General : Virgin Media to stop investing in original drama content

[SonicMaster]

Virgin Media has turned its back on commissioning drama after spiralling costs “priced it out of the market”.

The pay-TV operator will not return to high-end scripted having launched two dramas in 2019: Studio Lambert’s 10-part dystopian thriller The Feed (a co-production between Virgin co-owner Liberty Global and Amazon) and The Rook from Lionsgate for VM and Starz.

Chief digital entertainment officer David Bouchier said Virgin Media’s content play is about being a super aggregator of high quality third-party, as it can no longer compete with the deep-pocketed new entrants to the premium drama space.

Speaking at a Broadcast Intelligence event, he said: “Exclusive content is part of our DNA, but when you see the eye-watering budgets of today it’s fair to say we were priced out of the market.”

“In the old world we got the numbers together to make it work and felt it could resonate. But the growing costs involved made us change our view.”

The decision means that no further projects will emerge from the two-year programming partnership struck between Liberty Global and All3Media in 2016.

The two-year agreement, which spawned The Feed, was originally conceived to result in four shows.

Bouchier said commissioning content is both a “blessing and a curse” and that it had been hard for VM to make “any kind of noise or impression”.

“Exclusive content is yours and you own it - but unless you spend a lot of money telling people, only you know about it.”

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broad...147708.article

[OLD BOY]

It makes sense in this DTC world. Given that the streamers will be the home of most original dramas in the future, all channels will struggle to acquire the rights to broadcast them. This does throw into question the continued viability of the Virgin Media UHD channel.

Fortunately, we now have the Sky UHD material to look forward to.

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Fortunately, we now have the Sky UHD material to look forward to.

It's unlikely (in my opinion, but based on how Sky HD content hasn't been available to all) that the Sky UHD content will be made available to the same number of tiers as the Virgin Media commissioned dramas, which VM allowed everyone to watch on On-Demand.

I'm certainly not looking forward to it since I'm unlikely to get it.

I wish VM would let all tiers view the Virgin Media Ultra HD channel, it seems a waste of money just letting top tier customers watch it.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by SonicMaster

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broad...147708.article

They were never really in it to start with IMO.

I had no idea they had anything to do with "The Rook", which was mostly ok, if a bit slow at times.