Be ready for TV funding to dry up, BBC told

♦ BBC drama dependent on outside investment will be in financial trouble if production partners go elsewhere, MPS have said, warning that the rise of Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services has put the corporation’s future at “significant risk”.

Two thirds of the BBC’S TV drama output is funded by joint ventures and it “should make contingency plans for when these relations end”, the Public Accounts Committee said. In its first report into the BBC’S commercial activities, the committee said the nature of TV viewing was changing, particularly among the young, with the market “increasingly dominated by non-traditional media organisations”.

BBC commercial revenue in 2016-17, at £1.2 billion, was broadly the same as the previous four years. Only BBC Worldwide made a profit, with the Global News division and BBC Studios making a loss.

Most dramas are co-productions – Mcmafia was made with the US network AMC, which also coproduced The Night Manager, and Troy: Fall of a City was co-produced with Netflix. The PAC report said: “The BBC should monitor its partnerships for signs of divergence between its and its partners’ interests.”