At the same time the US writers’ strike has hit productions financed by US-owned streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Plus.
Typically cutbacks in scripted shows — as prompted by the writers’ strike — mean unscripted shows enter a boom. In May, however, a poll from broadcasting union Bectu found that nearly half of UK freelancers working in unscripted TV were unemployed. Three quarters reported struggling with their finances. “So many people who haven’t left the industry already are considering it,” Alice said. “What would be really helpful for all of us is if we heard from the broadcasters what is actually happening.”
