Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO of Sky Studios and chief content officer for Sky U.K. claims that the difficulties currently being faced by the TV industry aren’t likely to be going away any time soon.
Speaking at Series Mania, she said there was “no question that there are some fairly sizeable structural challenges that the business is facing overall — whether it’s in Europe or in the U.S., we’re in a state of transition.”
She added: “Things will settle at some point with probably a slightly reorganized industry structure and business models. But there’s some pain in the transition, and I think that’s going to continue probably for a few more years. That’s not to say we can’t make great programming in the meantime.”
Speaking of great programming, Sky Studios is currently riding high off the back of “Day of the Jackal,” which in late 2024 became its biggest Sky Original series of all time and was quickly recommissioned for season two. Shows such as “Day of the Jackal” — with an A-list lead in Eddie Redmayne — don’t come cheap, and Meghan Lyvers, exec director of original scripted TV, film for Sky UK and Ireland said it required a partner, which it found in-house.
“We’re really happy that we have Peacock in our Comcast family to partner on that as a co-production,” she noted, but added that Sky also co-produced “Sweatpea,” this time alongside Starz.
“That’s a very different economically built show that we made with a really great, robust tax incentive in the U.K. and healthy licence fee.”
But Lyvers acknowledged the difficulties in the TV world, especially in her territory.
“Specifically if you’re speaking to the UK market, every producer right now is feeling the pain of trying to make the most ambitious shows, but with the cost of production rising, and the deals for particularly for talent not having come down in the way that I think people probably predicted they would,” she said. “So we hear it, we’re aware of it. But the notion around every producer that we talk to having this issue, it’s like, ok, let’s talk about what the ambition of the show is and how you can editorially, create some solutions that take some pressure off the budget line.”
Lyvers added that, “until somebody overhauls the tax scheme” or sorts the “talent deal process,” the only solution was to adjust the budget that the show should be made at.
“At the end of the of the day, which is to put a show in front of audiences and have them embrace them and then to bring it back,” she noted. “If you make a show that becomes so expensive that they can’t bring it back, that’s a shame.”
