Indies told to scale plans to suit competitive marketplace

Peter Bazalgette, Janey Walker and John McVay joined independent filmmakers recently to discuss future business growth in an increasingly competitive sector.
The panel and networking event was held by Skillset as part of its Business Growth Opportunity Scheme, an initiative enabling 39 small to medium independent production companies to gain subsidised access to expert consultancy to produce a strategic business plan.
Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of Endemol UK, and Skillset Patron, said: “To be a successful independent producer in today’s highly competitive multi-channel world you are going to need a certain amount of size. One-off commissions are decreasing in number. Longer, repeatable series that make a statement in the schedules are the trend, the big prize to go for and to deliver those sorts of commissions to the broadcasters’ satisfaction, Indies need scale which takes planning.”
Janey Walker, Managing Editor, Commissioning, Channel 4, added: “Business planning is key to an Indies future success. Every company needs to know what it’s trying to do and what its trying to be – the areas they want to work in, how fast they want to be growing. They also have to be very clever in spotting where the gaps and opportunities are – it’s such a fast moving business and the copycatting is so quick – you’ve got to be ahead of the curve in what you’re offering to a broadcaster.”
Ian Pelling of Darlow Smithson Productions, the makers of ‘Touching the Void’, who are taking part in the scheme, said: “The timing of this Skillset initiative was just right for us. The company has been going through a lot of change and the marketplace – with things like the Communications Act – is also changing. The expert consultancy available through the scheme helps us to validate what we wanted to do at a top level and work out how to put that strategy into practice.”
Developed in consultation with Pact, major broadcasters, Regional Screen Agencies and a selection of successful Indies, the scheme represents more than £10,000 of consultancy reduced to a cost of just over £1000.
The scheme is funded by the European Social Fund and Learning and Skills Council London Central. The Independent Production Training Fund has also supported extra places on this scheme for black and minority ethnic owned companies.
(GB)