Film On Four

The BBC and ITV

James Saynor, writing for Sight and Sound in 1992, is cynical of Film on Four’s role in the British cinema revival but credits it with inspiring the BBC, who are more financially powerful, to follow suit and hopefully make an even more pronounced impact. ‘At the end of its first decade [Film on Four] increasingly resembles an albatross that the cash strapped Channel Four is feeding with reluctance. But it’s passed the film-making baton to the BBC, which, given current corporation politics suddenly looks quite secure in Shivas’ hands’.

Mark Shivas took over as head of BBC drama in 1991 and has since reformed the BBC’s fiction policy to very much resemble Channel Fours. The BBC has also started providing domestic cinema releases for its in-house productions prior to their TV debuts, something that had previously been impossible due to the corporationÕs disagreements with the technicians unions. And the ITV companies have also followed suit pledging to invest £100million in feature film production over the next five years. So even if Film on Four’s contribution to British cinema is debatable it must be credited with innovating the template for the financing of British film for the next few years.