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September 2010
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    The UK's leading indie producers
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    Leading drama producer Andy Harries interviewed
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Reports&
surveys

Commercials 30 Back to Reports & survey Listing













Producers’ challenges and concerns

A snapshot of the feedback from producers asked in the Commercials 30 survey about their ongoing challenges and concerns for the year ahead

Budgets
As every production company is painfully aware, budgets have dropped drastically. Not surprisingly this then is producers’ principal concern because “marketing budgets continue to fall, but people continue to expect the same production values for a third of the cost.” And producers know they have to, as one puts it  “maintain really high end production values with ever decreasing resources. It’s all about “battling the smaller budgets without sacrificing quality.” Because sacrificing quality hurts production companies down the line. As one puts it it’s about “making the right choices in the short term to ensure the longevity of our directors’ careers. Lowering the bar creatively just to keep people working will have a negative knock on effect in the future.”

Diversification
The vast majority of production companies’ work continues to be the traditional TV spot commissioned through an agency, but with that model under pressure, and new models emerging, companies are looking at “how to make money doing stuff other than ads” as one puts it. They’re also looking to find work beyond that dished out by agencies and “embracing the move into direct to client advertising.” Part of diversification  is also working more and more in digital even though clients tend to think it can be done on the cheap so a concern is “persuading clients that online film is an original medium worthy of more investment.”



Talent development
Bringing on talent is a concern with the “development of truly original and talented directors in an ever decreasing market” a big challenge. As one company puts it “breaking new directors with increasingly conservative clients and shrinking budgets. These are both challenges AND concerns.”

Phantom projects
Another symptom of recession has been increasingly involved and competitive pitching processes for jobs that don’t eventually happen. “It is harder to get a sense of whether a project will actually come to fruition. We are often called in at very early stages and there is a lot of wastage in projects that are not lost in pitch, but instead never happen at all.”

More Chapters

 Down but not defeated
 Top 30 at a glance
 How the Commercials 30 works
 Peer Poll Top 10
 Awards, Commissions, Directors top 10s
 Commercials producers' challenges and concerns
 Commercials producers: 1-10
 Commercials producers: 11-20
 Commercials producers: 21-30
 Best in Show
 


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