C21October 2020 - Factual

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Factual Everything about content

Blue-light shows facing an emergency

Mipcom Online+ 2020

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Nutopia’s Jane Root enters World of Calm

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Taking travel content to a different place

PLUS: TLC seeks ob docs and social experiments – 20 CS Lee of Korea’s UniK Studios – 22 | Views & more…

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Blue-light content

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020 has seen blue-light factual entertainment programming pulled in opposite directions.

On one side, the pandemic means medical shows have never been more relevant. On the other, cop shows are being cancelled left, right and centre as a result of the social change being demanded by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Criminal Minds showrunner Simon Mirren recently told C21 the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against police brutality in the US had changed the demand for cop shows almost overnight.

From a staple of broadcast, cable and streamer line-ups Mirren said police-focused shows were now somewhat toxic. “What’s happening here now, because of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, is when you’re pitching a cop show like Criminal Minds they just don’t want to hear it because they don’t believe the youth want to hear anything to do with cops.

“It’s interesting because some of the biggest shows of the last 20, 30 or 40 years on TV in any country have been cop shows. There’s a feeling now they don’t want them. There’s a moratorium – no cop shows.”

Although Mirren was talking about his home genre of drama, unscripted is facing its own similar moment.

A+E Networks-owned A&E had regularly trumpeted its Live PD show as a breakout factual entertainment success, stripping the show across several hours on Friday and Saturday nights to large ratings.

The show was a boon

Blue-light on standby How do you make medical content cut through the competition during a pandemic and what’s the future of potentially toxic cop shows in the context of Black Lives Matter?

By Clive Whittingham for production company Big Fish Entertainment, which was bought

by US studio MGM as a result of its success. But following the death of George Floyd in police custody, the show was cancelled. And when it transpired Live PD had filmed another incident of brutality in Texas and deleted the footage, other companies, such as ViacomCBS, started severing ties with Big Fish on other shows.

Rob Sharenow, president of programming at A+E, said it was a “challenging moment for the brand,

country and network,” adding: “A+E is a brand that listens to culture and prides itself on being part of the cultural conversation and being on the front lines of things. A+E was not a one-show channel and it has a really well defined brand that leans into this front-row experience – real people in the real world doing real things. Culture is so fragmented now and what’s resonated for A&E over the years have been [shows that] really tapped into universal themes.”

What’s required in the ‘new normal’ is cop shows that work a little bit harder and go a little bit further than simply “live cops.” u

“

Other series showed the end result whereas we’re there in the first seconds where people are trying to help. You cannot mistake what people are doing in our show for anything other than help.

Julian Curtis

Lineup Industries

Helicopter ER

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Blue-light content

Left: Rob Sharenow. Above: Call That Hard Work for BBC1 daytime and Channel 5’s Police: Hour of Duty

Veteran UK producer Malcolm Brinkworth has specialised in producing high-end fresh takes on seemingly conventional genres, such as Married to a Paedophile for Channel 4 and Critical Condition for ViacomCBS-owned UK terrestrial Channel 5. He has Police: Hour of Duty and forthcoming Suspect Number One for C5 as well, and his US version of The Accused wrapped recently on A&E. “The key thing is we’re always trying to make sure we’re not only doing it in a responsible way but also a way that genuinely informs the public,” he says. “There’s genuine purpose to the shows, it’s not just to titillate and entertain. Responsible programmemaking forms part of a genuine conversation that fits in with Black Lives Matter. It’s not a situation where you’re following crime and you’re blind to the wider issues. We want to make sure everything is genuinely diverse and portrayed in its proper context.”

The quest for a different sort of cop show recently led broadcast network ABC to take a chance on Belgian format Emergency Call, distributed by Amsterdam-based Lineup Industries and produced in the US by 8Hours Television. The slower-burn format is set in the call centre that initially receives the 911 calls and unusually does not show the action of the emergency, nor provide a conclusion to what happened for the audience.

Lineup co-founder Julian Curtis says: “The worry in the US with the whole situation as it is now with Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police is there is a black mark against the police. Other series showed the end result whereas we’re there in the first seconds where people are trying to help. You cannot mistake what people are doing in our show for anything other than help. Our show focuses on people seldom seen.

“There will be more shows involving key workers. I don’t know what form they will take – maybe gameshows with them winning things.”

