Company becomes latest rental business to go under, with over £2.9 million in debt

Origin Film and TV logo

Broadcast and post-production hire company Origin Film and TV has gone into liquidation, with £2.8 million in debts.

It was founded at the beginning of 2021, and revealed in October of that year that it had already reached £4 million in turnover. Later in 2021 it also acquired fellow rental business MCR Broadcast Hire.

Origin operated a dry hire business offering specialist equipment including cameras, lenses, EVS servers, Avid storage, monitors, workstations and applications with full technical support and strict quality control, and complemented this with project design and workflow engineering solutions for live production, reality and factual entertainment shows as well as film and longform drama. Its main office was in Guildford, Surrey. 

Birchwood Bond has been appointed as voluntary liquidator for Origin, with the company’s statement of affairs revealing over £2.9 million in debt to 54 creditors. The largest creditors include almost £920,000 to sub rental business Video Europe, £811,763 to EVS, and almost £675,000 to HMRC. It is expected to realise £30,000 from its assets.

Many hire companies have experienced issues over the past two years, with the commissioning slowdown as well as writers and actors strikes in the US greatly impacting the number of productions taking place and needing kit - as well as resulting post-production needed. Pixipixel, Alias Hire and Presteigne Broadcast all ceased trading in 2024 - although the latter’s was later resurrected. Procam Take2 and Televideo both shut down in 2023.

Broadcast Tech has attempted to contact Birchwood Bond on multiple occasions.