Independent production trade body, Pact, has published the 2025 edition its Pact Census showing “sluggish growth” for TV production revenues through 2024.
The report, by Oliver and Ohlbaum Associates, shows that total TV production revenues increased slightly by 1.4 per cent to £3.66 billion, “as the sector navigates a challenging commissioning market at home and abroad.”
Pact says the slight growth in revenues was primarily driven by an increase in secondary rights revenues, as well as strong digital revenues across domestic and international markets.
Domestic TV revenues increased by £63 million to £2.09 billion in 2024, remaining above the £2 billion mark for the fourth year in a row. UK primary commissions fell minimally by 2.8 per cent to £1.74 billion, however UK rights income grew by £141 million to £303 million, as broadcasters looked to fill their slates with finished programmes as cost inflation continued to make production more expensive.
International TV revenues fell by £57 million to £1.35 billion in 2024, largely due to a decrease in international sales of finished programmes but remained well above pre-pandemic levels. Revenues from linear commissions fell by 36.7% to £279 million as traditionally linear commissioners shifted their strategy to prioritising their international digital platforms.
Total primary international commissions remained static at over a billion, totalling £1.13 billion in 2024. International commissions are becoming increasingly important to medium-sized producers with companies earning over £25 million accounting for 76.3 per cent of total international commissioning revenue in 2024. Around 120 producers – 32 per cent of the total market – received a primary international commission.
Secondary rights revenues grew by £75 million (17.2 per cent) to £510 million in 2024, returning to historic levels, due to producers focusing on secondary rights as primary commissions slowed down. This growth came from an increase in UK secondary TV sales, distribution advances and digital home entertainment.
Non-TV revenues grew sharply once again, increasing by 24 per cent year-on-year to £224 million. As last year, this increase was likely due to the success of some producers’ events production and management businesses as well as monetisation of audio and branded content.
Digital commissions jumped to 8.9 per cent of total domestic commissioning revenue, representing its highest historical proportion of total revenue.
Domestic digital commissioning revenue totalled £154 million in 2024, a 60 per cent increase on 2023. This is on par with the highest level achieved of £155 million in 2022.
International SVOD commissions spend grew by 24.2 per cent (£166 million) to £850 million in 2024, representing 75.3 per cent of total international primary TV revenues as UK content remained attractive to global SVODs and international commissioners shifted spend to digital commissions.
UK commissioning revenue decreased by 2.8 per cent to £1.74 billion in 2024. The majority of primary commissioning revenue continued to originate from PSBs, with their share remaining steady at just over 83.4 per cent.
Drama continued to be the largest genre in terms of UK commissioning spend and increased by 19.2 per cent compared with 2023, reaching 42 per cent of total spend, the highest proportion ever. Conversely, the value of factual and factual entertainment decreased by 23.6 per cent from 2023.
Producers with a turnover of more than £25 million accounted for 75.5 per cent of total spend on drama in 2024, compared with 91 per cent in 2023. Smaller producers accounted for a significant share of children’s content, lifestyle, factual, and other genres.
Jon Creamer
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