Irish studios well placed to make most of small screen golden age
Business Editor Samantha McCaughren talks to the woman driving the fortunes of two leading Irish film studios
IRELAND is well positioned to take advantage of a golden age in small screen production, according to Siún Ní Raghallaigh, chief executive of Ardmore Studios and Troy Studios.
The success of Netflix and other subscription services has created new demand for high-quality series.
“The subscription model is like a new source of funding in the industry,” Ní Raghallaigh told the Sunday Independent in an exclusive interview.
“Because we have more spend than before and that in itself has increased the budget levels.
“It is sort of a golden era for small screen production and we don’t see it changing in the immediate future.”
A new report by PwC made a range of suggestions for the growth and support of the industry. Among them was the removal of a cap of €70m on the industry tax incentive.
“I would like the cap to be lifted,” she said.
“It does not mean the floodgates open because it’s only as good as the capacity you have within the country. Right now we have three major studios in the republic, Troy, Ardmore and Ashford.
“At any given time, one would suspect you could have three major projects within the country and you’d be able to service that.
“If you take the cap away, you can compete at a level for projects that match the ambition and scale of the studio space we are building now.”
Ardmore in Co Wicklow is seeking planning for further expansion.
SIÚN Ní Raghallaigh says that every time a big movie or TV production comes together and gets made, it’s as though there is a little bit of magic at work.
“I always say that every film or piece of work that gets made is a perfect storm,” says the chief executive of Ardmore and Troy Studios.
“It’s like magic that it gets to happen. Because everything has to align.”
From the writer’s story grabbing a producer’s attention to the right actor joining up with the project, there are several elements which need to fall into place for projects to make it to the screen in a notoriously tough industry.
Leaving the magic to those in show business, Ní Raghallaigh is now just asking that parts of the Government and its various bodies can come together to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity that awaits. That opportunity springs from Netflix and other subscription platforms known as streamers.
“The subscription model is like a new source of funding in the industry. Because we have more spend than before and that in itself has increased the budget levels,” she says. “It is sort of a golden era for small screen production at the moment and we don’t see it changing in the immediate future.”
The government departments, Revenue Commissioners and Screen Ireland have done a lot of things right. But there is a lot more that can be done to make Ireland attractive in a highly competitive international space.
“Think of the number of departments that are involved in this industry. We have Culture, which is the place where the funding from Screen Ireland comes from. And we have Education, which is where the skills support comes from. We have Communications, which is where the broadcasting side comes from. We have Finance and we have the Revenue Commissioners,” says Ni Raghallaigh.
“And Tourism,because a sub-set of this is film tourism. We also have Enterprise Ireland, which is great support for indigenous companies, and the IDA who would collaborate on enticing bigger projects in. You can see it’s across a lot of different departments. Whereas you can see if you look at other countries, they generally condense that into one department.”
In addition to seeking a more cohesive approach, Ní Raghallaigh wants a cap on tax relief under the industry incentive — known as Section 481 — lifted. A report produced by PwC, Section 481 & The Film/TV Industry, was published last week and highlighted the benefits of the industry for the Irish economy, as well as some of the areas which could be improved.
Section 481 has changed significantly in recent times and moved to a self-assessment system. This transition hasn’t always been smooth but Ní Raghallaigh says great progress has been made.
However, the scheme’s image wasn’t helped by reports last year of a briefing note prepared for the Revenue chairman which suggested film-makers could be inflating their budgets.
Asked if this was a fair suggestion, Ní Raghallaigh says: “They would have the knowledge, I wouldn’t. The industry do not want that. To be honest, everyone tries their damnedest to comply, everybody wants it to succeed.”
Ní Raghallaigh, who rarely gives interviews, grew up in Co Donegal and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do by the time she left school. “I still don’t know what I want to do,” she says with a laugh. She studied accounting at night and one of her early jobs was in the newspaper industry, working at the Sunday Tribune.
She left in the 1990s when TNaG (now TG4) was being set up, taking up a finance role at the station. “I left Dublin and moved to Galway and had a blast with a team of people setting up a brand new television channel. It was a privilege.”
She later became chair of the TG4 board and is now in her second term in the role.
Ní Raghallaigh left the Irish-language station in 2001 and became CEO of Tyrone Productions, owned by Moya Doherty and John McColgan, for a couple of years, before going on to set up her own production company.
