Specialist Factual

Introduction 

We are looking for audacious, provocative and news-making ideas that combine brilliant TV with a new take on the most challenging ethical questions facing us now, the taboos we don’t talk about, vital stories that need to be revealed, and points of view we don’t hear. Compelling contemporary history and culture singles and series; provocative factual theatre ideas, strong pieces of revisionist history and authored or investigative films that take on big targets. Popular series and formats that will stand the test of time and draw a broad audience. Great TV with a strong Specialist Factual sense of purpose and content. Our Specialist Factual department has delivered some of Channel 4’s most original and noisy programmes.

What are we looking for?

 

REVELATORY SINGLES AND COMPELLING SERIES:

We commission strong single films and series. Single films should be revelatory and ideally deliver a scoop. Think Diana: The Truth Behind the Interview or Grenfell: The Untold Story. Or noisy, distinctive and accessible films – in the vein of 100 Vaginas or Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax.

As with all our content, we want to tackle complex ethical questions, difficult issues and offer different points of view not often heard, so these may be strongly authored such as David Baddiel: Jews Don’t Count and Disability and Abortion: The Hardest Choice. You could also look at Prue and Danny’s Death Road Trip, and Gender Wars. For our Secret History strand the films need to break a new story or offer up a revisionist take such as The Unremembered: Britain’s Forgotten War Heroes or Britain’s Secret War Babies. In science, we want bold and innovative approaches and to tackle enormous subjects like climate change and AI in a distinctively Channel 4 way. We are keen to innovate in our storytelling, playing with form as in How to Survive a Dictator with Munya Chawawa

Specialist Factual series should have compelling narratives and shed new light on big events or people. We are looking for ideas in contemporary and cultural history, that will work well on streaming such Paula and Depp v Heard.  More broadly, Specialist Factual series should tell us something new about the world, offer privileged access and unpack a system or precinct to explain how it works. The “how does it work” approach also lends itself well to big engineering projects, trains, ships and infrastructure. But we also want to look at topical issues and precincts with purpose and heart, as in Kids, looking at the world of kids in care. We are keen to find popular precincts to explore in a new way and with innovative techniques. In history, we have also had strong limited series examining Trump, Putin and Osama Bin Laden, Sathnam Sanghera’s Empire State of Mind.

POPULAR RETURNERS

Across the different subject matters we cover – the main ones being History, Science, Adventure, Topical, Travel and Arts – we want to find big, bold, popular returning series. Many of our biggest hits have combined strong Specialist Factual purpose with techniques borrowed from documentary or factual entertainment. We are the department behind The Piano, Grayson’s Art Club, SAS: Who Dares Wins, and The Secret Life of 4/5 Year Olds. The new returning series could be formats, including competitive formats, or access driven series. We are looking for big, entertaining ideas of scale. Talent have always been a huge part of our returning slate – from Guy Martin to Grayson Perry – and we are keen to find others – new and established. We want to start building up some new voices especially in history and science. And across the slate, we’re keen to see how we can work with other co-production partners to deliver high quality pieces. 

PROVOCATIVE EVENTS AND FACTUAL THEATRE

We are looking for high-impact, provocative and challenging schedule-piercing events. These could be spectacular, challenging, surprising pieces of factual theatre – examples would be Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, and further back The Autopsy, or Drugs Live. Or pieces of scale and ambition like our upcoming opera in Welsh, Gay Wedding: The Musical or Death of Klinghoffer in arts. What we really want is audacious, disruptive and challenging programmes that feel new in form, that spark debate, make trouble and intervene in the national conversation. 

 

THE SPECIFIC SUBJECT AREAS

 

HISTORY

In history we are very interested in contemporary post-war history. We want history that makes us rethink the present and engages with current issues and events, and has real salience. How for instance can we make sense of the war going on now? We want big scoops and revelations, and have the stomach to take on big targets. What access can we fight for to interrogate the past and present? We are not just looking at contemporary history through the popular culture prism, but want new ideas about which areas of modern history we can re-imagine, in a definitive way. Think Paula, our series on the miners’ strike and How to Survive a Dictator with Munya Chawawa.

SCIENCE

Finding new ways of talking about climate change and the environment, and AI are our main priorities. But we would love new ideas about how to approach these huge subjects. We want to approach climate change in popular, surprising and ambitious ways, as in Guy Martin’s Great British Power Trip. We want to hold power to account and investigate how we got here, and who is responsible. And we want to find big event pieces which feel noisy and exciting. Science, engineering, and invention underpin lots of the stuff we love about the modern world and our programming should reflect some of that joy and excitement.

We are interested in the intersection of science and history, and science and crime as ways to find high-rating, high impact new series that approach science – and this may come through creatively thinking about access. In science, we lean towards the spectacular (The Plane Crash, Mummifying Alan, Live from Space) and the challenging – often new science or technology that raises new ethical dilemmas.  We encourage experimentation with form - and especially with new technology.

TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE

We’d like to find new, entertaining and purposeful ways of doing travel and adventure. Across anthropology, geography, climate change - travel is a brilliant vehicle for doing crunchy topics in a fun, accessible way. What we are not looking for is well-intentioned, but slightly worthy trips and treks to various far-flung places.  But if you do have something with a genuine first, or real innovation – like the hunt for Shackleton’s ship – we would love to hear about it.

 

ARTS

Our approach to arts is very ground up and democratic as exemplified by Grayson’s Art Club. We want to find ways engaging people in art, and for it to find its way into the real world as with the accompanying exhibitions. Rather than doing lots of pieces ABOUT something, we are interested in artists taking us into popular precincts and places. Ideas for artists across the board who could be great on TV would be welcome. Very keen to work with amazing talent – either in performance or directing to make us think in a new way. We are also interested in arts event pieces which are genuinely controversial, ground-breaking or unsettling – think of Channel 4’s Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, Death of Klinghoffer, the Battle of Orgreave, Gay Wedding: The Musical – or pieces which scale up the identity/body ideas explored in films like 100 Vaginas and Boobs.  As with the other subjects, we cover, we are keen to find scoops in the arts space, and to discover high impact stories in the arts space, rediscovering hidden subjects, or fascinating biography with new revelations. Our short art film strand Random Acts continues, with a few films commissioned every year. Ideas should be stand out and completely original.

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