Commissioning drama for BBC television has become streamlined through the new commissioning process. Projects are green lit for production on a process of approval from both the Genre Commissioner and the Channel Controller.

Jane Tranter, Controller Commissioning, Drama, looks at the drama slate across all channels. She also looks at cross media possibilities and cross genre possibilities with News & Current Affairs, Factual and Entertainment.

In a multi-channel world audiences are becoming more ruthless and impatient so new dramas need to grab the audience’s attention immediately. The vital ingredients are a passion and dramatic energy. Nothing beats a good script, well done. All great dramas stem from a great script.

BBC1
BBC1 is looking for mainstream drama with a mass appeal to perform well at peak time but there is also room for more challenging dramas such as Sinners. The channel is becoming more modern in its approach and it is intent on reflecting modern society. There are great opportunities for drama mid-week between 9pm and 10pm. This is the ideal slot for returnable drama series that audiences will grow to know and love such as Clocking Off, Spooks, Cutting It and Red Cap. We have a number of series/serials in development for this midweek post watershed slot, covering such genres as detectives, police, legal world and medical. We would welcome ideas which could bring a different slant to these popular genres. A series of four, 2 x 60 minute dramas are also being sought for this slot. These would run in two parts on a Sunday and Monday evening or a Monday and Tuesday evening. Silent Witness has recently adopted this format, as have Crime Doubles such as Waking The Dead, Murphy’s Law and In Deep.

Pre watershed: Eastenders, Casualty and Holby City perform well. BBC1 wants to build on this and the success of post watershed dramas like 2000 Acres of Sky and Spooks.

Midweek pre-watershed: We are looking for strong new ideas which could even take the form of 90 minute parts, running from 8.30-10pm. This is a challenging slot to write for as it bridges the 9pm watershed. Dramas such as Judge John Deed, Murphy’s Law, Dalziel and Pascoe, A Touch Of Frost (ITV) and Inspector Morse (ITV) have successfully filled this slot.

Sunday pre-watershed: This is the traditional slot for Monarch Of The Glen and Born And Bred. We are still on the lookout for popular family-viewing series ideas, with 60 minute episodes to run up to 9pm. This slot currently competes with Heartbeat on ITV.

Sunday post-watershed: There are opportunities here for strong drama serials (and occasionally series too).

Event Pieces: There are occasional opportunities for event pieces such as Messiah, Sinners and Out Of Control.

BBC2 is looking for big, bold ideas, right at the heart of our culture that are done in an inventive, surprising, sophisticated and enjoyable way, are stimulating and enquiring and are based in reality.

The channel is looking for new ways of doing the classics as in the recent production of Crime And Punishment and fast and immediate dramas like Nice Girl.

The channel is becoming more bold and mainstream. Its audience are sophisticated, clever and aspirational. It’s still a channel that deals with the unfamiliar but this should be approached in a familiar way. Likewise the familiar must be approached in an unfamiliar way.

Quite a lot of the drama on this channel in recent years has been successfully aimed at a slightly younger audience (This Life, The Cops) and the majority has been transmitted well after the watershed but these ideas are now probably more suited to BBC3. There will be a push to increase the channel's more traditional output of major, challenging, multi-part drama. This could include more adaptations of novels - especially classic 20th century novels - such as Eureka Street, Gormenghast and Amongst Women. We are also keen to commission original state of the nation pieces such as As The Beast Sleeps. The current drama output can be categorised as follows:

Low budget singles: This includes challenging and distinctive pieces such as As The Beast Sleeps and Flesh And Blood. There are opportunities here for original ideas which could work within the limited budgets available.

Major drama serials: These have included traditional, stimulating and thought provoking pieces such as Baby Father, Amongst Women, Eureka Street, Band Of Brothers, In A Land Of Plenty and Gormenghast. There will be opportunities to do more of these distinctive and memorable pieces in the future.

Returning series: There may be some opportunities for returning series on the channel. 24 will return for a second series.

BBC3 New opportunities for drama are opening up on the channel. They are looking for contemporary, stylish, ‘out there’ ideas with a youthful flavour. Ideas should be fast and energetic, identified by their idiosyncrasies and eccentric in a modern way. The average audience age is 24 to 35.

Some helpful terms......

Series A series (or a "returning" or "returnable" series), is a series of stories set around a regular group of characters, often involving a common activity (medical, legal, police, teaching, fire service etc etc). It has a number of episodes (often 6 in the first "run" and usually more in later runs when the series "returns"). Each episode should have a "story-of-the-week" but will also contain serial elements which allow the regular characters to develop. However the story-of-the-week in each episode must have "closure" (i.e. it must be resolved).
Series episodes are 60 minutes long and are transmitted "pre or post watershed" (i.e. before or after 9pm) e.g Monarch Of The Glen Sunday 8pm; Red Cap Tuesday 9pm.

The Watershed is set at 9pm and it has to be taken into account when developing ideas for television as it will dictate where that piece sits in the schedule. It's not only a question of bad language/violence/sex before 9pm, but of tone too. e.g. Monarch Of The Glen (BBC1 8pm), is clearly pre-watershed family viewing (although it has tackled a number of serious subjects), whereas Out of Control (broadcast at 9pm on a Sunday) contained some strong language and covered distressing issues in a realistic manner.

Serials A serial is one story told in a number of parts - usually 4 (Amongst Women, Eureka Street) or 6 (Spooks, Cutting It). They can be original pieces such as Spooks or adaptations of novels such as Other People's Children, Eureka Street and Amongst Women. Each episode would be 60 minutes in length. Sometime serials can "return" e.g. Playing The Field, which has enjoyed three runs.

Two-Parters These are an increasingly popular format and are particularly suitable for thrillers and murder mysteries etc. Each part would normally be 90 minutes in length. Recent example of this are an adaptation of Boris Starling's novel Messiah about a serial killer as a 2x90 minute format. They can also be 2x60 min such as Silent Witness and Waking The Dead.
Two parters often form the basis of a "franchise" - i.e. they have a central character who returns with further stories i.e. Silent Witness, Messiah, Inspector Morse (ITV) and Prime Suspect (ITV).

Single TV Film There are occasional opportunities for these, but they are becoming rarer. Our previous output includes Sinners (BBC1), As The Beast Sleeps (BBC2) and Vicious Circle (BBC2)

Midweek - means anytime from Monday to Friday. Thus "Midweek post" means after 9pm during the weekdays.

CONTACT
BBC Northern Ireland Drama
Room 3.07 Blackstaff House
Great Victoria Street Belfast
BT2 7BB
Tel: 028 90 338498
E-mail: tvdrama.ni@bbc.co.uk