Home-grown UK TV investment crosses £1BN mark DetailsJoseph O'Halloran | 15 January 2019 A new report from UK television industry body the Commercial Broadcasters Association (COBA) has found that investment in the creation of home-grown television programmes by multichannel broadcasters has now reached £1.1 billion a year.The association says that the COBA Content Report 2019 research signals just how the UK television industry has become a truly mixed ecology of different players and that surpassing the £1 billion tipping point, the first time annual investment in the production of UK television content by the multichannel sector has topped such an amount, underscores how newer channels are investing in domestic production as well as the traditional public service broadcasters BBC, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel Five.Indeed, the research shows that Investment in UK content by multichannel broadcasters has grown by 75% on 2011, yielding an increase in annual investment by multichannel broadcasters of £416 million. Investment in UK content by multichannel broadcasters was found to have grown significantly faster than that of public service broadcasters.The majority of investment, £965 million in 2017, is on new, first-run, UK content. The multichannel sector spent £447 million in 2017 on commissions from external producers such as independent producers, non-qualifying independents and co-pros. The remainder was invested in in-house production in such genres as news, sport and animation.COBA members that are part of multinational media groups broadcast more than 21,000 hours of UK content across their portfolios of international channels in 2017. This says the organisation gives UK creativity a global platform. Yet COBA executives cautioned that that investment should not be taken for granted, citing two specific threats to broadcasters