Ben Frow

On the far wall of the programming department at Channel 5, there is a “mood-ometer” – and, on Monday mornings, the mood is not good.

The ratings are always bad at weekends, so Mondays in the office can sometimes seem like the five stages of grief on fast forward. The trick is to try to get Ben [Frow, Channel 5’s programme supremo] to accept the situation before he starts strolling around the office musing on the other things he could have done with his life. Ennui won’t get us out of our ratings slump.

They say that good things come in threes. When Channel 5 won Channel of the Year at March’s RTS Programme Awards, beating Sky Atlantic and BBC Three, the accolade followed identical wins at February’s Broadcast Awards and the 2018 Edinburgh TV Awards.

“It was thrilling to win Channel of the Year,” says the station’s director of programmes, Ben Frow, looking dapper in a dark T-shirt. “We’ve won each one once; we’ve finally got them all. I wouldn’t actually enter another channel of the year [competition].

The new initiative is part of the commitment made by channel 5 to create mainstream programmes that accurately reflect contemporary Britain.

The TV Collective was founded ten years ago by Simone Pennant and promotes the commercial and creative value that having diversity can bring to British film and TV studios.

Channel 5 are looking for nine small or medium size BAME companies, primarily based in the regions, who are owned and managed by BAME talent.

Ben Frow is not as other directors of programmes. They tend to be sober, jargon-ridden and cautious – at least when speaking to me. They talk of "passion" but rarely show it: steady as the ratings sink or, occasionally, rise. Frow is funny, camp and outspoken, easily bruised and easily enthused.

He was obviously not what Richard Desmond, the Daily Express publisher and, for four years, owner of Channel 5, was expecting either, when he summoned him for a job interview in 2012.