One of the Interviewers questions is to ask other commissioners whether they would commission other peoples shows. It turns out to be a clever way of teasing out how a particular commissioner looks at qualifying shows.
Often producers are told there are no slots for the projects but what does that mean? 9pm is the priority slot on ITV. Programs for ITV have to just scream “watch me”. Scale is important, Joanna Lumley did the Silk Road. Everything they do has to feel really big scale, even pre watershed. The Sara Pascoe tour felt right.
Every idea that is picked is a conversation with that Indie, to shape to form it. Every episode has to have those “layers”. Every scene has to peel back and reveal a corner of the world they haven’t visited before. Commissioners do watch the successful shows on other channels but don’t copy directly as the audience would soon pick up on that. BBC1 are looking for big celebrity led pieces.
Content for Discovery plays out across the world. So survival shows are great and it doesn’t matter that a celebrity is well known in England.