COMMISSIONERS A
Married at First Sight, CPL Productions CHANNEL 4
Channel 4 Factual commissions around 250 hours each year. Separately, the channel’s Factual Entertainment team has another big chunk of time to bring to life.
For Factual, Grayson’s Art Club, from Swan Films, was a big lockdown success at 8pm. The simple idea was for people across the country to send artworks to Grayson Perry and his wife Phillipa Perry. Thousands were sent in, enough to put on a successful exhibition in Manchester.
The popular arts series has inspired C4 to commission a popular science and engineering series in a similar vein, and there’s room for a popular history series as well.
C4 has the youngest audience of the UK PSBs and All4 is a focus for reaching 16- 35s. Its new Teen strand, shared across E4’s social platforms, has initially been supplied by four indies: The Connected Set, Vice Studios, True North and Cornershop TV.
One challenge is how to find popular culture stories that young people want to watch. Recently aired is feature doc
04 See the Televisual Factual Films at
televisual.com
Queens of Rap, directed by podcaster and investigative journalist Poppy Begum (aka Poppy Jay) and produced by Acme Films.
STRONG, DIVERSE VOICES
Single films that have recently cut through to a broader audience on the channel include BBC Studios’ Grenfell: The Untold Story, from director Ben Anthony, which included new footage and showed the repercussions of the tragedy.
Strong authorial voices are always of interest, as are presenter-led pieces. C4 looks for voices who have genuine expertise and something to say, especially where they demonstrate diversity of thinking, or where they are challenging and provocative. Sathnam Sangera’s new series about the history of empire from Sugar Films shows a unique perspective on the disturbing British legacy.
The channel has recently lanched a True Crime on Channel 4 strand as a curated plank on All4. Going forward, the channel is looking for slightly different approaches in true crime. Not just
murder or retrospective story telling, but also trying to find new tones and broader subject matters. For 2022, there’s The Bling Ring, a three-part series from Double Act, about a series of robberies of celebrities by middle class Hollywood teenagers in 2008.
Investigative documentary is a good genre to challenge and provoke, both key C4 tenets. Story Films’ production The Max Clifford Story is an example. Coming up is a Fremantle documentary series about Ghislaine Maxwell - a subject that’s challenging, interesting to a broad range of people and where there’s something new to say.
Powerful, individual, distinctive stories are always important for the channel. It’s currently developing a project with John Cleese about the nature of cancel culture. Also coming up is a film about Big Brother star Nikki Grahame who died last year after a long battle with eating disorders.
Innovation in story-telling is another priority. An upcoming medical emergency series is being stripped across a week, giving a chance to dig
Alf Lawrie Head of Factual Entertainment
FACTUAL
Alisa Pomeroy Senior Commissioning Editor Priority: 9pm Returning Titles & Limited Series
Anna Miralis Senior Commissioning Editor Priority: 10pm Titles
Madonna Benjamin Senior Commissioning Editor Priority: Returning Series
Sacha Mirzoeff Commissioning Editor, Factual & Head of Hub Bristol Priority: 9pm Series & Single Film
Rita Daniels Commissioning Editor Priority: 8pm, 9pm Series & First Cut
Jonah Weston Commissioning Editor Priority: Science & Adventure
Shaminder Nahal Commissioning Editor Priority: Arts & Secret History
Will Rowson Commissioning Editor Priority: Science & 9pm
Simon Lee Commissioning Executive
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