Introduction

Figures for 2021 indicate that the Welsh screen sector bounced back from COVID-19 relatively better than other sectors, as it increased its turnover by 36 per cent from 2020 with a total of £575m. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the screen sector in Wales profoundly, exposing major shortcomings in how policy-makers understand, recognise and support the industry and its freelance labour. The immediate impact was disruptive and very difficult for freelancers and organisations alike, highlighting pre-existing issues within the sector and can inform future solutions. In this chapter we explore the ways in which COVID-19 brought into focus the challenges and opportunities for change of the Welsh screen sector.

The creative industries represent one of the fastest-growing sectors in Wales. In 2019 it employed over 56,000 people and had an annual turnover of more than £2.2bn, 40 per cent more than ten years ago (Creative Wales, 2020). Central to this creative ecosystem is the screen sector, which holds an international market position based on ‘high-end TV production, with strong local supply chains’ (Fodor, Komorowski and Lewis, 2021, p.33). It employs more than 40,000 people across Wales, with the majority of the companies concentrated in South Wales and the Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) – a developing film and TV cluster and one of the UK’s largest media production centres (Komorowski and Lewis, 2020b).¹

The screen sector in Wales is a tightly linked ecosystem of commissioning, production and support. Public service broadcasters play an important role in the Welsh media ecosystem as producers and commissioners of content. The majority of small independent companies (indies) and freelancers interviewed for this study work on commissions by Wales-based TV channels: S4C; BBC Cymru; and ITV Wales. Wales is also the most important producer of bilingual factual (news, sport, current affairs and culture) and fictional content in the UK. The presence of strong indigenous media contributes to reflecting and strengthening a sense of citizenship and evolving identities of the Welsh people (McElroy and Noonan, 2022; Fodor, Komorowski and Lewis, 2021).

Wales has become known for its ‘hugely popular, widely exported and award-winning productions’ (Hannah and McElroy, 2020, p.4), which include Doctor Who, Sherlock, Keeping Faith, Casualty, Hinterland, and Sex Education. This success story is nonetheless overshadowed by high levels of precarity and inequality in a sector characterised by a large number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), micro-businesses and freelancers (Hannah and McElroy, 2020). The negative impact of the pandemic on creative and cultural freelancers has been the focus of research and advocacy campaigns calling for a recognition of their importance to the sector (Bectu, 2020; ScreenSkills, 2020; Easton and Beckett, 2021; Henry et al., 2021; Ostrowska, 2021). Freelancers make up a large proportion of the screen sector workforce in Wales.² Their exact number is difficult to establish and the estimates vary from 50 per cent (or 40,000) of the creative workforce in Wales (Komorowski and Lewis, 2020a) to a more cautious 32 per cent as the UK average of freelance employment in the screen sector (Hannah and McElroy, 2020).³ Early studies identified that the pandemic ‘magnified existing inequalities and laid bare the impact of having a largely freelance sector characterised by high levels of precarity’ (Hannah and McElroy, 2020 p.48).

Based on a series of interviews with freelancers, production companies and public service broadcasters, this chapter investigates the effect that the pandemic, lockdown and the subsequent support measures had on the film and high-end TV (HETV) sector in Wales. It does so by focusing on the challenges facing the workforce, including the impact of COVID-19 on creative workers’ working practices, financial situations and mental health. The chapter also analyses different organisational approaches to lockdown, the emergency funding made available to film and TV professionals in Wales, and the emerging signs of polarisation in the sector.

This chapter contributes to a body of academic research that challenges what McElroy and Noonan (2019) call the ‘the celebratory discourses’ of the ‘era of abundance’ in film and TV production, partly as a result of the entrance of new global media players such as Netflix. It does so by offering a ‘situated analysis of the precarity of the current ecology’ (McElroy and Noonan, 2019, p.2) that highlights the difficulties faced by those producing the media content that became vital to sustain the public’s morale during lockdown, also beyond borders. An emphasis on global markets and players can often obscure the realities of national policies, cultures and markets. This is particularly important here because the media ecologies under analysis operate in the context of a small nation, and often within the logics of minority-language public service broadcasters (PSBs), such as S4C. These are often expected to ‘sustain linguistic vitality and cultural diversity … maintain viewing figures, support indigenous production, and compete in international markets’ (McElroy, Noonan and Nielsen, 2018, p.161), all within a context of ever-shrinking budgets. As we found in our study, issues concerning the sustainability of the sector and the quality of the labour market (and not just of the content it produces) need to be at the forefront of the academic debates on the present and future of screen production.