His fellow co-founder Ed Louwerse adds: “The buyers initially always said it was an issue having no conclusion.

Then you start watching episodes and it’s the opposite and you understand. It gives a certain tension.”

Elsewhere in the blue-light genre, demand has gone in the opposite direction. The Covid-19 pandemic and praise across the world for frontline healthcare workers in all countries have brought on a glut of factual entertainment commissions centred on hospitals and ambulances to both document the crisis and highlight the heroic work done by doctors, nurses and paramedics.

UK-based distribution and copro funding agency Drive shops Helicopter ER, from producer Air TV. Ben Barrett, Drive’s co-MD, says: “In the UK, we love a good blue-light show, perhaps more than many other territories.

There’s a huge amount of content produced here. At the moment, things that involve medical, emergency, rescues and positive stories with positive outcomes showcasing amazing work done by emergency services is popular. Helicopter ER is produced in a fairly unique way. Air TV are multi-talented pilots as well as producer cameramen; that’s how they make that show.”

Despite the problems with Live PD, A&E has renewed its spin-off series Live Rescue, which focuses more on the fire and ambulance services than the police.

Another key focus of a summer spent, for vast numbers of us, in lockdown has been the increasing importance of and focus on daytime.

Meredith Chambers of Sony-owned prodco Electric Ray recently produced Call That Hard Work, a workplace ob

doc for BBC1’s daytime schedule.

He says that while it was always a mistake to write off the daytime audience as simply retired people, that’s particularly true now with so many more people at home.

“The really clever thing about daytime, particularly at the BBC, is they say, ‘Don’t just pitch us old shows.’ There were always students, young mums and people not working [who were] watching,” Chambers says. “Their mantra has always been make a show for everybody. A lot of shows that work in daytime are quite blue-light or journalistic.

“The genius of daytime is it’s more creative and playful than a lot of peaktime. Don’t secondguess the audience and make it for octogenarians who’ll put it on anyway.

It’s a fussy audience that won’t just watch anything. The temptation is [to make] another antiques format, or another property format, or homes in the sun. What was brave about this commission was it’s not in that territory and they are trying to broaden out.

“There are bigger audiences now but it’s not an old audience. They are discerning. In the summer, you go sit in the garden if you don’t want to watch it, so daytime has a very demanding audience.”

Few genres have changed as much in such a short time as fact ent in 2020.

Staples, like police obs docs, have become unpopular while other shows, such as medical shows, have surged in popularity but now face access issues like never before. Daytime has become peaktime and gritty shock docs are having to become uplifting to appeal to an audience that wants to be cheered up.

It’s a lot for producers to contend with, but as a genre with relatively low budgets and often fast turnarounds, it’s one that stands to gain more than most in the coming recession.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Jane Root

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Nu era Nutopia CEO and founder Jane Root talks about her relaxing new show for HBO Max, the permanent changes to working practices that could result from Covid-19 and how TV risks pulling up the drawbridge on diverse talent.

Tell us about your new series A World of Calm for US streamer HBO Max. It’s short films that are designed to get you into a relaxing, contemplative moment in your day and take you out of the craziness we’re all living through. The stories are read by an amazing cast of celebrities including Lucy Liu, Mahershala Ali and Idris Elba. It’s done in partnership with Calm, a wonderful app that does stories designed to make you go to sleep and soothing music.

How has the show been changed by the pandemic?

The original idea was to send crews all over the world in the way we do with One Strange Rock for National Geographic, with people in the Amazon and Japan. When lockdown started, we decided we couldn’t make that and we transitioned to using directors of photography in different countries, sometimes with footage they had shot over a period of years or sometimes shot especially for us.

HBO Max is a new player. How has it been to work with?

The overwhelmingly different and lovely thing is the entire management team at Nutopia is women – me, Nicola Moody, Sara Brailsford and Fiona Caldwell – and the entire team at HBO Max is women. It’s really fascinating; you don’t often get into a situation where eight people are on a call talking about a show and it’s all women. It’s a sign of the times and interesting. The other thing is the team has never met; we’ve never physically been in the same room as each other.

Is that part of the ‘new normal’?

Absolutely. We’ve hired senior people within the company during lockdown who haven’t met other people physically. We made a 6x60’ show for History with no people in that team meeting specifically for the show.

It’s weird but it works. You can do it.

