Today i wrote to a very senior person i know at Channel 4 who is head of their Specialist Factual department but as it became broader in its scope and is philosophy-defining it deserved a re-print here. Names and details are omitted, naturally.

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Thanks for your responses to the format proposals i submitted last week via the 4Producers/EWorks system. I didn’t want to flood your inbox with replies to each so i’ve combined them all into a single mail here. I appreciate they came through as a lump rather than a flow.

We were saddened by the rejection of Chris Morris’s latest series. But we’re also very surprised as they would seem to have a natural home at C4. I can imagine it must be hard to make decisions to trust program formats where the company behind them has so little track record despite a fantastic-looking team. It must also be difficult to see credibility when decisions on talent are left open and not tied up on the ticket. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you to get good quality programming generated in your department onto the schedule when the constant internal pressures seem to be for “tabloid” content.

Before any proposals or pitches are made for films or programs, we put them in front of a focus group of 500 people from 16-40 in different places and demographics to get an idea as to which are most popular. It may not seem much but it’s 10% of BARB’s capacity of 5000 or so and ultimately staying close to the customer is what keeps us all in business and ensures viewership. In all of our studies the same feedback is arriving – a boredom/intense dislike of reality TV and tabloid content. Our research (and others) seems to suggest that people are just watching it because “there’s nothing else on”. They are dying for something better. They want more interesting and challenging programming that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. They feel patronised. I cannot over-emphasise how many times we are all approached and told how fed up those customers are. What we have done is listen to the viewers and give them what they want, and reassured them that broadcasters care and will be faithful to that demand because the last thing they want viewers to feel is that they are monopolistically abused.

I think i’ve identified a number of themes which i’d like to address with the same candour, if you would allow me to.

The first is concerning underestimation of the tasks involved. I’m fortunate in having built a team that has successfully delivered programming for the likes of Discovery and the BBC that has taken considerably more than “Dark Nature” or “Worldchangers” requires to achieve the dynamic you rightly point out. Both myself and Joanne Reay have run and exited multi-million pound companies and part of that success has arguably been managing resources and cashflow, as well as finding ways to accomplish great things without necessarily having the greatest means. The awkward truth i’ve come to see, especially in TV production, is that production companies frequently bloat their budgets to squeeze as much money out of broadcasters as they can – a good example being a spec document my friend at a web agency received recently from Fremantle for £30k for a simple website that could have been built in 48hrs for 5% of the cost with the right software and expertise. This kind of thing is implicit everywhere in media, but from experience, we don’t just believe, but know, that the amount of money being claimed just isn’t needed. Yes, there are great pressures, but effective management of resources, personnel and processes mean that we can operate at a more efficient level, and of course we will come in and pitch low because we’re hungrier and want the business. The cheaper we do it, the more programming you can re-commission us for.

The second is talent. Even though none of us deny the need for programs to have talent as a draw, one thing we all share in our team is a resistance to celebrity-reliant programming. It seems these days that formats are created by getting a bunch of them together and building a show around it, as it’s what seems to draw in the crowd. Our belief is that the people, the story and the subject material are what compels the audience and tells the story and the talent points in the direction of the story, which is central. We believe genuinely excellent presenting talent generates and casts a spotlight on guests and featured parts of a story rather than stealing it for themselves, and is part of a bigger story or issue that has importance to us all. For our own part we want discover and nurture new talent, and we know broadcasters will always want to discuss it (and a lot of the time have an idea that might be more effective that we missed), so we leave it open to show our willingness to work together in partnership.

The third and last is about being conceptual. Tabloid content is like a greasy hamburger – it might ease the hunger, but if you had your choice, you’d order a cordon bleu fillet steak with champagne. And it never fills you up. We want to look deeper and ask what the hunger is and why it’s there. We’re going into a recession and its hard time for everyone, and of course nobody wants to get home to more doom and gloom when they switch on. But being hungry doesn’t mean you want a hamburger if you had the choice, even though you might take it if there was no other food around or if it was the first thing on offer. Escapism doesn’t have to be mindless – it can mean becoming lost in a new subject, topic, area, story, character, premise or moment. Difficult or deeper topics don’t have to be less entertaining, as our approach is about finding new ways to show new angles on well-explained things (e.g. drug chemists/labs rather than social impact). It’s riskier to commission programming for the minority who aren’t over the 100 point IQ barrier than to consider your audience to be intelligent and discerning. Most people spend 9 hours a day in a job they hate with their brains switched off, and aren’t resistant at all to being challenged and inspired to think by learning and experiencing new things. They do want ideas. They want concepts. Movies are based on concepts and premises. Thinking is refreshing. Discovering new things is refreshing. They want to learn and to care. They want the variety that allows them to delve into narrower places than simple “broad appeal”.

