[Commlist] CFP: New Frontiers? Channel 4’s Move out of London

*New Frontiers? Channel 4’s Move out of London*

*A One Day International Conference, Watershed Cultural Cinema, Bristol*

*11 March 2020*

*Hosted by the Moving Image Research Group, University of the West of 
England Bristol and **the BAFTSS Screen Industries Special Interest Group *

/Although this conference has been occasioned by developments within the 
UK’s screen industries, we hope it will offer both UK and non-UK 
researchers the opportunity to discuss and debate //developments in the 
//reconfiguration of regional screen industries, and to present research 
projects and work-in-progress that examine the relationships between 
centre and periphery in any country. /

In October 2018 Channel 4 announced that it would be relocating its 
London National Headquarters to Leeds, with Glasgow and Bristol also set 
to become regional ‘Creative Hubs’. Part of Channel’s ‘4 All the UK’ 
strategy, these new bases are designed to ‘attract and develop talent 
from across the UK, both on and off-screen, and support the significant 
increase in the organisation’s Nations & Regions spend on creative 
content’ (Channel 4 website).

As one of the three main UK public service broadcasters, Channel 4’s 
relocation to Leeds, Glasgow and Bristol is arguably one of the most 
significant events in these cities’ screen histories. The channel’s 
relocation is embedded within broader strategies that aim to challenge 
London’s dominance and to ‘rebalance’ the UK’s screen ecology. This 
strategy was triggered by a variety of forces: devolution in which 
Scotland and Wales gained their own parliaments; the BFI’s five-year 
plan /Supporting UK Film/ that aims to devolve 25 per cent of its 
production funding to regional film clusters and has a set aside a £2m 
National Cluster Growth Fund to strengthen regional economies; the BBC’s 
relocation of five departments to MediaCity UK, Salford, Greater 
Manchester in 2011; and the policies of the television regulator Ofcom, 
which has set stringent targets for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to spend 
a greater proportion of their programming budget outside London.

Potential topics for papers and panels include, but are not limited to 
any of the following topics:

  * What is the historical relationship between regions and the ‘centre’
    or ‘centres’ of production? (e.g. in the UK between the
    regions/nations and London) and how might this be changing?**

**

  * Have the production cultures and output of regionally-based creative
    companies, principally public service broadcasters, been shaped by
    their respective locations? If so, in what ways?
  * What is the nature of the interrelationships between the companies
    that compose regional creative ecologies? How might Channel 4’s
    relocation contribute to or disrupt these networks?**

**

  * What role do creative companies play in the wider civic, social and
    cultural life of their regions? What is their impact on regional and
    social cultures? **

  * What is the relationship between regional creative ecologies and the
    predominantly freelance labour on which broadcasters such as Channel
    4 depend? How open are local labour markets and how diverse are
    regional labour forces? **

**

  * In what ways might Channel 4’s relocation alter how it operates as a
    ‘publisher-broadcaster’?
  * What is the relationship between regional cultural production and
    the increasingly global dynamics shaping audio-visual culture? How
    do the tensions between the regional, national and global play out
    in different context such as commissioning, regulation, diversity
    and content?
  * How much does organisational devolution actually effect change and
    stimulate creativity in regional media, and can audiences expect to
    see the results on screen in terms of new voices and genuine diversity?
The conference invites the following types of contribution from both 
researchers and film and television practitioners:

  * Individual 20-minute conference papers
  * Pre-constituted panels (3 x 20 minutes)
  * 10-minute presentations of current research or position papers for a
    roundtable discussion

Keynote speakers will be Andrew Spicer, Professor of Cultural Production 
University of the West of England Bristol, and Justin Smith, Professor 
of Cinema and Television History De Montfort University

Please send proposals either for individual presentations or position 
papers (maximum 200 words); or a pre-constituted panel (3 x 200 words 
individual abstracts and a 200 word panel rationale) to Dr Amy Genders: 
(amy.genders /at/ uwe.ac.uk) by *Friday 20 December 2019. *

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