UK's Channel 4 To Invest Record £450M In Local Production, Scale Back On US Fare

Britain’s Channel 4 has pledged to invest nearly £450 million towards original UK content in 2012, chief exec David Abraham announced today. The sum is an historic high for the network and should come as good news to the UK film industry where Channel 4 has lately been involved in such films as 2011’s local hit The Inbetweeners Movie as well as other notable indies Submarine, The Iron Lady, Shame and Tyrannosaur. It might not be such good news for US content creators, however, as Abraham noted the new spend is in part derived by pro-actively shifting some investment away from acquired, mainly US, programming, into UK commissioned content. A recent review of UK film policy urged Britain’s broadcasters to invest more in independent British film production with the head of the review committee noting Channel 4 had already done “pretty well by British film over the course of recent years,” but that they and others could do more. Abraham made the announcement of increased spend at the Oxford Media Convention today touting its eventual impact on job creation for British companies and the creation of intellectual property “which indies can use to generate additional export revenue, further boosting the UK economy.” Calling his plan Mission With Mischief, Abraham said the group would re-focus its “creative output on innovation, diversity and seeing the modern world in new ways.”