COMMISSIONERS AT A+E NETWORKS UK


Dan Korn VP of Programming A+E Networks UK for Blaze, Crime + Investigation, Sky History, Sky H2, Lifetime


Diana Carter Commissioning Editor & Head of Talent, A+E Networks UK


Heather Jones General Manager UK & Senior Vice President, Content & Creative


Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors, A+E NETWORKS UK


Nearly all commissioning from A+E Networks UK is for Sky History and Crime+Investigation Network. There’s a series of four commissioning rounds each year, with curated seasons, such as the Mystery season and Summer of Secrets on Sky History.


Sky History is a joint venture between A+E Networks UK and Sky. In the last 18 months it’s become more of a factual entertainment network, with a tagline of ‘history is alive’. It’s a contemporary take on history. Ideas for the channel need to have an originality in the journalism, the narrative line and the visual story-telling style.


HISTORY DIFFERENT WAYS


Recent content includes Al Murray: Why do the Brits Win every War? from Avalon, a follow up to Why does Everyone Hate the English?, a timely construct around Brexit. The latest series sees Murray looking - one country at a time - at its relationship with Britain, using a comedic protagonist, for example Henning Wehn for Germany.


One or two times a year A+E goes in for 20 See the Televisual Factual Films at televisual.com


In 2022, the channel will show four-parter Ross Kemp: Shipwreck Treasure Hunter (w/t), a co-production from Honey Bee, in association with Freshwater Films and Motion Content Group. Kemp dives to explore historical underwater sites, including the wrecks of World War One German ships at Scapa Flow.


In another direction, audiences have come to shows around mystery and conspiracy. Coming up is


a bigger production, working directly with Sky. One of these is 72 Films Royal Bastards: The Rise of the Tudors, an experimental docu-drama that looks at the Tudors through female eyes. Sophie Rundle stars as chief protagonist Margaret Beaufort.


Another stream of content on Sky History is to do with finding artefacts. River Hunters, from Hello Halo Productions, features river detectorist and YouTuber Beau Ouimette, with TV presenter Rick Edwards. The format unearths the stories behind artefacts discovered in the UK’s waterways, stories which can become personal and emotional.


Firecracker Films’ Craig Charles: UFO Conspiracies, looking at the stories and science behind sightings in the UK and in the US.


There is room for a little ancient history. Professor Alice Roberts is fronting a series looking at how civilizations rose and fell, in the light of the pandemic.


IMPACT OF CRIME


On Crime + Investigation, the tagline is ‘truth is worth pursuing’. There needs to be a strong journalistic line to true crime ideas.


Shows focus as much on victims as perpetrators. Workerbee’s Murder Town with Anita Rani looks at the impact of murder on a community. Survivors, from Hello Mary, is a series that looks at the people who survive an assault.


Coming up, Once Upon A True Crime centres on authors who have based fiction on a real case, such as Mark Billingham with his book Their Little Secret, focused on unresolved elements of the Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. And a new season of Killer Britain with Dermot Murnaghan, from FirstLook TV, where the former reporter and news presenter revisits cases that made an impression on him.


C+I is not interested in serial killers, it’s more interested in the impact of crime and the lessons that can be learned. As with Sky History, different ways of telling the story are key.


Ross Kemp: Shipwreck Treasure Hunter,


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