3:43PM, Sep 17, 2007
Stuart Murphy, Director of Programmes, Sky1 HD, Sky1, 2 and 3 set out his mission statement for the channel during an intimate gathering at a townhouse in the centre of London.
I want people to take Sky1 more seriously, and the big starting point for me is that Sky1 has no discrepancy between our British originations, and our American acquisitions. I want our British shows to feel as ambitious editorially, and as risky and confident, creatively, as those great ones we run from the States.
In a world of Sky+ and Sky HD, the issue for our viewers is not for us to create a generalist channel where viewers “quite like everything” but instead have a channel where people absolutely LOVE certain shows, and will crawl over broken glass to get them. The only way I can see us doing that, is by commissioning fewer shows, and doing that at higher cost, with much bigger names on and off screen.
I thought it would be good to take you through some developments in each of the key programming genres.
ENTERTAINMENT
This is a big deal for Sky1, and I hope to continue the journey that others began before me. I want to really up our game though.
We’re bringing back Are You Smarter Than a Ten Year Old and Noel’s Christmas Presents, and Duncan James will challenge a normal comprehensive to put on a West End performance of Grease in just eight weeks in Grease: The School Musical, Justin Lee Collins returns for more Oops TV; and Heidi Klum is back in a new series of Project Runway this year featuring Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria Parker, Lindsay Lohan and Cristina Aguilera as guest judges.
But the Entertainment show which marks the biggest step change in what Sky has ever transmitted, starts in January, and is called Got To Dance. It’s a nationwide search to find the most accomplished dancers in the UK and is bigger than anything we’ve ever done for before, by a long way.
Currently 4.8 million people in Britain are regularly participating in dance classes and it’s the country’s fastest growing hobby. We were passionate about doing something on this, so commissioned Karen Smith, the exec of Strictly Come Dancing, to make a national entertainment show based around it. In Got To Dance everyone will be able to enter, irrespective of age, style or combination of dancers. And to host the show we needed someone really special. I’m over the moon to say that - presenting her first show on Sky, hopefully the first of many - the host will be Davina McCall.
The scale of this show is enormous - specially constructed Sky Domes will tour the UK, with a panel of judges filtering out the Michael Jacksons and Rick Astleys from the Geri Halliwells and the Gary Barlows. The show will then move to the studio, with viewers’ votes getting contestants through the semi finals and then to the live final. In the studio there will be big dance set pieces and big musical numbers. It’s a very ambitious show and we are really excited about it.
BEST OF US
This season, we continue with the top two new shows from the US in the past 12 months, Fringe from JJ Abrams and Lie To Me starring Tim Roth, plus a new series of House - the most-watched TV show in the world, transmitting in 66 countries to 82 million people - and Bones, as well as all new Stargate Universe, starring Robert Carlyle and the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica In the New Year, we will also have brand new 24, plus the much anticipated final final ever series of Lost.
DRAMA
In March last year, Sky announced a multi-million pound drama strategy of adapting best-selling books by British authors. It’s a strategy that has paid off. One part of this strategy was to develop fantasy based shows, so we’ve had Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather and Skellig, both of which attracted over two millions viewers. We’re currently filming a third Terry Pratchett drama, called Going Postal in Budapest starring Richard Coyle, Charles Dance, David Suchet and Tamsin Grieg, and it promises to be even better than the last two Pratchett’s. Going Postal will be broadcast next Easter on Sky1 HD.
Still in this theme of fantasy, we have a big surprise this season. Elaine Pyke, Sky1’s Head of Drama, has greenlit The 12 Days of Christmas – 12 eight minute silent films produced by Hilary Bevan Jones, the producer of Cracker and State of Play. Each short is by a different writer and director, and already confirmed are incredible names, including Neil Gaiman, Tony Grisoni, Jez Butterworth, William Boyd and Richard Eyre, and we have already signed up the incomparable Bill Nighy to star.
The second element of our drama strategy is to commission edgy, uncompromising pieces. We recently ran Martina Cole’s The Take and we will only build on that level of ambition. Coming up, we have the adaptation of the book by ex SAS veteran and multi million selling author Chris Ryan’s Strike Back. The production started filming in Johannesburg on Monday with the lead played by Richard Armitage and also starring Andrew Lincoln and Orla Brady. I’m delighted to say it will be produced by the Oscar and BAFTA winning producer of The Queen, Andy Harries.
