Sky Content Chief Says “We Had an Amazing Bubble” in Production

The state of U.K. TV production “has been really tough, and anybody who’s been in production these days would echo that,” Cécile Frot-Coutaz, the CEO of Sky Studios and chief content officer of Sky, owned by Comcast, told the Media & Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference in London on Tuesday.

“I think it’s been tough for a number of reasons,” she shared at the event, organized by Deloitte and Enders Analysis, . “Less has been commissioned, although I think if you look back over a period of 10 [or 15] years, I’m not sure there’s less today…. So, you know, we had an amazing bubble. Everybody got used to the bubble, and obviously now we’re sort of coming back down to volumes that are more akin to those that were experienced 15 years ago.”

Also, “there’s been a funding issue, because the U.S. hasn’t been co-producing British content nearly in the same way, or actually not at all, potentially,” the Sky top executive added.

But she also had a silver lining to tout. “What we’re seeing is [that] Europe is actually coming into some shows. We’ve seen that on some of our own programming. So you have to be very entrepreneurial these days when looking at how to get things financed, unless you’re a goal player like Netflix.”

About Sky’s content output strategy, she highlighted: “We were never a volume player. So actually, what we’ve been doing has been very consistent and very steady, and because we’re part of the Comcast group, we’re able to be flexible on the funding model.”

She concluded by predicting that “looking forward, I think things will settle again. Hopefully, the U.S. will start to come back online.”

She made the comments during a panel discussion that also featured Larry Tanz, vp, content, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Netflix, Sarah Rose, president of U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 and U.K. regional lead at Channel 5 owner Paramount Global, and Wayne Garvie, president of Sony Pictures Television. The panel discussed commissioning trends and industry opportunities and challenges.

Tuesday’s conference also featured top executives from the likes of the Walt Disney Co., U.K. public broadcaster BBC, streaming giant Netflix, and Comcast-owned Sky.