Sol Papadopoulos: Liverpool is proof that the TV industry thrives when it thinks beyond London

Sol Papadopoulos, Executive Producer, CCC 2026: Liverpool is proof that the TV industry thrives when it thinks beyond London

Liverpool has always known how to put on a show. It is, after all, the centre of the creative universe, the ‘pool of life’ — at least according to psychologist Carl Jung.

And right now, it’s not just the music doing the talking. It’s the call sheets.

News last week that Liverpool is now the most filmed UK city outside London may have raised a few eyebrows elsewhere. For those of us who live and work here, it simply confirmed what we’ve felt for a while: the city is buzzing — creatively, commercially and culturally.

According to the Liverpool Film Office, more than 1,600 film and TV productions have shot here in recent years, creating over 5,000 jobs in the past six years alone. Credits range from the BBC’s This City Is Ours and Netflix’s House of Guinness to big-screen heavyweight The Batman.

That’s a lot of streets dressed and redressed, a lot of local spend, a lot of skills embedded and a lot of careers taking root.

So what’s driving it?

Partly, the obvious. Liverpool is visually elastic. In a single day you can move from period grandeur to gritty urban realism to slick waterfront modernity without leaving the city limits. Crews love it. Directors love it. Audiences believe it.

But this is about more than locations and logistics.

Liverpool is a historically working-class city, and this production boom is opening doors that have too often been bolted shut. For decades, if you were from here and wanted to ‘make it’, you left and headed south to build a career in a system that still defaults to London as the centre of gravity.

That’s not nostalgia talking. It’s structural.

In 2024, Channel 4 News reported that fewer than 10% of film and TV workers are from working-class backgrounds — the lowest level in a decade — and the majority are based in London. Our industry is still drawing from a narrow pipeline. The places with the richest stories are too often the places with the least access.

Some of us chose to come north — I did, over 30 years ago; the best move I could have ever made.

Liverpool’s moment matters because it’s proof of concept. When work comes to where people actually live, the talent pool widens. When productions return year after year, skills stay. When young people can see a route in that doesn’t require relocation, the industry starts to look — and sound — more like the country it serves.

There’s a wider shift happening too. Doc North has launched to support working-class documentary makers in the North of England. The BBC has pledged to better reflect working-class audiences across the UK, particularly older women and communities outside London.

This isn’t about regional pride. It’s about industry health.

Liverpool isn’t ‘up and coming’ anymore. It’s up. It’s delivering. From Lime Pictures and LA Productions to Mad As Birds, Hurricane Films and The Fold; from digital innovators like Draw & Code to international rights companies like Lasso; from gaming and AI to our status as a UNESCO City of Music — this is an ecosystem, not a moment.

That’s why I’m proud to be producing Creative Cities Convention here this May. Not as a victory lap — but as a forum for tougher conversations. Andrea Arnold will be joining us to talk about working-class representation, and we’re hosting a Skills Summit focused on building a sustainable talent pipeline — real opportunities for local kids, emerging creatives and the freelancers who keep this industry alive.

Liverpool has always known how to tell a story, and amazing writers live and work here. Now, it’s building an industry that lets more people tell theirs.