Netflix streaming wars fuel record UK film and TV production boom

Spending on high-end TV dramas by Netflix and Amazon eclipses BBC, Sky and ITV

The making of Hollywood hits such as the latest James Bond film No Time To Die and Sam Mendes's 1917, as well as prestige dramas such as Netflix's The Crown and the BBC's His Dark Materials, fuelled a record spend of 3.6bn on film and TV production in the UK last year.

The amount spent on film production in the UK in 2019 rose 6% year-on-year to 1.95bn - on 188 productions - the second-highest amount since the British Film Institute (BFI) began records in 1994. Most of this spending came from the big Hollywood studios, which ploughed 1.4bn on making just 21 blockbusters.