Options
One hour of ITV primetime drama costs 750,000?
jaanfx
Posts: 264 Forum Member
✭
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/19/itv-increase-drama-funding
Just read the article above and I don't seem to get the finances. Does this mean one hour of primetime drama costs ITV £750k?
in the article it states ITV to increase drama by 40 hours a year by investing an extra £30m.
Which means it cost £750k to produce 1 hour of stuff like Scott and Bailey and Vera - shows that don't look like they have that much spent on them.
Or I may have got my sums messed up.
Just read the article above and I don't seem to get the finances. Does this mean one hour of primetime drama costs ITV £750k?
in the article it states ITV to increase drama by 40 hours a year by investing an extra £30m.
Which means it cost £750k to produce 1 hour of stuff like Scott and Bailey and Vera - shows that don't look like they have that much spent on them.
Or I may have got my sums messed up.
0
Comments
It's one of the reasons many people get fed up with the likes of the DM having a go at the BBC for "spending too much" on something, when that's the cost of doing it properly.
For example any of the below will add to the cost of a basic show.
Scripted Drama, drama shot on location, anything with special effects/stunts, anything that requires attention to detail (IE period drama set in the 70's will cost considerably more for props and costume than something "contemporary", and a full on costume drama is incredibly expensive).
On the other hand if the drama is an ongoing series a lot of the costs drop, as you don't have to recast for every episode, sort out loads of new sets/props/costumes (which is why even a soap with a large cast can sometimes be made cheaper per hour than a small one off).
750k is, from memory the low to mid level that the BBC will pay for an hour of one off prime time drama.
it's part of the reason ITV has in the last few years loved reality shows, and C4 liked Big Brother - they, as TV shows are dead cheap to film per hour of content, as they have very few of the more expensive costs of a drama, and can get away with minimal equipment/props (it's also why it's often used as "daytime filler" on the BBC, as it's dirt cheap compared to other new content, and may even be cheaper than some repeat fees for drama).
Remember, a single hour of TV shown, may involve thousands of man hours of work, days (or weeks) of use of expensive equipment, and the trained, experienced staff to operate it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/how-we-work/business-requirements/tariff-ranges.shtml
That is one of the reasons we in the UK can't afford to make 24 episode a years of drama. The exception being soaps like Eastenders, Casualty etc. There, as Nilrem said, using mostly the same cast and one central location, on a purpose built set/studio with all the facilities right there, brings their cost and production time down.
A fairly decent drama will do lots of location shooting, with lots of new and interesting locations each week. That means scouting, paying, transporting all the cameras, lighting, make up trucks and all the crew and cast to a location and spending the first few hours setting everything up.
If it is a period drama or sci fi then costs go up again. You have to finds a location that looks like 1930 or 2200, and dress everything again, hide the double yellow lines on the road and the Sky dishes on the houses and so on.
HD made all that even more expensive. That UPVC double glazing on that cottage in the background in Poirot you could have got away with in SD. On HD you'll have millions of people spotting the goof.
But it's not as bad as movies. $200 million movies are fairly common these days. That's $100 million an hour!:eek: They don't spend all of that on hookers and coke!
(Another reason why period is popular. It doesn't date.)
Most of that is PR for the film launch though. The marketing budgets are often $60m-$80m for the biggest blockbusters. Of course the actors fees are big too in some cases but not on the same quantum.
There's only about two minutes difference in running time between US and UK 'hours' these days.
45m UK, 43m in the US.
Even ITV's two hour 'mystery dramas' that used to come in at 100m are now down to around 88m.
The good old days, Morse with three ad breaks, now it's Lewis with six!!
The BBC figures show how relatively cheap factual is compared to drama .. and also how much money the BBC puts into Children's broadcasting ..
But Television is never (rarely) cheap - but I think the great British public know this
-- almost half of households spend on average over £650 a year on their TV...
( Makes BBC LF look a bargain and that does Radio Internet .... )
But the cost is for clock hours: it doesn't matter if you are only making 45'40: That is an hour of television.
this is more important as we go to multi platform delivery on content ...(note BBC Tariffs are ) and the monopoly of channels easing.
Blanket statement alert!
It depends on the show, some UK shows DO come in at around the 60 minute mark.
I think what was the driver then has changed as editing is now easier and thus takes more time = more money ... -)
That is the way of progress - you always start the next step from somewhere else and thus zig zag towards your aim ...
Lighter Cameras - Non LINear editing , even cheaper cameras - ..