She switched gears for around five years, working in the software industry before coming back into film and TV by taking up the CEO job at Ardmore Studios.
Set up in 1958, it was struggling at the time. “Ardmore was a sick child,” she says of the company then owned by industry accountant Ossie Kilkenny and former U2 manager Paul McGuinness, as well as Enterprise Ireland.
“It was really going nowhere. The reality at the time was either close it down or do something with it. I was put in there and decided let’s do something with this and went for it.
“It’s a jewel in the crown of the Irish film industry. It needed to be polished up. It needed a culture change, which is a big thing in business, and that’s what was done.”
Her approach worked. “Now it’s a successful company, it’s profitable — that journey was challenging and interesting,” she said.
A lot has happened since. Ardmore has been sold and a second studio, Troy, which involved Ní Raghallaigh from its inception, has been established in Limerick. Both have some shareholders in common, including financier Joe Devine who chairs Troy, as well as Ní Raghallaigh herself.
There is a Ridley Scott film being made in Ardmore at the moment. Ní Raghallaigh says she never gets star-struck, although adds she met Barbara Broccoli, the producer best known for the James Bond movies. “I was pretty taken by that,” she says.
“I generally don’t put myself between producers and their actors,” she adds with a burst of laughter, suggesting there is a good story there which she doesn’t want to share. “It’s not a good idea.”
“When people give us the honour of choosing our studios, customer service is really important. We want to give them a really positive experience, not just of our studios but also of Ireland. And we want them to come back.”
Troy in Limerick, which opened in 2017, came about at a time when “we were full to the gills at Ardmore”, she says.
“We were looking at expanding and so on, there was no way to do it at Ardmore at that time.”
Representatives from Limerick wanted Ní Raghallaigh to look at opportunities in the city but she wasn’t keen, given its distance from Dublin. When she went to visit the old Dell building, however, she knew it would make an excellent studio. It ticked other boxes such as proximity to a motorway and airport. There were no local crew bases but she says her experience in setting up TG4 gave her confidence.
Ní Raghallaigh said €13m has been spent in the studio by its investors and a previous production, Nightflyers, spent €53m over the course of six months. “It employed hundreds of people and the spin-off was amazing,” she said.
However, the series was not renewed. “It is part and parcel of the business. It’s great when you get something in with the potential to go multi-annual but the first season is always the test.”
Although she won’t comment, it is widely known a science fiction series for Apple’s new streaming service is being filmed in Troy.
Ní Raghallaigh is pleased with how the studios have performed. “They are two very successful businesses,” she says of Troy and Ardmore. “They have added to the Irish economy and the industry. We have substantial inward investment in the form of productions and we are in the process of creating a whole range of jobs and crew base in Limerick.
“We are slightly behind the curve in the infrastructure piece. But by 2022 we would see between Troy and Ardmore there would be around 250,000 sq ft of stage space between the two, which is very significant,” she says.
Ireland is well placed to attract more big budget series. She credits Ashford Studios for its success with the long-running Vikings series. Penny Dreadful filmed at Ardmore for three years shortly after she joined. “That was a Godsend,” she says. “That’s what got Ardmore on its feet.”
One other issue Ní Raghallaigh would like to see addressed by Government is its regional uplift scheme, which gives extra tax breaks to certain areas.“The principle of it is absolutely right, but the application of it needs some work and some discussion between the industry and Department of Culture,” she says.
She believes all these measures will ultimately help develop and support Ireland’s own indigenous production sector.
Another string to Ní Raghallaigh’s bow is her involvement with an animation company in Galway called Motion Films, which is about to finish its second feature film. It’s a sequel to Two by Two, which has been “very successful all over the world”. Does she consider herself an entrepreneur? “I’ve certainly done entrepreneurial things,” she says. “I have no fear of jumping in. I would be careful, of course, but I wouldn’t necessarily hold back. But I have been very lucky to have met good people along the way who have supported that.”
What makes her take the leap into business others step back from? “Some people love to procrastinate,” she says. “And procrastination in my eyes is a bit of a disease.”
Like almost every industry, the impact of Covid-19 lurks in the background. A decision to delay the release of the next James Bond film made international headlines, while location sets have been hit with the illness.
Ni Raghallaigh is pragmatic: “I don’t see how it’s not going to affect industry here, but we’re going to have to ride the wave.”