C4 to ‘Transform Schedule’ Post-Big Brother

LONDON: Channel 4 has decided not to renew Big Brother once the contract is up in 2010, freeing up an additional £20 million that will be used to up its drama output.

The British broadcaster said today that it was planning "the most significant creative transformation in its history" after dropping the long-running Big Brother franchise next year. The move will free up to 200 first-run hours in peak time across Channel 4 and E4 from 2011. In the absence of Celebrity Big Brother and Big Brother, Channel 4 will be reviewing its commissioning strategies across all genres, according to Kevin Lygo, the director of television and content. Lygo also noted that dropping Big Brother was more a creative decision than a commercial one.

“Big Brother is still profitable for Channel 4 despite its reduced popularity and there could have been the option to renew it on more favourable terms. That’s what a purely commercial broadcaster would have done, but Channel 4 has a public remit to champion new forms of creativity. That remit to push the boundaries has been an essential part of the weird chemistry behind Big Brother’s success, but it’s now what is telling us that the program has reached a natural end point on Channel 4 and it’s time to move on.”

He continued: “Cancelling Big Brother does not solve Channel 4’s funding issues; this year we’ve nearly £125 million less to spend on programmes than we did a couple of years ago and budgets for next year may have to be reduced further. However, assuming advertising revenues stop deteriorating at some point, we should have greater flexibility in how we spend our commissioning budget; the significant sums that have been committed to Big Brother in the past should now be available to boost budgets in genres, such as drama, that have had to be cut back sharply during the downturn.”

Julian Bellamy, the head of Channel 4, added: “Big Brother will leave a huge hole and filling it will involve the most fundamental creative overhaul in our history. We’ve 18 months to transform the schedule; today’s announcement is our biggest-ever creative call-to-arms to producers to come forward with their very best ideas.”

The broadcaster has begun reviewing its drama strategy, with plans to invest an additional £20 million in titles for Channel 4 and E4 for broadcast in 2011 and further. The focus, Lygo said, will be on event dramas, following the success of mini-series such as Red Riding and The Devil’s Whore, as well as quirky, returnable series aimed at younger audiences, like Shameless and Skins. Channel 4 has already commissioned titles for air in the second half of 2010 and beyond, including a four-part serial from BAFTA winning director Shane Meadows, We Were Faces; a four-part adaptation of William Boyd’s bestselling novel Any Human Heart; and a new four-part Peter Kosminsky drama, Homeland.

“Channel 4 is at its best when it does things that others don’t or won’t," Lygo continued. "This is a fresh opportunity to reach out to audiences underserved by drama on the more mainstream channels. We don’t want to be prescriptive about themes or formats; we just want the most creative ideas from Britain’s best new and established drama talent.”

Bellamy added that the channel is looking to commission some entertainment-led stunts and events for its summer schedule, as well as more comedy. “Big Brother has been our most influential and popular program over the last decade. It’s been hugely innovative in its own right, has provoked a really astonishing level of public debate and has been an underappreciated showcase for social diversity and youth culture. Its success has also helped support an extraordinary range of creativity across Channel 4; inevitably we’re both excited and ever-so-slightly terrified by the prospect of getting by without it. We’re very grateful to everyone at Endemol who has worked so hard to keep the show fresh and engaging for so long and to the viewers who have remained loyal to the program and who will be disappointed by our decision. The final series will be an opportunity to give Big Brother an appropriate send-off and celebrate one of the most extraordinary programs not just in the history of Channel 4 but of TV in general.”