The ABC has continued its rolling commissioning strategy when it comes to its factual entertainment slate. The most recent announcements were for the commissioning of two new programs, The Stuff the British Stole and Great Southern Landscapes.
Mediaweek caught up with the ABC’s head of factual & culture Jennifer Collins about these two programs and the ABC’s approach to factual content.
“It is rolling commissioning,” said Collins. “Factual programming can take a long time depending on whether we’re working in the natural history space or contemporary space. Some of our shows can take 18 months to turn around from development through to production. I’m expecting that to keep up that with the 8pm slot and the 8:30pm slot on a Tuesday, which is our main slot for factual and culture we will continue to commission across the year.”
Both The Stuff the British Stole (hosted by Marc Fennel) and Great Southern Landscapes (hosted by Racheal Griffiths) will fill that 8:00 pm timeslot for the ABC with Collins saying that she beilives both shows will connect with the public broadcaster’s audience.
“It’s about authenticity for us. We’re looking for talent that have a really authentic connection to the subject matter, and it’s really important for us when selecting somebody to take our audience through a series. Particularly if they’re going to be taking us through six episodes or more. When we’re looking at presenters for our content, the first thing we’re asking is will they connect with an ABC audience? How will an ABC audience engage with this person? And do they have the authentic connection to the subject material?”
Stuff the British Stole
The Stuff the British Stole airs later this year and tells the story of some of the most remarkable treasures acquired through the years of the British Empire. The new six-part series is based on his acclaimed, award-winning ABC Podcast, which also falls under Collins’ remit.
An Australia-Canada co-production, Stuff the British Stole is co-produced by Wooden Horse, WildBear Entertainment, and Cream Productions (Canada) for the ABC and the CBC. Principal production funding from Screen Australia.
“Stuff the British Stole the podcast has done extremely well for us, it was award winning and very popular with our audience with over a million downloads on the ABC Listen app. Marc Fennel is an extraordinary talent, he did extremely well for us on The School That Tried to End Racism and is someone that we would love to work with over and over. When he teamed up with Wooden Horse and Wild Bear with the idea of taking this one to screen, for us it was a no brainer. The added bonus of working with a very like minded public broadcaster like CBC, and being able to scale up the production and have global travel is hugely exciting. Taking an idea that has done so well for us as a podcast and then turning it into a screen adaptation was a no brainer.”
Stuff The British Stole begins filming this month and will air on ABC TV and ABC iview later this year and on CBC and CBC Gem in 2023.
“Stuff the British Stole is an ambitious series because of its global nature,” said Collins. “CBC is so like minded. They’ve got the same ambitions and their audience respond to the same sort of material. They want shows that are highly entertaining but have that rigour that public service audiences are seeking. Having Wooden Horse who brought us this production with Wild Bear, and then having Cream who are experts over in Canada, the weight of all those companies coming together is really going to deliver something very special for us.”
Collins said that the key with international co-productions is knowing what version you’re looking for.
“In this case, quite unusually, both versions will be the same or very similar. Both versions will have Marc Fennel which is a real coup for Australia, to have an Australian presenter who’s also going to be going out to global audiences. Often in international co-pros, the international co-production partner will replace that person or put in a different narrator. CBC is just as excited as we are about having Marc front this series. This is a series that has originated with Marc, it was his idea. We’re very fortunate with this one that we have an award winning podcast, we know what the show is, we know what the content is. And now it’s about pushing the visuals and the creative treatment to really bring that to life for the screen.”
Great Southern Landscapes
Following last year’s Finding the Archibald, Rachel Griffiths has once again teamed up with Mint Pictures to host and executive produce this new 6x30mins series.
Griffiths will explore iconic landscapes in a fusion of art, social history, and travel. Packing up her boots and backpack, she heads off across Australia’s states and territories to find the spot where some of the country’s most famous artists captured their interpretation of the landscapes as she explores not just how much our landscapes have changed but how people see them too.
“Racheal Griffith has done so well for our us on Finding the Archibald, shes really connected with audiences, she’s got an authentic connection to the art and is a passionate advocate of the arts,” said Collins. “Great Southern Landscapes was actually her idea as a follow up to Finding the Archibald, her and Dan Goldberg from Mint Pictures came in and pitched this to us. The idea of having a show where we could explore an artist per episode, and a journey for Rachel of following the footsteps of where that artist captured that landscape was an offer, we thought would really connect with our audiences.”
Collins said that Griffiths passion made her a great fit for both the project and the ABC.
“To have somebody like Rachel to take us through Great Southern Landscapes was a real gift. She’s deeply passionate about the arts. She is going on an authentic journey and she really wants to learn, she’s not fronting a thesis documentary where she’s telling us everything that she knows about a particular artist, she’s actually going on the journey herself and learning about the artists and having those wonderful conversations.”