Distinct desires

Iceland-set Trapped was among the foreign-language series to debut on BBC4

BBC4 editor Cassian Harrison tells Richard Middleton about slow TV, trainspotting and the delicate issue of diversity on screen.

Diversity in front of, and behind, the camera is a growing issue in television circles, and the UK’s BBC4 feels like the sort of channel that should be leading the way. The station’s editor Cassian Harrison is eager to address the issue, but to do it within the channel’s mantra of ‘detail and expertise’.

“The challenge and the opportunity is BBC4 should have more diverse faces on screen – a better mix racially, and more disability,” says Harrison. “The thing it absolutely rests on is expertise and that’s the brief for producers. We want experts, we want them to be diverse, they have to have interesting things to say – probably somebody who doesn’t necessarily want to be a television presenter but has their passion and expertise.”

The channel has become known as the UK home of so-called ‘Slow TV’ with a canal boat journey and a bus ride through the Yorkshire Dales already televised. Harrison believes that speaks to the level of detail required in a BBC4 series which producers must be aware of.

“BBC4 absolutely loves detail,” he says. “We take the time to unpack detail in a way no other television channel feels it has the opportunity to do. We like big timeless subjects – arts, culture, history, science – and to explore them in a depth of detail you wouldn’t find anywhere else.”

Real-time reindeer rides in far northern Norway could only sit side by side with Icelandic drama and live trainspotting from Oxfordshire and on one UK channel.

BBC4 does eclectic programming probably more distinctively than any other network and seems to revel in its slightly off-kilter spirit. It’s also proven rather successful – a handy accomplishment for its editor that allows him to easily bat away reports questioning the channel’s long-term future.

Cassian Harrison

“We’re firing on all cylinders and doing something really distinctive and innovative in the UK broadcasting landscape,” says Harrison, adding that director general Tony Hall’s commitment to the channel “is stronger than it has been in a long time.”

That could, of course, be read in two ways but clearly in an era where distinctiveness has become such a politically charged word, BBC4 delivers it literally by the trainload. And while most linear networks are seeing audiences drop off, BBC4 has been quietly building on its “brilliant heritage,” Harrison says.

The Killing, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Thick of It and Flight of the Conchords all made their UK premieres on BBC4, while more recent debutants include Iceland-set Trapped and French thriller The Disappearance.

Ten years ago, the subtitled latter duo might have raised eyebrows but in today’s drama-doused TV landscape, it’s nothing unusual. There are, however, rather more players, with Netflix, Amazon and the likes of Channel 4’s foreign-language on-demand service Walter Presents available.

Harrison admits it’s a very competitive market but says the channel’s “prestige” and willingness to promote shows can deliver savvy deals for all concerned. And he’s bullish about his team’s abilities to outgun competitors.

“I’m not one to diss the competition but services such as Walter Presents are a pretty mixed bag in terms of what they actually have,” he says. “It takes real skill to curate and find pieces that work for a UK audience and I’m lucky that I have a team that really knows what does work and has the relationships to root out the very best stuff.

“It’s not just a case of, ‘Oh, it’s a foreign-language drama, let’s stick it on the telly and it’ll find an audience.’ Walter Presents has proved that doesn’t actually work.”

BBC4, Harrison adds, is also keen to forge deeper relationships earlier with producers and build on its recent deal for Trapped, which was inked long before the finished programme was delivered. He’s also after foreign-language shows from within the UK that build on the success of S4C and BBC Wales’ Hinterland.

However, BBC4’s scheduling goes well beyond drama and means a smorgasbord of Trainspotting Live, sitcom Detectorists, mockumentary Twenty Twelve plus Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe can all sit together on the same channel.

The former – an actual live TV show about the once-unfashionable world of train-spotting – even managed to knock the prime minister’s resignation off the front page of the UK’s most read tabloid, which instead led with the show’s possible misuse of archive train footage.

“The show did incredibly well,” Harrison says, adding that its “sliver of fun and cheek and wit” reflected BBC4’s wider appeal. “There was also real content at the heart of it, which we delivered incredibly well. Being playful and pushing at the boundaries of form and what we can do is what BBC4 is about.”

Then there’s Storyville, now sadly without its revered editor Nick Fraser who announced he was leaving the BBC after 17 years last month. The internationally flavoured doc strand that’s proven particularly popular among younger viewers; the innovative – and soundtrack-free – documentary Life and Deaf; and even Genius of the Modern World, a series about heavyweight German philosophers.

And in this fast-evolving media landscape, BBC4 is certainly providing plenty of food for thought.