Speech by Ian Katz, Channel 4 Director of Programmes, 16/05/18

16 May 2018

 

PLEASE CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Hello and thanks for coming along today.

It’s been four months since I started as Director of Programmes at Channel 4.

And not too shabby a four months for the channel either…

...from the hugely successful launches of Derry Girls and Kiri to Channel 4 News’s Cambridge Analytica revelations that wiped $130m off the value of Facebook…and put Mark Zuckerberg in front of a senate inquiry.

Precisely the sort of dogged, independent-minded, pain in the arse journalism, that Channel 4 News was invented for.

So before we talk about the future, I hope you’ll indulge me a quick wallow in the recent past. Here’s a reminder of a terrific year on Channel 4….

 

[2018 Highlights VT]

 

One of the most pleasing things about the last few months, as that tape reminds us, is that most of our big returning shows have come back stronger than ever this year - from 24 Hours in Custody, which attracted a consolidated audience a million higher than its last series, to SAS which had its biggest series yet

….via Gogglebox, Hunted, First Dates, Celebs Go Dating and the Island, all of which have returned in extraordinarily good creative health, and attracting great audiences.

The fantastic performance of Celebrity Bake Off has been - quite literally - the icing on the cake.

During my first couple of months at Channel 4, I spent a lot of time reminding everyone that all this success had nothing to do with me.

But recently I read Michael Grade’s autobiography in which he points out - with some satisfaction - that he turned round the channel’s audience figures within three months.

So I think I will now stop apologising and start taking credit for all the success around here...

...but obviously none of the failures.

I mention all this because I am very alive to the fact that Alex and I have been lucky enough to take over a channel in very good health.

We face huge structural challenges, as Alex has said, but we start in an enviable position.

And for that I am very grateful to Jay and David, and to the brilliant commissioning teams they built.

When I arrived, I wrote - I hope - to all of you and said my aim was to ensure that Channel 4 would be the “imp in the mechanism” which Antony Smith, one of the intellectual fathers of the channel, argued that British broadcasting needed.

I love the phrase because I think it captures the mixture of subversiveness and wit at the core of the channel’s DNA.

But after finding myself in a number of debates about whether a particular idea was “imp” or not - and on more than one occasion being misheard to sing the praises of the “PIMP in the mechanism” - I recognise I probably need to talk in a bit more detail about the creative direction in which I hope to take the channel.

I suspect there is a rule somewhere that all visions for Channel 4 should have no more than four pillars but I am going to break it I’m afraid because mine has five.

Here they are…

At the heart of all our thinking is the first of these - a renewed emphasis on distinctiveness - so I’m going to talk a bit more about it than the others…

...and tell you about some of the commissions which I hope demonstrate that we are not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

Why do we want to dial up the difference, and what does it mean?

Channel 4, of course, has always been different by design, by statute even: our remit requires us to innovate, to find new voices and talent, to reflect Britain in all its glorious diversity, to make space for intelligent debate and in-depth journalism.

It was a job description born of a very different time and TV landscape - just three channels and a cosy and homogenous broadcasting elite.

Thirty-six years on, with five terrestrials, hundreds of digital channels and a cornucopia of new digital video providers, do we still need a public service broadcaster doing that job?

I believe the answer is, “more than ever”, and - more than that - that our best chance of flourishing is through re-dedicating ourselves to our core mission.

Here’s why…

Consider the world we live in today...whether it’s Brexit, the Grenfell fire or most recently the appalling treatment of the Windrush generation...every few months brings a new reminder of how many sections of our society go almost unheard in the media and public discourse.

Consider the way the online world has corralled so many of us into filter bubbles, polarising opinion and preventing us from encountering views with which we disagree.

Consider the mounting suspicion and distrust of elites - and in particular of the media - that we have seen in recent years.

Consider the profusion of information and news sources and the hyperactive news cycle that makes it easy to find out anything...

...except perhaps what matters and what doesn’t.

Consider the commercial pressures that are pushing content makers towards ever more internationalised content.

All these conditions seem to make Channel 4’s remit more important and relevant than ever…

A space in the culture that reflects the WHOLE nation,

that doesn’t just do diversity but rejoices in it,

that defends dialogue and debate, and exposes people to alternative views,

that challenges ALL orthodoxies,

that seeks the signal rather than the noise,

that is uncompromisingly British.

And in a world of superabundant choice, dialling up the difference makes competitive sense too.

When viewers have a boundless choice of flavours, it surely makes sense to be a strong one.

So what does dialling up the difference actually mean?

It means, for starters, creating space and funding for creative risk taking and innovation.

Alex and I have already talked about opening up 11 O’clock for experimentation with entertainment, live, and topical humour.

I’m delighted to be able to announce one of our first commissions for that slot, a frankly bonkers new studio show presented by the rapper Big Narstie and the comedian Mo Gilligan. Now we wouldn’t normally show a run through in public but we are so excited by the freshness and energy of this show that I wanted to give you an early taste...

