C4 appoints indie contacts

The timeframe for funded development is also under the spotlight.

Head of features Gill Wilson said new arrivals to her team had prompted a review of working practices and she wants clearer definitions on where producers should take programming pitches. “We have a massive volume of work coming into the department and I wanted to make sure we were working in the most efficient way,”

Wilson told Broadcast. “A longer dialogue with one person is far more successful in terms of getting things on to screen than several fragmented pieces of dialogue.”

Wilson, whose six-strong team currently deals with up to 200 indies, is in the process of assigning a dedicated group of companies to each commissioner. Indies will be designated based on existing relationships and where there is a “very clear match” of skills.

Talent relationships are also a factor. Wilson said: “Momentum plays a huge part in the creative process, so if you can get momentum behind ideas – which means having more sustained and meaningful contact – that’s the best way of getting the best shows on screen.”

She said it is “not an unbreakable system” and if relationships change and evolve, there will be “room to manoeuvre”. It is also designed to assure her that “everyone is being dealt with properly”.

Furthermore, Wilson is examining funded development timeframes to ensure they are not such an “open-ended process” and there is more structure to decision making and delivery deadlines. She said: “This isn’t an edict, it’s a desire to look at the way indies deliver funded development to us and make sure we’re doing it as efficiently and creatively as possible.”

The indie project is being led by Wilson and is independent of any other commissioning departments, as well as broader work C4 chief creative officer Jay Hunt is doing to examine its creative processes.

Broadcast understands that research company MTM London has begun exploring the effect that digital file-sharing has had on the post-commission process. There is some thought that the growth of sharing of rushes and edits online may have caused an increase in the volume of notes between commissioners and producers, and prompted emails that would be better as personal conversation.

Although MTM has been tasked with examining these technological advances specifically, it is believed that its conversations with indies are also touching on more general commissioning standards at C4.

The broadcaster is also planning to hold a best-practice workshop at a Pact Open Access day in November looking at the commissioning and post-commission process.

Broadcast’s commissioning survey in August showed that indie experiences with C4 were inconsistent, with 26% scoring it highly (8 out of 10) but 24% awarding it 1-3 out of 10.