The independent production sector (IPS)

1.7 The independent production sector (IPS)

The changing role of the IPS in the provision of broadcast programmes has been an essential element in the restructuring of the British television industry during the 1980s and 1990s. This restructuring was not in fact driven by market forces, but by a government that considered it essential to break up what Prime Minister Thatcher called the ‘cosy duopoly’ of the BBC and the ITV companies, and also the power of the trade unions in the television industry, which Thatcher, when addressing a meeting of senior television managers,

referred to as ‘the last bastion of restrictive practices’ 8 . They represented the last of the ‘enemy within’, and needed to be broken. The new legal framework provided a two-pronged attack on the industry structure.

First, the government changed the industrial landscape with the Broadcast Acts. Second, through labour laws, the government virtually eliminated union power within the industry. This legislation separated the function of production and transmission. The broadcaster no longer had to make

Managing in the Media

programmes – the product – and the programmes no longer had to be produced at the time of consumption. With a few exceptions, such as the news, weather and sport, most programmes can be pre-recorded months before the transmission date. However, many are still recorded quite close to transmission: Top of the Pops, which links live bands with those pre- recorded as live, chat shows like Parkinson and TFI Friday, topical reference programmes such as Have I got News for You, audience participation programmes such as Live and Kicking, and so on.

Prior to the shake-up by the early Thatcher administration there was a view, as explored by Cornford and Robins 9 , that the 1970s were a highly stable period which represented the zenith of the ‘cosy duoply’ between the BBC and the ITV companies, and to some a golden age of broadcasting. However, borrowing a phrase from an earlier period in British political history, the ‘winds of change’ were already blowing through the corridors of the BBC. Tom Burns, in his extensive study of the BBC (The BBC – Public Institution and Private World ), suggested that as early as 1968 the days of the programme maker being the driving force behind the BBC were numbered. The more commercially driven regimes that typify modern broadcast structures were already being established.

The independent production sector as a force in broadcast television was effectively created with the establishment of Channel 4. Richard Paterson 10 suggests that:

The increasing role of independent production in the changing environment of British television was the result of one of the most successful lobbying campaigns of the ‘80s.

The campaign leaders (PACT) were in fact pushing against an open door, making representations to a government who wanted to fundamentally change the structure of the British television industry. The nature and boundaries of the audiovisual firm were not being shifted by an organic response to the changing market, but by legislation imposed to create and then regulate the free market.

John Ellis 11 comments that: ‘the (audiovisual) sector has as a whole becomes an example of the “post-Fordist” industrial strategy’. It is interesting to consider whether the actual market forces created by the then current and subsequent radical changes in technology, and the consequent changes in production techniques, would have been by themselves sufficient to have caused some or all of the fundamental changes that the legislators imposed

on the industry. As Paterson 12 suggests:

The media industry – into the millennium

Any account of ‘independent’ production must define the factors of dependency and mutuality in any relationship between contracting parties, including any regulatory dimensions.

This mutual dependency is also relevant to the film industry in the UK – an industry that, as suggested at the start of this chapter, continues to struggle to find any model of stability.

The new form of television industry, with its increasing reliance on the small independent enterprise, was in keeping with the Thatcher idea of regenerating industry. The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) was seen overall as the best means of stimulating and revitalising British industry.

According to Ellis 13 , ‘since even the largest of independent production companies tend to specialise in a few areas of production’, the independent production sector (IPS) would therefore fall into the definition of ‘the craft based SMEs: the niche and flexible specialisation options’ as expressed by

Hilbert et al. (1994) 14 . The debate on flexible specialisation within the film industry was first discussed by Michael Storper 15 , who examined the structures of the Hollywood film industry. By being flexible, companies can respond to a changing demand by buyers. By being specialised, they concentrate their skills in particular niche markets. Their strength is in flexibility to change; the weakness is the focus on market segment.

The main interest in this chapter is the economic model of the audiovisual industry. It is the internal structures of the typical very small IPS (VSIPS), its business viability and the relationship between the VSIPS (the suppliers) and the broadcasters (the buyers) that, as the VSIPS grows, provides a useful analogy to the growth of the industry itself. The growth of the entrepreneurial enterprise is examined further in Chapter 7.