A pre-watershed constructed factual format and a 10pm fact ent successor to The Circle are on Channel 4’s wishlist for the second wave of shows from its Global Format Fund.
Director of programmes Ian Katz has identified “returnable, scalable formats with big, provocative eye-catching top-lines” as well as “punchy” constructed factual and factual shows “with real emotional impact”.
For 2022, the broadcaster is looking for a midweek 8pm show that could be a Bake Off-style competition rooted in “skills, beliefs or way of life” or an animal, family or lifestyle show.
For 10pm, it wants “closed episode” ideas that offer the kind of “shareable moments” offered by Naked Attraction.
The axing of reality show The Circle has freed up £10m and for its successor, Katz is looking out for an “utterly compulsive” stripped 10pm reality format that should “say something about the world”.
C4 is ploughing up to £4m into year two of the Global Format Fund as well as continuing with its Motion Content Group-funded Contestable Pot for cross-genre mid-week 9pm shows. MCG is also offering £10m for shows made by BAME-led indies.
On top of this, C4 has pledged £20m for new ideas across its unscripted departments.
The plans come as it unveiled the first three of six planned commissions from the first round of the Global Format Fund: Firecracker Films’ monogamy-testing ‘social experiment’ Open [w/t] for 9pm Sundays; primetime dating competition Love Trap from Great Scott Media; and daytime cash-prize quiz Moneybags from Youngest Media.