The impact of COVID-19 on the screen sector in Wales and in the UK has been documented in other studies by sector bodies. In this chapter, we complement this activity by focusing on the stories of those who were working at the sharp end of screen work in Wales at the time. Firstly, we argue that the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns exacerbated inequalities within the workforce, evidencing the fragility and precarity of an industry composed primarily of SMEs and freelancers. Secondly, we investigate the centrality of PSBs in the Welsh audio-visual ecosystem of production and provision, and in particular the crucial role of S4C as a minority-language broadcaster for a ‘small nation’. Thirdly, we analyse the implications of the pivot to digital practices for workers, organisations and audiences. Finally, we conclude by indicating some implications for policy.

Methodology

This study focuses on the ‘film and TV production and post-production’ sub-sector within the screen industries. Depending on the context, various sub-sectors are included under the umbrella term ‘screen industry’. In the Welsh context these include film, television, games, animation and VFX, and on occasion online and immersive content production. The choice to focus on film and TV production was based on evidence from early research into the impact of the pandemic on the sector in Wales, which identified it as the sub-sector that was most affected. Sub-sectors such as animation, games and VFX were initially affected positively by the pandemic, leading to ‘the acceleration of some workflow processes through technology’ (Fodor, Komorowski and Lewis, 2021, p.48). The focus on freelancers was also a result of early evidence from the sector that identified them as most at risk.

Two rounds of qualitative interviews were conducted. The first round of interviews was conducted with freelancers during February 2021.⁴ During a second round of interviews in June–October 2021 we broadened the scope to include organisations (small independent production companies and broadcasters).⁵ As a follow-up, an interview with a representative of Creative Wales, the Welsh Government’s agency for the creative industries, was conducted to gain policy insights in October 2021.⁶

The participants were recruited through an open call publicised by Creative Cardiff and Clwstwr, an innovative R&D programme for the Welsh screen sector; through invitations sent to selected members of the Wales Screen/Sgrin Cymru production staff database; and through snowballing. The sample was mostly self-selecting and therefore non-representative. It consisted of eight men and four women, six of whom were in production roles. However, with ten respondents based in South Wales, the sample is representative of the fact that 80 per cent of creative industries activities in Wales are concentrated in South Wales, with Cardiff Capital Region at its core.

The participants of the second round of interviews to organisations in the Welsh screen sector (six women, nine men) were recruited first through personal email introductions by academics at Cardiff University researching Welsh creative industries and subsequently through snowballing. The interviews included: four directors/managers of small-size indies; eight TV channel employees (4 S4C; 3 BBC Wales; 1 ITV Wales); one person working for Creative Wales; and one person from an industry-facing members organisation – Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru (TAC).⁷ The broadcaster interviews were conducted with commissioners, news producers and operational managers to obtain insights into both the impact of the pandemic on the organisations’ work and their collaboration with freelancers and indies.

Data were coded manually to reflect the main research areas of interest to the large COVID-19 project, taking into account the specificity of the Welsh sector and the content of the interviews. The most popular codes were ordered into themes which were then grouped under three headings: (1) characteristics of Welsh screen industry; (2) impact of COVID-19 on the sector; (3) future of the sector, which inform the next sections in this chapter.

Data collected in this study reflect mostly broadcast news and television production (with only a few freelancers and indies in the sample working on feature film production and post-production). The interviews with organisations are dominated by employees of Welsh TV channels (S4C, BBC Wales, ITV Wales), accounting for eight of fourteen interviewees or 57 per cent. This focus led to omitting organisations involved in feature film production and development (like Ffilm Cymru Wales) and exhibitions (like Film Hub Wales), as well as representatives of major international production companies (like Universal) or streamers (like Netflix). Four indies were interviewed (one post-production, three production), none of whom work primarily in film or high-end TV drama. While not comprehensive or representative of the sector as a whole, the findings are illustrative of not only the interviewees’ experiences but also speak to findings arising from other reports on the impact of COVID-19 on the screen industry in Wales and across the UK.

In the following sections, we explore (1) the implications of the impact of COVID-19 for the self-employed in the Welsh screen sector; (2) the centrality of PSBs to the audio-visual ecology; and (3) the challenges and opportunities of the ‘pivot to digital’ in film and TV production and consumption. We finish by highlighting the implications for policy-making to support the recovery of the Welsh screen sector, with a particular focus on the urgency of implementing measures to fill in the skills gap by encouraging and supporting new talent.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Welsh screen workforce

As the whole of the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, film and TV production of certain genres (e.g. drama) stopped. This had different consequences for different parts of the workforce and organisations in the sector. The impact on production companies, for example, varied depending on their profile, main activity, financial model and reserves.