Dan Chambers may have been a famous casualty of the “upmarket” sting at Five but where i believe he got it wrong was that the programming wasn’t dramatic or pushy enough to compel viewers. Our formula is one where for each step up in the intellectual/emotional stakes may possibly alienate the audience, so the entertainment/adrenaline factor needs to go up 2 steps each time in parallel.

While i’m at it i probably should say that there is also the issue about formats being “original” or differentiated enough, as this seems to be a recurrent theme in commissioning documentation. I don’t believe there is such a thing as true originality, but i do believe there are more ideas and angles than we could ever cover and we will never run out. Experience dictates that competition means a viable market with demand and interest, and there is a very mesmerising cognitive dissonance in broadcasters being picky about originality when they only seem to commission programming in trends or that have similar/safer/tested themes and structures. Celebrity dog training may be funny in what appalling drivel it is, but it’s the bottom of a very short barrel that people at home are forced to drink from.

Ultimately we believe the need/hunger is for meaning, as i included with the pitch notes. In hard times like the credit crunch, we need to understand. We search for meaning. We lust for it like automatons. In all of the darkest periods, we reach out to learn why, not how or what. Understanding gives us comfort and hope, and satisfies that hunger. New ideas broaden and compel us to change our lives and communicate them to others – it’s a licence to be excited by what we are being shown. Being captivated by imagination, having new angles and topics illustrated to us and falling in love with what’s on the screen is the most compelling of all entertainment and escapism, and becoming more by being educated and feeling inspired is the greatest loyalty ticket any broadcaster can command. Ofcom may be heavy-handed when it comes to being objective, but why should we be if we are prepared to tell the audience we are making a case for one side and sparking off the debate? Daring to be masterful and stepping out to present programming in a dramatic and original way that allows us to discover and find joy in new unknown talent must be the most powerful incentive to turn keep the channel on and tune back in again. The joy of being surprised has been lost in television somehow over the last years.

I hope you will take these remarks in the humble way they are intended; 24 million disenfranchised households out there are looking for leadership and hope that only you can provide, and are qualified to release to them. I also hope that you will see that Devils Lane is a company that will give you truth in its (possibly unsolicited) counsel rather than telling you what you want to hear to get the cheque, and i say it to engender trust – i’d rather sell the Big Issue than do something we don’t believe in, but more importantly, that the audience don’t believe in. All it takes is for one commissioner or company to publish a program that does buck the tabloid trend and causes viewers to flood en masse when they are given the chance for everyone to follow suit – just as it happened with the first reality TV programs. The question is who that will be and when, and who the losers will be after they all pile in. I sent in Backstreet Kitchen against my better judgement as i want to get it out of the optioning processing at the BBC before it becomes re-shaped into another lame tabloid drugs program.

We’re in the midst of making an incredible movie called “Michael’s Resignation” inspired by the collapse of Halifax, and i would love to send you over the material once we have finished the edit as i believe it embodies all we are about and will illustrate our production kudos very well – it’s a 1hr Hollywood-style feature done ground-breakingly cheaply with the best young director in the UK that is truly innovative and unbelievably emotional and intense. I know for certain that no broadcaster would dare show it because of how wrenching and challenging it is, but from the interest we have in it already (which is getting out of control) that won’t be an issue when it comes to distribution.

I don’t know you well enough to know if you share the same values (although i suspect you do as you are as powerful as you are), but please do pass what i’ve said along if you do. I would love to get engaged in some vibrant debate and exchange thoughts, and it would be great to keep the dialogue open. When it comes down to it, we share a common interest and passionate vision – one to set the bar much higher and aim for a historical career of extraordinarily engrossing, headline-grabbing and world-changing television that affects the lives of millions of people.

I know this letter is very long so i can only thank you for taking the time to read it, and i hope it has perhaps given you a new perspective on our philosophy and why we are so different to other format houses and production shops. I didn’t get into business to give up easily and none of us have ever failed in what we set up to do because of underlining what we do with passion and integrity. I know those are central C4 values, hence why i know we’re naturally paired and ready for when you see the right time to punch through the grey skies of mediocrity that are out there now for those fresher sparkling pastures where watching TV is a life-changing experience.

Alex