Contemporary religious experience, in Christian and other faiths
AAQIL AHMED
Commissioning Editor, Religion
Editorial Assistant: Sarah Asante
AAQIL AHMED
Commissioning Editor, Religion
Editorial Assistant: Sarah Asante
People with Opinions
The the presenter-led output splits into two. The first ones are those opinionated presenters who are credible. Think of the examples of Rod Liddle, Paddy Ashdown, or Richard Littlejohn,. What we are not really after would be BBC cast-offs, and we are definitely not after people who are soft on opinions. We want to be surprised, as with Richard Littlejohn making a film about anti Semitism, or Paddy Ashdown doing a film about Jerusalem. These are left-of-centre; they came from nowhere, as did Rod, who seems like an obvious candidate to make programmes on religion now, but two or three years ago when he made his first film for us, it seemed a bit strange that Rod Liddle was making programmes on religion, but now I cannot imagine our Channel 4 output without Rod. He has become one of our faces of religion on the channel.
Subject Experts
Other presenters who can work have to have a specific knowledge, either of religion or the surrounding subject areas that the project they are doing has some impact on. People like Robert Beckford, who has done everything for us for the past four years, from God is Black all the way through to Secret Family of Jesus; to Tazeen Ahmed, who was the presenter on Dispatches: Women only Jihad, as well as Shariah TV; and of course Robert Baer, who has been the presenter of five hours of The Cult of the Suicide Bomber. Robert may not be an expert on religion in terms of theology, but obviously he is an expert in terms of how religion, terrorism and conflict impact on the world we live in. Those are the kinds of presenters we are after, but we are after more, always after more.
Obviously one of the big things that jumps out, apart from pushing through Tazeen Ahmed in the last year or two, is that we are not getting as many female presenters suggested as I would like. We have tried a few in the past, but they have not seemed to have stuck for one reason or another.
Unusual Programming
When we step away from the presenter-led projects, it has to be quite special, such as Jesus Camp or God’s Waiting Room. A classic example is Judah and Mohammed. Made as a collaboration between British, Israeli and Palestinian film makers it had a life beyond being a simple idea. This was 18 months in the life of a Palestinian and an Israeli teenager, it had unique access that took the viewer into the schools in both communities, it showed the impact of the occupation on both sets of people and it had great characters at its very heart.
The the presenter-led output splits into two. The first ones are those opinionated presenters who are credible. Think of the examples of Rod Liddle, Paddy Ashdown, or Richard Littlejohn,. What we are not really after would be BBC cast-offs, and we are definitely not after people who are soft on opinions. We want to be surprised, as with Richard Littlejohn making a film about anti Semitism, or Paddy Ashdown doing a film about Jerusalem. These are left-of-centre; they came from nowhere, as did Rod, who seems like an obvious candidate to make programmes on religion now, but two or three years ago when he made his first film for us, it seemed a bit strange that Rod Liddle was making programmes on religion, but now I cannot imagine our Channel 4 output without Rod. He has become one of our faces of religion on the channel.
Subject Experts
Other presenters who can work have to have a specific knowledge, either of religion or the surrounding subject areas that the project they are doing has some impact on. People like Robert Beckford, who has done everything for us for the past four years, from God is Black all the way through to Secret Family of Jesus; to Tazeen Ahmed, who was the presenter on Dispatches: Women only Jihad, as well as Shariah TV; and of course Robert Baer, who has been the presenter of five hours of The Cult of the Suicide Bomber. Robert may not be an expert on religion in terms of theology, but obviously he is an expert in terms of how religion, terrorism and conflict impact on the world we live in. Those are the kinds of presenters we are after, but we are after more, always after more.
Obviously one of the big things that jumps out, apart from pushing through Tazeen Ahmed in the last year or two, is that we are not getting as many female presenters suggested as I would like. We have tried a few in the past, but they have not seemed to have stuck for one reason or another.
Unusual Programming
When we step away from the presenter-led projects, it has to be quite special, such as Jesus Camp or God’s Waiting Room. A classic example is Judah and Mohammed. Made as a collaboration between British, Israeli and Palestinian film makers it had a life beyond being a simple idea. This was 18 months in the life of a Palestinian and an Israeli teenager, it had unique access that took the viewer into the schools in both communities, it showed the impact of the occupation on both sets of people and it had great characters at its very heart.
NEXT YEAR
Dispatches
Next year, I have six Dispatches. We all know what works for our Dispatches. It obviously has to be an investigation, it has to be current affairs, and it has to be noisy and deliver decent ratings. We can also set the agenda rather than uncover hidden stories. This can be done by commissioning reports, establishing investigations or surveys about important issues. Not all ideas have to be religion themed.
Eight o’clock Slots
As well as those six, there are still around four one-hour slots for 8pm which would be specifically on religion. Again, if you think about The Cult of the Suicide Bomber, Jesus Camp, God’s Waiting Room, or the War on Britain’s Jews?, this is the kind of subject area we are after: really big films for which we know we are going to get a lot of notice.