In the future, as well as doing fantasy and edgy dramas, we hope to also develop dramas which we have rather clumsily been calling “Unavoidably Optimistic,” think The Darling Buds of May or At Home With The Braithwaites – warm, witty, comedy drama. And we’ll announce those when they are looking in shape.
COMEDY
For me, comedy and drama will be at the heart of Sky1 going forward. We’ve currently got 13 scripts in development, something Lucy Lumsden, formed Head of Comedy Commissioning, will take a view on when she arrives at Sky1 in October. When Lucy and I worked together at the BBC we commissioned 35 comedies, some of them howlers, but amongst the howlers were Gavin and Stacey, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh , Pulling, Little Britain and quite a few others. I’ll talk another time about our plans for original comedy, but our approach is pretty simple. Commission comedy that makes people laugh.
One shouldn’t forget, though, that comedy has been on Sky1 for a while. We’ve had Malcolm in the Middle, Friends, Scrubs, Futurama and, of course, the world’s best comedy show, The Simpsons, which has been right at the heart of our schedule for 20 years. It’s brilliant running having episodes four years before terrestrial. It’s our crown jewel and something we need to cherish and protect it. Clare Hollywood, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, has commissioned three new shows about The Simpsons, looking at its global success – with testimony from stars aplenty. And Simon Cowell.
Yesterday was a busy day for Sarah Wright, Head of Acquisitions on Sky1, who signed up a show from the Emmy Award winning writers and producers of Frasier. It’s described by Entertainment Weekly as “Easily the best comedy pilot of the new season” and is called Modern Family. It follows the lives of three dysfunctional American families seen through the eyes of a documentary crew. We love it, and think viewers are going to love it too. It will launch on on Sky1 this October.
FACTUAL FEATURES
In a new look to our 8 O’clock slot we will be squeezing in Fat Families, a series in which an ex fat presenter moves in with fat families, and breaks the news to them that the reason they are fat is because they eat too much crap and don’t exercise. We’ll also run Your Hobby or Mine, a Come Dine With Me of Hobbies, Luke Gamble’s Vet Adventures featuring amazing vet operations in the wildest places in the world, and perhaps the most mental of our commissions, Bill Bailey’s Big Bird Watch. This show – like all our shows – aims to take a mainstream genre, and take a slightly off kilter, funny approach, and we think it will be great.
DAYTIME
One thing we haven’t really done on Sky1, is promote Daytime, even though it’s critical to any channel’s success. From November we’re looking at changing that. I’m absolutely delighted to say we’ve signed up the star of Waterloo Road, Down To Earth, Coronation Street and Holby City, Angela Griffin. The show, called Angela and Friends, will be five days a week, in the afternoons, and will have Angela and a changing set of three other presenters looking at fashion, diets, money, books, and entertainment. Angela is exactly where we want Sky1 HD to be. She's smart, funny, beautiful and has effortless style.
Also in the afternoons will be Gethin Jones, hosting a new all or nothing quiz called Sell Me The Answer, in which players barter with ‘traders’ for answers, in a bid to win up to £25,000. It’s funny, rowdy and is very unlike your standard Daytime show. It should be fun.
SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT
It seemed strange to me, before I joined Sky, that the broadcaster with a great pedigree in sports broadcasting didn’t have its Question of Sport or They Think It’s All Over, and again I hope we can change that with Sports Entertainment Shows.
Jamie Redknapp will present Football’s Next Star, a footballing X Factor in which 16-18 year old potential footballing prodigies compete to win a one season contract with reigning Italian champions Inter Milan. 6,000 applied and the 10 best are currently training at Inter Milan’s state-of-the-art training complex, Interello where they are working with some of the world’s biggest football icons including Patrick Viera, Javier Zanetti and Marco Materazzi.
Plus, in Football Behind Bars, this autumn, Ian Wright goes inside a young offenders’ institution to use sport and football to try and stop the kids reoffending. And we’re bringing back Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.
And we’ve commissioned two sports entertainment pilots which are being shot and transmitted this autumn, and if viewers love them, they’ll be back as series in the New Year.
So that’s what we’ve been up to and this is just the start. This feels like Sky1’s moment, when we can make incredible TV which will make viewers gossip, laugh and cry.
For more information on our autumn and winter plans visit
Stuart Murphy
Director of Programmes, Sky1 HD, Sky1, 2 and 3
