Edinburgh TV Festival Takeaways: YouTube’s Rise, Commissioning Landscape and Move to Manchester

This year’s Edinburgh TV Festival was one of the buzziest, a somewhat ironic fact given it’s also the last. From next year the TV festival, which first originated in the Scottish city fifty years ago, is moving to Manchester.

The move was inevitably the talk of this year’s edition, with many genuinely emotional at the close of such a significant chapter. But with the TV business under more pressure than ever, it wasn’t the main topic of conversation. Read on for Variety’s top takeaways from this year’s fest.

The Rise of YouTube

There was no getting away from YouTube this year, not least because its EMEA boss Pedro Pina delivered this year’s keynote McTaggart lecture, in which he tried to persuade a suspicious if not outwardly hostile audience that the Silicon Valley platform is “not the villain.”

But the video sharing giant came up in nearly every other panel, particularly those spotlighting the U.K.’s traditional public service broadcasters, who weren’t afraid to make their views known. ITV entertainment boss Kevin Lygo scoffed at Pina’s £3 million pledge for U.K. content (“I did have a little chortle,” Lygo said. “You think, well, we [spend] £1.2 billion every year.”) Meanwhile Channel 5 boss Ben Frow claimed PSBs still offer a bigger platform than YouTube while the network itself doesn’t “make nearly as much money on YouTube” compared to traditional avenues.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC’s new director-general Matt Brittin – Pina’s former boss at Google – was not as dismissive about his former employer, even suggesting the BBC could come up with its own local-news version to stay relevant.

Love it or hate it, with its viewing figures fast overtaking traditional broadcasters’, YouTube is now undeniably a part of the U.K.’s broadcasting ecosystem.

Duty of Care

With yet another contributor welfare scandal having hit British broadcasting this year in the form of Channel 4’s “Married at First Sight” U.K., duty of care continues to be front of mind. On the Channel 4 panel, director of content strategy Kiran Nataraja sidestepped questions about the scandal, citing two ongoing investigations, but her colleague Shaminder Nahal, head of specialist factual, was quizzed over another show, “Virgin Island.” “We review everything all the time,” Nahal said. “We’ve got a whole team of experts there.”

On the Netflix panel, director of unscripted Syeda Irtizaali was also questioned about duty of care on upcoming show “Netflix, Will You Marry Me?” in which viewers dictate the participant’s decisions. “We really thought hard about the duty of care,” Irtizaali claimed. “It’s at the center of our editorial.” Elsewhere, the festival hosted a panel titled “Too Big to Fail: Reality TV’s Duty of Care Reckoning” featuring former “Geordie Shore” cast member Vicky Pattison.

The question, of course, is all the awareness around the topic enough to prevent another scandal in the future? Only time will tell.

Who’s Still Commissioning?

For the independent producers in the audience, many of whom had paid large sums to attend the festival, one of the key questions was who is still commissioning, particularly in this era of aggressive consolidation.

The answers were an indictment of the state of the industry. The U.K.’s public service broadcasters are, by and large, in a sorry state. Channel 4’s Kiran Nataraja, director of content strategy, said the network is “still open for business” but admitted that commissioning was “slower” at the moment as they wait to find a new director of programs, after incumbent Ian Katz leaves in October. At Paramount-owned Channel 5, Ben Frow said he was still commissioning but there were fewer opportunities for higher-end budgets. “I can only do very, very few [shows at] £400,000 pounds an hour, but I can do a lot with £35,000 pounds an hour,” he explained. With its acquisition by Sky looming (the deal is currently going through the regulatory process), ITV entertainment boss Kevin Lygo was keen to reassure producers the network is continuing to function as normal, although with its £2.1 billion ITV Studios output deal, it’s questionable how much space there remains for indies.

Over at the streamers, however, there is no sense of a slowdown. In advance of its Edinburgh panel Netflix compiled a list at all of its upcoming re-commissions – which included “Black Mirror” Season 8, “The Gentlemen” Season 3 and “Legends” Season 2 among others – before announcing a further nine new shows during the panel itself, including two “Top Boy” spin-offs, a Roald Dahl series and a new vengeance drama starring Kate Winslet. When, during the panel, U.K. content chief Anne Mensah was asked whether Netflix was still commissioning, she replied “Oh my god!” and added “Completely.” Over at Prime Video, head of international originals Nicole Clemens was equally clear the streamer is looking for new content, while at Disney+ head of content Angela Jain cited a target set by Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro to triple the number of local originals globally.

The Move to Manchester

The TV Festival’s impending move to Manchester was one of the foremost topics of conversation at this year’s edition. The festival has been in Edinburgh since its inception in the Scottish capital 50 years ago and almost everyone Variety spoke to about the move expressed some disappointment. While there was some sympathy for the reasons behind the move – a week in Edinburgh is inevitably expensive, particularly since it takes place during the renowned Edinburgh Fringe, putting travel and accommodation at a premium – numerous questions remain regarding the move. Foremost is when will the Manchester version take place, given dates are still to be confirmed?

In Edinburgh it has always occupied the last week of August, timed between the traditional summer holiday lull and the busy fall/winter season, which encompasses the Royal Television Society conference in September, followed by Mipcom in Cannes in October and Content London in the first week of December. “Where will a Manchester-based TV Festival fit into that?” was the question many were asking.

Adding to the squeeze, the Edinburgh Fringe has become an increasingly important part of the TV ecosystem, with hits ranging from “Fleabag” to “Baby Reindeer” originating at the Fringe. Last year it was also a key pipeline for the producers of “Saturday Night Live” U.K., who scoured the festival looking for new comedy talent for the series. Despite the cost, part of Edinburgh TV Festival’s pull has always been its overlap with the fringe, enabling commissioners and producers to check out what’s going on on the ground as well as taking meetings.

But as well as practical reasons, there are emotional ones, with Edinburgh offering a history and charm that sparks creativity. As one publicist lamented of Manchester, “No cobbles!” Sky’s head of entertainment Philip Edgar-Jones (who happens to be a Scot) was so overcome by the prospect, at the end of Sky’s panel he asked for the lights to come up so he could take a commemorative selfie with his fellow panellists and the audience in the Pentland theater.

Scotland’s creative bodies, meanwhile, aren’t taking the loss lying down, with plans already afoot to fill the gap with their own media conference. Watch this space.