Justin Gorman

As head of entertainment at the U.K.'s Channel 4, Justin Gorman is constantly on the lookout for programs that create buzz and attract viewers.

WS: The U.K. market is crowded, but Channel 4 has carved a niche for itself. What do you want to offer viewers?
GORMAN: The key for us is that our demographic is 16 to 24, so it's a very young market. It doesn't mean we don't go after some ABC1 or some of the older demographics, but predominantly in entertainment, if you look at Friday night, we are an alternative. So the programming that we do tends to sit not directly in opposition [to the competition's], but its flavor and its tone will be very 4: it's a bit risky, it's a bit naughty, it speaks more to the younger market.

WS: As opposed to other broadcasters who are risk-averse, Channel 4 is much less so.
GORMAN: I would say it is absolutely why we came about, and in fact, we recently started a campaign, "Born Risky," which is all about why Channel 4 is [in the market]. We all love ratings, but above and beyond, it's about quality and pushing the boundaries and making people think and doing stuff that you wouldn't get anywhere else.

WS: How much interactivity does your target audience tend to want from the shows you offer?
GORMAN: I think it totally depends on the show. If you've got a big game show, if the interactivity really works alongside it, it will be a hit and people will enjoy it. What is interesting, we did a study on The Million Pound Drop to see how people were using the application. They were using it in a way that we hadn't really seen, which was they were taking the app and playing drinking games or they were having bets or having races on Google to put the answers in. It was more social than we thought because we thought people play the game by themselves in conjunction with the television. But people weren't; [the show] was actually getting them all lined up on the sofa, so not only was it bringing people to the show, it was making people sit down together as groups and all try to compete with one another. And The Money Drop is doing amazing numbers for us.

WS: When you raise the innovation bar quite high, is it hard to go higher? Are there enough good ideas out there?
GORMAN: There are loads of great ideas, but you want the best, and sometimes the best idea doesn't necessarily have a play-along mechanic to it, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't take it. Essentially, you always have to work harder to push things further forward. The problem we are having now is the speed with which everything is evolving. When we designed The Million Pound Drop, everyone was playing on their laptops. Now everyone plays it on their smartphone—80 percent of the players use their smartphone. For the future, you have to ask what can smartphones do, as opposed to just think about an app that's on a smartphone.

WS: Does your budget allow you to do everything you want to do?
GORMAN: You never have enough, but we have lots of ways of working. There are different revenue streams now. We are lucky. Our budget is still big enough that we can do big reality and we can do big game shows. But you still have to be cautious about how much of one thing you do [so that you can still] try new stuff out.

WS: Are you integrating brands into shows?
GORMAN: That's begun at the channel, and we've already incorporated Skype into Million Pound Drop, for instance, so we're more than happy to look at how that works. When I joined [the network] four years ago, that wasn't the case, but everything has moved so much further forward now, and the idea of putting iTunes or whatever into shows, it's not a problem anymore.

WS: Any new shows you are excited about?
GORMAN: We will air Derren Brown's new special, Derren Brown: The Great Art Robbery, in which we steal a painting from an art gallery without the art gallery knowing, even though we tell them the day, the date, the time and the person who is going to steal it.

We are piloting a couple of really big game shows; one is piloting on the streets of London and it's a massive show that we are really excited about. And we are looking for new events for the summer, so there is quite a bit of new stuff coming out.