 

[Big Narstie pilot VT}

 

I look forward to hearing your most outlandish ideas for 11, from anarchic live entertainment, to how we might reinvent topical satire, or chat, or political debate...or what a TV interview looks like in 2018.

I hope 11 o’clock on Channel 4 will be the free-est and most creatively exciting space in British broadcasting.

Dialling up the difference also means bringing a range of fresh new faces to the channel.

I’m hugely excited that our Specialist Factual department are making an authored series about the wilder fringes of cyberspace with the singular Jamali Maddix, and that Kathy Burke will be delivering her own, characteristically uncompromising, three part take on what it means to be a woman in 2018.

They’re just two of a slew of new faces you’ll see on the channel over the next year, and I’ll give you a taste of a few of them shortly.

I’m looking for more diverse and surprising new voices who can bring different audiences to the channel and take viewers into areas and issues they might not otherwise engage with.

Dialling up the difference also means creating more space for debate and argument, as we have with the Genderquake season that started last week - precisely the sort of programming that challenges people’s preconceptions and makes space for views that are all too often shut down in a world of no-platforming and filter-bubbles.

Dialling up the difference also means our schedule will be more connected to what is happening in the country.

That’s why we are investing in current affairs, why we have hired the BBC’s most talented editor, Louisa Compton, to edit Dispatches, why we are commissioning more quick-turnaround films like our recent investigation of the Salisbury nerve gas attacks...or last night’s sublime Windsor’s Wedding Special which you really need to see if you haven’t yet.

I also want to introduce more live elements to the schedule including a daytime daily live show from our new National Headquarters...

...just as soon as we know where it is.

Dialling up the difference also means addressing the hottest issues and arguments in the country across our schedule in other genres from factual entertainment to comedy and drama.

One of the delights of my new job is not having to worry about Brexit EVERY day, but I’m particularly pleased to have commissioned James Graham’s hard-hitting and compulsive drama on how the Brexit vote was won, and even more pleased that Benedict Cumberbatch will be starring in it.

It will be broadcast just ahead of our formal departure from the EU in February…assuming, that is, we actually get round to leaving.

It’s a great example of how our drama can engage with contemporary British life - tackling knotty, topical, and provocative issues in a way that speaks to the whole country.

It doesn’t mean our dramas will be earnest, homework TV...but we want them to matter, to be instantly recognisable as Channel 4. I’m incredibly proud of our bumper 2019 slate which runs the gamut from Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica to Pure, Kirstie Swain’s coming of age drama with a mental health twist and rather a lot of sex.

If you were thinking about how a TV channel could do a better job of representing the country, you might even come up with the idea of partly relocating it into a number of regional hubs so that its commissioners had their fingers on the pulse of the whole nation.

But Alex already thought of that…

The runaway success of Derry Girls - the most watched series in Northern Ireland since modern records began - was a reminder of how refreshing it can be to see under-represented parts of the county portrayed on a mainstream channel.

I’m convinced having a commissioning team spread across the country - as we will from 2020 - will enable us to reach the stories and ideas and talent that others can’t.

I firmly believe that taking more creative risk, betting on new talent, dialling up our distinctiveness, will, in the longer term, help us to find the next generation of hits.

But I also know that talk about risk-taking is only meaningful when you are prepared to fail.

We are lucky that the huge success of Bake Off has afforded us some space to experiment elsewhere, but we will be working hard in other parts of the schedule to generate the ratings headroom to take more risks.

That means searching as hard as ever for a new generation of big, innovative channel-defining returners to build on the success that we’ve had with the likes of First Dates and Hunted and The Island.

At 8pm we’ll be looking for broad and popular shows that aim to get our viewers watching together and settling in for the night - like Secret Life of the Zoo, or Bake Off, or Lego Masters.

It means we’ll be just as hungry for big, splashy shows at 9 that may be “Channel 4” purely through the scale of their ambition, or the freshness of their format.

It means nurturing the big shows we have and trying to make them bigger, sometimes by increasing their runs.

It means seeking sports rights that can deliver big audiences efficiently, such as the series of summer rugby internationals we will be airing this year.

And it may mean high profile acquisitions like George Clooney’s Catch 22 which will be a big plank of our drama offer next year, alongside a brilliant slate of original pieces.

So Dialling Up the Difference does not mean we want to be a niche or highbrow broadcaster.

Channel 4 should always be a popular, entertaining channel that brings difference into the mainstream of British life.

We don’t make popular television in order to make important television - we aim to be popular and purposeful.

So that’s Dialling Up the Difference…

The second pillar, as Alex touched on, will be a renewed focus on younger viewers.

That means creating more programming that resonates with younger audiences - and giving it to them where they want it.

