Andrew Mackenzie speaking to Katy Thoroggood (Credit: Paul Hampartsoumian)

Twofour Group has made some of the most critically acclaimed factual TV of recent years. One of its biggest shows has been Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire. The company’s Chief Creative Officer, Andrew Mackenzie, is also no stranger to controversy, having commissioned My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding during his time at Channel 4.

Quizzed by ITV Commissioning Editor for Factual Katy Thorogood, Mackenzie revealed his approach to making successful TV to the assembled students.

Mackenzie’s path to the top is hardly unusual: he went from researcher to assistant producer to director to commissioner to indie big cheese. But to have accomplished this in under two decades is remarkable.

Armed with a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism, Mackenzie landed a job with BBC Radio Lancashire before the lure of television became too strong. STV was far more glamorous,T he told Thorogood.

His break came in 1993 on the comedy-meets-football magazine show, Standing Room Only, which was part of BBC Two’s Def II SyoofT strand, made by BBC Manchester.

SI did that thing that everybody should do when they’re trying to take their first step,T Mackenzie recalled, Swhich was to identify one individual and badger the shit out of them.T

He swapped paid radio work for making the tea and doing odd jobs for Series Producer Alan Hurndall, who Sstarted giving me little bits of work – writing copy and working up ideasT.

SI got very lucky,T Mackenzie said.

SI don’t know in the current climate whether I could do now what I did then. SIt’s a lot harder for your generation than it was for my generation. There are a lot more courses pushing people towards the broadcast production industry.T

Nevertheless, he added: SGood people who are persistent and make themselves indispensable break through.T

Mackenzie stayed with BBC Manchester for three years, before moving south to the BBC Features Department in London.

There, he worked on The Film Prog­ramme with Barry Norman. SWe’d watch three movies with Barry on a Monday and go for lunch in the Groucho and talk about them on the Tuesday. I had to leave because it was too easy,T he sighed.

Ambitious to direct, Mackenzie returned to one of his passions, sport, making a programme about the boxers Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn for BBC documentary series Clash of the Titans.

Turning freelance in 1997, he made more documentaries, including Channel 4’s The Real Brian Clough.

Julian Bellamy (now Managing Director of ITV Studios, but then Head of Programming at Channel 4) recruited him as a commissioning editor to Channel 4 in 2003.

There, he ordered two highly controversial series, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Boys and Girls Alone.

Discussing the former, Mackenzie said: SThe production team were brilliant. I don’t think they exploited that community at all. Anybody who was on television wanted to be on television and was proud of the way they lived.T

Boys and Girls Alone, a TV experiment in which young children were left to fend for themselves for two weeks without parents, caused tabloid outrage and sparked an Ofcom inquiry.

SThose kids were shown to be incredibly bright and resourceful. They astounded their parents and had an amazing experience,T said Mackenzie.

The series, however, didn’t flinch from filming the children when they were upset. SWhen kids cry on TV, quite rightly, questions are asked about whether the kids who are in a television construct and not enjoying it at that point should ever have been put [there],T he admitted.

It was a ShorribleT experience, he recalled, Sbeing made out to be a media monsterT in the press.

Ofcom cleared the production team and broadcaster of harming children. However, it did find that Channel 4 had failed to make viewers sufficiently aware of the safeguards in place.

Mackenzie was promoted to Head of Factual Entertainment at Channel 4 in 2007. He moved to Twofour three years later. One of his first programmes was Educating Essex. He said this Sbecame in many ways the defining project of this companyT.

At the time, though, it was a Snoose around our necks – if we had got it wrong, it could have bankrupted the companyT. The costs of installing some 70 cameras at the Harlow school, long days of filming and weeks in the edit suite were huge.

masterclass, factual, Andrew Mackenzie, Educating Essex, Twofour Group followed. It was the channel’s highest-rated series of 2013 and scooped multiple awards, including Documentary Series at the RTS Programme Awards.

SWith Yorkshire, I was lucky enough to have probably the best production team I’ve ever worked with,T remembered Mackenzie.

The team chose a Dewsbury school for the series because of the charisma of some of its teachers. But luck as well as judgement played a part in its success, not least when cameras captured the joy of Mr Burton helping Musharraf overcome his crippling stammer.

Andrew Mackenzie, Chief Creative Officer of Twofour, was interviewed by Katy Thorogood, Commissioning Editor, Factual for ITV, at the RTS Student Programme Masterclasses, held at the BFI, London, on 27 October. The producer was Helen Scott.

Life at a top independent

‘We generate the ideas, sell the ideas and then make the ideas,’ was Chief Creative Officer Andrew Mackenzie’s summary of the Twofour Group’s business at the RTS factual masterclass.

In TV, he continued, ‘most of the ideas for shows start with conversations with commissioning editors’. Twofour does not ‘spend too much time and money [developing ideas] that we know aren’t going to land on fertile ground’.

At an indie, Mackenzie argued, ‘You have to balance creativity with entrepreneurship because, if you don’t make profitable programmes, you will go out of business. You need to win awards and you need to make money.’

Twofour aims to make 10% to 12% profit on every production, though this is harder on first series, when costs are more difficult to control. The first Educating… series, Educating Essex, came in £200,000 over budget, but Mackenzie saw it as a loss leader.

‘We are now in our fourth series, we’ve won awards for it and it’s changed the face of the company because it’s a much-loved series,’ he said.

Mackenzie advised the students in the audience: ‘I think the strongest place for you to be is in a production company. It’s very hard as an individual to pitch ideas direct to a channel.

‘There’s a perception that Scompanies are going to rip me off and nick my ideaT, but, more often, your idea will become better. You’ll hear some brutal truths about it, but then – collectively – you can pitch it to a broadcaster.’

Question & Answer

Q Should I produce a sizzle reel before I pitch?

A Andrew Mackenzie: A sizzle can help, but before that I would test the idea on as many people as possible. [Go to] production companies who’ve made similar shows and commissioning editors who’ve commissioned that kind of stuff.

A Katy Thorogood: If you want it to go on telly, think about where it would go, what channel, what slots. That will really help how you pitch it. 

Q What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in pitching?

A Andrew Mackenzie: They’re all hard… Pitching is a conversation. If it’s not a conversation and you’re doing all the talking and they’re quiet, it’s probably not going well.

Q Have you ever regretted making a programme?

A Andrew Mackenzie: I want to make telly where [the people on screen] are as proud of it as I am. We’ve managed that with the Educating programmes and they are now advocates for our production processes. We wheeled them in to talk to the military when we were [looking to make] Royal Marines Commando School. You reap what you sow, I think.