The British television industry is facing an unprecedented crisis, according to Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky, who has revealed that budget constraints almost derailed last year’s much-anticipated second series of the acclaimed period drama.
Speaking to Newsnight, Kosminsky disclosed that filming for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light was nearly abandoned just six weeks before production was due to start. The team was forced to make drastic cuts, scrapping elaborate exterior scenes and reducing the drama to mostly “conversations in rooms.”
This, he argues, is symptomatic of a wider problem: public service broadcasters like the BBC and ITV can no longer afford to produce high-end British drama without external financial support. As a solution, Kosminsky is calling for a 5% levy on UK subscription streaming revenues, with proceeds going towards a British cultural fund to support domestic productions.
A costly production crisis
Kosminsky explained that even after cutting locations, props, costumes, and cast members, the financial shortfall was still too great. “That’s not something that has ever happened to me before, in all the years I’ve been making programmes,” he admitted. “You actually have to stop six weeks from production.”
The original script included many outdoor scenes, featuring horses and even a jousting sequence as envisioned by the late Hilary Mantel, the novelist behind the Wolf Hall trilogy. However, financial pressures meant all of these elements had to be scrapped, significantly altering the vision for the series.
“I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved, and the response overwhelmed us all,” Kosminsky said. “But the original concept had more fresh air in it. You would have seen more of Tudor society beyond the throne rooms, palaces, and dining halls.”
The future of British drama at risk
Kosminsky warned that the financial landscape for UK public broadcasters has worsened since Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light was filmed. He believes it is now unlikely that similar high-budget British dramas, such as ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office, would even be commissioned.
“One day, British audiences will notice these types of programmes are gone,” he cautioned.
The director also highlighted Adolescence, a current Netflix hit about a teenager accused of murder, as an example of a show that UK broadcasters would struggle to produce today. Jack Thorne, the writer of Adolescence, believes the BBC or ITV could have made the drama, but only by significantly reducing its scale.
“In episode two, I wrote a fire drill that involved 300 extras. Those 300 extras had to be employed for ten days. That is an awful lot of money,” Thorne told the BBC. “On a public service budget, those things would have been difficult.”
Streaming services and inflation of production costs
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 US actors’ and writers’ strikes, and rising energy costs have all contributed to soaring production expenses. However, Kosminsky and other industry figures argue that streaming services have also played a major role in driving up costs, making it increasingly difficult for traditional broadcasters to compete.
Patrick Spence, executive producer of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, described the situation as a “serious issue.”
“Not only would Mr Bates not get funded today, but I wouldn’t even have started developing it,” he admitted.
Former sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates, whose real-life ordeal was the focus of the ITV drama, said it would be “a real shame” if these types of socially significant programmes could no longer be made.
“The series meant a lot of people saw, for the first time, the sort of hell going on in the background in the Post Office – the real miscarriage of justice happening across the country,” he said.
Spence further revealed that his upcoming ITV drama The Hack, written by Adolescence writer Jack Thorne and focusing on the phone hacking scandal, would be nearly impossible to fund under current conditions.
“There’s no way I could raise the money to fund that programme now,” he said.
A proposed streaming Levy to save British drama
Figures from the British Film Institute (BFI) last month showed that £5.6 billion was spent on high-end TV and film production in the UK in 2024. However, only £598 million of that was spent on domestic UK programmes – a 22% decline from the previous year.
Kosminsky believes a levy on streaming services could help bridge this gap, bringing the UK in line with countries such as France and Denmark, which use similar schemes to fund domestic productions.
However, imposing a levy on US-based streaming giants could face diplomatic hurdles. A White House memorandum in February referred to levies on US streaming services as “one-sided, anti-competitive policies” that “violate American sovereignty.” With the possibility of Donald Trump returning to power, some fear that the UK government may be reluctant to pursue such a policy.
More Read
A race against time
Industry figures warn that urgent action is needed to safeguard Britain’s rich tradition of high-quality television drama.
Jayne Featherstone, executive producer of Netflix’s Black Doves, described the UK as being “at risk of losing the very stories that define us.”
“We are in the 45th minute of the pilot episode, and we’ve got five minutes left to stop the bomb from going off,” she said.
Featherstone recently told a House of Commons committee that the government should consider increasing tax relief for high-end television, similar to the benefits already provided to the film industry.
Jack Thorne echoed this sentiment, stating that even if traditional broadcasters could still produce major dramas, they would likely need co-financing from abroad.
“I think we could have done it – it just would have been very different,” Thorne admitted. “And truthfully, it probably would have needed co-finance from abroad. The problem at the moment is that finance has disappeared.”
As the UK television industry struggles to compete with the financial muscle of global streaming giants, the future of homegrown high-end drama hangs in the balance. Whether policymakers will intervene remains uncertain – but for many, the stakes have never been higher.
