EXCLUSIVE: Netflix’s Harry & Meghan would never have found a home at the BBC, the woman tasked with overseeing the corporation’s documentary programing has said.
According to Clare Sillery, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s approach to the Netflix smash series would be unacceptable for a public broadcaster that “cannot relinquish editorial control.”
Speaking on the eve of Sheffield Doc Fest, Sillery said doc commissioning is a “question of trust and what audiences expect from us,” while she acknowledged that “in the online world people can have complete control of their own narratives.”
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“But the question for the viewer is what you are paying your license fee for,” she said. “[The viewer] expects us to maintain the editorial standards that we have.”
Much has been made of the editorial control exerted by the subjects in last year’s doc series, which was co-produced by the ex-royal duo’s Archewell Productions via a multi-million dollar Netflix deal. Speaking to Deadline in April, Ian Rumsey, who oversaw the separate Prince Harry ITV interview, said Harry & Meghan had been “slightly overshadowed” by the debates thrown up around the royal couple’s involvement with the project, while a group of doc-makers at the Berlinale TV Series described Harry & Meghan as “almost a different genre.”
And it isn’t only Harry & Meghan that opted for the approach. Pamela Anderson’s Netflix feature Pamela: A Love Story, for example, counts the model’s son Brandon Thomas Lee as producer.
Telling stories in the present tense
As she unveiled a packed Sheffield Doc Fest slate, Sillery said public broadcasters can set themselves apart from the streamers through docs that focus on telling stories in the present tense.
“We’ve got very comfortable in the past tense and this has partly been dictated by the streamers’ appetite and also because we went through Covid,” she added.
“There is this current appetite for crime series where you see the pieces being put together and the story has a definite end. We really have to find a way to do that into the modern world because we are at a time of unprecedented change. Dan Reed is making a documentary for us about superbug antibiotic resistance but AI could find a new antibiotic in three weeks’ time.”
Sillery cited the likes of Arthur Cary’s 2019 doc War in the Blood about cancer treatments, along with access docs such as Ambulance “where you can actually see the issues people are facing playing out.”
The BBC’s Pandemic 2020, which was commissioned right at the start of Covid, was a present tense doc that can act as a “historical record” and is “yet to have its moment,” said Sillery, who pointed out that James Bluemel’s series remains on BBC iPlayer.
Sillery is also thinking about how to tackle the culture wars, for which documentaries can be a “civilizing tool,” she said, adding: “We have got to think how to approach the [culture wars] through documentary in a way that gives them some meaning and gives people an opportunity to listen and understand each other.”
The BBC recently announced that financial constraints would lead to the cutting of around 1,000 hours worth of TV shows per year but Sillery is unperturbed.
“It’s a tougher time to be an indie and a freelancer than a public broadcaster,” she added. “The license fee may be frozen but it’s a known quantity – and that’s a real privilege. What we are here for is to try and help audiences understand the modern world.”
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