In television, co-production deals come and go. Sometimes they turn sour as the conflicting demands of both parties lead to endless compromise or messy divorces. One of the most enduring - and productive - is the little-heralded partnership signed 10 years ago between BBC Studios and US public broadcaster PBS.

The arrangement has led to the making of more than 250 hours of content and embraces such celebrated shows as RTS award-winner The Green Planet, Big Cats 24/7, Lucy Worsley Investigates and the RTS award-winning Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World, Chuck D’s history of rap.

In other words, a range of shows that includes both landmark specialist factual and returning series. Significantly, the relationship has also been responsible for the deeply insightful and award-winning documentary Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, distributed by BBC Studios but made by Keo Films and Walk on Air Films, also an RTS award-winner.

What, then, is the secret of this collaboration that continues to thrive in harsh times for those who produce and commission factual shows? Jack Bootle, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual, BBC, puts it like this: “It’s a way of uniting forces to do work that is even bigger and better than we could do by ourselves. It makes sense that two big public service broadcasters on opposite sides of the Atlantic would work together in this way.

“Over the last 10 years, the ambition of the projects has just got bigger and bigger. That’s because we’ve become more used to working with each other. Like a marriage, we’ve settled into it. We’ve become more collaborative, and that has made us more creative and confident. They’ve gone from being great shows to being some of the best shows on the BBC.”

He singles out Brian Cox’s recent BBC Two documentary series Solar System as one of the programmes he is most proud of. It would not have been produced, he says, without BBC Studios and PBS getting into bed together. “It’s not only a great show, it has also been a huge hit,” he says.

The first episode won a consolidated audience of 4.2 million, which Bootle says is the highest-rated BBC Two factual series for two years. “Solar System proves there is a big audience out there for science storytelling. It wouldn’t have been made without the BBC’s relationship with PBS. It’s not cheap to make, so you’ve got to find a co-commissioner who shares your vision. PBS get that. It’s in their DNA. They believe that grand, ambitious science is at the heart of what they do. Other UK channels don’t feel that way, and neither do the streamers.”

Sylvia Bugg, Chief Programming Executive at PBS, stresses that any partnership is only as good as what those involved can bring to the table. “Mutual respect has been the foundation for a solid business partnership that has allowed us to do this important work,” she says.  

Kate Ward, Managing Director, Factual Productions at BBC Studios, says the relationship gives both the BBC and PBS the ability to create “purposeful content” of scale, citing The Green Planet, Big Cats 24/7 and the return of Walking with Dinosaurs next year, after a 25-year absence. “The BBC and PBS are so aligned in terms of our values,” she notes. 

Having said that, there are times when American tastes don’t align with British ones and adjustments need to be made. Physicist and erstwhile rock star Brian Cox may be a national treasure in the UK, but on the other side of the Atlantic he is not a household name. For domestic audiences, Cox’s role in presenting Solar System was critical. However, the PBS version dispensed with his services and instead hired the actor Zachary Quinto. “Large chunks of the show are the same but the wrapping is slightly different,” says Bootle diplomatically. 

While PBS considered Cox to be too British for US tastes, Lucy Worsley’s quintessential Englishness is something that viewers across the pond can’t get enough of.

Bugg says: “American audiences love Lucy. Her perspective is one reason why her shows are so successful in the US. I’ve often said: ‘Are there more Lucy-type formats out there that we can lean into?’ Audiences love her intelligent take on history.”

Looking to 2025, highlights from the partnership include Human, a five-parter telling the 250,000-year story of our species, presented by paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi; Matriarch, a two-parter fronted by chimpanzee specialist Dr Jane Goodall; and the return of Big Cats 24/7, described by Ward as bingeable natural history.

When it comes to producers pitching shows for this collaboration, Bootle wadmits that finding a project that resonates with UK and US audiences can be challenging. “There are certain things that aren’t going to translate, but you would be surprised how overlapping the two Venn diagrams of PBS and the BBC are.”

Other factors include timing (why do it now?) and a unique offer. This could be freshly discovered archive footage, or an original take on a subject or story. “There’s got to be something that’s fresh,” he says. “It’s a story that you need to know about now.”

Bugg adds: “We’re always thinking about how relevant the subject is to our audience and their viewing trends. It could be something our audiences have never been exposed to before or that provides new insight, or that we can build around our larger content pipeline.”

Programme budgets have risen dramatically over the past decade. In scripted content, in some cases, they have doubled. Of course, the kind of shows that BBC Studios and PBS are making are not as expensive as high-end drama, but they don’t come cheap. “There has been a big rise in production costs,” says Bootle. “Natural history has always been an expensive genre, and a boom in the sector (with the streamers entering the market) has driven costs up.”

So how difficult is it to compete with the streamers’ generously-funded factual shows?  Ward says: “As a producer, it’s not my job to compete [with the streamers], but what I will say about this partnership is that the consistency over a decade of specialist factual programming – natural history, science, history, art – is unique.

“We want to entertain, inform and be intelligent without being patronising. We’ve been able to deliver amazing cinematography. Others do produce content in the specialist factual genres, but none of them do it with the same passion, commitment and consistency.”

Bugg adds: “With respect to streamers, we’re in a different business. Competing with them is not something that keeps me up at night.”

On top of appealing to UK and US audiences, shows made under the co-production deal also need global appeal. “If we’re looking at something like Walking with Dinosaurs, although it’s a co-commission by BBC Studios and PBS, other co-producers are involved, which gives us the ability to do things of scale that we couldn’t do alone. That is truly exciting,” says Ward. “In the Natural History Unit and the Science Unit, we are making programmes for the world that are universal.”