Nest Productions’ Derek Drennan

Dating Naked UK has a second season coming down the pike for Paramount+. From U.K. indie Nest Productions, the series follows singles living together and looking for love in a tropical paradise, all while completely naked. It is part of Nest’s originals slate, one facet of the company’s overall activities, which also include production services and production partnerships, including an alternative co-production model. Derek Drennan, managing director, shares his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing the unscripted entertainment production landscape.

TV FORMATS: What’s your view on the current state of the production landscape for unscripted entertainment?
DRENNAN: The landscape is very challenging currently, and it’s a tricky time for everyone, including production companies, freelancers and internally at the broadcasters and streamers. With the U.K.’s Chancellor announcing a 40 percent tax relief for film and HETV in the latest budget—which is amazing—unscripted has been completely forgotten about, which is a massive shame. Shouldn’t unscripted get tax relief too, which would go a long way in mitigating funding issues?

As we are in a commissioning slowdown, fewer companies are being greenlit quickly enough to sustain overheads, and there are a lot of companies having to make redundancies, or even worse, closing down.

With a monumental shift now in linear TV, a lot of companies are in a state of flux while they work out their next move. The ones that are reworking the way they develop and pitch content are the ones that will stand out and last through this period and come out stronger. Global partnerships are critical. In the U.K., we can offer a very solid partnership model to U.S. companies and vice versa. We have a lot to offer each other across the pond and collectively can provide a united front when pitching shows and formats to both American and British commissioners at broadcasters and streamers. We can draw on each other’s talent, ideas, infrastructure, soft money, experience and resilience. We’re at a really interesting time where U.S. companies are looking outside of the domestic market more so than ever, U.S. and U.K. content is very saturated, and U.K. producers are globalizing their operations.

Among the madness, it’s an exciting time for TV as we move into this transatlantic collaborative space. Maybe at first through necessity, but we see it as an opportunity.

There is also the jump to digital, and branded content is another key part of the future of TV as we know it. Brand-funded content is tricky: You not only have a commissioner to work with but also the brand to keep happy. Marrying them both up is a skill in itself. If you can get this right, you can produce some really heavyweight content.

I am also really interested in seeing where AI takes us. I am totally for embracing AI for TV to free up people’s time, which saves money, not to reduce the need for human jobs but to give back some resources by getting you from A to B quicker. And reducing budgets can help mean more commissions for everyone. Wouldn’t that be nice!

TV FORMATS: What are some of the issues around delivering unscripted entertainment programming under new commissioning quotas?
DRENNAN: Quite rightly, there is still a big focus on regionality, which I am passionate about. We are continuously working to increase opportunities in the U.K.’s regions, including Scotland and the North East. But even with the sprinkle of additional local funds, it’s still not enough for some commissioners and execs to want to base their productions out of London because of the “lack of talent” available in some of these areas. I strongly disagree. These areas are levelling up massively, and there is some amazing talent in the regions. And if we build the infrastructure there, the people will come. Nothing will ever change unless we take risks and move the dial, and it’s the same in the U.S.

TV FORMATS: What was the drive in setting up Nest Productions?
DRENNAN: We provide the same infrastructure that big group companies can, but with a much more hands-on approach, due to being truly independent. There has always been a massive gap in the market for small indies that just needed adequate support and production infrastructure in order to get off the ground. I really take a lot of pride in Nest helping small indies and making sure they actually make money and do things the right way, in a way that reassures the commissioners, without compromising on their creative process.

We also wanted to create a production company that was honest, reliable and treated people well. My business partner Stew [Batt, managing director] and I wanted to create a really positive and empowering working environment, which was down to having some really bad TV bosses in the past, as is unfortunately common in this industry.

Now, we have created Nest, where we have a very low turnover of staff, a lot of productions on the go through our global partners and a good time every day. We listen to our employees, we give them flexibility, feedback, and when things go wrong, we help to sort it out, understand how to fix it, and then often end up looking back and having a productive experience in hindsight. Things will always go wrong in TV!

TV FORMATS: How does Nest Productions support fledgling, small and new indie companies that need a robust network around them?
DRENNAN: Like a “nest,” we support them with everything they need to grow. That includes a robust head of production team, line producers, production managers, but also wrapping our wider teams around them too in legal, finance, HR, IT. Oh, and probably some of the best production offices in TV. Essentially, we are a fully-fledged indie, acting with other indies!

TV FORMATS: Tell me about the alternative co-production Nest has set up and what Nest lends (and the companies retain).
DRENNAN: It’s really simple. It’s like a co-production but without any hassle. We don’t take ownership of IP, and we work with our partners to make [them] bigger and more robust as a company because suddenly they have a very experienced senior production team behind them.

This gives broadcasters and SVODs a big security blanket. In fact, we are often approached by broadcasters now to work with indies who have an amazing idea, but they may lack the experience or infrastructure to pull it off.

Say a small production company lands a commission with Channel 4, but the company only has two creatives working in it full time and no infrastructure. We partner with those companies to ensure they have everything they need to make the production safely, on budget, legally and actually make some profit.

It’s so important that especially the newer production companies have an infrastructure in place because if they don’t, it can be a risk reputation-wise, they won’t make money and will probably burn out because they have to wear too many hats!

So, like a co-production, but better for the companies themselves.

TV FORMATS: Talk to me about how the welfare and duty of care differ for smaller indies.
DRENNAN: There is so much more to welfare and duty of care these days than there ever has been, and I don’t think a lot of the smaller indies fully realize this.

For example, we have just completed a 78-page welfare document for a series that took months and probably about 20 people’s input. It’s absolutely crucial to have the right people working on those sorts of structures.

We put welfare teams on location on big shoots and involve them from the dev stage, whereas only a few years ago, this was a luxury.

Contributors are crucial to any production, but crew and production teams often get forgotten about. At Nest, it’s our ethos to care about everyone, so we ensure that everyone is trained properly, including signposting who they escalate to. Team welfare is intrinsic to the success of small indies—simply put, if you don’t look after your teams properly, they will leave.

Gone are the days when execs can just treat people poorly and expect them to work until 4 a.m. while being grateful for the opportunity…. It just doesn’t work like that anymore.

Of course, limited resources in a small indie means that things like welfare are often overlooked, so even more reason to work with Nest—because we take care of that side of things.

TV FORMATS: What advice do you have for new indies looking to get into producing unscripted entertainment?
DRENNAN: 50 percent of getting a commission over the line is the idea first, and the other 50 percent is how are you going to make it? Who is the team attached to it that will mitigate risk as much as possible?

I speak to companies all the time that have been constantly failing to get a commission because they have a great idea, but have never made a show like it, and there is no infrastructure to support it.

Simply put, always bring the A-team to your pitch, such as your executive producer, director/DOP, head of production, line producer.

If the broadcasters or SVODs are giving you £5 million to make a show, they want to make sure they can trust you with the money.