Northern Irish Indie Producers Blast Ofcom C4 Nations Decision

More than 50 Northern Irish indies have signed a letter rebuking regulator Ofcom for rejecting individual quotas for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in Channel 4’s 10-year license.

In the open letter, the production companies expressed they were “utterly let down” by the regulator’s decision not to implement individual quotas on C4’s nations requirements.

Ofcom renewed C4’s 10-year license last week, confirming it was raising the PSB’s nations quota to 12% from 2030. This figure would not include individual quotas for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (NI).

Here is the open letter signed by the 51 independent producers:

This coalition of Northern Ireland-based production companies wishes to publicly state our utter dismay at Ofcom’s decision in relation to the next ten-year Channel 4 license and call out that decision as wholly inconsistent with the consultative and evidence-based approach Ofcom is supposed to follow. 

We see Ofcom’s failure to implement an individual quota for Northern Ireland, alongside similar quotas for Scotland and Wales, as completely irreconcilable with the historic evidence of the previous two Ofcom licenses given to Channel 4. The market failure is clear to see, providing the evidence that Ofcom should intervene. The consultation process twice delivered a universal message from the consultees for what Ofcom should do and included submissions from many UK wide stakeholders including Pact, Bectu & the BFI. For them too the evidence was clear, but yet Ofcom did not act. 

As the smallest and most remote nation within the UK, the experience in Northern Ireland provides the clearest barometer of the legitimacy or efficacy of any initiative intended to deliver value across the whole of the nations and regions. The evidence of production levels commissioned by Channel 4 over twenty years and two licenses are damning of Channel 4’s credibility against its own assertion that it is ‘4 All the UK’, but it is more damning of Ofcomwhich holds the responsibility to react to market failure. 

Ofcom has in this licensing decision knowingly consigned Northern Ireland to practical exclusion from Channel 4 for another ten years. We believe that this calls into question Ofcom’s credibility as the regulator of broadcasting in Northern Ireland and by its own actions has made inevitable the beginnings of a wider debate. 

Having been utterly let down by Ofcom, we would ask Channel 4 to do the right thing, heed the encouragement and guidance delivered by the Secretary of State for Media, Lisa Nandy MP, and impose individual nations quotas on itself and commit to delivering them as soon as possible rather than pushing them to 2030, a date so far in the future as to be almost irrelevant.  

List of Northern Ireland companies signed up to this letter  

• Afro-Mic Productions 

• Imagine Media  

• Paper Owl Films  

• Aisling Productions  

• Indie Movie Company  

• Rare TV Productions  

• Alleycats  

• Ligid Productions  

• Ronin Films  

• Armchair and Rocket  

• Little Ease Films  

• Score Draw Media  

• Below The Radar  

• Macha Media  

• Sixteen South  

• Besom Productions  

• Macmillan Media  

• Sonas Productions  

• Big Mountain Productions  

• Mammoth Screen  

• Stellify Media  

• Cause-a-Scene Films  

• Moondog Productions  

• Strident  

• Clean Slate Television  

• Negative Waves  

• Tern TV  

• Cyprus Avenue Films  

• New Red TV  

• Triplevision Productions  

• Dog Ears  

• Nice One Productions  

• Tyrone Productions  

• DoubleBand Films  

• Northern Star Pictures  

• Village Films  

• Element Pictures  

• Notasuch Films  

• Waddell Media  

• Erica Starling Productions  

• NPE Media  

• Wee Buns  

• Green Inc Film&Television  

• Westway Film Productions  

• Open Reel Productions 

• Hat Trick Productions  

• Out of Orbit  

• Walk on Air Films  

• Humain  

• Palindrome Pictures  

• Zoogon