E4 is already the strongest youth brand in linear TV. We think it has the potential to be a powerful young brand across On Demand and social media too.

That’s why we are increasing E4’s budget by £10m - with an emphasis on reality and fact ent originations - and why we will be appointing a controller of E4, reporting to me.

E4 will be the main focus of our efforts to grow young share but on Channel 4 our emphasis will be on reaching younger viewers through broad, popular shows at 8 and 9, and spikier, younger shows at 10.

We’ll also be doubling down on some of our shows that are most popular with young viewers - like SAS, which will expand from five to ten episodes - and looking for new, broad fact ent and documentaries formats that could bring a young audience.

One I’m super excited about is Flirty Dancing, in which two single strangers are separately taught half of a dance routine by Ashley Banjo.

Then one day, they find themselves in a public place where the music they have learned to dance to suddenly comes on. Here’s what happens next…

 

[Flirty Dancing VT]

 

We’ll also be returning to reality with The Circle, a hugely ambitious stripped show that will explore the way we curate - and often manipulate - our identities in the online world.

We’d love to see more ideas for big, audacious shows that could capture the national imagination.

The third pillar of our vision is to put comedy back at the heart of Channel 4.

Comedy has always been one of the defining flavours of the channel, from Comic Strip Presents on the very first night of transmission to Derry Girls this year via Ali G, Brass Eye, Father Ted, Peep Show, Green Wing, IT Crowd, Inbetweeners and Catastrophe, to name only a few.

Today we’re making a £10m investment in scripted comedy and comedy entertainment aimed at making Channel 4 the unequivocal home of youthful original British comedy.

It will allow us to offer viewers new scripted comedy every month, as well as creating a comedy “sandpit” on All 4 where we can try out new talent and experimental ideas.

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve just commissioned a poignant and touching series exploring the nature of happiness, written by and featuring the fabulous Aisling Bea, alongside Sharon Horgan, a great favourite on the channel.

But we already have some wonderful new shows coming down the slipway over the next few months, from Desire Akhavan’s unflinching exploration of sexuality, the Bisexual, to Jamie Demetriou’s irresistible Stath, one of the most original comic characters I’ve seen in years.

Stath is Britain’s least successful letting agent. Here’s a taste of why...

 

[Stath VT]

 

Alex talked about our ambition to drive digital growth faster and to do that - our fourth pillar - we’ll be commissioning every show with a view to its performance across all platforms.

We’re already seeing a number of shows that perform more strongly on catch-up and VOD than on linear.

We will now be actively looking for shows that we think will drive On Demand growth, as well as trying to shape some shows from their inception to ensure they generate strong social content.

We’ll also be investing in genres that perform strongly in VOD such as comedy, drama and constructed reality.

And we’ll be experimenting with our windowing strategy to find the ways our audiences want to consume our shows.

The final pillar of our vision is about our relationship with talent - on and off-screen - and specifically our relationship with you, our suppliers.

We recognise that the world has changed. Commissioners can’t sit at their desks and pick the best of the hundreds of ideas they are peppered with.

We know we are now in a battle for the best ideas and talent with new competitors with very deep pockets and ravenous appetites.

It’s a battle we know we can’t win with a chequebook, so our mission is to ensure that we are the best creative partner anyone with a great idea could have.

That means offering writers and filmmakers the creative freedom to do the work they are passionate about.

It means forging close and long term relationships with the talent we collaborate with, and working hard to ensure we land their work with real impact.

And it means doing everything we can to make sure we are the place you want to bring all your best ideas.

Over the last few months Alex and I have talked to many of you about your experiences working with the channel.

We’ve been heartened by the strong message that you all want the channel to succeed and to be part of it - some of you feel so proprietorial about it that I sometimes feel like I’ve rented your apartment on Airbnb - but we’ve also heard you talk about frustrations like lack of clarity, slow decision-making and excessive intervention in production.

We’ve shared your frustrations with our commissioners, and they’ve shared a few of their own, and I’m hopeful that we can achieve a really constructive reset of the relationship which has always been at the core of Channel 4’s success.

In particular I hope the creation of our regional commissioning teams will allow us to work with those of you based outside London in an altogether more collaborative way.

I hope that’s put a little flesh - or at least some clothes - on the imp in the mechanism.

This is a thrilling time to be in television, and an even more thrilling time to be at Channel 4.

There are those who dwell on all the threats and challenges that we face as an industry. And there are plenty of them, to be sure.

But Channel 4 has always had a deep vein of optimism running through it: optimism about people, optimism about our country, optimism about what television can achieve.

I think this is a moment bursting with opportunity for a diverse, disruptive, digital - above all distinctive - Channel 4.

I hope you’ll help us to seize it.

I’ll shut up now, but I want to leave you with a taste of some of the new faces you’ll be seeing on Channel 4 over the next few months….