How to pitch TV comedy: Iain Coyle

He began his TV career as Jonathan Ross's tea boy, went on to write jokes for Shooting Stars and is now one of the most powerful men in British comedy.

Iain Coyle's carriageway to comedy heights has been strewn with lucky chances created by an eagerness to learn, an enthusiasm for getting stuck in and a knack for cultivating new trends.

As Head of Comedy Entertainment for UKTV, Iain commissions the kind of stuff that BBC Two and Channel 4 used to be famous for.

Once upon a time those networks used to break innovative new comedy but have now settled into a well-trodden path of commissioning risk-free projects they know will work.

Now it's left to UKTV to air the shows that mainstream channels subsequently plunder after they've proved to be successful - case in point is the brilliantly fresh comedy entertainment show Taskmaster which began life on Dave but transferred to Channel 4 for its tenth series.

In this interview, Iain tells of his own journey in the industry, explains what he looks for when commissioning a new show, details how to pitch successfully, suggests how up-and-coming talent can get themselves noticed and foresees what lies in store for the TV comedy landscape of the future.

Describe your career route to being Head of Comedy Entertainment at UKTV...

I've been with UKTV for seven years now. I'd been freelance for about 20 years and had just finished the pilot of Gogglebox, I was series editor. We delivered the pilot and I moved on.

My first job was as Jonathan Ross's teaboy; this was in the early 90s when he was doing a show called Tonight With Jonathan Ross that was on three nights a week on Channel 4. I finished uni and I just sent hundreds of letters out and weirdly that one came in - someone asked me in for an interview for a runner's job.

I worked for Channel X, Jonathan's company, for about four or five years and worked my way up to being a researcher. From there I just sort of dotted my way around all the main indies [independent production companies] in telly as a freelance.
I then got a job as a researcher then assistant producer on Shooting Stars with Vic & Bob which was great. I was writing straight questions for them and then I started writing joke questions.

The first one I remember getting through was, 'Who was the star of Groundhog Day?' Obviously the joke is that he asks the question again and again and again. That got on the telly and I was so made up. I got loads of offers off the back of Shooting Stars.

Back at Channel X they were doing a late night magazine programme about comedy called Funny Business and, because I was in the office, they asked me if I wanted to host it, which seems weird now. I was interviewing comics and stuff, and there's an interview I did with Peter Kay which was his first telly really, which keeps reappearing all the time.

I flipped around from Channel X to Jonathan's brother Simon's company Cactus, then I got a job at Hat Trick with Jimmy Mulville and the people who do Have I Got News For You. I worked in development for them and wrote formats for them. I was there for around four years, off and on. Jimmy's a bit of a TV father to me - a bit like Jonathan to be honest.

I left there and realised from trying to sell formats how difficult it was. I had written entertainment show formats and game show formats, panel shows and quiz shows and stuff but I suppose they kind of went out of fashion when Big Brother and reality TV came into fashion. So I thought I'd get into that because all my other work was drying up.

I put myself forward to Channel 4 as someone who could craft games and tasks for Big Brother. Bizarrely I convinced them and I got a job on the third series of Celebrity Big Brother, the one with Jackie Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen and John McCririck. John McCririck was a lovely man. Despite his panto villain TV persona, he was a surprisingly warm.

After that they asked me to produce Big Brother's Big Mouth which Russell Brand hosted and featured a comedian and an ex-housemate who would take questions from the audience. It became a big hit and it launched Russell's career. I think it also gave Big Brother a shot in the arm too because it was starting to get tired. I think it made it cool again.

I then went back to freelancing - format-writing, producing shows and a bit of everything. I used to write jokes for panel shows, and sold a show called No Win No Fee with another of Jonathan's brothers, Paul Ross.

What does your job involve?

People come in to pitch ideas to me. The ones I think have got some sort of legs I try and sell internally to the channel. If we get that far then it's my job to try and get them from that point to getting it made.

