International Insider: Budget Blow For BBC; Red Sea Wraps Up; ‘Crown’s Off To Them
deadline.comGood afternoon Insiders, here we go again with a busy old week in TV and film. Max Goldbart penning the newsletter. Read on and sign up here. Déjà vu: When you’ve been doing this for a little while, nothing gives off more of a sense of déjà vu than BBC budget woes.
It always starts the same way. A downtrodden UK Prime Minister desperately seeks a distraction hook and latches on to the nation’s favorite (ish) broadcaster, in this case saying over the weekend that the public cannot afford the previously-agreed inflationary rise to the licence fee next year that would have seen the fee shoot up by nearly £15 ($18.90).
Several days and one new chair appointment later, and the sentiment was confirmed by Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, who said the fee will instead rise by just more than £10, as the government shifted the goalposts.
While an extra £10 per person doesn’t look too bad at first glance, the move is set in context of two years’ worth of licence fee freeze, rampant inflation in production costs and stiff competition.
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