TV company raises staff numbers to 850

Employee numbers at one of Ireland’s best-known TV and movie production companies, Octagon Films, have increased to 850 as a result of new series of The Borgias and Vikings currently in production.

Abridged accounts lodged by Wicklow-based Octagon Films Ltd with the Companies Office show the firm recorded a profit in the 12 months to the end of September last, with its accumulated losses decreasing sharply, from €150,885 to €37,638.

Separate accounts show that a connected firm to Octagon Films Ltd, Tiber Productions Ltd, had shareholder funds totalling €2.5m at the end of March last year.

In an interview yesterday, Octagon Films co-founder James Flynn said: “The TV production side of the business is going very well.

“On the film production, we have scaled down and are becoming more selective in what we do by pursuing prestige, passion projects.”

Speaking from Budapest where the third series of Showtime’s The Borgias is currently being filmed, Mr Flynn explained that Octagon Films “is the R&D or oil exploration part of our business” and isn’t representative of the production business’s revenues, where special purpose firms are established for each project.

Mr Flynn declined to provide revenues and profits for the overall business.

Mr Flynn said that filming of the third series of the award-winning drama Love/Hate has just been completed “and we are hopeful that a fourth series will be commissioned, but this depends on ratings”.

He confirmed the writer of Love/Hate, Stuart Carolan, has been employed by the firm to write a movie script for the highly acclaimed Paul Murray novel, Skippy Dies.

Since the company was established over 13 years ago, Octagon has produced over 70 feature films and TV series.

Mr Flynn said 250 people are employed on the new series of The Borgias with 300 employed on the first series of Vikings, currently being shot in Wicklow, starring Gabriel Byrne. A further 300 are employed on Octagon’s other current productions.

Mr Flynn said the budget for the third series of The Borgias is $44m for 10 one-hour episodes.

Mr Flynn said that the Octagon Films firm “does the heavy lifting in funding projects in development and producing the ‘Bible’ for a new work that would include the A to Z of the story, a script for the pilot and description of each character”.

Mr Flynn said the Irish-based tax incentives for films and TV has been extended to 2015. “That is very positive.

“However, there is a need to extend beyond that to 2020 as high-end TV series are running for four and five series on average,” he said.