As Live Production: Deciding a Target Television Channel

Channel 4

“Channel 4 has a special relationship with new talent and we are more likely to take risks on unknown comedians and writers than any other broadcaster.”

http://www.channel4.com/info/commissioning/4producers/comedy





Originally we though our show would suit a Friday evening as it's a combo time for political comedy chat shows. BBC has ‘Have I Got News for You’ and Channel 4 currently has ‘The Last Leg’. We therefore thought satire day might would be a good time as they don’t have a specific programme they stick to.

Channel 4 diversity guidelines
“We will cast even more disabled people as actors, experts, presenters or contributors in our biggest shows.”


Amazon Prime

We then jumped our attention to what was a large inspiration of ours which was ‘The Grand Tour’. This is a show quite unique to Amazon Prime as its not their usual original drama.
Amazon Prime is still in it’s early days, and hasn’t got a political show at the moment.
If in the style of ‘The Grand Tour’ it would give them a good theme for their brand. Image result for amazon video logo

Channel 5

After looking at Channel 5's commissioning site I found several specs form different people on what shows they are currently looking to commission, and it looks as though our show would fit their category perfectly. Commissioning Editor for factual entertainment, Greg Barnett said he's looking for:

Younger skewing entertaining ideas for the 10pm slot. Not necessarily studio based or your typical “shiny floor” show and not necessarily long runs. Could be an observational documentary or a soft format. Celebrity Wedding Planner, The Bachelor and Celebrity Super-Spa have all performed well in this slot.
Shared viewing series ideas with broad appeal for 8pm. What are the current talked-about territories we are not covering? Is there a specialist or expert, or just a good soft format that’s so reliant on its casting that it feels consistently fresh?
A witty and intelligent talent-led passion project for 9pm. 

Much of this would suit our programme, so we would definitely consider presenting our idea to Channel 5. 
Ben Frow, their Director of Programming commented not he website saying: 



“We particularly like factual shows – Specialist Factual, Documentaries and Factual Entertainment. These can be poppy, tabloid type shows or serious pieces, there’s room for all tones and textures. But they need to have a good, grabby title. We are not really in the market for Comedy or Drama at the moment but that will hopefully change moving forward. We are also hoping to commission more Features and Lifestyle further down the line but it’s hard to get those kind of shows away at the moment.”
Whilst they aren't currently looking for comedy and its more tabloid type shows (which fits into our category) they said they want to look into that father down the line, ut if its something they would consider at all then it would be worth pitching to them. 

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