Peer poll: Love still the one to beat

A second year at the top for the Sky-owned producer of TV’s biggest show of 2015, The Great British Bake Off. Love has taken elements of the evergreen cookery format into sewing and pottery and is admired for its simultaneously intelligent and entertaining self-help formats.

Meanwhile, it has continued to ask thorny questions about contemporary Britain in Channel 4 shows such as the second series of Benefits Street. Less noisily, it has demonstrated a winning touch with celebrity-led popular factual formats such as ITV’s Weekend Escapes With Warwick Davis and Channel 4’s For The Love of Cars.

This is an indie at the top of its game and peers heaped praise upon its “versatility and hit rate”.

As one rival put it: “Success begets success, but they still manage to think bold.”

Keo has shot back up the list after a year in which it winningly mixed popular factual and campaigning docs. Channel 4’s Broadcast Award-winning The Romanians Are Coming and BBC3 series Excluded: Kicked Out Of School were among the most acclaimed documentaries of the year and it continues to be the envy of its peers for its ability to tackle difficult subjects in innovative ways without ever dumbing down.

This was the year in which Minnow made the transformation from the boutique company hinted at in its name to a serious player in factual series.

As one peer put it: “They’re impressive filmmakers who consistently deliver must-see programming with great access and production values.”

One particular standout was BBC2’s The Detectives, a stripped series that employed the visual and narrative language of drama to unpeel some uncomfortable truths behind a police investigation, part of the new wave of so-called ‘boxset factual’.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 series SAS: Who Dares Wins and BBC3’s The Unbreakables: Life And Love On Disability Campus both impressed as “modern takes on documentary formats”, in the words of one indie.

The ITV Studios-owned factual indie maintained its top-five placing for the third year running and made the shortlist for Best Independent Production Company at the Broadcast Awards.

This was a year in which it gripped viewers with the real-life cop drama of 24 Hours In Police Custody, which made use of the indie’s fixed-rig skills to shine a light on the interrogation room. In September, the new format was recommissioned for 16 hours as part of a blockbuster 50-episode order that included 34 episodes of C4 staple 24 Hours In A&E.

A world away from the rig, it also ushered in BBC4’s ‘Slow TV’ strand with the popular Canal Trip and, at Christmas, Sleigh Ride. “Consistently strong, editorially and entrepreneurially”, was one peer’s verdict, while another praised its “good, well-executed ideas and well-run business”.

Drama, entertainment and social-historical factual continues to prove a winning formula for Wall to Wall, which is much loved for its quality of ideas, production values and business nous.

On its 2015 slate was BBC2’s provocative historical drama The Scandalous Lady W, and immersive historical formats Time Crashers (C4) and Back In Time For Dinner (BBC2). On top of this, The Voice UK rolled on and the company continued to serve up new series of C4’s Child Genius and Italy Unpacked, while The Gift joined Long Lost Family in ITV’s primetime line-up.

“They continue to innovate and create new and genre-defying formats,” said one rival.

Another ITV-owned indie whose output continues to impress, Twofour once again straddled genres and broadcasters. It won plaudits for its sensitive Channel 4 factual series Dementiaville, while pulling off the first live fixed-rig broadcast of a theatrical play, The Vote, which aired on More 4 on election night.

E4’s structured reality show Taking New York was another string to its bow, while returners The Jump, Educating…, The Housing Enforcers and The Hotel Inspector all point to an indie fi ring on all cylinders. “They’re brilliant creatively and they’re commercially successful,” said one indie. “Plus they seem like genuinely nice and decent people.”

Once again the most-loved pure drama company, Red kicked off a great year with Channel 4’s attention-grabbing trio of Cucumber, Banana and Tofu, which marked the return of Russell T Davies to British screens.

Elsewhere, it teamed up with Lenny Henry to deliver his pseudo-autobiographical BBC1 one-off Danny And The Human Zoo, reconfigured ITV’s Prey with a new lead, and teamed up once again with its Shameless and Clocking Off alumnus Danny Brocklehurst on the recently recommissioned multi-character BBC1 series Ordinary Lies. Its partnership with versatile screenwriter Sally Wainwright also continued to pay dividends.

Drama rivals looked on at a “phenomenal, hard-hitting slate” of “offbeat dramas that widen the audience”.

“Studio Lambert has brought the format back to factual programming,” one producer pronounced. It’s hard to argue with that, with the tightly produced Gogglebox continuing to smash it in the ratings – often at the expense of BBC1’s 9pm comedy hour.

The All3Media-owned producer had another ace up its sleeve with E4’s Tattoo Fixers. One of the sleeper hits of the year, it quietly built its audience of jaw-dropped viewers to more than 1 million.

With international mega-format Undercover Boss and Four In A Bed still rolling on, one factual entertainment rival declared: “They still deliver the best formats.”

Raw’s “consistent quality”, as one rival put it, remains a benchmark for those indies looking to blur genre boundaries. The Discovery-owned producer’s creative high this year was arguably Channel 4 single drama Cyberbully, which once again demonstrated Raw’s ability to tap into contemporary issues from a new angle to reveal new truths.

Meanwhile, its popular factual credentials were on display for the BBC’s The Truth About Your Teeth and ITV’s Britain’s Busiest Airport – Heathrow.

As a transatlantic indie, it continued to make great strides in the US with Women In Prison for Investigation Discovery and ESPN’s The Prince Of Pennsylvania, the true story behind the Oscar-nominated movie Foxcatcher. “Raw remains an excellent model for how to grow a business,” said one respondent.

A new entry in our top 10, Big Talk showcased another striking array of comedies in 2015 that demonstrated what one indie called its “consistently high-quality output”. Following a 2014 pilot, Caitlin Moran’s well-received C4 sitcom Raised By Wolves landed with confidence and a swift recommission, while ITV2’s Cockroaches, from Bad Education co-creator and Broadcast Hot Shot Freddy Syborn, was a distinctive show set in a post-apocalyptic world.

The indie’s slate is arguably even more exciting this year: following C4’s house-share comedy Crashing, there is ITV’s major drama series Houdini & Doyle to look forward to, plus BBC2’s Mum, Stefan Golaszewski’s first sitcom since the indie’s BBC3 hit Him And Her came to an end.