Jane Featherstone calls for industry-focused AI training

Sister boss Jane Featherstone has said that the TV industry should urgently “embrace” AI by embedding relevant skills in training programmes.  

Appearing before the culture, media and sport committee, Featherstone told the MPs that the UK could be “ahead of the game” on AI but that she had not heard anyone in TV talking about training in the tech.  

The Sister co-founder and chief operating officer was speaking to the committee for its second inquiry into British film and high-end TV. 

“The old adage is it’s not AI who will take your job, it is someone who knows how to use AI who will take your job,” she said, adding the TV industry “can and will use AI”.

She went on: “Assuming that we get regulation that is meaningful and works and does the job in terms of IP ownership and protections and all of those things which I know you are all looking at, we then have to train to use it.

“I would argue in the way that computer science came in 45 years ago when I started primary school that we need to put AI at the centre of education training, understand it and embrace it and I haven’t seen that.” 

Featherstone told the committee that Sister set up its own AI taskforce last year to better grasp the tech and how the indie could use it, noting that they had been using the technology for “a long time” in areas such as VFX, but not calling it AI. The indie, which funds its own development, is also mulling over allocating a portion of its development pot to “experiment” with AI.  

“We needed to understand it so we’ve been bringing experts in to talk to us, trying out various tools in the company about how we might use it safely, what it means, internal presentations. We have never used it for anything editorial and I would want to understand what the regulatory framework is around protecting all of us,” she explained. 

“Our taskforce is about how we as a company might use it in an effective, fair and correct way… We are learning and I don’t have all the answers but we need to embrace it.” 

Replying to a question from Labour MP Natasha Irons, Featherstone said she would “absolutely” welcome an Albert-style regulatory framework for AI, reiterating that the government and industry need to “move really quickly” to implement such measures.  

Tax relief 

Elsewhere in the session, Featherstone added her voice to the growing chorus of industry figures, including Jane Tranter and Patrick Holland, calling for a reform of tax incentives to counter the increasing challenge of funding High-End TV projects.  

She said that the industry is at a point where High-End TV (HETV) budgets have risen so much that PSBs have been priced out of the market and that the distribution advance finance model has “collapsed”.  

She told Labour MP Paul Waugh that she didn’t agree with suggestions of implementing quotas or levies on streamers to level the playing field with PSBs. Instead, she recommended increasing the tax incentive for HETV to 40%, with stipulations specific to PSB and/or nations and regions projects. This may also result in more co-productions between SVoDs and British PSBs, she said. 

“There is a way of rebalancing the [existing] tax incentive to bring it up to the level of the independent film incentive which is 40%, and apply that specifically to PSB and nations and regions,” Featherstone said. 

She proposed: “The 25% [incentive] is a minimum that everyone can still get and then there are additional points available if you are working with a PSB, if, say, they give 30% of the budget, or you have nations and regions productions, which would encourage more of the nation as a whole to benefit from this. Those are incentives to rebalance rather than quotas, which I fear won’t do what we want them to do or as quickly.” 

BBC is ‘jewel’ of UK ecosystem 

Featherstone also aired concerns about the future of British programmes that serve British audiences.  

While she was confident that the current state of the TV industry will “rebalance”, she told MPs that the “market itself won’t take care of British content” and pointed to how Mr Bates vs The Post Office was a huge hit in Britain but a harder sell abroad.  

She also took the opportunity to reiterate to MPs the importance of the BBC to Britain’s TV ecosystem and its global soft power, stressing that it needs more support. 

“The BBC can answer for this, but I am absolutely aware they have multiple shows which, through no fault of their own, they can’t fund,” she said, adding that those shows take two to three years to get to the screen.  

The Sister boss added: “It’s important to remember the narrative around [the BBC]; how much of the work they do behind the scenes fuels our pipeline. I know there are times when the BBC is not the most popular place, but I do believe we have to change the narrative around it and make sure that it’s supported – it’s a jewel, it’s precious and our cultural relevance is so precious. I really think we have to be vehement in defending that.” 

A BBC spokesperson said: “Jane Featherstone’s comments serve as a timely reminder of the vital role the BBC and the public service broadcasters play in this fragile ecology. While the competition of a global market is healthy, the BBC bangs the drum for British creativity and culturally relevant content in a way that the global streamers simply can’t.

”We remain the biggest investor in UK producers, talent and skills and fuel our precious independent production sector. Producers hold onto their rights and their IP and the value from our spend is retained in the UK, not across the Atlantic. We are committed to sustaining the growth of this world-class UK creative industry.”