depedent or independent

Much wringing of hands this week concerning the lack of television network production in the Nations. A major conference in Salford discussed the problems. Many of the usual suspects were there and herein lies a problem; A bit like the police investigating themselves, many of those bemoaning the state of things in the regions were/directly responsible for its state of affairs. Broadcasting is a very insular world and it is dominated, at present, by a highly restricted number of players. Broadcasters, platform operators and production companies. Many argue against any protections for PSB players and support the Governments policy of deregulation. The debate tends to be characterised as a David and Goliath type struggle between MSM on the one hand and heroic, independent fledgling production companies on the other, valiantly providing what the broadcasters can't do and what the audiences want. The BBC competes on this level and is now in the thrall of super-indies who exert an undue influence on the market and on editorial policy. Those in charge at the BBC have all but run up the white flag over in house production as ITV did many years ago. Just as with the music business in the seventies when small independent labels championed new talent, briefly, before being swallowed up by major labels, one by one the labels who were the best at nurturing and uncovering talent succumbed to the power of the cheque-book, with the result that music returned to being bland and uninteresting. In television, in a similar way, major indies now have too much influence and this is bad for business and bad for viewers.