I work with production companies to help them hone the idea, get the budget together and get a host sorted out, I help them with their scripts... it really depends on the show.

If I get the stuff made I will go along to the shoot and be in the gallery looking over their production. Once it's been shot I will be helping with the edit. I also get involved in the marketing and press. And then you have to get it scheduled.

What shows have you commissioned? Which ones stand out for you?

I just commissioned the second series of Meet The Richardsons, which is Jon and Lucy's sitcom. We've just got delivery of the first cut of the Christmas special - we've got two Christmas specials coming out - and it's really brilliant.

For me it's a kind of weird hybrid of a show and it's also scripted, which I haven't really done before apart from Hoff The Record (David Hasselhoff's scripted reality show from 2015). It's kind of a "reality sitcom", if that's a genre. You don't quite know if it's real or not. There's a merging there which is interesting. I know that they are a bit like that in the real world. A lot of the stories in the show are actual stories from their lives so I don't know where it begins and ends to be honest.
I just think Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson are so brilliant together and there's a truth to their relationship which I think people like because they see their own relationships reflected in it.

I've loved working with Dave Gorman over the years on Modern Life Is Goodish. He's such a brilliant brain and works so hard. The amount of work he put into that. He'd do eight shows a year and it was like eight Edinburgh shows. He was writing it, producing it, doing it all himself. All those PowerPoint things he did himself, it was incredible.

Is there anything in particular you're looking out for when you commission a new show?

I have an awareness of what the channel does and what the channel will like. There's stuff that I would like to commission and there's stuff that I commission. What I like to do is push the envelope more towards what I would like to commission rather than what I'm allowed to commission.

Like the majority of broadcasters in this country, the majority of our business is built on advertising revenue so we have to get bums on seats to sell advertising.

So the idea of us putting unknown talent and incredibly risky ideas out there, I'm not saying we don't do it but it is a very difficult conversation to try and do that. We do take risks on stuff but that has to be balanced with other shows that you know are going to rate because they've got big talent attached to them.

When I first started commissioning at UKTV and Dave there was a reason why a number of our shows had the name of a talent in the title, and they still do to a certain extent, because people in a multi-channel world know what they're getting if they tune into a Jon Richardson or a Dara O Briain or an Alan Davies programme. They know they like that person so they hopefully will tune in to see it.

But we are taking more and more risks and what I'm always trying to do is look to what's the next big thing round the corner, who's the next big thing. You've got to be two or three steps ahead. The things you see on the telly now is stuff we've been having conversations about two or three years ago.

What type of comedy show do you think will emerge in the next few years? What is the small screen crying out for?

It's not on our channel but I think generally on channels they need to get back to doing pure entertainment and funny shows. There can't be any more singing and dancing formats. It's all over.

If you are running ITV, or BBC One for that matter, that has served you well for so many years. It might well be diminishing returns but it's still returns and it's much less risky than commissioning something completely different. It takes an awful lot of bravery to embrace something completely different on Saturday night prime time.

The next fashion, I think, is comedy entertainment, as in panel shows and comedian-hosted studio-shows. It's got to come back, it's a whole genre that's been dismissed at the moment. I think it's partly because the American market doesn't really embrace it that much.

I think they need to either, a) ignore the American market, which is quite difficult, or b) get the Americans to have a go and try to put some comedy entertainment out there. That's what UKTV does.

We've been growing in this area for the last five or ten years and it's because we know the genre. It's much cheaper than doing scripted, and it can reinvent itself all the time.

I think over the years Have I Got News For You has done four or five pilots for the United States but it's never really stuck, I don't know why. There's so much talent in the States you'd think it would be perfect for them.

Talk through a 'typical' show pitch for someone who has never pitched before?

There's no fixed way. I get ideas directly sent to me from talent. People will make their own pilots. I commission shows that other channels have paid for pilots for and then decided not to go with it.

I get random things from members of the public sometimes which generally don't go anywhere, but they might do. What I do if someone sends me something random and I like it I will try and encourage them to pair up with a production company because they have the shorthand on how to pitch a programme - sometimes in paper form, sometimes in PowerPoint, sometimes they will film some stuff.