We’ve pitched a number of shows in that time and sold them without ever being in the same room. You’d think it would be impossible, but it goes to show what can be achieved.

Which of the changes we’ve seen are still out of necessity and which will become permanent?

We did a huge survey of the 180 people who work at Nutopia and 80% said they didn’t want to come back into the office five days a week.

Most would like to be able to come in a couple of days for discussions and meetings. It’s how the world changes. If 15 years ago you had said most people would meet their life partners through an app, you’d have thought that insane. There are some things that are gone forever. A culture of presenteeism, the idea you’re not working unless you’re sitting in a room six inches away from somebody else, probably both with headphones on and laptops, and you spend an hour each way commuting from where you live to do that – I don’t think that’s ever going to happen again.

Prodcos are facing challenges around issues such as travel and insurance. Will ideas get smaller and more domestic for a while?

I’m an optimistic person and we are ploughing ahead, planning really difficult shows shooting across u

“

We’ve pitched a number of shows during the pandemic and sold them without ever being in the same room. You’d think it would be impossible, but it goes to show what can be achieved.

Jane Root Nutopia

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the world. We sent 15 people off to quarantine in Australia for two weeks to make a show there. It will be hard to do cheap shows with international travel, but expensive, premium shows will still happen. There are ways of doing it. We’ve had great relationships with local crews across the world and they are an underpinning to doing things in different ways. With A World of Calm, we switched from an assumption we would send crews to working virtually with local crews and it’s turned out fine.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Jane Root

Nutopia came up with creative solutions to filming America: Our Defining Hours during the pandemic

It does inevitably add costs, though, just at a time when the ad market has fallen away and broadcasters have less to spend. How do you square that circle?

That’s a hard one. There is less money to invest and everything will cost more – 20% or 30% more, we reckon. Just the Covid-19 protocols will add to that cost. But unscripted will benefit because it will be so hard to make movies and scripted shows. Reality TV got its start after the writers’ strike. Hollywood came to understand that non-scripted could be a major part of schedules, and you’ll see exactly that happen again.

It is still difficult to make a premium, expensive, nonscripted show, but it’s really hard to do something with 300 extras and a crew of 200.

Lucy Liu is among You can tell an amazing the storytellers in story with somebody being A World of Calm interviewed on Zoom. They sometimes make things more real. When I was at Discovery, we the interviewee from London.

We did 26 outstanding, premium made Werner Herzog’s first new-era doc, Grizzly Man, the centrepoint of interviews all across America which which was him listening to a tape with will look like they were shot by an the sound down. It was an astonishing in-person crew. Interviewees are moment nobody ever forgets. getting used to remote filming and Could you have made that with him speaking to people that way, because watching it on Zoom? Absolutely. It’s we’re all doing it to speak to family and friends. The only problem with about being inventive.

We made America: Our Defining that was occasionally there were Hours for History, where we worked too many steps going up to the door. with a company called Hayden5 in the US that had a system where If you were still in your old job as they turned up on the doorstep of controller at BBC2 or Discovery an interviewee with a trolley loaded Channel, what would you be with lighting, sound equipment doing now to deal with this? and a laptop through which the Be brave. That was always my interviewer could communicate with strategy, and perhaps my downfall.

We had success at BBC2 doing Britain’s Best Sitcom and asking people to search for lost episodes of Dad’s Army. You have to lean into the situation you’re in and find the most exciting thing you can do, rather than carry on as normal, because that’s not helpful.

People know it’s not normal.

You can end up like the British Empire, pretending the world hasn’t changed around you and soldiering on. That didn’t work out well.

What is keeping you up at night as we look towards 2021?

I am worried about something in particular. Black Lives Matter has really shone an important spotlight on how we can be a not-very-inclusive industry. We can be inwardlooking, hiring depending on who we know, and getting in can be really damn hard. I feel like the drawbridge might be coming up behind us, because if you’re creating teams of people who have never met then it’s easier for it to be people you have worked with in the past.

We’ve also lost the soft mentoring which we used to do a ton of in the Nutopia offices. We were proud of internally promoting people, saying, ‘Just come into this edit suite and listen’ or ‘We’re going to pitch a show in LA – why don’t you come and be in the room?’ We’re going to have to make those opportunities much more concrete and planned. They won’t just happen in the way they used to, even once you have got a foot in the door. TV will survive, but I’d hate us to go back 20 years to friends of friends getting the jobs.

