Case study: National Theatre Live

The story
The UK’s National Theatre is one of the world’s leading theatres, welcoming audiences totalling more than 1.2m a year to its home on London’s South Bank. But as a “national” theatre, supported by public funding, it has a core objective of bringing theatre to all – not just people visiting or living in London.

In 2009 the National launched NT Live to stream live performances into cinemas. It had realised that improvements in digital satellite technology meant the National could reach audiences outside London, even overseas, by increasing its “virtual” capacity.

The challenge
The first issue was product delivery – making a broadcast capture the intensity of a live theatre performance. A similar scheme at New York’s Metropolitan Opera had been successful, but pre-recorded theatrical performances by others in the past had generally been judged to feel flat. This was partly because the cameras operated around a normal paying audience – they could not move and were not in the best spots.

The NT Live answer was to offer broadcasts of one-off performances with a live audience and to work closely with actors, directors, lighting designers and camera operators to prioritise the cinema audiences and find new ways to work.

Technical challenges included not just the filming but the screening technology in the distributing cinemas, which lay beyond the control of the National. The solution was lots of rehearsal, and to study each broadcast to learn lessons.

The new medium also required new rights agreements with stakeholders such as actors, directors and unions. The National negotiated with relevant trade bodies, listening to any concerns as it tailored arrangements to the one-off nature of the performances.

The National’s production budgets and remit reflect those of subsidised theatre – rather than a commercial film studio – so it had to devise a business model that was financially sustainable while ensuring that the cinema tickets were inexpensive. NT Live negotiated with distributors to charge no more than £10 per ticket. This was both a financial constraint and a barrier to the scheme being undercut by others.

Finally, the initiative would ultimately be financially viable only if rolled out across the UK and overseas. The National forged a network of distributors who marketed performances to their existing audiences.

The results
NT Live started in June 2009 with Racine’s Phèdre – starring Helen Mirren, an actress familiar to cinema audiences worldwide – and has now broadcast 11 productions to more than 500,000 people in 400 cinemas in 22 countries.

Having received seed finance from public funding bodies Nesta and Arts Council England initially, the scheme is operating at a small surplus on box office alone. It also won corporate sponsorship from Aviva.

The lessons
Even successful organisations cannot stand still. The National had a loyal customer base, a strong brand and a high-quality product that regularly sold out. Yet it embraced a new technology to reach bigger, different audiences. Despite artistic, financial, technical and legal challenges the National recognised that technology could now make live cinema streaming possible.

Actors and audiences were receptive to the innovation, thanks partly to the National clearly remaining true to its core mission and values. The technology was tasked with bringing the National’s high artistic quality to a wide audience, and this was possible with support from key stakeholders. The artists, the audiences, the funders and the organisation itself were all prepared to learn from the experiment. 

Finally, the National was astute in recognising that the time was right. Cinemas were now technically equipped to deliver the broadcasts with high-quality HD projectors and satellite technology to receive a live feed; consumers were both engaging with content in new ways and already enjoying live broadcasts – from rock concerts to opera.

As a pioneer in streaming live theatre, the National won a considerable market and artistic advantage.
- Financial Times, 24 Aug 2011