Channel 4: what the commissioners want

[Nicola More]

Kevin Lygo, Director of Content
• Demise of Big Brother makes 100+ hours of primetime programming available
• Be unshackled in your creativity: we’re looking for new ways of doing things
• Only pitch an idea if you know for sure that you’d watch it

Julian Bellamy, Head of Channel 4

• We’re launching the biggest creative overhaul in the channel’s history – all change from 2011, with 2010 being a year of transition
• Will have a roadmap for change by December 2009
• However there’s still plenty to commission – especially in fact ent and campaigns – and new series for 2011 will need to get started now

Hamish Mykura, Documentaries

• At the heart of docs on 4 is desire to change society by the actions of the individual – looking for more in that vein
• Want more big events that bring that sinking feeling of thrill and anxiety
• Want more provocation & polemics
• Biggest wish for 2010/11 is classic documentary presenters
• Looking for ways of scaling up the best projects
• Still a number of slots for 2010 across the board and a big series for 2011 will need to be commissioned now
• Biggest piece of advice: think about what makes your idea Channel 4

Ralph Lee, Specialist Factual

• Three filters for all pitches: intelligence (strong faces and voices, not bland mediators of information) impact (how do we motivate audiences? We want shows that get noticed) and entertainment (anything that gets an emotion response)
• Not commissioning many single docs or narrative history programmes – demand is for activity and experiences
• Alternative points of view are very Channel 4 and get noticed – especially in religion, where we’re looking for big frames for a variety of stories
• Think of projects rather than categories – most ideas that fall at the first hurdle start with “do something like this”. We need more than a subject – need a hook, process, or journey

Andrew Jackson, Features

• No more property, body image or fashion shows needed
• 2010 is full, so looking for shows for 2011 and beyond
• Need something to combat the ITV scheduling move (Coronation Street on at 8pm) – perhaps something more upmarket?
• Web presence is key to what we want in future
• 9pm: looking for access docs (workplace etc)
• 8pm: big bold new ideas, for one hour rather than half hour

Andrew Mackenzie, Factual Entertainment

• 9pm & 10pm mid-week are typical slots. 9pm: something provocative about how we live, tapping into our passions and anxieties. 10pm: most exciting time now Big Brother is gone. Most likely replacement will be an event
• We’re missing a competitive format, like The Apprentice – but not in business or food. What’s the next territory and who’s the talent to build it on?
• Comedy journalism: bring me the next Michael Moore, with simple ideas that will create a stir. Irreverent comic take on docs is something we’d like more of
• The simplest ideas have the most impact

Dorothy Byrne, News & Current Affairs

• All about big foreign films, powerful docs with current agenda
• Looking for a really strong undercover idea – think big
• Welcome radical viewpoints – challenge the ‘nice’ and the mainstream. And interesting author adds weight
• Want more fun – there’s still a sense of current affairs being pompous or patronising. Feeling in Britain that people are disengaged from politics yet still very angry on a number of issues – bring that to TV
• Got 40 one-hour primetime slots for Dispatches so bring me innovative ideas. Could also take a theme and strip it across a week

Andrew Newman, Entertainment & Comedy

• Looking for material that’s edgy, innovative & experimental with a sense of scale. Be brave and surprise us
• New talent is our raison d’etre
• Limitless opportunities in 2011 – 250 hours to fill
• Got a fair bit of studio entertainment already (but may consider more if the idea is strong)
• Shopping list: live events, comedy, reality shows, authored clip shows
• Looking for greater diversity and regionality

Shane Allen, Comedy

• Looking for things that are channel defining, that haven’t been done before
• Seven Comedy Labs going out in January 2010 then looking for more in February
• Send us sample scenes as well as a treatment
• Looking for ideas with series potential

Liza Marshall & Robert Wulff-Cochrane, Drama

• Good news: got more money for 2011
• 2011: looking for 2-3 big drama events that are ambitious and groundbreaking. Every piece we make has to stand out
• Do three single films a year: often sit as part of a season so have an issue at their heart. When they work they really make the season sing
• Looking for comedy drama series too
• Not that interested in genre (e.g. medical drama, police drama) unless you have a really different, exciting concept

Oona King, Head of Diversity

• Cultural Diversity Network brings together every major British broadcaster
• It’s not just about ethnicity: also about class, disability etc. And it’s off-screen as well as on-screen
• Channel 4 is not here to lecture: we too have problems with diversity and there are terrible barriers to the industry as a whole
• Channel 4 has signed up to the CDN Diversity Pledge and invited all its indies to join. If you do not sign up within a one-year bedding-in period (which ends in April 2010) we will no longer commission you
• We ask that you consider diversity from the beginning of a project, not as a bolt-on at the end
• It can be a point of difference that gets your show commissioned. For example, On Tour With the Queen was commissioned by Ralph Lee after the producer suggested having a ‘child of empire’ narrate it instead of a historian – makes the show feel more Channel 4