“

Black Lives Matter has really shone an important spotlight on how we can be a notvery-inclusive industry.

We can be inwardlooking, hiring depending on who we know, and getting in can be really damn hard.

Jane Root Nutopia

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Travel programming

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Travelling without moving With flight restrictions and quarantines making foreign travel tricky, armchair travellers and those holidaying at home are providing new opportunities to travel programming distributors.

By Clive Whittingham

H

igh on the list of activities Covid-19 has affected this year is international travel, and with it the holiday plans of millions worldwide.

At this time of year, many of us would recently have returned from our annual foreign holiday, but international border restrictions and local quarantine measures meant large numbers of people decided their fortnight by the beach would have to wait for another time.

Enter the next best thing: travel programming.

C21’s news headlines show that plenty of travel-themed content has found homes recently. BBC2, for instance, commissioned a new culinary travel series, Rick Stein’s Cornwall (15x30’), produced by Banijay-owned Shine TV and Rick Stein Productions, while A+E Networks-owned free-toair channel Blaze in the UK acquired travel series Ray Winstone’s Sicily (6x60’) from Banijay Rights.

Elsewhere, global streamer Disney+ this summer debuted Rogue Trip, a six-part travelogue series from National Geographic. The show follows ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff and his son Mack as they travel to Colombia, Lebanon, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Ukraine.

UK broadcaster ITV, meanwhile, has unveiled an autumn slate that

puts travel front and centre, including two ITV Studios shows aimed at ‘staycationers’: new format Don’t Rock the Boat (5x60’), an adventure series in which two celebrity teams row the length of Britain, and All Around Britain (10x60’).

There’s evidently a need for travel content, not just among those holidaying at home but also armchair travellers. “We have definitely noticed an upswing in demand for travel programming,” says Sean Wheatley, head of acquisitions at Tinopolisowned UK distributor Passion Distribution.

“Audiences want a bit of escapism, so that’s why travel shows have been in higher demand than they were maybe last year. People want things that are really aspirational or feel-good or escapist. People aren’t looking for anything that’s too serious; they want something that’s got that air of luxury, glamour or total escapism.”

At NENT Studios UK, executive VP of sales Elin Thomas also sees this as an opportunity. “Seeing as [many]

“

Rogue Trip

people can’t travel or go on holidays, we have tried to bring the world to our clients and our viewers,” she says.

At Germany’s ZDF Enterprises, VP of unscripted Ralf Rueckauer agrees that the pandemic has led to a rise in demand for travel programming.

“Because most people can’t really travel, there’s been a growing demand and we get requests from our clients for programming about places that you would travel to – iconic places like the Colosseum in Rome or the Taj Mahal, for example. So we have a bunch of programming that could bring these places to your home, like Planet of Treasures,” he says.

Similarly, Ben Barrett, co-founder of UK-based funding and coproduction firm Drive, points out that travel series that have already wrapped filming and are available as finished tape could become more sought-after if travel bans remain in place for the long term.

“To have a series that takes people [to holiday destinations] at the moment is the next best thing, u

Seeing as many people can’t travel or go on holidays, we have tried to bring the world to our clients and our viewers.

Elin Thomas

NENT Studios UK

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Travel programming

Ray Winstone’s Sicily was recently picked up by Blaze in the UK

at least allowing people to enjoy them in an escapist way,” Barrett says. “Obviously, there will be a lull in production and availability of these shows in the short to medium term, so we think there’s a strong chance this type of show will do well in the current climate.”

Audiences are saturated with heavy analytical content about the pandemic and are in need of light relief. That’s according to execs like Will Stapley, head of acquisitions at factual distributor TVF International, who says many buyers are after fresh travel content.

“In the last couple of months in particular, we’ve seen an uplift in demand for more escapist, positive family-viewing content, as opposed to specials about the coronavirus or

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hard-hitting documentaries that reflect people’s actual lives at the moment,” he notes.

“People got a bit fatigued by that introspection, so having content that is escapist and taking you to places that – over the last few months at least – people weren’t able to get to has been a real priority for many of our buyers.”

Nonetheless, this does not mean broadcasters are satisfied with offthe-shelf travel content or dated programming. Shows must still be enticing to both viewers and buyers, and production companies are working to keep the genre refreshed and innovative. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by attaching highprofile talent to a project. Some of the most recent examples are Netflix show Down to Earth With Zac Efron and Nat Geo and Disney+ series The World According to Jeff Goldblum.

