Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky has said there is “no way” the BBC and ITV could afford to make Netflix hit Adolescence. Earlier this year, Kosminsky called the finance of public broadcasters “insufficient to make high-end TV drama in 2024/5 – in the inflated cost environment created here by the streamers” in a letter to MPs.
The crime drama, which stars This Is England actor Stephen Graham as the father of a boy accused of killing a classmate, had more than 100 extras and had each of the episodes filmed in a continuous single shot.
Graham and Jack Thorne, creators of the four-part limited series, made near Pontefract in West Yorkshire, have accepted an invitation to a parliamentary meeting by Labour MP Josh McAlister to discuss online safety with MPs.
Kosminsky previously revealed he took a pay cut along with actor Sir Mark Rylance so they could conclude Dame Hilary Mantel’s epic historical work with Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light on the BBC last year.
He told BBC current affairs programme Newsnight (21 January 2025), that after working for 45 years in the industry, public broadcasting is facing its first “existential crisis” of his long career.
Kosminsky added “I think the BBC or ITV would wish to make Adolescence, but let’s be absolutely clear, there is no way they could make it at the moment. American streaming companies have pushed up prices so the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 “can’t afford to make dramas like Wolf Hall anymore” or programmes such as ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and Hillsborough, which the streamers would deem to be too British focused.
He also said although Adolescence is a “fantastic programme”, Netflix would not make the show if it was not successful outside the UK.
Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which saw a number of its actors take pay cuts, made more people aware of sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted, and sparked the Government to take more action on getting the workers compensation.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline (29 January 2025), the Wolf Hall director claimed that the industry is in danger of self-censoring provocative, public-interest series because of the risk that they won’t secure the necessary finance to enter production.
The funding crisis is dominating discussions in the UK scripted community, as executives lament a perfect storm of issues, including U.S. streamers pulling back from co-production, shrinking international sales advances, persistent inflation, ad revenue declines, and BBC funding cuts.
Pact, the UK producer trade body, estimates that there are around 15 British series that have been greenlit but are unable to enter production because of funding shortfalls. The BBC has admitted multiple shows are in “limbo,” with Deadline revealing that one series experiencing issues is A24’s adaptation of Booker Prize-winner Shuggie Bain.
Kosminsky is concerned that the problem is going to get worse before it gets better. “It’s not because projects will pile up in limbo without enough money to complete their funding, but because more won’t even get to that point,” he said. “Producers, directors, and writers won’t bother trying to submit them because they know there’s no chance of making them.”
He described this as becoming “silent, insidious self-censorship” that could lead to the “invisible” decay of shows including Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the ITV drama that caused political outcry and expedited a fight for justice, and Three Girls, the BBC grooming gang series.
Kosminsky compared the crisis to the closure of steel factories in the UK, resulting in a skilled workforce retraining, retiring, or losing work. “There’s a real danger that we lose the habit of making these kinds of dramas,” he said. “We’ve got one of the proudest traditions of television in the world and if our industry has got to the point where we can’t make that kind of drama anymore, because streamers don’t think it will travel internationally … we’re in a desperate situation.”
Kosminsky, who is known for the Hollywood drama White Oleander, is currently working on a three-part BBC drama series about Grenfell.
Work is ramping up on Grenfell following the public inquiry and the BBC remains committed to the project, but Kosminsky is uncertain he would have embarked on the series in the current climate. “It will be a complicated drama involving special effects and visual effects and probably quite a large cast. And it’s not unreasonable to ask: how’s this going to get made? Currently, we’re voyaging hopefully.”
Kosminky’s solution to the funding crunch is to require streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to hand over 5% of their UK subscription revenue to a cultural fund for British content. He pointed to 17 other territories, including France and Germany, where similar schemes are in place.
“A British TV (body), with its self-financing cultural fund, would be brought into existence entirely to address this market failure. Its criterion wouldn’t be profit, it would be excellence,” he also said.
“And our culture would be the richer for it.”
Sources: The Evening Standard (22 March 2025) & Deadline (29 January 2025
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