‘No logic’: Yorkshire’s TV industry baffled by Channel 4 privatisation

theguardian.com:

When Andrew Sheldon first started travelling from Leeds to London to pitch ideas for new television shows, even getting in the door was a challenge for his Leeds-based television production company.

“You’d get to London and get to the front desk and be told: ‘Sorry can you come back next week,’” recalled the founder of True North productions. Even when he did get inside, one senior television executive was notorious for welcoming the visitors from Yorkshire as exotic creatures: “You’d go and see them and they’d say: ‘How are things in the north’ and wave their arm across the sky. It was a bit like being in Game of Thrones.”

In theory Channel 4’s recent arrival in Leeds should change that. Rather than having to head to the capital to win television commissions, Yorkshire companies such as True North – and smaller start-ups – should be able to build up relationships with commissioners in the same way that their London rivals have long enjoyed.

Which is why Yorkshire’s television production companies are baffled the government is risking its own rare levelling up success by privatising the channel, just as the regional work starts to take off. They fear that any private-sector owner of Channel 4 is unlikely to want to keep an expensive office in Leeds or take risks on small start-up companies.

“TV in Yorkshire has become a thing again – it’s that hard-to-quantify confidence,” said Pete Brandon. He returned home from London three years ago to co-found Button Down productions. The company, based in a wooden medieval building overlooking York Minster, has benefited from Channel 4’s regional commissions schemes and is hoping to win commissions from the broadcaster. It currently employs five full-time staff and has been considering