Some "What The BBC Probably Wants" Stuff

I'm not sure this post deserves its own thread. I won't be offended if the mods append it to another relevant thread.

A few hours ago I attended a BBC Comedy-North "workshop" on writing comedy for the Beeb. It was part of the Northern Laughs mentoring/development scheme mentioned in a couple of other threads, but the information given out at the talk is probably relevant to all regions, so I thought I'd put it here rather than in a north-specific thread.

Given that the competition for said scheme is likely already pretty intense, I don't expect I'm shooting myself in too many feet by sharing what I learned.

I've done a reasonably lengthy write-up on my blog at

http://texturbation.com/blog/?p=996

You can skip the indulgent preamble in the first half of the post if you're just interested in the bullet-pointed good stuff.

If you've been doing this a while, or even just reading these forums for a while, I reckon most of it will not be news to you. But maybe there's one or two things of use.

At the very least, it's all most definitely current.

"10,000 unsolicited manuscripts every year, across all genres. Only (sic)About 3% of these submissions enter development.

Krisst! How long has it been only 3%?
Last time I looked, I'm sure it said only 5%.

Thanks for the link Kevin; too tired now - off to bed. Will read the rest of your blog tomorrow.

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ February 5 2009, 1:04 AM GMT

I'm not sure this post deserves its own thread. I won't be offended if the mods append it to another relevant thread.

A few hours ago I attended a BBC Comedy-North "workshop" on writing comedy for the Beeb. It was part of the Northern Laughs mentoring/development scheme mentioned in a couple of other threads, but the information given out at the talk is probably relevant to all regions, so I thought I'd put it here rather than in a north-specific thread.

Given that the competition for said scheme is likely already pretty intense, I don't expect I'm shooting myself in too many feet by sharing what I learned.

I've done a reasonably lengthy write-up on my blog at

http://texturbation.com/blog/?p=996

You can skip the indulgent preamble in the first half of the post if you're just interested in the bullet-pointed good stuff.

If you've been doing this a while, or even just reading these forums for a while, I reckon most of it will not be news to you. But maybe there's one or two things of use.

At the very least, it's all most definitely current.

View original

Hey Kevin - I was there too. I bobbed up with the inestimable James Harris of these very boards. You may or may not have noticed me sneaking out for a slash during the projector bits and getting squuiffy in the bar afterwards.

Nice to attend an event specifically to help out North Eastern writers. Precious little of those about.

UPDATE:
Just read your blog entry. First of all - holy shit dude, you took some serious notes! I managed to jot a few commissioner notes down and draw a cartoon cock. But cheers for posting this. Anyway, a fair summary of the proceedings, mostly. The BBC speaker was Kristian Smith - and yes he was nervous but I thought he did a sterling job for somebody uncomfortable with public speaking.

To be fair - from the clips they showed, the League Of Gents bit got laughs because it's intrisically LOL, visual comedy (the pissing into the glass etc). You forgot to mention the We Are Klang dancing horse clip, which also got laughs.

The cash part - 3 grand an episode is for an absolute beginner and fees are always negotiable - but that's still 18 thousand pounds for a few month's work, plus those all-important repeat fees.

Good work! Screw comedy, you should be a reporter!

I am a reporter :-)

Or was, anyway.

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ February 5 2009, 2:18 AM GMT

I am a reporter :-)

Or was, anyway.

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Hah - that'll explain it

Interesting Mr Bond, as on Michael Jacob's Writersroom blog he is promoting the single camera comedy as its more cost-effective: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/2009/01/cheap_and_chirpy.shtml

Cheers Kevin. Excellent write-up. Thanks again.

Dan

Really goood notes, Kevin.It's nice to know what my colleagues in the north are getting up to!

As Kristian said (and the comedy wish list on the bbc.co.uk commissioning site is generally accessible), audience sitcom is very much in demand and not very much pitched by writers. As I say on the blog, it also has fixed costs which don't apply to single camera shows. So I don't think we're at odds.

Thank you, that was very revealing. If not exactly inspiring.

Thanks for that Kevin. Very Interesting. Too be fair I thought 3 grand an episode wasn't bad. It was more than I thoughta newbie would get. The 20 grand an episode bit sounds even more interesting.

I better get writing then.

Just to stick my thoughts in regarding the BBC - I recently had something turned down by a head of department because my idea was deemed too expensive to make, I did a brief bit of research on this before I wrote it and couldn't see that it would be that expensive to make. Plus each of my episodes would have needed to go out in order which made my chances that little bit smaller.

Quote: Lee Henman @ February 5 2009, 1:54 AM GMT

The cash part - 3 grand an episode is for an absolute beginner and fees are always negotiable - but that's still 18 thousand pounds for a few month's work, plus those all-important repeat fees.

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wow 3 grand, I'll take that.

• It was mentioned that BBC One is "losing its pre-watershed slots" for comedy. This was probably irrelevant to most of us assembled wannabes. It seems to me that comedy needs to prove itself on one of the other channels before it gets promoted to BBC One. An unknown writing specifically for a BBC One audience would, I reckon, be wildly ambitious.
• BBC Two is no longer a venue for "experimentation". It wants studio sitcoms. Its audience is broad, ranging from those in their mid-20s to 50s.
• BBC Three: I inferred from what was said, possibly incorrectly, that this channel has a relatively new creative head. That person's opinion is apparently that BBC Three should be a "mini-BBC One". Thus, while it was said that Three is also not a venue for "experimentation", it was also said that the channel has license to be "cheekier" and "more mischievous" than its older brothers.
• BBC Four doesn't commission a lot of comedy. Lead Balloon appears to be the notable exception.

Hmmm... seems like the only option for new, experimental writers is BBC Five.

BBC Five -- full of cheap softcore, footy perpetually involving Spurs and Everton and shit about how things stay together and don't fall apart, but with no adverts!

Dan

Thinking back to when I first started writing (four years ago) - I was told that for one script, the going rate was about 5/6 grand.....

Quote: swerytd @ February 5 2009, 10:22 AM GMT

BBC Five -- full of cheap softcore, footy perpetually involving Spurs and Everton and shit about how things stay together and don't fall apart, but with no adverts!

Dan

View original

Sounds OK to me.