This year’s Edinburgh TV Festival was one of the buzziest, a somewhat ironic fact given it’s also the last. From next year the TV festival, which first originated in the Scottish city fifty years ago, is moving to Manchester.
The move was inevitably the talk of this year’s edition, with many genuinely emotional at the close of such a significant chapter. But with the TV business under more pressure than ever, it wasn’t the main topic of conversation. Read on for Variety’s top takeaways from this year’s fest.
The Rise of YouTube
There was no getting away from YouTube this year, not least because its EMEA boss Pedro Pina delivered this year’s keynote McTaggart lecture, in which he tried to persuade a suspicious if not outwardly hostile audience that the Silicon Valley platform is “not the villain.”
But the video sharing giant came up in nearly every other panel, particularly those spotlighting the U.K.’s traditional public service broadcasters, who weren’t afraid to make their views known. ITV entertainment boss Kevin Lygo scoffed at Pina’s £3 million pledge for U.K. content (“I did have a little chortle,” Lygo said. “You think, well, we [spend] £1.2 billion every year.”) Meanwhile Channel 5 boss Ben Frow claimed PSBs still offer a bigger platform than YouTube while the network itself doesn’t “make nearly as much money on YouTube” compared to traditional avenues.
