UK Programming To Go 'Sky High'

Sky will invest £380m this year on in-house production and outside commissions.
According to BSkyB's Chief Executive he is to raise spending on original UK programming by more than 50% in the next three years, taking the amount it spends on British production to nearly double the amount invested by Channel 4.
Sky boss, Jeremy Darroch said he will spend £380m this year on in-house production and outside commissions, including its £40m-a-year investment in Sky News and the production element of Premier League football and other domestic sports – a figure that the company intends to increase to £600m "by 2014".
Speaking at an event organised by thinktank Reform, said "for too long" British television had suffered from "the misconception that good outcomes only happen because they are ordained from above and enacted through some form of intervention", in a clear reference to the licence fee-funded BBC.
He also argued Sky's growing spending should prove to ministers and the public that commercial broadcasters can deliver public value, adding it was wrong for the BBC to "set itself apart from the commercial world" with the notion that "public space is not-for-profit space" – before he concluded "the idea that commercial purposes and public purposes are somehow incompatible simply isn't right".
Cash will be spent to ensure Sky is running original British comedy throughout the year from this July.
By comparison, Channel 4 said it spent £362m on UK and programming in 2010 out of a budget of £578m. Sky will spend £2bn across all its channels during 2011, although £1.6bn of that is money going on sports rights and on American programming for entertainment channels including Sky Atlantic and Sky1.
(BMcC)