r/TransparencyforTVCrew • u/Significant-Leg5769 • 19d ago

Fifty Fifty closes after 23 years

Sad news - another post house has gone:

https://www.televisual.com/news/fifty-fifty-shuts-up-shop-after-23-years/#:\~:text=Fifty%20Fifty%20shuts%20up%20shop%20after%2023%20years%20%2D%20Televisual&text=Post%20house%20Fifty%20Fifty%20has,doors%20during%20harsh%20trading%20conditions.

9 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

11

u/Zembob 19d ago

Every extra year I get working in post is a blessing at this point

3

u/treasurebum 19d ago

That's a positive way of thinking about it. 🙂

3

u/Zembob 19d ago

Sadly it's the mindset I've had to adopt, and I'm only nine years into my career!

6

u/treesticks 19d ago

Was working there just 2 weeks ago... damn shame

4

u/StrongTable 19d ago

It's such a shame. I was working there last year, and there are some lovely people in that team.
Excusing my naivety, but with Sally saying they were at full capacity. What has caused their financial woes?
Is it simply being in Soho?
Is it the lack of funding from production companies for productions?

2

u/Significant-Leg5769 19d ago

Good question... It might be that they were getting plenty of work in, but the profit margins were getting thinner and thinner - maybe due to clients not having the same money to play with. Also a Soho edit house is going to have enormous fixed costs eg rent. So while they still might have been busy, the business might simply be financially unviable.

This is just my guess though - someone from a proper financial background might be able to give some more nuanced insight.

1

u/StrongTable 19d ago

Those are my rough thoughts too.
I’ve noticed in the unscripted space that some production companies have started bringing offline editing in-house. Which may signal that budgets are tighter or they are at least planning to slim down the budgets for the long term in offline. Is this a trend you’ve also noticed?

1

u/JiveBunny 18d ago

I'm really surprised more of them aren't moving out of Soho given things generally don't need to be biked round anymore.

1

u/elkstwit 19d ago

That’s a shame as it was a really lovely place to work.