UK-based buyers from Nat Geo, UKTV and ITV discuss new unscripted and format areas they are moving into, particularly in light of Nat Geo becoming part of streamer Disney+ and ITV soon to launch its own on-demand service, ITVX.

Simon Raikes, commissioning editor for factual, National Geographic International
“Like Nat Geo in the US, we are after adventuresome, story-led programming, but not raw survivalist. The shows that work well are Lost Treasures of Egypt, Locked Up Abroad and the From Above franchise. Increasingly, while our shows are commissioned to have a first life on linear, they will often migrate, usually day and date, to the Disney+ streaming platform.

“Nat Geo has made lots of good shows but it often felt like they were led by a specialist factual mindset: educational, didactic – a degree of homework, dare I say? Now we want to look for ways of making thrillers. We want really compelling stories, character-led often, in the specialist factual space.

Nat Geo is after more story-led content like Lost Treasures of Egypt

“We don’t do that many formats with an exoskeleton; identifiable formats are not really our thing. You can have hidden formats, and quite often we need those, but it should feel like you’re on a journey with real characters doing real stuff they would normally be doing without seeing the hand of the producer. One of the challenges is how you can make something that has a form, that is returnable and repeatable without it being an obvious format.”

Hilary Rosen, deputy director of commissioning, UKTV
“We’ve long thought about weddings as the obvious territory and space for a female-skewing channel like W, but always wondered how we’d do against the firepower of Married at First Sight and those shows. What we’re doing with Wedding Valley is looking at the community that lives in the Ribble Valley, telling the stories through the suppliers and the people who get the weddings up and running.

“We’re hoping it’s a different way of slicing into weddings and that the magic of Yorkshire, which does very well for some other channels, will work well for us. I’m not sure we’re looking for dozens more wedding shows but we’re keen to hear where we might take the channel into other territories.”

Dating with My Mates on UKTV’s W channel

“We’re looking for more formats for that network. Formats are hard, but we are looking for more formatted shows to sit alongside Dating with My Mates. It’s about getting into the heads of the demo and thinking about what a format feels like. We’ve all watched Dinner Dates, First Dates, Come Dine With Me, but they’re all old titles because it’s very hard. What worlds do we want to be in? Our formats need to be warm, they can’t be huge-budget, can’t be big studio shows and they need to be set in the real world.

“For Dave, we have commissioned our own version of World’s Most Dangerous Roads, which was originally a BBC show. We don’t normally do that but we wanted something in that space and no producer came up with an idea as brilliant as that, so we embraced World’s Most Dangerous Roads, renewed it and rebooted it with Renegade. It would be good if people didn’t pitch us loads of travelogue now we’re making World’s Most Dangerous Roads.”

Kate Teckman, head of development and commissioning editor for factual entertainment, ITV
“We’re ITV, we want broad audiences and we’re unashamedly populist. What is a novelty for our commissioning teams is that the launch of the streaming service [ITVX] later this year has changed what we’re looking for: more factual, more docs, more boxsets. It’s a recalibration for us and there are new areas we want to get into.

“There has to be a sense of purpose with our fact ent. We don’t tend to go with fact ent that’s purely a game, doesn’t come from a place of authenticity or ask an authentic question. We’re broad and want the numbers but a way of getting that is starting with an authentic question.

“We’re looking for stories of our time and British stories. We had a lot of success with Social Media Murders. It was a bit of a departure for us. We went to ITV2 and started doing factual for younger audiences, and we’re going to be doing more. It was a way to anthologise small indie prodcos coming with a good crime stories, with good access to police and families. We felt it was an important story of our time because social media is the Wild West and young people are dying after hooking up on social media.”