Not making Succession is ‘biggest regret’, says Channel 4 chief content officer

A boss at Channel 4 says the broadcaster had the chance of making a version of future hit TV series Succession, but did not go ahead with it.

The series about a media mogul who tries to decide which one of his spoilt children to pass his company on to won a host of awards, including Emmys and Golden Globes.

The show, starring Scottish actor Brian Cox as the foul-mouthed Logan Roy, had its fourth and final season last year.

When asked about shows they had turned down, Channel 4 chief content officer Ian Katz told the Edinburgh TV Festival: “The one that got away was (the BBC show) Killing Eve, which did cross my desk in my first week… and I wish we’d absolutely gone to the wall to get that.

“And I suppose the biggest regret, which… I didn’t pass on it, but there was a version of Succession once at Channel 4 and we didn’t end up with that show.”

He also said that the channel is “very confident” it will continue to broadcast The Great British Bake Off for a long time to come following questions about whether the broadcaster would keep the licence.

The competition show originally started on the BBC, before moving to Channel 4.

Mr Katz talked about the “brutal period” that Channel 4 and other broadcasters have faced, and said the advertising market is improving so the situation should get better.

He also said: “We took a load of tough decisions last year, we made quite a change inside the organisation this year. It was really tough. We have reduced our staff by about 18%.”

Mr Katz called for more public service broadcasters (PSBs) to make shows outside of those about celebrities and true crime.

He said: “What you see, as we all move towards streaming, is a kind of flight towards the types of programming that stream best, which sometimes it seems almost overwhelmingly (are) crime and celebrity.

“I sometimes think that if you were an alien and you landed in Britain today, (you would) think this was a country populated entirely by serial killers and celebrities.

“And look, I don’t want to be holier than thou about it. We make a lot of crime programmes… but I’m very aware that we have duties as PSBs to tell a much bigger story about Britain, and I think that’s a real challenge.”

Elsewhere during the session on Channel 4, a clip of upcoming series Go Back To Where You Came From, which will see six British people get up close with migrants making the difficult journey to the UK, was played.

It showed people expressing their strong views on immigration, including thinking that people coming from outside the UK are bad people.

It is based on an Australian show of the same name that began in 2011.

Alisa Pomeroy, head of documentaries and factual entertainment at Channel 4, told the Edinburgh TV Festival that they really “agonised” about the ethics of making the four-part show due to the strong views expressed by participants.

She explained that the broadcaster originally thought about commissioning the show a decade ago, but there were concerns at the time that it would not resonate with a UK audience.

Ms Pomeroy said that they “knew that it really changed people’s opinions about migration in Australia” and was pitched 10 years ago to Mr Katz’s predecessor.

She claims the predecessor responded, suggesting that Channel 4 “can’t make this show because ‘British people aren’t as racist as Australia’.”

Ms Pomeroy added that it was “right” that it was pushed to be commissioned as it was “the most Channel 4 programme”, and says that attitudes have since changed in the UK.

She said: “You fast-forward 10 years, and you look at the post-Brexit, post-Trump world, and that Overton window of what is acceptable to say in public has changed.

“And I think it’s really important that we air these views, we wrestle with them, we confront these people’s opinions, rather than pushing them online and out of the mainstream media where they metastasise, and we see things like the riots three weeks ago.

“And I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler, but one of the two gentlemen who talked early on in the clip got in contact with the production team because he went down to the Rotherham riots three weeks ago as a counter-protester to the Holiday Inn to try and protect buildings and innocent people, and he is in that clip expressing really outrageously racist and xenophobia views, so they do shift how they feel so that’s why we did it.”

The disorder in Manvers, Rotherham, left 58 police officers, three police dogs and a police horse injured.