Although post-pandemic film and HETV production in Wales is keeping freelancers and indies busy, COVID-19 exacerbated and exposed the precarity of freelance employment in the sector. It brought into focus the inequalities and fragility of the workforce (see also Burger and Easton, 2020; Comunian and England, 2020; Comunian et al., 2021; Walmsley et al., 2022).

Overall, freelancers and small, independent production companies felt the impact of the pandemic the most. Thanks to the central government’s Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, launched in July 2020 and extended until May 2022, many film and HETV productions resumed across the UK, including Wales.⁸ However, some of the smaller Welsh indies did not qualify for this support and found the cost of insurance prohibitive. Similarly, the picture for freelancers in this sector was not so straightforward, even in a thriving and tightly linked ecosystem like the screen industry in Wales.

As mentioned in the introduction, freelancers constitute around 30 per cent of the sector’s workforce. In the words of one of the interviewees: ‘everybody uses freelancers, everybody knows their freelancers, you know some of the freelancers are almost staff except crucially they’re not’ (umbrella organisation). The sector is small enough for freelancers not to be anonymous; indies often return to the same freelancers, with one company having sixty regular freelancers on the books alongside sixty staff and another hiring up to seventy freelancers on big commissions. During the pandemic, S4C, BBC Wales and indies felt responsible for freelancers and tried to help them by commissioning/hiring. Similarly, Creative Wales has a strong agenda on recognising freelancers’ contributions to the sector and improving their working conditions, as discussed below (see also Chapter 2, this volume).

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected freelancers, particularly those with protected characteristics or with caring responsibilities (Donnelly and Komorowski, 2022; Chapter 2, this volume). Different degrees of hardship caused by the pandemic mirrored the polarisation of the screen sector freelancers in general. The immediate impact on the workforce was very uneven, depending on the role(s) performed (e.g. on set or post-production) and the type of employment for tax purposes (e.g. sole trader or limited company). Freelance crew members working on location (one half of our interviewees) had hardly any work between March and September 2020, taking a huge hit on their finances.⁹ Live events coverage, including sporting events, was even worse affected. For those who could work on production, the job became almost impossible: ‘We did manage to film stuff during the first lockdown. But I think we were the only people I know who could, because my work is filming wildlife. So I could send one guy to sit in a field or on top of a hill in Mid Wales, and it was Covid-safe, but to get that to happen was incredibly stressful’ (freelancer in production).

Even for those in employment, we heard of losses of up to 50 per cent in income compared to the previous year, forcing freelancers to survive on very little money and even having to sell equipment. Some questioned whether they would have to quit the industry altogether as they had no means to survive until work picked up again. Some freelancers returned to work in July 2020, but the challenges continued for those in production roles. Crews were required to comply with Covid-safe procedures, but we heard examples of unsafe working conditions, such as freelancers not being tested while those on fixed contracts were.

Being a freelancer in this precarious situation meant that they were vulnerable to the whims of those who employed them. They were left ‘in the cold’ once work started to dry up, as companies had to make sure their employees had work over and above hiring freelancers. When the phone call came, it was hard for freelancers to refuse to work despite unsafe conditions, such as being asked at short notice to film indoors with no Covid-safe measures. Working in bubbles to shoot was valued by those we spoke to – they felt safe to do their job and emotionally supported once back in their ‘on-set families’ that they had missed during lockdown.

For those freelancers working in development and post-production, workloads remained the same or diminished only slightly. Editors reported benefits of working from home, from being able to organise their own schedule to avoid long commutes, but during lockdowns had to reckon with working from home and juggling work and childcare. The pandemic impacted those with caring responsibilities the most (Raising Films, 2021): ‘And plus, I lost my childcare. So that was tricky as well. And so the double whammy of my job being ten times more difficult plus having to juggle childcare’ (freelancer in production).

Some freelancers reported feeling isolated and experiencing adverse mental health effects because of staying at home. They lost their income as well as their in-person support networks with the closing of, for example, co-working spaces like Rabble Studios in Cardiff. Online communities became more important and our interviewees reported a raised awareness of mental health issues in general among professional bodies and agencies, although there were mixed responses about the engagement and usefulness with these organisations during the pandemic.

