L.A. Screenings Buyer Feedback: Channel 4

LONDON, June 3: Jeff Ford,
the director of acquisitions for Channel 4 and Film4, gives his perspective on
the new shows presented by the Hollywood studios at the L.A. Screenings.

Ford notes that he was
disappointed by the number of pilots available to screen, in the wake of the
writers’ strike. The studios offered presentations of shows, in the absence of
completed pilots. Ford states: “Between a presentation and a finished program a
lot can happen. In between the pilot and a second episode a lot can happen, but
probably there will be less changes between the pilot and the second episode
than there would be between the presentation and the actual pilot. We would
prefer to see a finished episode, in fact, in an ideal world we’d like to see
episode two, three and four.”

Ford is looking forward to
the pilot screenings that several studios are planning to hold in Europe this
September. “We might get some rough cuts of second episodes, which would be
very, very useful,” he says.

Of what he did see in
L.A., Ford says, “There weren’t too many stand-out shows. Obviously of the ones
that were completed, Fringe,
from J.J. Abrams, has got a lot of buzz around it.”

While U.S. acquisitions
have historically been key for Channel 4, Ford notes that the broadcaster has
reduced its reliance on American imports. “We’re looking at what Channel 4 is
all about and the creative mission of the channel and some of that is actually
because we need to have more indigenous programs in our schedule.”

Ford adds that market
conditions have also changed. “Pricing has gone up over the past few years,
ratings have gone down, advertising revenue is going down and we have to look
elsewhere to make our ends meet. However, saying that, I think E4 is still
very, very key in purchasing shows. Whatever happens, we need to buy shows for
our various channels.”

For more on
what was presented at the L.A. Screenings, see WorldScreen.com’s fall season guide and read an assessment of new shows by RTE’s Dermot Horan and BBC’s George McGhee and ProSiebenSat.1’s Rüdiger
Böss.

—By Mansha Daswani
and Anna Carugati