Meanwhile, those pitching new projects should be mindful that buyers are under increasing pressure to diversify their travelogue presenting roster beyond established male comedians and their relatives. “When I look at travel programming, I’m very much asking if there’s a host and will they resonate with primetime buyers,” Stapley says. “If there isn’t a host, is there an angle that makes it stand out in an already quite crowded market?

Has it got some kind of USP? Is there a hook or is there a relevance to the market at the moment that will make this stand out and sell as opposed to just sit on a shelf?”

The TVF exec warns, however, that there must be a reason for a particular host to front a project. “If you’re doing a travel series about Asia, for example, and you want a host, it’s better to have a local host with expertise and authenticity – someone from the region who speaks the language, who’s lived there and has experience with the culture and the people, rather than perhaps just a white Western male presenter going around in a slightly colonial sense and exploring territories that they don’t have any real experience of,” he says.

A familiar face hosting a series is by no means the only way to lure buyers, commissioners and viewers to programming and to update the triedand-tested travelogue format. “In order to enhance this travelogue style, which is maybe becoming a bit fatigued, we find that once you start coupling travel

“

In order to enhance this travelogue style, which is maybe becoming a bit fatigued, we find that once you start coupling travel with something else, be it with cooking, photography or history, suddenly the property gets more traction.

Ludo Dufour

Blue Ant International

with something else, be it with cooking, photography or history, suddenly the property gets more traction,” says Ludo Dufour, senior VP of international coproductions and sales at Canada’s Blue Ant International.

Reflecting current public concerns also helps travel content to stand out, according to Wheatley. “Bringing the element of sustainability into it is important,” the Passion exec says.

“People didn’t really give that much thought to flying and travelling until recently, but now, if you add in a bit of awareness about the environment and being carbon-neutral, about taking the train rather than the plane or having ecological stories when you’re in a location, that can really help something feel a bit fresher and more relevant.” u

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NEXT BIG THINGS: Travel programming

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Disney+ series The World According to Jeff Goldblum

Developments in technology have also allowed the genre to flourish and remain competitive. As filming gear becomes more sophisticated, so too does the content that can be produced with it. The rise of drones and the aerial footage they capture has helped add another layer to production capabilities and presented viewers with more visually diverse and engaging content.

“Another subgenre that is particularly appealing at the moment, is aerial content,” says Dufour. “Drones have really come to the fore in production in general, and they allow you to get those big, epic aerial shots, which elevate any production. Those shots used to be extremely expensive to get, and now anyone can afford a drone with a 4K camera and can come up with pretty impressive shots.”

Dufour points to series such as China from Above and Smithsonian’s Aerial America and Aerial Britain as examples, adding: “Gear has become much more compact, much lighter.

You can travel around with a GoPro camera and shoot some great images, and technology is helping the genre as a result.”

Stapley, likewise, reveals that one of TVF’s most successful travel franchises is aerial series The World from Above. However, he points out that aerial content must

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be accompanied by a relevant context or story.

“We know the aerials need a certain production value. Everyone has access to drones now, so it’s not just a case of throwing a drone into the sky and filming from A to B; you need to have a real sense of what works, otherwise it’s just fodder – a story that resonates and makes it not just wallpaper programming but culturally interesting and relevant as well,” he says.

The development of 4K and 8K technology also provides vast production benefits within the field, Stapley notes, adding that demand for such content has also increased in recent years. “4K is important nowadays. We’re finding that for shows that are predominantly visual, like wildlife, travel and aerials in particular, the visuals are the key component,” he says.

“So having the best possible visuals, whether it’s 4K, or even 8K where possible, is a real bonus and opens up new opportunities to buyers.

But again, you can’t just have a nicelooking show; it has to be put together and have contextual interest and relevance. It can’t just be wallpaper.”

As has become the case across the global content industry, SVoD services are playing an

increasingly important role in the world of travel programming, with streaming heavyweights like Netflix and Disney+ boasting several celebrity-fronted travel series.

The streamers’ large budgets and global platforms provide them with a reach unlike that of traditional broadcasters, as they are able to target a number of territories simultaneously.

“Travel shows that are being commissioned or licensed by the streamers tend to be younger-skewing and include A-list talent,” says Dufour.