The support available to freelancers depended on their type of employment for tax purposes. The UK Government had offered the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) in May 2020, but not all those self-employed qualified. Some of the sole traders were lucky to have grants from the SEISS based on a successful tax year, while others received little support because they worked less (in one case because of maternity leave) in that qualifying year. We also learned about the lack of support to those self-employed that were registered at the time as (sole director) limited companies.¹⁰ This ‘eligibility gap’ is supported by other data (Komorowski and Lewis, 2020a). In the Welsh case an early survey revealed that a fifth of respondents working in the screen sector were excluded from SEISS for that reason. Similarly, some respondents (25 per cent) did not meet the eligibility criteria of 50 per cent of profits coming from their work as self-employed, as many combine freelancing with short-term PAYE contracts. With the rise of the gig economy many workers in the sector had become freelancers shortly before the pandemic hit and therefore also faced eligibility problems (Komorowski and Lewis, 2020a), something that we confirmed through our interviews: ‘If you went freelance in January [2020], as thousands of people would have, they can’t get any support, because they can’t show last year’s balance sheets, their accounts for that, because they’ve only just started. So they get nothing. How are they meant to live? Each pay for rent?’ (freelancer in production).

These respondents expressed their disappointment and outrage and two of them had been active in the social media campaigns #ExcludedUK and @ForgottenLtd, calling on the government to rectify the situation.

In October 2020, the Wales Culture Recovery Fund launched the Freelancers Fund, distributed through local authorities.¹¹ The Freelancers Fund had three rounds of funding – after the second one, data revealed that 3,783 unique freelancers were supported (995 across both rounds), receiving £2,500 per award (a total of £10.39m).¹² Around a third of these had not received income support through SEISS. The fund was opened to freelancers ‘whose work has direct creative/cultural outcomes’, and therefore had set eligibility criteria that acknowledged the specificities of self-employment in the cultural and creative industries. Our interviewees support this finding as many told us that they had been able to benefit from this support, qualifying as sole directors of limited companies or being able to submit accounts from (better) previous years.

There was general praise for the Welsh Freelancers Fund over the central government’s support, although some complained that the grants disappeared too quickly and were not sufficiently advertised: ‘I don’t know if they [the Freelancers Fund grants] were easier to get because I remember, excuse me, I saw a post to say, the Welsh Government have opened up this grant, at 10 o’clock, for example. And within about half an hour, they closed it, because it just got overrun’ (freelancer in production).

Lockdown brought some positives such as having easier access to commissioners, reaching international clients and having opportunities to upskill. Some career opportunities included stepping in for more senior colleagues who needed to self-isolate. More time for relationship building, rethinking strategies and career priorities, editing old material, learning new skills or spending time with family was also reported. On the other hand, interviewees also mentioned colleagues who were forced to take up other jobs or leave the industry altogether. Furthermore, several respondents have already experienced loss of commissions resulting from the UK leaving the European Union and they expect further negative consequences from Brexit for their professional lives.

During the pandemic, TAC (Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru), an umbrella organisation representing interests of thirty-three Welsh indies, organised regular meetings with broadcasters and Creative Wales to keep everyone updated about the changing situation and work out practical solutions to the crisis. Creative Wales was created in January 2020 as a Welsh Government agency to ‘drive growth across the creative industries, build on existing success and develop new talent and skills’ (Creative Wales, 2020).¹³ The agency’s main aim for the screen sector is to support production companies to undertake film and TV production in Wales. It also works closely with broadcasters and it was, at the time of writing, in the process of signing Memoranda of Understanding drafted around different issues with each one.¹⁴ The role of the sector umbrella organisations and agencies (e.g. The Film & TV Charity, Bectu, Creative Cardiff, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Screen Alliance Wales) was important for networking and finding advice and (in some cases) support, but we heard mixed reviews about the engagement with these organisations.

Our interviewees believed that the immediate future of the Welsh screen sector would be bright and prosperous, especially for film and HETV (factual and smaller productions are seen by some interviewees as potentially worse off). By 2020, there was evidence that both demand for freelancers and pay rates were rising, although certain freelancers and indies may have lost momentum because of fewer commissions and some even feared going out of business. There was also a worry that freelancers would be overworked and have to accept more jobs to make up for the income lost during closure. Some spoke about Universal Basic Income as a way forward.

Despite praising the efforts of the Welsh Government, local authorities and other public bodies, interviewees felt that freelancers in the screen sector lacked adequate support and advocated for change. They argued that while in the past trade unions offered some protection from exploitation, they are now seen as ‘toothless’. This is being partially redressed by the Freelancers and Public Service Body Pledge,¹⁵ which will require public bodies in Wales to recognise freelancers’ contributions and to pay them fairly for their work, within the framework of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.¹⁶

In the next section, we explore the role of the public service broadcasters during the pandemic, with a particular focus on S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru; Channel Four Wales in English), the Welsh-language public service broadcaster. S4C is funded via the licence fee, which played an important role in its response to the pandemic.

