BBC Drama Boss Blames “Perfect Storm” For Funding Crisis As First “Stuck In Limbo” Project Emerges

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: The adaptation of Booker Prize-winner Shuggie Bain has emerged as one of the BBC’s “stuck in limbo” projects as drama boss Lindsay Salt blames a “perfect storm” for the funding crisis but says “we are as creatively ambitious as ever.” BBC shows that have been greenlit but do not have the budget to get to screen have been the talk of UK TV circles ever since super-producer Jane Featherstone told a public inquiry that the BBC has “multiple shows which through no fault of their own they can’t fund.” Two weeks later, the BBC acknowledged in a submission to the same parliamentary inquiry that it is struggling to get shows across all genres into production, “even those that have been greenlit by our commissioners.” Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky said in his submission that there are 15 such shows across the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, with BBC insiders briefing that their number is in the single figures.

Salt blamed a “perfect storm,” citing “a difficult global sales market, high inflation due to demand for talent and infrastructure, and some of our former co-production partners no longer wanting to share their rights with the PSBs, along with a smaller licence fee in real terms.” Salt’s reference to “former co-production partners” is an allusion to the big U.S.

players who have almost completely deserted the British high-end TV co-pro market. “Distributors are now operating under the assumption that there is no American money [for TV projects],” one prominent British drama producer told Deadline.

Most producers say big projects require at least 50% of their funding from outside the BBC, with America the obvious go-to. ‘Shuggie Bain’ Producers have speculated as to the identity of the shows “stuck in funding