“Travel is an interesting genre for streamers because they can produce a globally appealing series that can still cater specifically to certain territories that they might be particularly focusing on. Therefore, they can provide both a global experience for their viewers and be particularly attractive to the local market.”

2020 has not been a conventional year by any means, which has impacted the genre’s development.

“There’s an irony to it. It’s a very appealing genre at the moment because people want to get out and see the world because they’ve been stuck at home. But, at the same time, in order to shoot that type of show, you need to be able to travel, and there are still many travel restrictions in place at the moment. So we will see more use of archive footage in the travel documentary space,” Dufour predicts.

And it’s not just the unscripted sector that is looking to capitalise on demand for travel content as holiday plans are shelved worldwide.

Banijay Rights is among a number of distributors shopping dramas that feature spectacular scenery in the hope of satisfying that pent-up travel bug. Caroline Torrance, former head of scripted at the distributor, says new dramas like Greenland-shot Thin Ice (8x45’) and GR5: Into the Wilderness (8x45’) feature “stunning landscape escapism.”

The latter was filmed on the GR5 hiking trail, which stretches through the Alps. “As people can’t travel from their sofas, this series will give them something spectacular to look at, as well as an intriguing plot,” says Torrance, who left Banijay Rights at the end of September.

For many of us who have had to cancel travel bookings this year, we may have to make do with Zac Efron guiding us around exotic locations while sitting in the same room we have occupied for the past seven months.

Hopefully, this genre can provide some respite.

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SCHEDULE WATCH: TLC

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Spin-off city Female-skewing cablenet TLC is on the look-out for a range of ideas in the observational doc and social experiments space.

By Clive Whittingham

B90 Strikes Back! made its debut in June

F

ew networks milk their success stories to the extent of Discovery’s female-skewing lifestyle cablenet TLC. The channel is working on another spin-off to its 90 Day Fiancé franchise, which TLC president and general manager Howard Lee describes as the network’s own “Marvel Universe.”

HEA Strikes Back! is a self-shot series that follows the June premiere of B90 Strikes Back!. The new series, which launched in October, gives couples the chance to re-watch their appearances, respond to commentary and look at their lives now.

Launched in 2014, the flagship series has run to seven seasons and spawned multiple spin-offs, all produced by Sharp Entertainment. Lee would not be averse to going further still, if the audience appetite remains. “We listen to the audience. It’s very important to us not to create a spin-off or sequel for the sake of it. We want to make sure we’re not ripping ourselves off franchise after franchise,” he said at the digital version of the Edinburgh Television Festival (ETF) in August.

“We always really want to check in with our fans and viewers to ensure we’re not getting past the tipping point of saturation, and that it’s something they really want to see. We’ve been really fortunate that they’re still finding these projects compelling.”

Talking about the success of the 90 Day Fiancé format, Lee said it had taught his team that the way into love and relationships for TLC would ideally come through docu-follow (observational documentaries) or social experiment formats. “It was the first time we tapped into love and relationships as the core purpose. How do you navigate the complexities of love? We have been looking for that in much more of our programming,” he said.

“We’re OK if it’s docu-follow or a social experiment show, we’re very much open to that if it was ever pitched to us. What we do want is an incredible way to find the significant other. It can’t just be plain old dating, it has to be an extraordinary way – there has to be a hook.

“We are looking for formats that could be in any area of docuseries or social experiment, it could be longarc and serialised or self-contained with a beginning, middle and end each week.”

The network is one of several in the US that vies for a female, 25-54 audience, but the male demographic

Big City TV’s Doubling Down With the Derricos

has increased during lockdown as they were brought into shows by siblings or partners.

Lee used the session to plug Doubling Down With the Derricos, produced by The Content Group’s Big City TV, which focuses on a family with 14 children coping in lockdown. It is the latest in a string of TLC series about enormous families and Lee had advice for producers looking to get in on the act in the future. “The family genre is underserved in the non-fiction community and we try to superserve that,” Lee said. “If you’re pitching something to us in this space it’s critical that it’s completely out of the box and a way in we’ve never heard about.”

Dr Pimple Popper has been the network’s most recent breakout hit and My Feet Are Killing Me premiered this year in the realm of extreme medical series. Lee confirmed that “medically, our door is wide open” to further pitches.

