Interview with Kudos Founder

[Nitrus]

This is a very interesting article about the future of Spooks, how it is funded etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb...rett-kudos

Give it a read, it doesn't give me much hope for further series of Spooks .

[Tea Lady]

I'm not sure I would completely agree with that. I have already posted some comments about this article on the series 9 thread. I read it as saying that the situation as it stands now is quite dire but in saying that they (Kudos) will still be able to make series 9. It sounds like they have made representations to the BBC and with this BBC review that is ongoing, they hope that someone will listen to them and the funding gap will close. I took from this article that Kudos hopes that Spooks will continue and has not yet run its course. Kudos are obviously trying to push the issue now and get some publicity before any decisions are made about series 10.

Perhaps I just read too much into it but I am glad Kudos seem to be fighting back and fighting to keep Spooks being made. All of this makes it that little harder for the BBC to withdraw the funding altogether or reduce it further. As I say, these are just my thoughts.

Maybe all this fighting talk by Kudos will mean that they will hit it out of the ball park in series 9 !

TL

[lwhite53]

Interesting article -- I didn't know Kudos had been sold in 2006. That may have something to do with the change in tenor of the eps from the earlier years of the show.

Anyway, the funding issue is a problematic one, especially since you don't have access to the primary money source for tv that we have in the US -- commercials (adverts). Not that I especially like them, but they do pay the bills for all commercial US television. PBS has even moved in that direction in the last 5 or so years.

[bertowud]

PBS has had commercials of a sort for almost 10 years. They've always had a few minutes of thanking sponsors. It's the donation drives that get to me. "The only way we can bring programming like this to you is with your donations". Which is obvious, because the only time they have programming like that is when they're doing a donation drive.

---

Sorry to go a bit OT there. I have a friend who thinks PBS is the cat's pajamas and that "commercial television" is terrible because they air commercials. He gets really ranting when I point out they do have commercials.

How much is the TV tax in the UK?

[Jhokur]

From http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/, it's £142.50, or $223.50 @ today's rate. Break that down by month, and you're looking at £11.88 / $18.63 a month.

[HellsBells]

And over here in Britain all the commercial stations are really struggling as the income from the commercials is really low at the moment. The TV licence fee, I think, is good value for money.
Just couldn't believe the cost of making Spooks !

[almh]

I can imagine Spooks being an incredibly expensive drama - but Wallander getting more money per episode? (Sorry, I'm anti-Wallander, for fairly pathetic reasons - the lead guy annoys me and it beat Spooks to a tv award...)

[lwhite53]

Does anyone know how much of the licensing fee actually goes towards producing the programs, as opposed to paying for BBC administrative staff, etc?

[almh]

I found this on the BBC website, hope it answers your question:

[bertowud]

That does actually seem like decent value for the money.

My cable bill is about $150 a month with every channel available and I still find myself looking for TV from other sources.