ABSTRACT
Independent productions and programme imports accounted for over one-half of all British networked television by the early 1990s. Did this mean, then that by 1993 vertical in-house factory production was already defeated and that British television had fallen to an ‘independent takeover’? Representatives of the independent companies would certainly point to many qualifications and complexities to such an assertion: regional output, repeats, the fact that some contracting-out is by Channel Four to ITV companies, that there is a difference between hours and expenditure, and so on.