Two-hour Specials
We will also continue to build on the two-hour specials that we have on at Christmas and Easter. In the last couple of years, Robert Beckford has been very successful in delivering a million viewers on Christmas day with his Who Wrote The Bible and Secret Family of Jesus films. This is quite a decent return for a factual programme at primetime on Christmas at Channel 4, At Easter 2006, Rod Liddle presented the Bible Revolution a film about how the modern English Bible came to be the influential book it is today. We are looking for more of these kind of projects. In 2007 there will be a two-hour slot at Easter and a two hour slot on Christmas day.
Saturdays
Saturdays, will be a bit of a home for religion on the channel in 2007 as we will be doing a few two hours projects but those two hours are not necessarily going to be just two-hour documentaries. We are looking to play around with the concept of what the two hours are. It may be possible with the right ideas to move around the slots and money to do things that are different. We are very open to the concept of what we can do on Saturday. Do we do a two-hour event, do we do a couple of events where we use some of that money, or do we stretch it across a bank holiday weekend? All that is open because, effectively, we have not done anything in that area for a long time. Recently we have done two hour documentaries, some of which have worked, but you can get 800,000, 1 million or 1.2 million people to come to that documentary, and then it is forgotten about, which is actually heartbreaking for all of us, and I think what we would like to do with that same kind of money is make something bigger of it.
What We Will Not be Doing
I think there are a couple of things to say about what we are not going to be doing. We are not going to be doing 11pm religion in 2007. Also I am not looking at all for anything specifically multicultural, as that bit of the job has gone totally, but obviously if you look at the output you will realise that most of it is quite multicultural, which I think goes across a lot of people’s areas, as well. We will just be thinking about ideas where multiculturalism comes in, but it will not specifically be ideas just on multiculturalism for the sake of it.
I am not looking for programmes you can see anywhere else. If you could imagine it working on the BBC or on ITV, then do not bring it to me. I know it might sound a bit silly or a bit arrogant, but you actually get a lot of those ideas. I think we are in the ascendancy in terms of our religious output, and I would like to keep it that way.
Dispatches
Next year, I have six Dispatches. We all know what works for our Dispatches. It obviously has to be an investigation, it has to be current affairs, and it has to be noisy and deliver decent ratings. We can also set the agenda rather than uncover hidden stories. This can be done by commissioning reports, establishing investigations or surveys about important issues. Not all ideas have to be religion themed.
Eight o’clock Slots
As well as those six, there are still around four one-hour slots for 8pm which would be specifically on religion. Again, if you think about The Cult of the Suicide Bomber, Jesus Camp, God’s Waiting Room, or the War on Britain’s Jews?, this is the kind of subject area we are after: really big films for which we know we are going to get a lot of notice.
Two-hour Specials
We will also continue to build on the two-hour specials that we have on at Christmas and Easter. In the last couple of years, Robert Beckford has been very successful in delivering a million viewers on Christmas day with his Who Wrote The Bible and Secret Family of Jesus films. This is quite a decent return for a factual programme at primetime on Christmas at Channel 4, At Easter 2006, Rod Liddle presented the Bible Revolution a film about how the modern English Bible came to be the influential book it is today. We are looking for more of these kind of projects. In 2007 there will be a two-hour slot at Easter and a two hour slot on Christmas day.
Saturdays
Saturdays, will be a bit of a home for religion on the channel in 2007 as we will be doing a few two hours projects but those two hours are not necessarily going to be just two-hour documentaries. We are looking to play around with the concept of what the two hours are. It may be possible with the right ideas to move around the slots and money to do things that are different. We are very open to the concept of what we can do on Saturday. Do we do a two-hour event, do we do a couple of events where we use some of that money, or do we stretch it across a bank holiday weekend? All that is open because, effectively, we have not done anything in that area for a long time. Recently we have done two hour documentaries, some of which have worked, but you can get 800,000, 1 million or 1.2 million people to come to that documentary, and then it is forgotten about, which is actually heartbreaking for all of us, and I think what we would like to do with that same kind of money is make something bigger of it.
What We Will Not be Doing
I think there are a couple of things to say about what we are not going to be doing. We are not going to be doing 11pm religion in 2007. Also I am not looking at all for anything specifically multicultural, as that bit of the job has gone totally, but obviously if you look at the output you will realise that most of it is quite multicultural, which I think goes across a lot of people’s areas, as well. We will just be thinking about ideas where multiculturalism comes in, but it will not specifically be ideas just on multiculturalism for the sake of it.
I am not looking for programmes you can see anywhere else. If you could imagine it working on the BBC or on ITV, then do not bring it to me. I know it might sound a bit silly or a bit arrogant, but you actually get a lot of those ideas. I think we are in the ascendancy in terms of our religious output, and I would like to keep it that way.
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