Pinewood Shepperton surges back into the black despite its TV hitch

Pinewood Shepperton, the movie and TV studios where everything from James Bond to the talent show The Voice is filmed, swung to a pre-tax profit of £1.3m against a loss of £1.9m a year ago.

Ivan Dunleavy, chief executive, said demand was strong, although the TV business had suffered a hiatus as he upgraded the studio equipment from standard definition to high definition.

"Pinewood is not a film studio, it's a media studio," he said, explaining how he has tried to make it a multi-purpose production facility for everything from TV and film to computer games and commercials.

Its biggest film productions during the past year included Maleficent and World War Z.

Mr Dunleavy said the London area was suffering from a lack of production capacity after the closure of the BBC's Television Centre studios. "That means capacity has come out of the market. It's another reason why we're so vigorously pursuing our appeal to increase capacity at Pinewood."