Anyone who reads this blog more than a few times will soon realise that I don’t write about productions by Netflix, Apple or Amazon (or even Sky in the UK) unless they are films that make it into cinemas or onto physical media. The reason for this is that I think the streamers are slowly strangling the PSBs or ‘Public Service Broadcasters’. In the UK that means all the terrestrial channels that are ‘free to air’ such as those offered by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. I only really follow UK TV but I’m sure that European PSBs like RAI in Italy or ZDF in Germany are being similarly damaged. I think also that the streamers are a major threat to film distribution in cinemas. I’m sure that some cinemas will survive but I suspect the diversity of cinemas and their accessibility may be damaged.
Why do I raise this now? My concern was triggered by two different news stories and one editorial decision in the UK in the last few weeks. The highest profile of these examples is the enormous success, both in terms of popularity and the generation of wide media coverage of the Netflix series Adolescence. If you have somehow missed all this, I should explain that Adolescence is a serial about what happens when a 13 year-old boy is arrested on suspicion of the murder of his classmate Katie by stabbing. The four episodes of around one hour each focus on the police investigation and the forensic psychology work with the boy. It is revealed that the boy has been ‘radicalised’ by online material relating to ‘incel’ ideas about masculinity and misogyny. The two elements of knife crime in the UK and the role of misogynist ‘influencers’, have seen the the TV drama widely discussed by UK government and social services and Netflix have now agreed to provide the drama to all UK (secondary?) schools.
The show was the first streamer production to top the BARB ratings in the UK and has been seen across 93 territories served by Netflix, usually among the Top 10 most watched shows. The show derives from the desire by the British actor Stephen Graham to produce something dealing with UK knife crime. It is written by Jack Thorne, one of the leading writers in the UK for TV and theatre. There is a very strong UK cast led by Graham including both familiar names and young people from community drama groups/workshops in the North of England. The serial is directed by Philip Barantini in the single-take style he developed on a previous film and TV series with Stephen Graham, Boiling Point (UK 2021/23). Adolescence was made by Warp Films, the company part-based in Sheffield with a long association with Graham going back to This is England (UK 2006) and Plan-B Productions, the US Independent associated with Brad Pitt. Also involved were Graham’s own production company, Matriarch Productions which he founded with his wife Hannah Walters who also appears in and co-produced Adolescence and One Shoe Films which I think is associated with Jack Thorne.
I haven’t seen Adolescence as yet because I don’t subscribe to Netflix but I am very much in support of Graham, Thorpe and Walters as well as Warp Films and the idea of making a serial like this. The crucial issue is that all the funding for the production came from Netflix. As many commentators have pointed out, such a four part serial would in the past have been made by and scheduled for prime-time broadcast television by Channel 4, BBC or ITV. It would appear that PSBs are now unable to offer the same kind of funding (and distribution possibilities) as Netflix. This leads me to the other two points I wished to make. Firstly I noted a couple of weeks ago that in the Observer, the TV reviewer had picked out three programmes to discuss in depth. Each of the three came from a subscription channel, i.e. Apple, Netflix, Amazon or Sky. I noticed this because I am becoming increasingly concerned that the daily TV review in the Guardian is very often of a programme from the subscription channels. Serious writing about TV has always been an issue for the UK press but I do feel that the choices made tend to skew towards programmes aimed at particular audiences (usually younger and more metropolitan). There is an assumption that material from subscription streamers is accessible to all viewers, but this is a false assumption. Even a small selection of streaming services (say three streamers) will cost around £20-25 per month which is out of reach to many households. In this context it is essential that the PSBs, which are statutorily required to produce quality TV for all, get a fair chance.
The second news story of the last few weeks concerns the BBC specifically but similar concerns are also evident for other PSBs. Several things are happening. The most important is the gradual tightening of license fee-funding after several years of attacks on the BBC by the previous Tory governments. Yes there is an increase in the licence fee coming but it won’t be enough to replace the funding lost through previous freezes. Secondly, the more successful the subscription services become, the stronger the political arguments to scrap the licence fee become. The BBC needs a new funding model but no one as yet has suggested anything suitable. Advertising revenues are also falling which affects the other PSBs. It looks like UK governments, just like much of the film and TV industry itself, is sleepwalking towards disaster.
Ironically, the gradual development of tax allowances for UK production of so-called ‘high quality TV productions’ has had some unwanted outcomes. The streamers, Netflix and Amazon in particular are taking over UK studio space and basing production here. It’s good for UK employment but it has increased budgets for productions which then export profits back to the US. We are effectively paying through lost taxation for the streamers to curtail our own productions. Research suggests that not only are budgets rising but that the alternative models by which a UK PSB might partner with an overseas producer are becoming more difficult to organise, with partners often wanting more ‘universal’ stories rather than UK content.
Finally, it is also distressing to hear that many forms of BBC programming are being dropped for budgetary reasons. The latest threat is to the provision of BBC content to overseas listeners via BBC Sounds, a case this time of competition from podcasters rather than the streamers. The financial problems of the BBC are also involved in the threat to close some of the language services broadcast as part of BBC World Service and the ending of Hard Talk on BBC World television.
itp Global Film 
I have also taken a bit of a moral stance against outfits like Netflix and there presumption that our empty lives need to be padded out with the consumption of all episodes of some hot series. This contagion has spread to the Beeb and other terrestrial channels with the constant invocation to ‘stream all episodes now’. No, thank you. I haven’t done the crossword yet. I recognise, of course, that I am now rather old and somewhat out of step.
It was the case some years back that Netflix were constrained to allow any production of sufficient prestige a limited viewing in cinemas if it were to qualify for an academy award. I remember seeing Bird Box with Sandra Bullock in the Curzon Bloomsbury (aka Renoir). This team-up with Curzon cinemas, largely London based, was annoying in itself, more so as Curzon operates its own streaming service.
Not heard so much about this recently so maybe things have changed.
Not a big fan of the Curzon anyway. It would be better if they teamed up with the Prince Charles which seems to be in trouble now.
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You raise an interesting point re Netflix. I haven’t followed their policy re cinema releases but they don’t seem to be investing in single films (at least in English) to the same extent as they did a few years ago. This is ironic since they were first streamer to join the MPAA, the trade association of Hollywood studio brands. Amazon have now bought themselves a studio brand in the form of MGM. Amazon MGM joined the MPAA in 2024. That just leaves Apple outside the traditional Hollywood association. I think I need to survey developments in distribution of films to cinemas as it seems to be getting more complex.
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Yes. I see now that Bird Box came out back in 2018, certainly longer ago than I had in mind, and I also recall a Coen bros western on the Netflix platform around the same time being given a similarly short lease of life at Curzon. This I did not get to see. The fact that I have not been similarly annoyed more recently suggests that things may have changed.
To the list of hidden soul-sapping imperatives offered to ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’, such as OBEY and CONSUME, I would add NETFLIX AND CHILL.
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