‘Peak TV is behind us’: UK developers pivot from building studios to datacentres amid AI boom

Hollywood blockbusters including the eagerly anticipated Beatles biopics and big-budget TV series such as Bridgerton have been keeping the UK’s film and TV studio facilities packed. But as the streaming wars recalibrate having passed “peak TV”, a slowdown in the content arms race is prompting property developers to switch to building datacentres amid the AI boom. When the British Film Institute (BFI) finalises the figures on the number of films and high-end TV shows made in the UK in 2025 later this year, it is expected to show a third consecutive annual overall decline. “Peak TV production is behind us now,” says one senior industry executive. “The great British studio building boom is officially over. Property companies thought riding that wave would be a big success; now datacentres are the new studios.” Four years ago the industry hit peak TV as the streaming wars fuelled a record £7.8bn spend on UK-made productions, amid a race to restock film and TV catalogues that had been drastically depleted after the pandemic resulted in the UK-wide closure of facilities. This prompted a new wave of plans for studio building and expansion, as well as spurring the “meanwhile use” sector – the use of temporary sites such as old carpet factories, military sites and other spaces as demand outstripped capacity. In 2023, the combined Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes froze production, at a time when streaming companies shifted focus from a heavily loss-making race for scale to more judicious spending on content in the quest for sustainable profitability. In recent years, the increasingly under-pressure finances of domestic broadcasters, such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, have also meant a pull-back on content commissioning. “A colossal amount of studio space was built,” says Adrian Wootton, the chief executive of the British Film Commission (BFC). “More was built here in three- to three-and-a-half years than any country in the world. The UK went from 3m sq ft in 2020 to…