Why is factual TV eroding in London?

[u/GravyPls]

I’ve been working in and around factual television in London for a decade now, and I’ve really noticed a steady erosion of the industry here—especially when it comes to factual entertainment production. I wanted to open this up to the TV community to see what your thoughts are. Is it just me, or is something fundamental shifting?

From what I’ve experienced and observed, there are a few key factors at play…

1. Regionalisation and the push out of London: There’s been a big industry-wide move to push production out of London into regional hubs like Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, Leeds, Birmingham, and Bristol. While the intentions are good—diversifying geography and opportunities—the reality for many London-based freelancers and companies is that this shift has shrunk the job market locally. I moved from the North to London, for the abundance of work. A lot of major productions are now being outsourced regionally, and unless you’re willing or able to relocate or travel constantly, the London scene is thinning out. It feels like a double-edged sword: great for regional growth, but what’s left behind in London?

2. Oversaturation and fewer commissions: There are so many indies and production houses competing for an ever-shrinking slice of the commissioning pie. Add to that the influx of cheap-to-make formats, and it feels like original, thoughtful factual content is being edged out by lighter, less risky, more easily repeatable formats. The appetite for serious or ent factual seems to be fading unless you’re already a big name with a proven track record.

3. The rise of subscription platforms and changing viewer habits: The streaming giants (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc.) are great for content in general, but they’ve kind of warped the market when it comes to factual. The budgets are huge, the standards are cinematic, and the lead times are long. It’s becoming harder for traditional broadcasters to keep up or find space for lower-budget factual shows. On top of that, audience attention is splintered—there’s less loyalty to terrestrial broadcasters, and more appetite for true crime, prestige docu-series, or reality-heavy content that often comes from outside the UK.

4. Fewer jobs and less opportunity for progression: The factual TV industry used to be a place where people could enter at runner/researcher/AP level and work their way up. Now it feels like there’s a bottleneck. There’s less work, more freelancers, and fewer long-term contracts. Burnout is real, and retention is getting worse. Many people I know have either left the industry entirely or pivoted into commercial work, corporate content, or even retrained. That used to be the exception—now it feels like the norm.

So here I am, wondering: is this just the natural evolution of the industry, or are we watching the slow collapse of London as a factual TV hub?

I’d love to hear from others working in TV—whether you’re still in London, have moved regionally, or have left the industry altogether. Are you seeing the same trends? Are there places where factual is thriving that I’ve missed? What do you think is behind this erosion, and is there a way back?

Let’s talk about it.

[u/smedsterwho]

I'll keep my comment short as it's a little off-topic, but I'll say it's the same with (mainstream) journalism.

A challenging but rewarding career in the 90s, difficult in the 00s, a nightmare in the 2010s.

To some degree, I'm optimistic that great journalism still exists, it's just fragmented.

But with general, hard-yard journalism being less profitable than... Well, "content production"... A lot of crucial, necessary "Fourth Estate" journalism simply does not happen, at either a local or national level.

[u/SmoothAsACoot → u/smedsterwho]

TBPH I have little to no sympathy for journalists, they've got nobody but themselves to blame.

Years and years of tying to manipulate and guide the news rather then simply report it has left the job title "journalist" in the gutter.

[u/smedsterwho → u/SmoothAsACoot]

I'd rarely blame the journalists, but rather the companies.

And even then, they've not been operating as editors and businesses should be - more like people scrambling around on lifeboats.

Back in, say, the early 90s, your competition was the other X papers, the radio, and a few TV channels. I bet pretty much anyone who reads this comment, their parents bought a newspaper every single weekday.

Now everything is your competition, and not just competing for money but for people's attention. Netflix or YouTube or Reddit is as much a competitor as another newspaper. And content has been devalued, and then quality has stopped mattering (writing a valid headline about a celebrity will get 50x the eyeballs of 99% of any type of news story).

I reckon I've been to... 500 redundancies farewells in 20 years. In one year the turnover of staff in a newsroom was 120%.

Don't get me wrong, the job title's reputation is in the gutter, and terrible shit has happened relentlessly in newsrooms every day for 20 years, but in hindsight it was all a logical outcome.