He also welcomed ideas that wouldn’t necessarily be able to sustain a whole season but could support a two- or three-hour event special that the channel could programme and give a lot of press attention to.

On the list of things to avoid were shows with an all-male cast or talent, and he believes true-crime programming is catered for on other Discovery-owned cablenets.

When it comes to wedding-driven shows, Lee observed that the topic remains “very popular globally.” However, he added: “On TLC in the US, we still have the triedand-tested Say Yes To The Dress, but weddings is a hard area for us to commission into as well. We have found some of the ratings in that area are not as high as we would want them to be. A wedding idea would have to be extreme – what’s the wedding story we’ve never heard about before?”

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22

PRESENT IMPERFECT FUTURE TENSE: CS Lee

Korean view of Covid

T

he media industry continues to be shaken CS Lee, founder by the Covid-19 pandemic. With projects of Seoul’s newly facing delays and cancellations, many rebranded UniK fear dark times to come. Despite a growth in Studios, considers the consumption of media, a fall in advertising how Covid-19 could revenue has forced broadcasters to review budgets. So, we must find new solutions if we strengthen links are to survive in the failing media market. between Mipcom Online+’s International coproductions had been Country of Honour, South discussed as the future of content creation even before Covid-19. They show promise Korea, and the international in terms of both commerciality and mutual content industry. benefits. In the past, Korea largely focused on the mutual benefits.

I believe the answer to the challenges The first coproduction that also showed brought on by Covid-19 lies in the Wild Korea commercial promise was Wild Weather case study. My seven years of experience and with Richard Hammond (BBC1), which I the 16 coproductions under my belt tell me so, coproduced with Oxford Scientific Films (OSF). as does the Korean government’s insistence Since then, I have spent five years working on on global marketability.

13 different coproductions with UK production Korea offers many benefits for copros. companies, with over US$20m spent. Even It is at a global content crossroads, with a so, the results were less than satisfactory. dynamic and trendy content ecosystem.

Past copros had served mainly to Moving on from linear and digital platforms, supplement the budget of the UK-driven media content can be found in various places projects, with the Korean coproducers including commerce, shortform, VR/AR and receiving a share of the IP in return, with no social networks. claims on credits, broadcasting rights and Even amidst the pandemic, Korea continues returns. to produce content with Korean broadcasters, no need for lockdowns.

Even amidst the in turn, were very Through the use of studios pandemic, Korea conservative, focusing and non-contact-focused on local viewers and continues to produce programmes, new content their trends, leading to content with no need continues to flood the a lukewarm reception to for lockdowns. Through market. K-content also programmes aimed at the use of studios and continues to thrive in Asia, other countries. As a result, as does digital content in non-contact-focused such coproductions were the global market. largely seen as a net loss. programmes, new The Korean government To resolve this I content continues to continues to support the identified three conditions flood the market. globalisation of K-content, for success. Firstly, both providing up to US$50m Korea and the partner country would have on a yearly basis for media content, with no to take equal parts in producing the project. tax returns. But to successfully make use of Secondly, the content itself needed to satisfy such funds would require the partners to move viewers on both sides of the coproduction. away from the traditional model of simply And lastly, we needed to create a project with requiring the Korean partner to act as an sufficient global marketing possibilities. investor. Korean producers must participate Wild Korea, produced in 2018 alongside not simply as investors, but partners from the OSF, was able to meet all three conditions. The very beginning, to co-finance, coproduce and project was two years in development. We had co-deliver. procured half of the budget through funding I continue to advocate joint productions to systems provided by the Korean government potential coproducers, pointing to our three and commissioning from Korean broadcasters, ongoing projects that are being coproduced and then the other half was obtained with companies in the UK and Germany and through presales by the UK partner. In their efficiency in terms of both time and production, the UK side provided the narrative, money.

Covid-19 has put a question mark over the directors, and editing, while the Korean team worked to facilitate the shoots via crew, tried and tested traditions of the media content industry. Many things have changed and locations and so on.

Wild Korea was produced in three different continue to change. Producers and viewers versions for Korea, the UK (BBC) and the have felt the backlash of the pandemic. Our global market (National Geographic). It view of the world will change, as will our view continues to stand as Korea’s most effective of content as a whole. But the only way for the coproduction to date and a model for the media industry to survive is to evolve from its dated customs and move forward.

Korean government’s funding system.

“

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