But In the first instance it was the cost of Quality (I Clavdivs) type drama in studios that got folk looking at "location" as being cheaper particularly for period drama - but there was also the long tradition in film as the shooting and recording medium for drama - which tended to meant Location - e.eg Tinker Tailor ... (Plus few days in Ealing studios) .
Of course artistic look came into it - Electronic meant more realistic ... and then folk want "film look" ...
And others like Kudos on Spooks or Peter Kosminsky with Warrior/ The Promise find the flexibility of film shooting tells a better story so these are unlikely to ever be studio based since hand held film cameras...
As do some US ones.
I was comparing a commercial channel's hour in the UK with a broadcast network's hour in the US.
These days there is very little difference.
Of course the BBC have generally lengthened their dramas and now now nearly an hour compared to 50 minutes in the 60/70/80's
Film is still expensive, but digital formats relatively less so.
A comparative study of today's production costs against those of, say, 20-30 years ago would be interesting. Now, there's the expectation of film-type standards and studio-type shooting, which was dominant, tends to only be used for 'soaps', with single camera usage otherwise. Editing is a lot easier and quicker now, though, and a lot of effects are much easier and cheaper to create.
I haven't seen a recent accounts sheet, but my guess is that the vast majority of any increase in costs- in relative terms- is due to an increase in salaries and, for the BBC, having to pay profit-making organisations to make programmes, rather than to an increase in others costs of production. Looking back at popular filmed drama in the 80s and 90s on ITV- and there was quite a lot of it- it is interesting to note that programmes were usually better 'dressed' and more carefully made then than now. Certainly, the comparison between, for instance, police dramas then and now and, similarly, episodes of long-running series, such as Heartbeat, is stark.
EDIT: I was still writing when technologist posted and I generally agree, though I'm not sure why editing should cost more/take more time when it is easier. Do the increased number of cuts and digital effects now used really take more time ?
Wasn't that a 16mm film production (1979)? I always remember LWT doing OB dramas first like Love For Lydia (1977).
The first BBC OB drama I can recall was Barchester Chronicles in 1982.
Yes, Danger UXB was made by Thames' Euston Films subsidiary on 16mm film.
Is it true that The House of Eliott was the last studio based drama made by the BBC in 1994?
But as with all things it does means that some things are now so cheap and easy to do that they can be made at a economic cost and this often means that they can be done at all.
This thread really got me thinking about what cost what both in terms of £££ but also as proportion of the total spend.
As technology gets cheaper the proportion of the cost of staff goes up (even if they are paid the same ) and the Total Job Price goes down..
It would be interesting to see a developing sub genre - like say the Police Interceptors/Roadwars etc - why and what the tariff was for the first one - and what the budget is now ...
But is the technology lasting as long ??? therefore is actually costs more over time.
As some one with a lifetime in "projects"
I can think of one analogue TC studio where all vision kit was replaced with digital for the same number of £££ as price of a vision mixer and DVE 20 odd years previous... ...
And the price paid for each camera then (1978 - £25k plus 15K lens) would buy 3 quite good cameras now - and with inflation about 10 cameras ... as it is the equivalent of £206K in 2001 ..
...seems like a good project for soemone's retirement ...
All good points- and, following on from before, similarly, comparisons of salaries would be just as interesting.
If shot on film all that was needed was a small room and a Movieola, stickytape and a chinagraph. To physically change an edit was quick and easy and rough cut was the end result. From which the final master print would be created in an optical house/laboratory..
When editing on tape at least machines would be required with edit controller, vision mixer, DVE's and possibly sound mixer...the edit was sequential and replacing a shot with one of a different length could be an issue. The VT edit would be the final master edit.
The digital age means a return to the film approach to editing, but it may mean the original material has to be injested before being able to be edited. Depending on the editing system used, graphics, dissolves etc may have to be rendered which can take time away from the edit. Also at the end of the edit what's in the edit computer may have to be spewed out to meet broadcast spec and on something the producer/director can walk away with.
A movie "budget" is the cost of making the film, marketing and distribution is on top. So a $200m movie can easily spend another $100m on marketing.
Of course with typical Hollywood accounting that $200m can be misleading in itself.
For anyone really interested The Smoking Gun have the entire actual budget for The Village, all 123 pages of it! Star salaries can be a huge part, but even just hotel bills for all the cast and crew add up.
Huge numbers of Hollywood productions are made within 50 miles of the centre of LA. That is the maximum distance they can ask cast and crew to drive out each day. 51 miles and they have to provide hotels for everyone and pay transport. Ka-ching!
Mr And Mrs Smith was relatively low budget, but they still spent $250,000 on blank ammunition.....