identity

“Channel 4 has a rich heritage in representing on-screen those voices rarely heard before on mainstream television. Spooling forward to 2008 we are renewing our commitment to reflecting the diversity and richness of modern Britain, both on and off-screen.

So what does this mean for our programming? A £2m budget will be ring-fenced for multicultural programmes at 9 and 10pm, and a dedicated Commissioning Editor will be appointed. We’ll be looking for programmes that inform, excite, surprise and examine what contemporary British society looks like. But in the same way that Coronation Street appeals beyond a working class audience from Manchester, these programmes will have universal themes that appeal to a wider audience.

Off-screen we will be expanding our existing schemes, including the Researcher Trainee Programme and Deputy Commissioning Editor attachments, and introducing exciting new initiatives to better reflect all kinds of social diversity including ethnicity, disability, nationality, regionality, age, gender and beyond.”

Ade Rawcliffe: Diversity & Talent Manager, Channel 4

“I’m excited about everything – we’re trying so many experiments this year. But to pick a few, The Insiders is an online comedy about the world of work; YearDot is a huge, innovative experiment to follow a group of teens for a year across various media; Phantasmagoria is a collection of widgets for social networks and Slabovia.tv just makes me laugh out loud.

The key topic for me is transitions. We’re focused on the transitions that 14 to 19-year-olds go through, how they find the information and the people who help them through this critical time in their lives. When you start talking to teens, you realise how many really huge decisions there are to make – about work, university, your identity, your relationship with your family – when you’ve had very little real experience of life.

Making the right decisions is really down to the networks you have around you: family, friends, teachers and work colleagues. I’m very interested in how teens are using new media platforms to build these networks, and how these networks influence the decisions they make about their lives.

At C4 we’re all about getting you to ask questions about your life, whereas the BBC is more about giving you the ‘answers’. The BBC is homogeneous – it tries to talk with the same ‘voice’ in all its programming. C4 is really just a collection of voices, a lot of which can be very contradictory at times, and this isn’t a problem. We show people different ways of looking at the world around them, and challenge their assumptions and prejudices. I’m interested in getting people to ask questions and participate, rather than just presenting ‘knowledge’ in a didactic way.

The barriers for new creative talent to get their projects out there aren’t the same as they were in 1982, but there are still some big problems to sort out. If anything, its a more level playing field in cross-platform commissioning, as it’s much newer – you’re not pitching against a grizzled industry veteran as you would be in, say, docs or features. If you understand what people are doing online, and think you’ve got an idea that can be a real success, then you’ve got as much chance of getting commissioned as anyone.”

Matt Locke: Commissioning Editor, Education, Channel 4