U.K. STUDIO SAYS THREAT OF SAG STRIKE HALTED ’09 PRODUCTIONS

Britain’s Pinewood Shepperton Studios saw its profit fall 24 percent to $6.88 million in 2009 from $9.02 million in 2008, but it blamed the downturn on the slowdown in production due to the threatened strike by the Screen Actors Guild during the first half of the year. Current production at the studio, it said, was already well ahead of the same period a year ago. In an interview with Reuters, CEO Ivan Dunleavy said, “There is a growing consumer appetite for content. People want to see new films, they want to see new television.” He acknowledged that revenue from TV production — particularly production of TV commercials — was down from last year as advertisers retrench. However, he maintained that commercial production is improving. “We have certainly seen that people using our stages for commercials have remained relatively buoyant,” he told Reuters.