Lion TV Puts a Spin on Specialist Factual

With a slate of ambitious science and history programs alongside its entertainment offerings, Lion Television has been focusing on "smart-factual" content.

The U.K. indie producer Lion Television, part of the ALL3MEDIA group of companies, has within its slate a broad mix of specialist-factual programming. According to executive producer Richard Shaw, the roster of ambitious science and history shows add to the catalogue a strong supply of what he calls "smart-factual" content. "We have this great resource at our disposal, which is brilliant specialist-factual program-makers, and although specialist factual is still a big genre in the U.K., we use those skills now in slightly different ways sometimes," he says.

Shaw points to the example of the Horrible Histories franchise, originally produced for CBBC. "It’s really a piece of specialist-factual telly because it’s entirely accurate. It’s intriguing and fascinating, but it’s a kids’ show. So there we’re using our specialist-factual skills in a completely different genre." Horrible Histories has scored a number of awards, having won three BAFTAs, the British Comedy Award, the Prix Jeunesse and many others. The show is currently airing on BBC One with Stephen Fry as the presenter.

Another example of smart factual, says Shaw, is Lion’s mix of factual history and drama history. He explains, "We recently did two World War II pieces for BBC One and BBC Two. On BBC One, we did what we do well [with Battle of Britain], which is a story of spitfire aces and what it took to shoot down people in war; on BBC Two, instead of doing a factual piece, we used all of our factual skills and turned it into a drama called First Light, which was the personal story of the youngest spitfire ace in World War II. We recreated his life as a full-blown drama but using all our specialist-factual skills, so for us that’s smart factual."          

Another highlight of the Lion TV catalogue is the four-part series The Spice Trail, which features Kate Humble exploring the history and trade of some of the world’s most precious spices. The story takes viewers on a global adventure to the source of vanilla and clove, nutmeg and saffron and more. "It was commissioned by the BBC as one of its blue-chip commissions early this year and now ALL3MEDIA [International] is distributing it around the world," notes Shaw. Deals for the show were recently confirmed with BBC Worldwide for BBC Knowledge in Asia and Africa, as well as with Thai Air and SriLankan Airlines. Also in the food genre is Easy Chinese: San Francisco. "Ethnic cooking, and in particular Chinese food, is very popular at the moment," Shaw says. "There’s been a resurgence in Chinese food and we have a chef who’s done very well in the U.K. and we’re now taking her to the U.S. Her name is Ching-He Huang and she’s the new sort of wok-star of Chinese cooking." In the 13-part series, Huang, who rose to fame as the face of the BBC series Chinese Food Made Easy, takes her own brand of simple, healthy Chinese cooking to America and persuades people to try their hand at Chinese cooking. The show was done for the Cooking Channel in the U.S. 

The Army—a year in the life of the newest recruits of The Rifles, the largest infantry regiment in the British Army, as they go through basic training and deploy to Afghanistan—has almost finished filming and will go on air on BBC Three in September. Transplant for BBC One is also due to be delivered in September.

Added to this lineup are daily daytime shows, including Homes Under the Hammer, now in its 14th season on BBC One, and award-winning formats such as Cash Cab for the Discovery Channel. All combined, this broad slate has given Lion TV a powerful pipeline for ALL3MEDIA International to take out to the worldwide market.