Soho Stories - Lifestyle or Business?

Television executive and broadcaster Paul Jackson charts the rise of independent producers, from the isolated minnows of the early 1980s to the global monoliths of today. In 1993, Sir John Harvey Jones stood up at the Edinburgh Television Festival and declared that the independent production sector was less of a business and more of a lifestyle; more like mice running in a large wheel and less something that people should invest in. Paul Jackson looks at how the foundations were laid for a viable business model. With the help of activist Michael Darlow and head of Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit in No 10, Brian (now Lord) Griffiths, he explains how the indies were able to pursuade the government that both the BBC and ITV should be compelled to take a proportion of programmes from independent producers. The 25 per cent quota campaign was later described as the most successful poltical lobby in modern British history. Peter Bazalgette, Paul Smith, Jimmy Mulville, Jon Thoday, David Frank and Henry Normal describe the artistic and business opportunities that presented themselves during the 1990s.