More and more now people are just going out and filming stuff because it's easy to do and it's cheap to do. Gone are the days when I first started in telly where it costs a fortune to get a camera crew together. You can film stuff on your mobile now which is almost broadcast quality. The world's changed a massive amount.

If you're pitching a comedy panel show or a panel game show do it, film it - even if it's with you and your mates. At some stage I will want to see it working. If somebody has a good idea I will always say to them to go off and film it with you and your mates in the office or the church hall, even before you put talent in it. Play around with it. If it's funny with just you in it, imagine how funny it's going to be when it's got real talent doing it.

I think more and more for the future it's dead simple. It's so much easier now to go off and make your own stuff now. Go and make it and put it online. I've been enjoying Michael Spicer, Alistair Green, The Pin... people like that who are making their own stuff, self-shot sketches, and putting it on social media. It's a really hard thing to do to engage people in such a short period of time.

You don't need telly to get yourself up and running, just get on with it. If you're good enough and you can get a bit of a following on social media TV will find you.

Even if you just make some stuff and then send that stuff, the shiny magical beads of moving footage is always more interesting than having to sit through a 15-page document because people have got very short attention spans these days.

What are your key dos and don'ts on how to pitch a comedy show?

There's no correct answer, there's a million ways to pitch a show. You can pitch a show with one line or you can make a half-hour pilot. It doesn't really matter, it's just got to be a good idea.

If you are selling a comedy show, make sure your pitch is funny. If I haven't worked with you before I don't have any reassurance that what you're going to make me is going to be funny or whether you know what funny is.

Know your channel. Don't come pitching me shows that wouldn't be seen dead on the channel. If you watch the channels I look after - Dave and Gold - it doesn't take long before you realise what type of programming we do and what type of talent we have. And then if you come to me with completely the wrong style of programme with completely the wrong type of talent, it feels to me as if you've not really done your homework.

I still get people pitching super-laddy things about pubs and very male-skewed stuff. That's where Dave was five or six years ago and we're very much not that any more. And a lot of people still think that it's just the channel that's got loads of Top Gear repeats. But our most successful shows are original commissions such as Meet The Richardsons, Hypothetical, Comedians Giving Lectures and so on.

Don't pitch me copycat ideas. There's no point. Don't pitch me a roasting show because Comedy Central do that and that's very good, they own that. I don't want to do a show that's the same as their show because that's their show.

Don't come into a pitch slagging everybody else off. If they want to come in and slag all the other channels off, I understand the realities of working in TV and the people working in those channels are just doing the best they can in the circumstances.
Be realistic. Don't blow too much smoke up my arse because I don't really believe you.

Just be honest. A real big one is that if you've got talent attached, that's great. But don't pretend you've got talent attached because that's bad. Then your whole show hangs on that talent and if you then say they're not available it just makes everybody look an idiot. It's alright if you haven't got it attached, just be honest. Often I can help attach talent to shows. If you say you'd like so-and-so to do it but you haven't contacted them, nine times out of ten I've got a good relationship with their agent so I can call them.

What is the most satisfying part of your job?

It's seeing something that started from a tiny nugget of an idea turn into a show and then when that show's a hit it's such a powerful moment, it's like seeing one of your kids do well.

Last year we did Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy for Gold which was Lenny taking us through the history of diverse comedy, which was great. That came about from a conversation with the producer Angela Ferreira. It was quite easy to get made.

The one I loved making the most was Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled. The joy of that... we made a pilot and Ross Noble and Liza Tarbuck were on the pilot and were amazing.

I did a thing last year called Ricky & Ralf's Very Northern Road Trip. I think Ralf Little was turning 40 and Ricky Tomlinson was turning 80 and it was a kind of love affair with the north of England where they just drove around in a campervan for a few weeks. It was just a really lovely show. It's got a really nice, calming vibe where you want to be in their company. Hopefully we'll get to make some more of them next year.

