Quoting television: a cross-national analysis of regulatory intervention in the independent television production industry in the UK and Spain

Abstract

In order to understand the advent and consolidation of the independent television production industry, it is necessary to consider the essential role that quotas have played. This article offers a comparative empirically grounded analysis of the impact generated by a variety of quotas applied to independent production in the UK and Spain. First, it describes how quotas originating from the Television without Frontiers Directive are implemented in different ways. Second, through a sample of prime-time television in both countries, and in-depth interviews, the article analyses the strength of independent producers, their regional diversity and, in the Spanish case, the volume of investment in them by broadcasters. The results highlight the limitations of quotas and the need to intervene in different areas with alternative tools if the objectives originally pursued by the Directive for this sector are to be achieved.

Keywords:

• independent television production
• outsourcing
• broadcasting
• policy
• quotas
• UK
• Spain

Acknowledgements

This article draws on research undertaken for a project on ‘The Independent TV Production Industry: A Cross-national Analysis of the UK and Spain’. The research was funded by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca/Agency for Administration of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) of the Catalan government [Grant Number 2009 BE2 00092]. The author wishes to thank the support of colleagues at the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds and, specially, David Hesmondhalgh, David Lee, Anna Zoellner, Sylvia Harvey, Diane Myers and James Roberts, as well as all the interviewees, and to Steven Norris for his language input.

Notes

1. The sample for the UK included BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4, Five and Sky One; for Spain, it included TVE1, La2, Antena 3, Cuatro, Telecinco and laSexta.

2. This last point is particularly problematic for the analysis because these exclusivity agreements are not usually in the public domain, and there is no regulator that demands that they should be. In practice, therefore, exclusivity does not preclude an independent status.

3. In spite of this consolidation, there are still regional companies within the ITV network, like STV, UTV and Channel Television.

4. This does not mean that it is in breach of the law, since the law requires that quotas be met across programming as a whole and not in specific slots.

5. FAPAE stands for Federation of Spanish Audiovisual Producer Associations (Federación de Asociaciones de Productores Audiovisuales Españoles in Spanish) and is the main trade body for Spanish independent producers.

6. The companies’ register was accessed via the Iberian balance sheets analysis system (Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos [SABI] in Spanish) prepared by Bureau van Dijk.