In blockbuster Britain, the BBC is being left behind

There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it. Netflix is normally secretive about its figures but this week published a list of its most popular shows and top of the pile is Bridgerton, which imagines Regency London as a racially mixed society. Although funded with US money, it is shot in Yorkshire with a British cast, using British technical know-how, and, thanks to Netflix’s global audience of more than 200 million, this British show has now become the most-watched series in the history of television.

Not so long ago, it was argued that subscription television would never work in Britain because we had all the broadcasting we could wish for. Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ have now spectacularly disproved that assumption, with 32 million subscribers in Britain. They’ve raised billions of pounds which, in turn, is helping to finance a revolution in TV production. As the BBC looks on, the world of television is being transformed — thanks to American investment.

British companies now lead the world in visual effects, for example. Six of the last eight Oscars awarded in that discipline went to British firms. American blockbusters are now as likely to be made in Britain as in Hollywood. Netflix and Disney have struck long-term deals with Pinewood and Shepperton studios, booking them years in advance. The owners of Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recently bought a 91-acre site in Hertfordshire. Some £450 million is being spent expanding Pinewood.

If there ever were an example of how Britain can flourish beyond membership of the EU, the television and film industry is it. World over, there is demand for high-end British productions — not just because of the actors and the British countryside, but because of our technology know-how and production skills.