BBC sets regional production criteria following 'Traitors' row

The BBC has introduced more ambitious criteria for regional productions to bolster its commitment to out-of-London commissions.

The broadcaster has pledged not to commission a new network production regionally unless it is “confident” the production will invest at least 70% of its budget locally and/or “draw significantly on local programme-makers and crew to produce the show”.

This goes well beyond Ofcom’s industry-wide standard and comes months after a row erupted over Scottish production quotas, following a viral LinkedIn post in January which criticised the fact that, under Ofcom criteria, Studio Lambert’s The Traitors is counted as a Scottish commission, despite most of its staff being based in London.

Tim Davie weighed in on the row the same month, admitting “now and again, we will have productions where the numbers are not perfect” and saying the longer-term aim is “absolutely to have local productions”.

The commitments were set out in a blog post today by BBC director of nations Rhodri Talfan Davies. Davies said the corporation will also strive to meet its long-held commitment to spend at least 17% of its network TV budget across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland without any reliance on productions that have local offices.

Ofcom counts productions as regional if they meet two of three following criteria: have a “substantive” base in the region, invest 70% of production spend outside London and have at least 50% of the off-screen talent based outside of London.

“A show does not need to qualify on all three counts in any one nation or region to be deemed to originate from that area,” Talfan Davies wrote.

“In fact, in a small number of cases, a show could be categorised as being Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish under the Ofcom criteria solely on account of the location of its production office (even though most of its budget may be spent in other UK regions).”

Talfan Davies said he wants to “tackle this head on”, although it is not yet clear how the requirement to “draw significantly on local programme-makers and crew” will be measured. The BBC has been approached for comment on this.

“We will work closely with our partners in the independent sector to make sure we step through this approach carefully, recognising that some shows have very specific editorial, talent or production requirements,” Talfan Davies added, saying the BBC will publish its progress in delivering this commitment on an annual basis.

“Delivering this change will take a little time – TV commissioning cycles can be as long as three years. But at a time of real challenge for many independent production companies and freelancers, we believe these changes will ensure we deliver the biggest possible creative, skills and economic impact right across the UK,” he added.

David Smith, director of Screen Scotland welcomed the decision saying: “It could be a significant step towards improving the corporation’s contribution to the creative economies of all four home nations.

“That said, we still believe that a focus on genuine economic impact must be combined with proactive commissioning that ensures entrepreneurial producers and production companies from outside of London have access to the UK PSB market.

“We look forward to working with the BBC and our colleagues in the other UK nations and regions, on the detail of how this will work in practice.”

Talfan Davies also pointed out that the BBC is already “by far the biggest commissioner” of shows outside London, investing more than 60% of its total network budgets outside London – the highest-ever level.