Speech: Brian Woods

Brian Woods

• Increase image
• View all images

Brian Woods, co-director of True Vision, speaking at an event organised by the Department for International Development and the International Broadcasting Trust.

Five years ago, I met Vanessa, she was seven. She lived within earshot of a water treatment plant in El Alto just above La Paz in Bolivia, but her family had no water at home because her father couldn't afford the connection fee that Suez, who controlled water there, wanted – equivalent to a year's earnings.  Her brother had died from drinking contaminated water, but that wasn't what made her cry.  It was the fact that no one wanted to play with her because the other children said she smelt, and if a child did start playing with her, others would chase her away and say she was dirty.

That film was called A World With Water and partly as a result of the pressure from viewers both in the UK and abroad Suez reviewed their pricing policy in Latin America, and Coke eventually accepted one of their plants in India, in the desert state of Rajastan, really was sucking the water from beneath the feet of neighbouring farmers.

Excellent stuff, trebles all round, Television can change the world, everything's fine.

Well not quite, because that film, and many others like it very very nearly didn't get made.

Both the BBC and Channel Four turned it down repeatedly, because it was too expensive, and not relevant enough to a British audience.  Even when the CBA gave us a DFID development grant to go and film in India and prove what amazing characters and what a powerful story there was there, still the Channels were not convinced.

The change only came when Andy Duncan arrived at C4, and said we have to make PSB central to our mission.  Only then was this film commissioned.  So the link between PSB and international coverage is beyond doubt in my mind, and both C4, but more especially the BBC, must be continually reminded of this.

But why should we bother with international programming like this, we've got Big Cat Live, and Steven Fry wandering around the United States, surely that's enough.

I would argue there are 3 really important reasons why this kind of international coverage should be made part of both the BBC and Channel Fours PSB remit.

1)    In this age of Wars on Terror, it is more important than ever, that we understand other people and other cultures.  Increasingly the BBC and C4 are ghettoizing international coverage into news and current affairs – with the BBC it's This World,  occasionally Panorama, and at Channel Four it's Unreported World, occasionally Dispatches.   Great that they are at least doing that, BUT current affairs, by its very nature, is not somewhere where we can really get to know, care about and understand other people and other cultures.  We made Orphans of Nkandla a few years ago for the BBC, and followed the lives of three families in a village in Africa for a year.  Dorothy Byrne, head of current affairs at C4, said that what we did in that film was to take subject she thought she knew about, and really make her care.  Also she said the film her made her really feel in her soul that these people were just like us -  they were speaking another language, and literally living in mud huts, but the relationships between mother and daughter, husband and wife, siblings, were exactly the same. You could say the same about a film like Divorce Iranian Style. The more we can understand what we have in common, the more we will accept what makes us different.

2)    As ratings become the only measure of a channel controllers success, they understandably become more parochial.  I was talking to someone at C4 recently and they commented that the Cutting Edge about Virgin Brides in the US, didn't rate very well.  As a result they said it's going to be very hard to convince the Channel to do anything international in that slot.  Channel Four's flagship documentary strand! International programming IS more costly than domestic programming, and generally doesn't rate as well, so without a push from the DCMS, the broadcasters WILL commission more films about freaks in Fishguard, and fewer films like China's Stolen Children or The Transplant Trade.

3)    Finally, audiences love these films when they find them, and these films really can make a difference.  Orphans of Nkandla directly led to millions being raise to help AIDS orphans in southern Africa, and I have met people who changed their life as a result of seeing that film.  In fact only today, five years after the film, a German charity called our office to say that they had just returned from Nkandla and they wanted to do more for the community there as a result of the film. Bulgaria's Abandoned Children which we made two years ago for BBC FOUR has led to huge changes in the institutional care of children there, changes which should have been a condition of Bulgaria's membership of the EU, but which were not because nobody knew about the scandalous neglect that was taking place in some institutions. Schedulers and controllers often believe audiences don't want this kind of programme, but then ensure that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by scheduling them late, on digital channels and without any marketing support.  But when audiences come across these programmes they sometimes watch them in surprising numbers – the Bulgaria film first went out on BBC FOUR and achieved a reasonable 125,000, but two months later, at 10pm on a Sunday night, and astonishing 1.7 million tuned in to watch what the Telegraph review described as "90 minutes of unremitting horror".

But, and this is the most important point I want to make this evening, even with a track record I am very proud of, and with a cabinet full of BAFTAs and Emmies for international films, in 2008 True Vision has made 13 films, and only 1 of them – Undercover in Tibet - has been international, and that wouldn't have been commissioned without the Olympics. We currently have NO international films commissioned for next year.  Even for us it is getting much much harder to get international films commissioned, and I think that is tragic.

In the current climate in broadcasting, regulation of some sort is the only thing that will keep broadcasters committed to international programming outside news and current affairs, and for all our sakes that is vital. I say again . The more we can understand what we have in common, the more we will accept what makes us different.