UKTV Looks to Bolster Original Programming

PREMIUM: Jay Stuart speaks to Jane Mote and Christian Drobnyk about original programming plans at UKTV’s portfolio of channels.

Britain’s biggest package of free digital channels, UKTV, has kicked off 2011 with a high-powered new advertising sales partner in Channel 4. UKTV, with ten different channels, is coming off a bumper year with double-digit growth in advertising impacts (the audience for 30-second spots). And the new collaboration with C4 fits with the collaborative history of the UKTV endeavor as a joint venture of BBC Worldwide and cable-based group Virgin Media, launched in the mid-90s by Virgin’s predecessor, Flextech. BBC’s role in the partnership is to supply the content, and much, but by no means all, of the programming on the ten channels is from the public broadcaster’s archives.

The overarching brand of UKTV was created in 2005, but it is very much a business-to-business brand, relevant in negotiations for carriage deals and the like but not for the consumer market, where the channels stand on their own individual identities. Most viewers are probably not aware that there is such a thing as UKTV.

The channels were all rebranded starting in 2007 with the launch of Dave, probably the leading channel in the portfolio. The other channels are Alibi (crime series), Blighty (British themes), Eden (nature), Gold (comedy), Home (lifestyle and home improvements), Really (female lifestyle and factual), Watch (general entertainment) and Yesterday (history), plus Good Food. Many of the channels are commissioning new programming. Indeed, one of the roles the UKTV channels are growing into is developing original programs for international sales.

“We commission programs and they are sold internationally by BBC Worldwide,” says Jane Mote, the director of factual and lifestyle, who is responsible for Blighty, Eden, Good Food, Home, Really and Yesterday. Fantasy Homes on the Home channel would be an example. Gutted is another one that has sold well. The Home series Great British Adventures was sold to ABC in the U.S.

Eden probably takes the most content from BBC of all the UKTV channels, not surprising given the depth of BBC’s natural-history library. But even Eden is making new programs too. “We need things we can call our own,” Mote says. Home did a show in partnership with ITV Studios called Ray Mear’s Wild Britain. ITV 1 used the 30-minute version and Home ran a 60-minute version.

Original programming on Dave has grown over 75 percent in two years. The channel plans 80 original hours in 2011, according to Christian Drobnyk, director of entertainment, who heads Alibi, Gold and Watch as well as Dave.

“We are in the market for format ideas and show ideas,” he says. “We want to acquire the idea for a show from producer, make the show in the U.K. and the U.S. producer will benefit from the sale of the show into the U.S..” This is especially the ambition for factual entertainment programming. But he is interested in talking to American producers about scripted as well.

UKTV already buys from the international market. The Alibi channel in particular uses lots of U.S.-made crime drama. But the door for acquisitions may be opening wider. For comedy channel Gold, which has all of BBC’s deep stockpile to draw on, Drobnyk is nevertheless looking beyond his backyard. “We are increasingly looking to expand into well-known classic American series along the lines of Frasier, Cheers, Friends or Seinfeld. We haven’t done it yet. We are trying to find the right fit.”

BBC’s rich store of content remains UKTV’s raison d’être, and BBC will remain in the driver’s seat when it comes to programming. Indeed, it’s a requirement of the JV that the most senior editorial person comes from the BBC—currently Matthew Littleford, the controller of UKTV, who reports to both Roly Keating of the BBC (the director of archive content) and UKTV chief executive Darren Childs.

UKTV has already been profitable for several years (Littleford could not divulge figures) with the partners splitting the upside 50/50.

A primary goal this year and beyond, according to Littleford, is to develop brands that are in all the spaces where consumers are—TV, online, magazines, live events and so on. “That’s why the names were chosen. It’s easy to see those brands attached to any kind of product. We want to be amphibious, living in land or sea.”