Amazon UK Boss Says “Greater Share” Of Prime Video TV Spend Shifting To Britain, But Streamer Would Never Have Commissioned ‘Mr Bates’

deadline.com:

Prime Video is shifting a greater share of its overall TV spend to Britain, according to Amazon UK boss Chris Bird. Bird was speaking on a Royal Television Society (RTS) panel predicting the year in UK TV, alongside the likes of Fremantle UK boss Amelia Brown, who said the industry has “lost its guts a bit” when it comes to taking risks.

Bird said Amazon commissioning budgets are “really healthy and strong” this year in Britain despite American contraction, and “as we go forward a greater share of investment at global level is centered here in the UK.” Last year, Amazon initiated a major international restructure that saw layoffs in the Africa and MENA regions as focus shifted to Europe, although there were also some European firings amid the downturn.

Bird pointed to Amazon tentpole Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is filmed in the UK and “works disproportionately well in the UK but the remit and ambition is to perform globally,” along with local hits like Clarkson’s Farm, which was made “specifically for Brits.” Amazon won’t be tempted to go as local as shows like Mr Bates vs the Post Office, however, with Bird acknowledging that the ITV smash was “too British” to have been commissioned by an American streamer. Go with your gut Bird was speaking on a panel alongside big hitters in the UK industry like Fremantle’s Brown, who delivered an impassioned plea for execs on both sides of the commissioning fence to take risks. “Our industry has maybe lost its guts a little bit [in terms of] going for what they believe in across the board,” she said.

Brown cited BBC breakout The Traitors, which wraps up this week. “It got pitched around a few places and then the BBC said, ‘We will do it,’ so the gut instinct