Matthew Bell reports on the BBC unscripted chief’s Belfast lecture.
"You really are at the top of your game,” said Kate Phillips, praising the production sector in Northern Ireland. The BBC’s director of unscripted, who was giving the Dan Gilbert Memorial Lecture at the Belfast Media Festival in mid-November, went on to namecheck recent popular programmes The Fast and the Farmer-ish, The Hotel People and The Road to Partition.
She said: “Something really exciting is happening in Northern Ireland at the moment – local independents and local talent have pushed themselves into pole position in winning BBC network commissions across all genres.
“I am well aware that there have been previous false dawns for the Northern Irish sector. We want to build a sustainable production base here that can continue to grow and influence on a network stage.”
The annual Dan Gilbert Memorial Lecture is given in memory of Gilbert, who was a major figure in Northern Ireland current affairs broadcasting. It is organised by RTS Northern Ireland.
Elsewhere in her lecture, Phillips noted that the UK is “living through hard times”, referencing international problems and the cost-of-living crisis.
She said: “As a public service broadcaster, we have two main duties here. Through our factual, news and daytime programming, we can shine a spotlight on what is happening, help people with essential advice and hold people in power around the globe to account.
“But we also know that over half our audiences watch TV simply to escape reality, to take their minds off daily life – giving our viewers essential information and escapist entertainment is what we need to do.”
With the rising cost of producing drama, Phillips noted that the big US streamers were now moving into the unscripted genre. “This demand will lead to new innovation in the unscripted area – I see ambitious social experiments becoming a really big trend again,” she said.
At the BBC, Phillips is at the forefront of a new “digital first” policy. She explained: “Instead of commissioning purely for linear-TV and using iPlayer as a catch-up service, we now use linear as our shop window for iPlayer.”
Phillips added: “While big events still bring big audiences together – there were massive numbers for Eurovision, for the Jubilee, for Strictly [Come Dancing] at the moment… linear is in decline and for the BBC to be an essential service for future generations we need to keep building on the increases that we are seeing on iPlayer.
“How we feed this iPlayer beast, while still keeping linear strong, is one of our major challenges at the BBC, especially as production costs increase rapidly while our licence fee is currently being held flat.”
After her lecture, Phillips was interviewed by UTV journalist Eden Wilson, who probed her about the balance between linear-TV and iPlayer. Phillips responded: “We don’t want to dismiss linear-TV – you still see big numbers on linear for certain shows.” As examples, she mentioned Countryfile, Antiques Roadshow, The One Show and The Apprentice.
But she added: “The iPlayer is the most important area going forward.”
Overnight audience figures are becoming less important, continued Phillips: “When we’re looking at recommissioning shows, it’s about the consolidated [ratings] – we’re looking at a window over a month.”
Asked about her career highlights, Phillips replied: “Strictly has been a wonderful show to be involved with over the years.”
She added that it will be “an honour” to host the Eurovision Song Contest, as a replacement for Ukraine, in Liverpool next year. “It’s so exciting…. We picked the set design last week and it’s going to be epic.”
RTS Northern Ireland hosted another session at the Belfast Media Festival, which saw centre Chair and BBC Three controller Fiona Campbell interview Ryan J Brown, the creator and writer of her channel’s comedy horror series Wreck, and its executive producer, Noemi Spanos, from Euston Films.
