Please stop feeding the insatiable film subsidy monster
British TV and film producers have developed one skill beyond storytelling: extracting cash from taxpayers.
Our politicians seem hypnotised by the glamour of high-end shows and movies. The latest culture, media and sport select committee report regurgitates industry complaints, calling for even more subsidies. Not content with existing tax reliefs, MPs propose new relief for research, development and marketing in film, plus an audacious 5 per cent levy on British subscriber revenues from Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Apple.
The goal? To create a slush fund to support high-end 'culturally British' TV production, a sub-sector supposedly in 'crisis'.
Crisis? Really? Total spending in Britain's film and high-end TV sector increased by almost a third in 2024. The runaway success of Netflix's Adolescence — a British-American collaboration
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