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V and Y Productions Limited – TV production company case
Background and industry definitions
A large number of independent television (TV) production companies have been making TV programmes for transmission by TV broadcast companies in the UK and Europe for the last 30 years. Independent TV production companies are generally referred to as “indies”.
Some independent TV production companies specialise in their choice of programme content, such as comedy, drama, current affairs or documentaries. Independent TV production companies are usually commissioned by a TV broadcast organisation to make a series of programmes, to meet specific criteria and for an agreed fixed contract price.
VYP is based in the UK and makes programmes for a variety of TV broadcast organisations. TV broadcast organisations include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky in the UK and other commercial broadcast organisations in other European countries. All of the programmes that these broadcast organisations transmit to the viewing public come from 3 sources. These 3 sources are:
1. “In-house” productions – where programmes are produced by their own production teams. “In-house” productions generally include news programmes, sports and events.
2. “Acquired” programmes – which are programmes originally created for another broadcaster. Typically these include USA-made TV programmes and films.
3. “Third party content providers” – this includes the range of programmes made by independent TV production companies.
Some of the TV broadcast companies in Europe are listed companies, whereas others are stateowned organisations. In the UK, the BBC is funded through a licence fee from its viewers and has an obligation to commission a minimum percentage of its programmes from independent production companies. It is currently