Stuart Cosgrove on Regional snobbery

[Caroline Cawley]

One of the great conceits of modern media is the disparaging use of the term “the regions”.

It has always struck me as bizarre that the diversity of the UK can be so blithely dismissed, as if life out of London is like the gulag archipelago, a place you are dispatched to for crimes against the state.

The way that the BBC’s Salford Quays project has been reported dredges this prejudice. It sometimes seems that BBC staff have been asked to re-locate to Albania in 1953, rather than to one of the most dynamic and successful cities in Europe. Only broadcasting could make such a drama out of such small-scale relocation.

Over the last five years, as broadcaster commissioning quotas have kicked-in the balance of power between London and the major creative cities of the UK have changed. The BBC’s decision to designate Cardiff as a hub for drama production is the latest chapter in a narrative of change that is re-drafting the map of television production.

Another dynamic that is increasingly in play is the politics of economic development as England’s Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and the devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales invest in the creative sectors.

Last week Northern Film and Media launched a development and production fund for indies in the north east, pledging up to £3m if the scheme proves successful.

This week, Belfast hosts one of the most expensive drama-pilots in UK production history, at a converted studio that once housed the painting sheds that tended to The Titantic. If the HBO show goes into full series commission it will weigh-in at $40m. The catalyst for HBO filming in Belfast was not broadcasters or independents but the regional screen agency Screen Northern Ireland, who also part- funded Channel 4’s multi-award winning film Hunger.

In a period of recession, when broadcaster budgets are coming under significant strain, funding partners are an increasingly vital part of the production ecology. Whether it’s the commercially-led Ad-Funded Programmes (AFP), the public agencies tasked with regional development, or third-sector foundations like the Wellcome Trust, a new era of co-production partnership is emerging.

Channel 4’s 4iP Fund which has strategic funding partners in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland was encouragingly supported by Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, which also proposed the concept of contestably funded news consortia, another innovation which will be largely regional in character.

As regional production diversity grows, the old prejudices of the past, which were so brilliantly satirised in the character of Norwich’s Alan Partridge, now appear to be ancient myths peddled by either snobs or those so out of touch with the nature of governance in the devolving UK that you fear for their future.


The regions began as a place to patronise, then in their next phase became a reluctant obligation that London- based commissioners felt corralled into having to support, now we are entering a third phase and one that is fairer and more creative.

Not only are the production sectors of cities like Manchester, Bristol and Glasgow thriving they offer a creative solution to an industry that trapped itself in restrictive commissioning practices that now seem dated and curiously old-fashioned.

[Colin Jack]

Organisations repeat the same mistakes over and over again. What annoys me is that when organisations create new departments, particularly to support digital media, they centralise them!
Where are the digital media companies that have been set up from the outset to be independant of geography?

[Anne Bonnar]

interesting you have posted this as a discussion. I guess all of us on 38 minutes wholeheartedly agree with your points and there will be no dissent.

A related aside: anyone else experiencing the backlash from London about Scotland's new assertiveness at the same time as we have Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling etc? I feel a version of the West Lothian question coming up and it goes something like this:
if you value your cultural identity and increasing social and economic devolution so much, why dont you get out of Westminster?