Public service broadcasting in times of crisis in small nations

The UK PSBs – BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5 and the Welsh-language broadcaster S4C – are central to the UK’s ecosystem of audio-visual content production and provision, a position that has only been reinforced by COVID-19. The media landscape is rapidly evolving due to the entry of new and well-resourced media players and changes in consumption patterns. The role and value of PSBs in this context has been the focus of recent debate (Chivers and Allan, 2022), and there are ongoing revisions to regulations concerning the current Terms of Trade, online platforms, prominence and funding (for both commercial and publicly funded PSBs), as well as to ensure that PSBs fulfil their commitments to diversity on and off screen (Carey, O’Brien and Gable, 2021). Crucially, PSBs have a statutory requirement to inform, represent and serve diverse communities and to support the creative economy across the UK, delivering significant benefits to the nations and regions.

PSBs based in the nations and regions regularly invest in content that would otherwise not be commissioned, such as children’s programming and regional news (including in minority languages) (McElroy and Noonan, 2018). During the pandemic, we saw PSBs across the UK respond by offering audiences support with access to content consistent with its commitment to broadcasting in the public interest, including less commercially viable educational content: for example, Ysgol Cyw, ‘learning through play’, content on the Cyw website,¹⁷ arts and cultural content through ‘Culture in Quarantine,¹⁸ religious programming such as Sunday Morning Stories,¹⁹ and health and wellbeing programmes such as Ffit Cymru.²⁰

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the relevance of the public service value of universality, an essential attribute of public service broadcasting to create a pluralistic, diverse and accessible-to-all service regardless of geography or means. PSBs have the responsibility and burden of delivering both high-quality linear and user-friendly on-demand services, which might help redress a digital divide that has become more apparent with lockdown and in relation to children’s access to education (Horrocks, 2020).²¹ They operate in a context of market failure but also as market shapers (Mazzucato et al., 2020) by leveraging public funds to fuel innovation, grow new markets and encourage creative ecosystems. This is the rationale behind the BBC’s move of their sports and children’s departments to MediaCityUK in Salford,²² the move of Channel 4 National HQ to Leeds (with creative hubs in Bristol and Glasgow), and the recent creation of media.cymru – a collaboration to accelerate growth in the Cardiff Capital Region media sector, where the BBC has expanded and invested over recent years.

S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru; Channel Four Wales in English) is the Welsh-language free-to-air TV channel. A broadcaster-publisher, it commissions most of its programmes from indies across Wales, and some from BBC Cymru. COVID-19 has had an impact on the organisation’s working practices, but its relative financial security during the pandemic placed the organisation in a position to support their workforce and the sector.

There is ample evidence that supports the claim that public service broadcasting can and does make a significant contribution to democracy by creating informed citizens, more so than market-driven media (Cushion, 2019, p.33). The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of accurate, reliable and impartial news. PSBs (and the regional news they offer) were among the most used, and trusted, sources of reliable information across all ages (Cushion, 2019, 2020; Carter, 2020; Cushion et al., 2020; Kyriakidou et al., 2020; Sambrook and Cushion, 2020; Ofcom, 2021a, 2021b).

As has been argued elsewhere in this book, lockdown caused an increase of audience numbers and screen time during the pandemic. One of the most demanded types of content was news about the rapidly unfolding situation and changing Covid rules and restrictions. News and current affairs continued throughout, ‘covering the biggest news story since World War Two’, as one of BBC Wales’ interviewees put it. Keeping the public informed became a key priority during the beginning of the pandemic (with news and current affairs kept up throughout in changed formats). They also reported a ‘hunger’ for hyperlocal news. All broadcast interviewees highlighted the educational role of news in the pandemic and their role in making some audience members aware of devolution and the powers of the Welsh Government for the first time. Broadcasters reported a sense of renewal of their civic mission to keep the public informed. PSBs have the statutory remit to support the public’s civic engagement by producing news and current affairs programming.²³

This was later balanced by moving to ‘light relief’ as well as programmes bringing people together on air, something that the public appreciated. These were described as a ‘lifeline’ for people who felt isolated at home. Crucially, these services were also performed in the Welsh language – an important factor in community building of Welsh-speaking audiences. S4C, for example, expressed their mission to support their audience’s mental health and wellbeing expressed in the tagline ‘Yma i chi’ (‘Here for you’). We heard that the pandemic reinforced S4C’s mission as a PSB to inform, educate and entertain.

For staff working for Welsh public service broadcasters covering the pandemic, the workload increased exponentially. Those that we interviewed reported a negative impact on their mental health, despite the measures put in place by the PSBs to support their workforce. Difficulties for those stuck at home have been widely reported across the board, while the toll on the mental health of broadcast journalists and staff in our sample was due to the long hours and the fact that they could never switch off from the Covid discourse.

