Channel 4 Announces Independent Producers Access Plan

24 February 2011

Jay Hunt, Chief Creative Officer

As part of its ambition to be the best broadcaster to do business with, Channel 4 today announced new commitments to the independent production community to offer greater  access to its commissioning teams and increase diversity of supply.

New Chief Creative Officer, Jay Hunt, is to lead a focused drive to ensure that the Channel 4 commissioning culture fosters a more accessible and inclusive dialogue with an increasingly diverse range of independent suppliers by targeting Indies based outside London and those who have not worked for the Channel recently.  

Jay Hunt said ‘Our relationship with the Indie community is essential to us - it's their brilliant ideas that we rely on to make world class content.  This plan means the commissioning team and I will be meeting a wider group of companies than before with a view to getting even more diversity into our programming. It's a step on the way to making Channel 4  the best broadcaster to do business with "

As part of that commitment,  and in addition to regular meetings with Indies in London, Jay will dedicate one day a month to meeting new or regional companies. Six of these days will take place outside London.  

Commissioning Heads of Department will embark on a series of structured meetings across the regions to meet new potential suppliers and have undertaken to work with one new company and one new piece of talent per year.

In addition, Director of Creative Diversity Stuart Cosgrove will offer weekly access to companies across the UK offering dedicated strategic and creative development support.

Companies with strong ideas that need further development or initial seed-funding, will be  attached to a Media Project Manager from the Creative Diversity team and will be met within two-weeks.

If an idea is developed to a sufficiently high level, then within a month of their meeting, the company will be seen by the most relevant Commissioning Editor, with a view to the project being developed and/or commissioned. 

As part of the new drive to increase diversity of supply, Heads of Departments across all genres will attend two Nations and Regions briefings a year, co-ordinated by the Creative Diversity Team. In conjunction with Creative Diversity, Commissioning Heads will also be tasked with mentoring one emerging indie.

Channel 4 will have at least two larger independent briefing events, one with PACT members in London, the other in one of key creative hubs outside of the M25.

The new drive being spearheaded by Hunt builds on the commitments outlined by Chief Executive David Abraham, at his speech to the Nations & Regions Media Conference in Salford.

Abraham pledged that Channel 4 would aim to match or exceed its regional targets, not only on air, but also on online, on digital interactive platforms, striving to ensure that least 35% of Channel 4's annual-spend in digital media commissioning will be from new and emergent companies from outside London.

 

Notes:

• These commitments build on the creation of a dedicated Converged Formats Fund of £2m,  ring-fenced for innovation in the converged era and a dedicated £2m fund for grassroots creatives, The Alpha Fund.  

• The Timetable for the access plan will be published shortly