Pitch pressure

BY ANDY FRY

AS THE WORLD’S LEADING MEDIA EXECUTIVES PREPARE TO DESCEND on the Banff World Media Festival (BANFF), it’s an intriguing time for international buyers. Rapid expansion in the free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel landscape, intensified competition among SVOD streaming platforms, and the extension of traditional linear broadcasters into the digital arena means the buying community’s ability to identify and acquire marquee content has become more mission-critical than ever.

Playback checked in with a cross-section of international programming execs to see what’s breaking through with audiences and how that’s shaping their investment strategy and content focus.

For Jo Clinton-Davis, controller of factual at leading U.K. commercial broadcaster ITV, this will be the first edition of BANFF since her company launched streaming platform ITVX. Consequently, she is in the market for a broader range of programming.

For the company’s flagship entertainment channel ITV1, she says “the holy grail” is mainstream, returnable, factual entertainment formats: “We’ve had success with The Real Full Monty and Long Lost Family brands – so what’s next? For ITV1, formats need scale and noisy presence to cut through. They also need an authentic starting point.”

Clinton-Davis says ITV1 has done well with “immersive vehicles for talent,” naming reality series Bradley & Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad as an example. “That was a funny adventure revealing a different side to one of Britain’s best-loved faces. Talent needs to speak to U.K. viewers.”

Slots on ITV1 are limited and the competition is tough, says Clinton-Davis, so shows need “sheer audacity and unmissability” to stand any chance of being picked up. With ITVX, Clinton-Davis says “we still need ‘big beast’ ideas but we’ve been able to diversify our palette. Crime series like Murder in the Family and Social Media Murders have cut through.” With ITVX in mind, she is broadening the crime portfolio and is also “in the market for timely stories about ourselves and our society that feel like reallife dramas.”

The right biopic, such as The Rise and Fall of Boris Becker, is of interest, while factual series Born From the Same Stranger also resonated. “We’re also in the market for copros. Some of our talent-led shows, for example Martin Clunes: Islands of the Pacific, are eminently coproducable.”

Still in the U.K., Channel 4 head of acquisitions and international Nick Lee is targeting both unscripted and scripted coproduction opportunities. “For unscripted, we primarily seek docuseries and multi-part specialist factual; true crime, accessible history, human interest, archive-driven, and personality-driven travelogue are high on our agenda. For scripted, our focus is on crime and psychological thrillers; we want grounded female-skewing stories, and aren’t looking for anything too genre heavy.”

In general, Lee says C4 is “very opportunistic and looking for content that will resonate with the curious audience we serve. Our aim is to create change through entertainment.”

Lee is looking ahead to 2024 now and, in terms of pitches, says: “We look for as complete a package as possible with a credible finance plan. If there aren’t other partners attached, we need to know – who does the producer think it would work for and why?”