There were efforts to diversify the audiences by commissioning and scheduling new content and formats, with some signs of success. New shows covered deprived communities suffering the most from Covid; digital outputs and platforms were updated to engage younger audiences; and there was a push of user-generated content, like the new commission Fideo Fi yn y Tŷ produced by Boom Cymru for Stwnsh (the young audience S4C service) with content that children filmed themselves at home during the pandemic. Some of these innovations were creative solutions to producing programmes that, as one interviewee described, were ‘designed with a view to … being Covid safe in [their] DNA’. The S4C panel programme of current affairs Pawb a’i Farn was one of many shows that introduced interviews on Zoom and increased shooting outdoors. Special bubbles were created to film shows like the sit-com Rybish. Some of these programmes have proved so popular that they were commissioned again in 2022.

Commissions were also the result of the PSBs’ efforts to support independent companies (indies). The majority of the interviewees for this study work on commissions by Wales-based broadcasters: S4C; BBC Cymru; and ITV Wales, unsurprising given that PSBs are the largest commissioners of content in the UK and quotas for independent producers and the nations and regions ensure substantial investment out of London.

There were consolidated efforts to invest in new work to support the sector. For example, rather than rely on archive material and reruns only, S4C honoured all its commissions and commissioned another £8.7m worth of new programmes during the pandemic to support the production sector (S4C, 2021). A first round was announced in April 2020 for ‘ new content to reflect the current situation, both on television and digitally’ and then another one in September 2020 for content ‘that can be produced within the Covid-19 restrictions’:

This was a very welcome initiative, but its impact was not always felt across the board. We still heard of loss of jobs for production companies, the impact depending on the financial model and reserves, some reporting great losses, while others having savings and surviving with some form of financial support. The Wales Culture Recovery Fund and the COVID-19 Bounce Back Loans were lifelines for some of these indies. Covid-safe production proved more costly than previous practice and there were widespread skills shortages, from managerial to technical roles. Some of the smaller Welsh indies reported not qualifying for the Restart Scheme and finding the cost of insurance prohibitive. Freelancers’ workload was negatively impacted, as there were overall fewer jobs. Needing to prioritise their staff, indie directors were able to offer less work to freelancers and one of them admitted: ‘I probably have failed in my duty of care to my freelancers.’

However, there was increasing evidence of sector collegiality, new networks and partnerships within and across sectors. For example, many indies did not charge broadcasters for reusing their programmes, and broadcasters like S4C increased their commissions of new programmes during the pandemic to support the production sector in Wales. Some organisations also had a chance to rethink their strategies. For some, the health and safety of the company became a priority, forcing them to find new ways of filming and editing. Others reported shifting the emphasis to organisational development: ‘It bought us some time to take stock and to think and to develop, which is … which is a bit of a luxury.’

Long-term prognoses are in line with those of the sector in general, and centre on the competition from streamers, both because of the rising cost of drama production and the changes in the audiences’ loyalty (with a bigger reliance on subscription services for high-quality entertainment). In a climate of considerable uncertainty and severe budgetary pressures, uncertainty about the future of the licence fee or the possible privatisation of Channel 4 is yet another challenge to the recovery of the sector. Cost-saving measures already have had an impact on the quality and relevance of regional provision, resulting in job cuts in the regions and in news programming being suspended. Even the welcoming news of the funding settlement for S4C (which increases the funding by £7.5m) is tinged by the doubts about the sustainability of the Welsh broadcaster after 2027 (the end of the settlement, and the current BBC Charter), and the impact of the recent two-year freeze to the BBC’s licence fee across the UK, including in Wales. The extra funding will in any case help S4C deliver their plans for 2022–2027, including the development of the S4C Clic player – the app for live and on-demand S4C and Cyw (the children’s channel) content.

Going digital: skills, networking and the future of screen work

The sector has for the most part gone back to business as usual, but some changes catalysed by the pandemic are here to stay. For freelancers, digital technologies, including remote working, played a significant role, but opinions about their usefulness and future viability are mixed. One the one hand, we heard about more flexibility in organising working days, easier access to commissioners (mentioned by freelancers and broadcasters) and prestigious international clients and partners, and participation in networking events with impressive line-ups of industry figures that could be enjoyed free of charge and from the comfort of the home. Remote parts of Wales felt closer because of online working:

On the other hand, some lamented the loss of in-person interactions, including in co-working spaces and the demise of local creative networks, often negatively impacting freelancers’ mental health by deepening their feelings of isolation. While video meetings were generally seen as more agile, efficient and time saving, some noted a loss of creativity and two respondents complained that online auditions for creative projects fail to do justice to candidates:

