SCI FI UK

World Screen Weekly, May 10, 2007

COUNTRY: United Kingdom and Ireland

LAUNCH DATE: November 1995

NUMBER OF SUBSCRIBERS: 11.6 million via BSkyB, Virgin Media and Tiscali TV

OWNERSHIP: NBC Universal Global Networks, a division of NBC Universal

DESCRIPTION: Part of the NBC Universal family of global networks—which includes the Universal Channel and 13th Street brands, among others—SCI FI UK is the only British channel devoted exclusively to science-fiction programming. It reaches about 3.6 million viewers per week with a mix of contemporary and classic drama series, theatrical features and made-for-TV movies.

MANAGING DIRECTOR: Nick Betts

PROGRAMMING DIRECTOR: Jon Farrar

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Eleanor McBrien

HEAD OF ACQUISITIONS: Monica Iglesias

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: The series Heroes, about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities, has certainly been one of the saving graces on NBC’s schedule in the U.S. And the hit show is now delivering similar success stories around the world; this February, the Heroes premiere gave SCI FI UK its highest-ever ratings and best multichannel prime-time position in its 12-year history, peaking with 622,766 adults and a 4.3-percent share. “We knew it would do the business, but we were surprised by just how well we did,” admits Jon Farrar, the channel’s programming director. Farrar, however, has had his eye on the show for some time. “I read the script for the pilot a few weeks before the [L.A.] Screenings [last year] and I have to say it was the best script I had ever read. It just crackled along with such pace and energy. When I saw the pilot at the Screenings, the thing that really struck me was just how strong the characters were. One thing it has that I’m really keen on for all our shows is that it’s about real people. It’s not about green men in outer space.”

While Heroes was acquired from NBC Universal International Television Distribution, a division of SCI FI’s parent company, Farrar says that he is an equal-opportunity buyer, taking product from all the studios, and from independent distributors. The channel is reliant on acquisitions to fill its schedule, taking on a mix of contemporary and classic fare. Recent purchases that have fared well, Farrar says, include another NBC Universal show, Eureka, developed by SCI FI in the U.S., and Medium, which airs on NBC and is distributed by CBS Paramount International Television. Both shows air in prime time, which Farrar says features a mix of high-profile dramas and movies. “Movies still [account for] a big percentage of our channel,” Farrar notes. “The big theatrical titles, made for TV movies, titles that are premieres in the U.K.—that’s a big focus for us.”

The channel’s daytime schedule “is really about being as broad as possible,” Farrar explains. “It’s not spacey stuff, it’s easy on the eyes, uncomplicated. We brought in a movie matinee strategy and we show a different film every day at 3 o’clock. We do stretch the boundaries of what science fiction is—we’ve had a lot of success showing disaster movies.”

The access prime slot, meanwhile, “has probably been the biggest area of growth over the last 12 months,” Farrar says. “It’s about big brands. It’s almost like a net that grabs as many people as possible. We’ve had massive success with Angel, and we bought the original Star Trek and it’s found a fairly big audience. We’ve had real success pairing Angel and Star Trek together.”

WHAT’S NEW: Farrar heads into the L.A. Screenings this year with the hopes that the success of Heroes will translate into a crop of science fiction-show pickups by the U.S. networks. A key priority for his acquisitions strategy over the coming months, however, is made for TV movies—“made-for-TV creature features, big theatrical sci-fi [releases], we’re trying to buy a whole stock of those.”

Original commissions are also on the horizon, as well as working more with its sister channel in the U.S. The biggest growth area, however, is online content, Farrar says. “It’s a big part of our strategy in the next 12 months. We’ve started to pump quite a lot of money into it. It’s still fairly early days given what our ambitions are, but a lot of the work we’re going to be developing this year is about original short-form content on broadband. We’re going to buy more rights, maybe to older product but new product as well, that we can play on the site. One of things about science fiction as a genre is that there’s such an audience for the most niche stuff. We don’t necessarily play a lot of that on air because it’s not going to get the broad audience. Fans of the genre can watch that content [online]. That’s an essential part of our broadband strategy—to be able to provide for that market.”

This week, the channel’s website launched Blake’s 7, a 36-episode audio drama, on its broadband player. Produced by B7 Productions, the original audio drama is based on the format and characters created by the late Terry Nation and are a radical interpretation of the original series, which ran on the BBC in the late 1970s.

WEBSITE: scifi.co.uk

—By Mansha Daswani