Mindhouse Productions and BBC Studios lead the way in this year’s Grierson Awards nominations, with five apiece.
The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth, Mindhouse’s BBC series about the 2003 Columbia disaster [main photo], is in the running in both the history and science categories.
Louis Theroux’s indie’s Sky docs Tell Them You Love Me and Lockerbie are nominated for best single documentary – international and best single documentary respectively, with the presenter’s own BBC interview with Peter Doherty up for best music documentary.
BBC Studios’ shows in the running comprise two science docs – Secrets of the Neanderthals for Netflix and Better off Dead?, a co-pro with Burning Bright for the BBC; two natural history docs – Planet Earth III and Sky Documentaries’ The Great Rhino Robbery-Dead or Alive; plus music nominee, BBC2 series Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution.
Meanwhile, Story Films and 72 Films have both picked up four nominations.
In the single documentary - domestic category, Story has scored nods for both Otto Baxter: Not a F***ing Love Story and Channel 4’s Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax; the latter is also up for best popular culture documentary.
The indie’s C4 series To Catch a Copper makes the documentary series shortlist.
72 Films’ C4 series The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson is nominated in both the history and popular culture categories.
The indie has a second history nomination with its National Geographic commission JFK: One Day in America, while its BBC series Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius is in the running in arts.
The overall most-nominated show is Hungry Bear’s C4 doc Me and the Voice in My Head, which is up for best science documentary, best single documentary – domestic and presenter for Joe Tracini.
The BBC has the most nominations (28), ahead of C4 (23), Netflix (17) and Sky Documentaries (8).
This list will be whittled down further to a shortlist to be published in two months’ time, ahead of the ceremony on 6 November.
For the full list of nominations, click here