Editors reported the benefits of working from home, and employees of some independent production companies (indies) and broadcasters also valued remote and hybrid modes of working when this was an option:

For organisations, digital and remote modes of working were put in place for non-broadcast critical staff – an easier endeavour for those broadcasters already working in this way before the pandemic. All organisations interviewed, indies and broadcasters, said they are keen to keep hybrid ways of working. S4C, for example, employs around 100 people, the majority of whom were able to remain in their posts throughout. The preparations for remote working had started before the first national lockdown in March 2020, leading to a relatively smooth transition to working from home. S4C commissioners made themselves more available to producers online – viewed favourably by the freelancers we interviewed. These changes were successful enough that the organisation is planning to keep a hybrid working model.

For broadcasters, this was also an opportunity to test new ways of interacting with audiences, some of which proved successful. This acceleration of the digital shift in content production and distribution was seen as extremely successful. Interviews conducted remotely via online platforms such as Zoom allowed for more speakers to participate as fewer resources were needed – this strategy gave journalists more flexibility. S4C, for example, produced new digital news content under the name Newyddion S4C, successfully live-streaming on Facebook, which generated an increase in viewings in 2020–2021 of 388 per cent on the previous year and a 735 per cent increase in hours watched.

Another advantage of the forced ‘pivot to digital’ was the opportunity to access online training. Echoing the recent analysis of the ONS Labour Force Survey (see Chapter 2 of this book), many of the respondents used the time to upskill, attending online training, including free sessions or taking advantage of the unexpected opportunities for stepping up the professional ladder. Only one respondent was seriously worried about potentially having to quit the sector, having already been selling some of his kit to make ends meet. However, the respondents’ friends and colleagues, who were forced to take up low-skilled jobs or leave the industry altogether, emerged spontaneously in their accounts, offering a corrective to the positive picture presented in the interviews: ‘The only opportunity was I did my drone pilot’s license during lockdown, doing a remote online course, which felt detached and somewhat artificial. But, you know, I’ve done it, and I have that pilot accreditation now, which, which has been quite useful for the business’ (camera production).

Some broadcast interviewees singled out digital skills training and training for Welsh-language speakers as especially urgent and some freelancers asked for transferable (non-craft) skills training, including HR and business skills.²⁴ Several interviewees mentioned that the National Film and Television School (NFTS) opened its branch in Cardiff, offering training courses for a wide range of roles.²⁵ In partnership with TAC (Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru) – the member organisation of the independent TV production sector in Wales – S4C offered tailored training, free of charge for freelancers. BBC Wales’ Factual Fast Track course was mentioned positively several times. However, the robust training schedule should go hand in hand with creating new jobs on all levels. One of the S4C interviewees was concerned that training was not enough to stop young people leave the sector as there were few opportunities for career progression: ‘I’m very, very worried about the fact that we can’t develop the talent we got within the structure of the companies that we have’ (production company). One of the indie directors echoed this sentiment, saying that there are no jobs for the highly skilled people in the Welsh industry.

On the other hand, there is currently a skills gap in the screen sector, the shortage of skilled film and TV workers observed in all roles. At the UK level, the British Film Institute (BFI) has undertaken a major strategic skills review on behalf of the DCMS (BFI, 2022). In Wales, skill gaps in the media industry are identified in two reports, one for the Cardiff Capital Region (Hannah and McElroy, 2020) and another across the whole of Wales (McElroy, Davies and Ware, 2021).²⁶ The latter report identifies editors, editing assistants, researchers, producers and HGV drivers as specific roles in demand. Our data support the sense that, as one interviewee put it, ‘everything from researchers to exec producers there’s a massive hole in the sector at the moment, especially Welsh-speaking talent’ (broadcaster).

Interviewees advocated for a robust training schedule to support the creation of new jobs at all levels in order to allow for career progression for those employed in the sector and discourage highly skilled workers leaving Wales as their careers develop: ‘it has to be an industry for people in Wales and to keep them in Wales, so that they stay here and that they recognise that they can thrive and that they can start’ (broadcaster). Interviewees also highlighted the efforts and ongoing need to diversify the workforce and representation in the Welsh screen industry, for example through the creation of specific roles within the broadcasters to establish links with diversity organisations and diverse communities.

Conclusion: what next for the screen sector in Wales?

