ENTERTAINMENT
GENRE REPORT
PHIL HARRIS CHANNEL 4, HEAD OF ENTERTAINMENT AND EVENTS
What’s been working well for you? The Last Leg has done brilliantly well. It’s a live take on the week and is a slight outlier because our other stuff is a bit more escapist. Taskmaster is doing really well, and on All4 too. People are enjoying shows where they can see that the contributors want to take part - there’s a joy and comedy in that. Dirty Dancing on E4 is another good example. Like Taskmaster, the stakes aren’t incredibly high, and the storytelling isn’t super competitive, so you see unlikely friendships and rivalries and surprising outcomes. Those sorts of things are resonating with viewers. Key priorities now? Our priority is shows that speak to the Future4 strategy. Our biggest priority is a reinvention of entertainment. We feel good about a commission when it feels broad, yet distinctive, and it’s doing something slightly new - but it’s also not so new that it’s going to completely scare off viewers. I Literally Just Told You is a show that seems similar [like 8 Out of 10 Cats], but there’s a slight twist. We’ve just commissioned a panel show [Jon and Lucy’s Perfect Couples]. It’s about relationships and playing on that as a source of comedy. The stakes won’t be particularly high - every couple wants to think that they’re quite a good couple. But people gossip about other couples - there’s a resonance and a truth to that. Humour is key. We don’t really commission anything that doesn’t have some mischief to it. Are you doing more entertainment? We’ve definitely got more hours: we’ve got a broader team in terms of numbers but also the taste palate. We’re now commissioning comedy and satire through to live events via slightly more reality. We recently announced two new reality shows Scared of the Dark and Tempting Fortune. It means we are working with far more suppliers and suppliers that we hadn’t worked with before from teams like Hello Mary.
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as the channels. So, when we are commissioning something, we look at whether it works on both linear and iPlayer.” Reality is a focus at ITV too. “We would love to
land the next big reality format,” says ITV head of entertainment commissioning Katie Rawcliffe, citing the cross-generational appeal of ‘event TV’ like I’m A Celebrity. Big Saturday night entertainment is also a major focus for Rawcliffe. “What’s going to be the next version of the talent show?” she asks. She says that historically they have been quite studio based, and now could be the time for something different. “We’re lucky, we’ve got a lot of great, big studio shows that are working – but we are starting to look more at the reality and talent space, maybe in a slightly different way.” At Channel 4, Phil Harris says he and his team are
commissioning more hours of entertainment – and from a broader range of suppliers than previously. He says that Taskmaster’s arrival at the channel is a “brilliant expression” of what C4’s entertainment is about – citing its warmth, mischief and off the wall nature. At the back of his mind is Channel 4’s Future4 strategy, its focus on digital growth. “When we feel good about a commission is when it feels broad yet distinctive, and it’s doing something slightly new – but not so new that it is going to completely scare off viewers from sampling it,” says Harris. A number of other forces are shaping the
entertainment market. Nostalgia remains a big trend,
with the likes of Blankety Blank performing strongly for the BBC. Demand for guessing games spiked after the success of The Masked Singer. And there is always an appetite for good quiz and game shows: Lee Mack’s The 1% Club is returning to ITV after a successful launch last year. Behind the scenes, it’s tough for producers
to crew up shows. Not only are there a lot of entertainment shows being made following pandemic lockdowns, but the buoyant drama genre is attracting those with transferrable skills like production managers and co-ordinators. Certain entertainment genres – notably reality – are also very busy. “The pool of experts in that world are in demand,” says Thames TV’s Brown. Many producers say that turnaround times for
commissions are sometimes very short. “The hardest thing is when they want something quickly, for less money,” says Brown. “That is when you struggle with crew and when it becomes tough with making sure you have got the best cast.” But the over-riding trend in entertainment is
the breadth of demand for the genre, from both broadcasters and streamers. “It feels like the entrance of the streamers into entertainment unscripted has expanded the market,” says Talkback’s Richards. “We’ve now got streamers coming to us, specifically asking what quiz show or talent-led vehicles on the streamers looks like. Previously, they might only have been thinking about big reality shows.”
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
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