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Roula Khalaf, editor -in -chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is director and screenwriter
In 2014, I directed the adaptation of the BBC of Hilary Mantel Wolf room And Ride the bodiesThe two winners of the Booker Prize. In 2023, I turned The mirror and the lightending the trilogy. If we were trying to do in 2025, we will not succeed.
Colin Callender, who convinced Hilary to make the television rights available, offered each of the main streamers the possibility of collaborating on the original Wolf room series. They all passed. Six weeks from the start of filming Mirror and light, We were about to abandon the project. It was only when the actor, writer, director and leading producer agreed to put back a significant proportion of their costs that we could obtain it in progress.
I wish Wolf room were the only example of this creeping paralysis in public service television. ITV Mr. Bates vs the post officeWho changed the national debate on a key question, left its indebted manufacturers. The producer said publicly that it would be useless to try to develop it for television now. Attracted by the fiscal reductions offered in the United Kingdom, the streamers with deep pockets paid the chances for distribution, crew and locations. With the inflated costs, public service radiudiffusers can no longer afford to make a high -end drama.
What are these programs in common? Their subject is of unique interest in a British audience. But they are not likely to call on American viewers.
The banners made superb programs. Adolescence And Toxic city are clearly British stories. But their subjects – radicalization of children online; The effect of industrial waste on a local community – also has an American resonance.
Streamers have no interest in making programs that interest the United Kingdom: the United Kingdom: Mr. Bates,, Three girls,, Anne. Only the broadcasters of the British public service will tell these stories. We must make sure that, by continuing their legitimate commercial model, streamers do not stimulate these public service broadcasters for business bankruptcy.
This week, the Culture, Media and Multipartite Sport Committee unexpectedly approved a levy on large banners. He said 5% of subscribers in the United Kingdom subscribers should be used to arouse specific interest programs for the British public. It is hardly radical: 17 other European countries already do it. Netflix challenged this decision before the French and German courts and lost. In 2018, when I raised the idea of such a sample in the United Kingdom, I asked Reed Hastings, co-founder and executive president of Netflix, if he showed a similar challenge here. “Not if it was a playground through all the banners,” was his answer.
Streaming companies will affirm that a direct debit will reduce the United Kingdom in domestic investments. In my opinion, a reservoir of 5% will not affect the number of programs they make here. The decision to produce in the United Kingdom will be based, as it has always been, on hard financial considerations; Access to writers, actors, directors and crew; generous tax reductions; Current use of the English language. The introduction of a levy will not increase the real cost of production in the United Kingdom by a penny.
High -end dramatic production of public services dropped by 25% last year, at the lowest level since 2019. The restricted committee estimates that the levy will change this. It is a courageous decision, in the light of the current attitude of the American government. But it's good. The levy is neither a tax nor a price. For what? Because streamers can themselves apply to make a program with money from the Levy fund – the only reserve being that it is made of co -production with a diffuser of the British public service.
The levy would solve the problems encountered by public service broadcasters during a stroke. The only question remaining is whether this government has the courage to face the United States and protect the long tradition of public service television in this country.