This chapter has explored how freelancers, indies and broadcasters in the screen sector in Wales were affected by the interruptions in production resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. They were impacted in different ways, depending on what role they mainly perform in the industry (freelancers), the profile of a company (indies) and the department of the TV channel (drama versus news making). Some of the freelancers, who are the most precarious workers in the sector, complained that the financial support they had access to was insufficient or poorly advertised but in general the interviewees reported that the Welsh Government’s response to the pandemic filled the gaps left by the central government’s schemes. A negative impact on workers’ mental health was reported across the board, whether by freelancers feeling isolated and in financial distress or by overworked broadcast journalists. Some interviewees expressed appreciation for the mental health support put in place by their employers and umbrella organisations.

One of the main consequences of the pandemic has been to uncover the precarity of cultural and creative work, particularly of freelancers (Comunian and England, 2020; OECD, 2020; Comunian et al., 2021; Easton and Beckett, 2021; Henry et al., 2021; Ostrowska 2021; Walmsley et al., 2022).²⁷ Many of the concerns expressed by the Welsh respondents working in production roles, like the loss of virtually all pre-booked jobs at the beginning of the pandemic and the ongoing worry about financial security, were shared by freelance theatre and events producers in England and by cultural freelancers in Northern Ireland, which we’ve read about in other chapters in this book. In contrast, we found that for editors in post-production and, particularly, for journalists at the forefront of reporting on the pandemic, work was not only abundant but too much to handle at times, with workers’ mental health also being affected. Finally, the importance of public (emergency) funding has also come to the fore during the pandemic, with governments (central, national and local), agencies and PSBs playing a crucial role for the survival of media ecologies.

The pandemic both affirmed the crucial role that PSBs play in the Welsh screen sector as well as in Welsh society, and created an appetite for Wales-centred and Welsh-language content which they hope to satisfy in the future. Interviewees from broadcasters such as the BBC and S4C said that their channels have felt responsible for helping the sector’s survival, which they realised through commissioning new work during the pandemic. Still, freelancers’ workload was negatively impacted as indies were not able to offer them as much work as before the pandemic. Looking into the future, the continued work of TAC (bringing together indies, broadcasters and Creative Wales) and the Welsh Government’s and local authorities’ commitment to the Freelancers and Public Service Body Pledge will hopefully mean that media sector freelancers’ working conditions will continue to be improved.

PSBs’ contribution to local creative economies is likely to continue being significant over time by providing new jobs, developing workers’ skills and building a talent pipeline. Any change to regulations will have to carefully consider the impacts on the range of values – social, economic, industrial, civic, cultural and representational (Chivers and Allan, 2022) – that PSBs deliver to different stakeholders, including audiences and local economies across the UK’s regions and nations. We heard about the importance of local supply chains, serving communities and knowing your audiences – broadcasters need to keep up with the audiences’ demand for local and Welsh-language content.

Similarly to the rest of the UK (BFC, 2021), film and HETV production in Wales is currently booming, with many big budget productions underway and ‘not enough people in the industry to service the demand at the moment’ (governmental body). The fact that ‘big shiny things’ (governmental body) are made in Wales is seen as a positive contribution to the economy by several interviewees, but some participants see it as a threat to smaller companies and to the sustainability of the industry. Despite the narrative of survival and success of film and HETV drama production in Wales, interviewees felt that the Welsh screen sector should aim for sustainability, long-term development and diversity rather than becoming a ‘servicing industry’ for big (co)productions. These were often described as using Welsh locations and crews but not investing in the region or engaging with above-the-line talent and strategic development plans. While in 2020 the activity of Creative Wales was dominated by managing the Wales Culture Recovery Fund, their long-term goal is to ‘have a balanced investment portfolio’ (governmental body), both attracting big international players (the most recent productions include Netflix’s Sex Education Season 3; HBO/BBC/Bad Wolf/Lucasfilm’s Willow) and supporting smaller Welsh indies.

As one interviewee reflected, big productions should be seen as an ‘opportunity rather than a problem’ (governmental body). They seem to have positive long-term effects on other parts of the economy beyond the media sector, for example tourism in the wake of productions like Willow. However, their presence often creates drawbacks for Welsh producers, including increased costs of infrastructure hire, unavailability of workforce or the difficulty to compete with the quality of high-end drama. A way forward is, for example, to ensure that training and apprenticeship posts for Welsh talent is a contractual obligation for big international productions and co-productions.²⁸ Creative Wales and Ffilm Cymru will be partners in funding productions, which will be expected (and monitored) to spend part of their budget in Wales and on Welsh talent, crew, facilities and locations as well as to provide paid trainee placements (Welsh Government, 2022). The future of the Welsh media industry depends on striking a balance between attracting external big budget productions and creating a sustainable Welsh media sector.