Multichannel broadcasters spent £623 million on content in 2011

Multichannel broadcasters invested £623 million on British content in 2011, up 31 percent from 2010, according to a report compiled by Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates for the Commercial Broadcasters Association.

COBA’s 2012 Economic Impact Report showed that investment in original first-run programming increased, as did payments for the repeat rights to UK shows. The multichannel business is worth £4.2 billion per year to the UK economy – employing 9,000 people directly and 47,000 indirectly.

COBA is the industry body for commercial sector broadcasters in the UK and its members include Discovery Networks, BSkyB, Fox International Channels, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Television, Turner Broadcasting, UKTV and Disney.

The report also states that those members spend considerably more money in the UK market (£2.1 billion) compared to the rest of Europe (£287 million).