We also did The Fast Show retrospective this year for Gold which was another lovely thing to be involved with because I was around the first time.

What practical advice do you have for someone who would like to follow in your footsteps?

For completely new starters I would say get into telly best you can. That might be making little shows and sending them to TV companies and trying to get yourself some sort of a runner's job or development job.

I personally think that commissioners and people on this side of the table should always start on the other side of the table so they understand what it's like to be someone who produces content.

I think it's really unhelpful to come up through the ranks having never made any programmes to then sit and judge the people who are making programmes. That seems odd to me.

There used to be a traditional way that you would work your way up from runner to researcher to AP to producer to series producer to exec. These days it doesn't really stand, I think you can come out of college and you can be able to shoot, cut, edit, write, produce your own stuff. If you can do that and have the wherewithal to do it, get on and do it.

How easy is it to break into and advance in the world of TV?

In the TV industry, if you are associated with anything successful then people think you have got the magic. And it's all nonsense because no one's got the magic; no one really knows.

When you work in telly you think the people you're working with or for had some sort of special thing about them where they knew what was going on. What happens is there is a moment one day that you realise no one really knows, everybody's making it up, everybody's expecting to be found out at any moment. So then you realise that your voice is just as valid as anyone else's.
I think when you're from a working class background or you're from a background where you're not surrounded by those kinds of people in television, you don't think you've got the right to voice your opinion or that they would take it seriously. It takes you longer to realise that your opinion is just as valid as anybody else's.

I didn't go to public school but I guess it imbues you with a sort of confidence where you feel as though the world owes you something whereas even today I'm still waiting to be found out.

We're now much more aware of diversity and inclusion and general class privilege and I've always been really aware of the people who you're giving chances to on the first rung of the industry. There's so much nepotism in television and so if you're giving someone the opportunity to get their first foot in the door, they should be deserving.

Diversity in all its forms, is rightly a priority for us and should be for the rest of the industry and we're actively promoting initiatives to find and promote, different voices on and off screen. The industry needs to be more reflective of its audience and there's a lot of work to do to get there.

We launched 'All Voices' last year - an initiative in collaboration with Film London's Equal Access Network. It's geared towards providing jobs within the TV industry for underrepresented groups and it gives new entrants, mid-level professionals and returners to the industry opportunities to work in paid, full-time roles on UKTV Originals productions including Dad's Army, Red Dwarf and The Cockfields.

Our model used to be that Channel 4 and BBC Two would break talent and then we would then try and coax that talent over to Dave. That's very different now. We're able to break the talent, and that's given us the opportunity to bring through much more female and diverse talent.

I think that is a really positive trend. I think a lot of agents have woken up to that and are going out of their way to look for more diverse comedians. We are very much aware of it and are pushing for more indies and pushing ourselves to get more diverse representation on all our channels.

What are your thoughts on what the TV landscape holds for the future?

I think it's incredibly exciting and there's a massive amount of opportunity. We are on the cusp of a massive gold rush I think because there are so many more ways of watching telly now.

The streaming services have only just started. Hulu is coming over here from the States soon. As a producer that's a really exciting thing because all those different platforms will need content.

If you can just ride this period of uncertainty and the slight discomfort that normal telly is going through I think the convergence of those different ways of watching telly will create masses of opportunities for people to create content.

In the short term, I think mainstream prime time TV is in need of some new ideas. Saturday night telly has become a procession of singing and dancing shows. I know people like singing and dancing, but someone said to me the other day that it was the final of The Voice. I didn't even know it had been on.

I think prime time telly is in a bit of a rut because broadcasters are becoming more risk adverse. This is because the amount of people watching telly is growing but they're watching it in different ways - on catch-up, on YouTube etc. It's harder for big TV channels to take risks on content for fear of alienating more viewers. It needs all broadcasters to be a bit more daring and suck up some bad viewing figures in the hope of trying to do something different.