BBC Three commissions wave of new content
David Farnor | On 12, Sep 2017
BBC Three has commissioned a wave of new content to build on its successful first 18 months online.
The first public service broadcast channel to go online, BBC Three’s innovative move has been backed by experimental programming and forward-thinking distribution, releasing content across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, as well as BBC iPlayer and its own website.
Damian Kavanagh, Controller, BBC Three says: “I said the transition would be a marathon not a sprint as we learnt and adapted our behaviour to ensure we reach young audiences wherever they are.
“Looking back I feel an enormous sense of pride about what the BBC Three team and all the creative talent who work with us have achieved. We’ve more than doubled our total brand reach and seen phenomenal growth on social platforms producing original content with true public purpose.”
The gamble has paid off, with Three winning the RTS channel of the year award earlier in 2017 and enjoying BAFTA wins for homegrown comedy People Just Do Nothing and Fleabag.
“We have done what we promised – we have backed the very best emerging talent in the UK, creating some household names along the way,” adds Kavanagh.
Building upon that success, BBC Three has announced a wave of new commissions, including the renewal of the BAFTA-winning series Life And Death Row for a third season.
“The future for BBC Three is looking very bright and I’m convinced that by continuing to innovate and take risks with our storytelling and allowing brilliant talent to do their most creative work we will continue to grow and create content our young audience love,” says Kavanagh.
Here’s the full line-up of commissions:
Killed By My Debt (working title)
This new single drama follows in the footsteps of powerful factual dramas Murdered By My Father and Murdered For Being Different. This is a devastating examination of the damage wrought on one family by ultra-low wages, telling the true story of a young zero hours worker from South London, whose whole family earns a low income wage. He earns between £39 and £89 per week, and when he picks up two traffic fines at work, totalling £130, he can’t pay them. In the hands of debt collectors, his debt rises to more than £1000. He desperately takes out payday loans, but they aren’t enough to cover his escalating debt. Faced with a bailiff waiting outside his house for hours on end, what lengths will he go to escape his debts?
Killed By My Debt is a 1×60 factual drama Commissioned by Clare Sillery and Damian Kavanagh for BBC Three, produced by BBC Studios’ Documentary Unit and directed by multi award winning director Joseph Bullman.
Life And Death Row: Season 3 (The Arkansas Killings)
More than half of young Britons want the UK to follow in America’s footsteps and reintroduce capital punishment. But do they really know what it means to live in the shadow of the death penalty? Season 3 will continue to tell the story of capital punishment through the eyes of the people whose lives have been shaped by it. BBC Three has access to the story of perhaps the most controversial executions in modern American history: the ‘batch’ executions of eight men in the state of Arkansas over just ten days in April 2017, played out against a ticking clock before a drug used in the executions reaches its expiry date.
With exclusive access to the families of inmates and victims awaiting execution, as well as the legal teams and other inmates facing the death sentence, we follow the cases in the weeks, days, hours and minutes leading up to the scheduled deaths. The story will be told across two feature length episodes. The series also tells the story of the last days of John Ramirez, a young man sentenced to death for the murder of a gas station employee during a robbery which netted him just $1.25.
Life And Death Row is executive produced by Aysha Rafaele and made by BBC Studios’ Documentary Unit.
Love And Hate Crime
BBC Three has committed to a second season of this before its first is released this autumn, exploring the dangers of being different in modern America told through crimes of hate, passion and prejudice. Shocking murder stories are recounted by those intimately involved – perpetrators, police, prosecutors and friends and family closest to the victims. With unprecedented access to both sides of the stories and supported by court access and police footage, each film tells the story of prejudice and difference from multiple perspectives.
The 3 x 60 min first run, directed by Ben Steele, exec produced by Darren Kemp and made by Top Hat Productions, will include the murder of Mercedes Williamson, killed by her boyfriend who claims he murdered her in a fit of rage, after the shock of discovery that she was really a man and the killing of black victim James Craig Anderson by a group of white teenagers in Jackson, Mississippi.
Annie: The Plastic Surgery Capital Of The World
BBC Three first discovered Annie through her personal story, Annie: Out Of The Ashes, following her journey as she explored her traveller heritage and the circumstances around the fire that left her with severe burns as a baby and undergoing numerous surgical operations. In this newly commissioned documentary The Plastic Surgery Capital Of The World, Annie will travel to Seoul to discover a world where teenagers are given surgical procedures by their parents as school graduation gifts and understand why these young women feel compelled to part with thousands of dollars to modify very normal parts of their bodies.
The Executive Producer is Sarah Waldron and it is produced by BBC Current Affairs.
Sex, Lies & Deception
This new four-part series on issues surrounding sexual consent is fronted by new BBC Three talent Poppy Begum, who has previously worked behind the scenes at the channel. Each episode will focus on a different topic, including: being too drunk to consent; reporting rape; ‘stealthing’, and ‘upskirting’. Reporting sexual assault is notoriously low, but BBC Three wants to find out the experiences of young people and their understanding of consent. Poppy Begum will be speaking to victims, perpetrators, experts and lawmakers to uncover the realities of sexual assault for young people in Britain today. In a world in which new sexual partners are just a swipe away, what happens when the lines surrounding consent are blurred?
Sex, Lies & Deception is made by BBC Three Content team, presented by Poppy Begum, produced and directed by Lindsey Mace and Exec Producers are Lizzie Wingham and Max Gogarty.
Moped Wars
New BBC Three presenter Livvy Haydock, originally part of BBC Three production, moves from behind the camera on Deadliest Place To Deal, Breaking Into Prison to present her own documentary series. Now, she sets out to investigate London’s motorbike crimewave. With 16,000 crimes in London in the past year, street thefts have tripled. The thieves can be impossible to catch and since one died in a traffic accident, police are no longer able to chase them. Reported incidents include stolen phones, jewellery and other mopeds with criminals arming themselves with hammers and acid to ward off have-a-go heroes. Delivery drivers are particularly vulnerable with certain areas becoming no-go zones as a result. These vigilantes are organising themselves into patrol squads – hunting down, trapping and exposing the criminals with ingenious method and sometimes brutal results. BBC Three’s Livvy Haydock will go inside this underground subculture and find out why people are taking the law into their own hands.
Moped Wars is made by BBC Current Affairs and the Exec Producer is Mike Radford.