Jo Schofield
Regional Screen Industry Ecosystems, Platform Change, and the Sustainability of Creative Work in the UK.
Supervisors: Professor Beth Johnson School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds and Dr David Wright, University of Warwick
Project Summary
The UK screen industry, and television in particular, is currently at a moment of significant change. Over the past decade, shifts in audience behaviour, commissioning practices, platform distribution, and funding models have begun to reshape how content is produced, circulated, and valued. Public service broadcasters are experimenting with new platforms, distributors, and formats in response to changing viewing habits, while the rapid growth of the content creator economy has opened up alternative routes into production, visibility, accessibility and storytelling that sit alongside, and sometimes in tension with, established television institutions. These changes are not occurring in isolation, but alongside broader transformations in digital economies, labour markets, and cultural policy, all of which have implications for how creative work is organised and sustained over time.
Key questions in this project explore how regional television production ecosystems in the UK will be reshaped by changes in commissioning models, platforms, and modes of content distribution. How do creative workers within regional screen sector ecosystems experience and narrate these changes in relation to career sustainability, mobility, risk, and access, and how do place-based factors intersect with structural inequalities to shape who is able to benefit from emerging production models outside London.
Bio
Jo Schofield is an award winning producer, writer and Senior Talent Executive at Screen Yorkshire where she heads up the organisation’s above the line talent development work. Within this remit, she’s delivered a range of development labs for writers, directors and producers in the screen industry, including FLEX; a groundbreaking platform agnostic programme, The Mayor’s Script Diversity Programme, ScriptEd (for underrepresented script editors), and BFI’s Insight for feature film producers. She also has strategic oversight of The Unit, a Channel 4 and Bradford council funded film hub for grassroot talent.
Jo has over 20 years experience in the industry and is BAFTA and EMMY nominated. She has been at the helm of some of the UK’s biggest & most beloved storylines, having worked as storyline writer, script editor & producer across Emmerdale and Coronation Street, and as Senior Digital Producer for ITV
She was Commissioning Executive for Drama at RTE, executive producing Storyland, the broadcaster’s online commissioning platform. In 2023 she wrote her first film, LITTLE GOES, funded by Sky Arts.
Jo has also worked across industry policy, notably as Development Lead for the North & Midlands at The Film & TV Charity, where she was Chair of their anti-discrimination working group. Jo is part of the advisory group for University of York’s Reframe VP, a former Trustee for Oldham Coliseum Theatre, and is CEO of her own company, Yarn Weaver. She lives in the countryside with her family, their huge cat, and guinea pigs.