What Three TV Bosses Really Think Is Coming Next
Richard Cowles, CEO - Lifted, Melanie Leach, Co-CEO - South Shore, Martin Williams, CEO Talesmith
One of the genuine privileges of doing the Secret Diary of a Producer podcast is getting an unfiltered read on where the industry actually thinks it’s heading, not the trade press version, but what producers say when the mic is on but the guard is down a little.
Over the past couple of months I’ve sat down with three people running major operations, and the picture that’s emerging is more nuanced than the “industry in crisis” headlines suggest.
Mel Leach (South Shore - unscripted) is, on balance, optimistic. She’s clear that it’s tough, that commissioning is hard-fought, that nothing is easy right now. But underneath the difficulty there’s a genuine belief that the industry comes through this and that big shows aren’t going anywhere.
Martin Williams (Talesmith - natural history) gave me a really sharp take on natural history specifically. Talesmith made Secrets of the Penguins for Nat Geo, amongst others, and Martin’s read is that natural history’s long shelf life became a double-edged sword: the genre got heavily commissioned in the post-COVID rush, and now we’re in the comedown from that. Commissioning hasn’t stopped - it’s still happening - but it’s not at the volume or pace of a couple of years ago. It’s a useful reminder that genres don’t just live or die on demand; they live or die on the commissioning cycle that demand creates.
Richard Cowles (Lifted) was the one that genuinely surprised me. As CEO of one of the most influential production conmpanies in the country - the label behind I’m A Celebrity and Love Island, and recently Nobody’s Fool on ITV and a really interesting take on the “middle ground” of the industry that caught my attention. That’s the part of the conversation I keep coming back to. Have a look at the clip.
The full conversation with Richard airs Tuesday - it’s about Love Island itself rather than the industry, but I thought worth sharing this clip - which isn’t actually in the podcast because it’s more pertinent to those working in TV.
Three different vantage points, three different businesses, and yet there’s a thread running through all of it - realism mixed with hope . . .