Overview

• At the Edinburgh TV Festival, Channel 4’s Louisa Compton called the broadcaster the “proud parent” of Adolescence and accused Netflix of acting like “TV tourists” after PSBs nurtured creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham.
• Netflix executive Mona Qureshi rejected the characterization, saying its UK team commissions for local audiences within the same ecosystem rather than targeting global scale as the starting point.
• Channel 4 content chief Ian Katz backed Compton, arguing streamers benefit from a PSB-built talent base, retain program rights, and skipped their usual Spotlight Sessions at the festival.
• Executives say the show’s scale was beyond UK broadcaster budgets without co‑production money, and producer Simon Heath warned that pursuing international funding can change the nature of UK stories.
• Adolescence remains a marquee success for Netflix, reported as its No. 2 English‑language series with more than 140 million viewers in three months and record weekly ratings in the UK.