Richard Life

TV Real Weekly, March 12, 2008

Head of Factual Acquisitions and Co-Productions

Granada International

Richard Life spent several years early in his career working for some of the top independent production companies in the U.K.: September Films and Wall to Wall. The first-hand knowledge he gained of the challenges facing indie producers served him very well later during his years at Channel 4 and now as head of factual acquisitions and co-productions at Granada International.

“I’m working very closely with in-house producers, helping them raise co-production financing with other broadcasters or co-financing through Granada International, which invests in their programs,” explains Life. “And that is roughly 50 percent of my time. The other 50 percent is doing the same with independent producers, [who often come] to us looking for a distributor to invest in their programming, or simply they are looking for a distributor for their program.”

Life constantly helps producers face the challenge of crafting programs that will satisfy a domestic broadcaster and at the same time have international appeal. This has given him a unique perspective on the factual business. “Thankfully channels around the world have certain things in common, otherwise distribution wouldn’t exist!” he quips. “And while a doc series for Discovery or National Geographic is usually made very specifically to their editorial needs, the high quality of the programming they want is also the quality that broadcasters around the world want.”

And while buyers continue to look for the high-end blue-chip science and history docs, as Life explains, “they increasingly want longer runs of series. So as a distributor you are looking for either series or a batch of films that you can group together. For example, we acquire a number of single, human-interest documentaries. These films absolutely sell, either unusual medical stories or extraordinary stories of people’s behavior,” he continues. “We group these films together into a strand called Our Lives, which allows us to acquire films whether they are from ITV, Five or Channel 4. So my big priority here is acquiring series or singles that we can group together like series. That said, you never want to turn down a top-end single doc because that one single film can gross over £100,000 if it’s the right film.”

Among the titles that Granada International will be highlighting at MIPTV are The Neanderthal Code, which explores why the humans that dominated Europe for a quarter of a million years mysteriously became extinct; the series The Secret Life of Brain, about remarkable stories of life at the leading brain injury clinics in the U.K. and the U.S; Street Monkeys, a high-definition series that follows a troop of monkeys as they adapt their survival skills to suburban South Africa; and the factual-entertainment series Old Skool with Terry and Gita that features two hilarious old ladies exploring the hottest topics in pop culture today.