UK broadcasters up content spending to ?600 million in 2011

MUMBAI: The Commercial Broadcasters Association (COBA) in the UK has released a report stating that its members invested more than ?600 million in UK content in 2011, of which nearly ?500 million was first run.

Investment in UK content has increased by more than ?140 million since 2009. Over a third of originated content investment goes towards supporting the independent production sector.

Almost 70 per cent of independent investment is spent with smaller producers. Almost 9,000 people are employed by Coba members in the UK. UK employment has increased by more than 1,000 people since 2009. Spend on non-domestic channels based in the UK contribute around ?400 million to the UK economy.

Coba members contributed ?4.2 billion in total in Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 20111. In addition to the investment made directly by the UK channel businesses, further investment into UK content is made by other companies in multinational groups. Coba members invested in excess of ?60 million in UK content at group level in 2011, not captured in the expenditure of the UK channel businesses.

The UK is the leading European media hub for Coba members. In addition to their UK channel businesses, much of their European operations are based and broadcast out of the UK. Non-domestic channels targeted at other European markets are much more likely to be situated in the UK than any other European country.

Coba members spent almost ?2.2 billion on content investment in 2011. Of this, just under a third (?623 million) was spent on UK content in the form of in-house productions, external commissioning of originated content and co-productions.

In addition, there was investment in UK secondary rights, i.e. the purchase of rights to broadcast repeats of content commissioned by other broadcasters and previously aired on other channels. Investment also goes into reversioning of non-UK content ? both English spoken and non-English spoken - to adapt it to the UK broadcast market.

The direct impact of Coba members on the UK economy in 2011 was just over ?2.1 billion. The direct impact can broadly be divided into investment in UK content, operational costs, wages and taxes. Investment in UK channels was just over ?1.7bn in 2011, of which more than a third was investment in content and a further half on wages and other operating costs. Spend on non-UK channels based in the UK, in the form of cash expenditure and wages, contributed another ?0.4 billion.

Investment in new UK children?s commissions (in-house, external and co-productions) rose from ?16 million in 2009 to ?25.5 million with investment in secondary UK rights rising from ?1.7 million in 2009 to ?3.1million in 2011. Coba members employ around 9,000 people in the UK.

Employment grew by over 1,000 between 2009 and 2011. There are two sources of employment within the UK ? the UK channel businesses themselves, but also non-UK channels that are based and broadcast out of the UK. In addition, for some non-UK channels broadcast outside the UK, the majority of staff is still located in UK media centres.

The majority of jobs are with the UK channels, although employment related to non-UK channels has seen even higher growth. The wage bill for these employees paid in the UK came to almost ?500 million in 2011, with around a fifth of this for employees on non-UK channels. Using employment multipliers, in addition to the nearly 9,000 people employed directly by Coba members, their activities and direct investment are estimated to have supported additional employment of almost 47,000 people in their supply chains. These people in turn support further employment across the UK through their spending of wages on goods and services.