These are relatively cheap to produce as TV goes and the BBC is really stingy with its money outside of the big, popular stuff like Dr Who. Same reason there was a glut of BBC sitcoms for a while as well.
had the audacity to get mad at British TV for not producing prestige shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad (which had budgets of millions per episode) like 5 years after the Tories further slashed the budgets for fiction programmes lmao
Obviously not to say that throwing money at creative projects solves everything but it probably helps vary it up a bit.
Capitalism is unfortunately really shitty at making art. One issue is cost of living in places where films/TV are made. You can get by with a low budget and still have quality shows. It's then a problem of paying your grip or writers enough for them to afford the commute to set.
The Office (US) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, the original Dr. Who, and The Outer Limits were all made for dirt cheap. IASIP was done with almost zero dollars for its first season and The Office was under $500k for most of the early episodes.
These are relatively cheap to produce as TV goes and the BBC is really stingy with its money outside of the big, popular stuff like Dr Who. Same reason there was a glut of BBC sitcoms for a while as well.
Obviously not to say that throwing money at creative projects solves everything but it probably helps vary it up a bit.
Capitalism is unfortunately really shitty at making art. One issue is cost of living in places where films/TV are made. You can get by with a low budget and still have quality shows. It's then a problem of paying your grip or writers enough for them to afford the commute to set.
The Office (US) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, the original Dr. Who, and The Outer Limits were all made for dirt cheap. IASIP was done with almost zero dollars for its first season and The Office was under $500k for most of the early episodes.