GENRE REPORT
FACTUAL TV
CHANNEL 5 AND PARAMOUNT +
Channel 5 is now open for Paramount + business. The UK is one of the only territories to have a factual budget for the ViacomCBS-owned streamer. Channel 5 Factual and CA
Commissioner, Daniel Pearl, will be heading up UK unscripted for Paramount +. “We are looking to commission right across the traditional SVOD factual arena, that will be anthologies, premium factual, box sets and feature docs. Stories need to resonate with a UK audience (not necessarily set in Britain), and they need to be broad..” They won’t have quite the large
budgets that Netflix is famous for, but they will fund for scale. Meanwhile, on Channel 5, “with Our Yorkshire Farm and All Creatures we nailed the pandemic, we were in the right place at the right time,” says Ben Frow, chief content officer of Channel5/ViacomCBS. Now they’re looking for different
for shows to drive All4. Budgets are anywhere from £120k an hour to north of £250k. Horan is specifically looking for a big experiment piece, feature length or a two-parter, with deep access or a social experiment, “something that might come back as a series.” He’s also on the hunt for a new face for history. True crime, doing well on All4, is another hot spot. Overall, Horan is piloting more ideas than in the recent past, “placing slightly more bets on various territories, rather than a big bet on one.” All4 is blocking content to make it easier
for audiences to navigate. Its first move in this direction is the True Crime on Channel 4 strand launched in the summer with a block of 150 hours of streaming content. Carlo Massarella, ceo at Windfall Films, part of
the Argonon group, has watched the opportunities steadily increase for box sets, access driven projects and feature documentaries. “What we develop hasn’t changed, but the number of people interested has.” The virtues of factual are coming to the fore. “I think the PSBs have had a lot of success with factual, so I can’t see why the streamers wouldn’t want to do it as well,” says Massarella. Driven by streamer investment, the integrity of
the journalism has been rising alongside quality of production. “Netflix and the rise of the box set has
stories, such as a new series with Jay Blades, the presenter of the BBC’s The Repair Shop, on growing up in 1970s Hackney. The channel has increased its investment in true crime and travelogue. Recently announced, Alexander
“THE HOLY GRAIL IN ANY SERVICE AT THE MINUTE IS THAT PREMIUM BROAD BOX SET”
SEAN DOYLE, DISNEY+
Armstrong will travel across Iceland in a three-parter from Burning Bright Productions. In true crime, “what really works for me is people right at the heart of the story,” says commissioning editor Adrian Padmore. “Is there a person in this documentary that’s so close to the story that you want to hear from them? And hopefully you’ve never heard from them before.” Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger from ITN Productions and Body in the Snow: Joanna Yeates are good examples. Upcoming shows that Frow is clearly excited about include Paul Merton and Suki Webster travelling the UK in a campervan and Pam Ayres celebrating the Cotswolds, plus the plans for an extended hour-long Channel 5 news. Having got rid of tariffs, the channel’s approach to budgets is more flexible. But what will audiences be looking for 2022 and beyond? “For the first time I’m not quite sure what the direction of travel is,” says Frow.
Autumn 2021
televisual.com 25
GORDON, GINO AND FRED GO GREEK
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