Mainstream TV has abandoned history – meet the crack team doing something about it
A trailblazing new initiative is setting out to restore serious history documentaries to their previous prominence. reports
In October 2007, responding to rumours that the Beeb’s flagship history series Timewatch was about to be axed, BBC Two controller Roly Keating gave this newspaper an “unequivocal reassurance” that the then 25-year-old programme would be back the following year and a further series was “already planned beyond that”. He added: “We remain as committed as ever to the vital genre of serious history documentary across an ambitious and expanding range of subjects.”
Two further series of Timewatch were broadcast in 2008 and 2009 – two episodes of which I presented – but, at 11 and eight episodes respectively, they were the last full series (a one-off episode followed in 2010 and a four-part series in 2011). John Farren, editor of Timewatch, left in 2008 and was not replaced. Forewarned, I had sent a letter to the BBC Trust that was co-signed by many of the country’s leading historians. We urged the trustees “to consider carefully the dire implications for history on TV” if the Timewatch strand was lost. It would lead, we predicted, to “fewer serious history programmes” and “more historylite reality shows”.
Michael Lyons, chair of the trust, replied by flagging up Keating’s public commitment to serious history documentaries in general and Timewatch in particular. Both were empty promises. A study of the Radio Times’ listings shows that there is currently an average of six history programmes on terrestrial TV each week; in June 2013, by comparison, there were 39. “I think it’s safe to say,” a former Timewatch producer told me, “that terrestrial TV has all but abandoned history and those who are interested know it”.
For a time, BBC Four picked up some of the slack by commissioning a lot of history. Despite the tiny budgets, the subjects were interesting and many talented historians, such as Helen Castor and Sam Willis, cut their broadcasting teeth on the channel. This ended in March 2021 when, in a cost-cutting move, BBC management decreed that Four would stop commissioning new shows and become the home of archive content.
With most broadcasters refusing
to commission programmes that they can’t market as brands, the only television history available is devoid of sophistication and originality. The one repeatable format with a flavour of history left on BBC Two is the archaeology show Digging for Britain, presented by Alice Roberts. The irony is that the show, now in its 10th series, was created by John Farren after he left the BBC and set up independent production company 360 Production.
Having sold 360 Production in 2014, Farren retired at the age of 54. Trying to get serious history programmes made was, in his view, like banging your head against a brick wall. TV executives – some of them young enough to be his children – did not want to know, or if they did, the subject was predictable and the budget so small that the creators could not do their best work. And yet he suspected the appetite was still there for serious history.
History books dominate the non-fiction bestsellers, while history podcasts have grown exponentially: The Rest is History, hosted by bestselling historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, gets an astonishing 6.25million downloads a month. Many of the other top podcasts are part of the History Hit stable, a subscription service set up by
‘We are giving history fans a new way to express their passion through co-creation’
former BBC presenter Dan Snow to fill the history content gap left by terrestrial broadcasters. But while podcasts and the short films on History Hit TV contain some good nuggets, their production values cannot compete with the history documentaries of yesteryear.
Is there an alternative? Farren thinks so and is prepared to come out of retirement to prove it. Successful history podcasts such as The Rest is History and We Have Ways of Making You Talk (a show exploring the Second World War hosted by Tom Holland’s brother and fellow historian James and the comedian Al Murray) have a dual income stream: from advertising and subscribers. The latter, for a modest monthly fee, get extra content and no adverts. They also become part of an exclusive club. Subscribers to We Have Ways call themselves the Independent
Company and have regional get-togethers and an annual jamboree of talks, dubbed War Fest, in Northamptonshire.
This got Farren thinking: what if I create a club for lovers of TV history that involves them in the production process and cuts out the middlemen commissioners?
The result is the Content Club. Its aim is to crowdfund 10 quality history films a year and then sell them to television channels and streamers in the UK and internationally. For a one-off payment of £300, club members (a thousand per programme) get a pass that allows them to attend weekly production meetings, review scripts, suggest locations, hear daily reports during filming, get their name in the credits, attend the premiere, and receive a share of sales revenues. “They may, over five years, get their money back plus a small dividend; they may not,” says Farren. “But they definitely get to come on the journey of a lifetime, help make a film on a subject they love and tell their friends that their show – and credit – has been seen on TV screens around the world.”
The Content Club’s digital innovation strategy is driven by Farren’s son Joe, a former creative leader at the sports technology giant Hawk-Eye Innovations. “Sport has been far ahead of media in harnessing new technology to engage fans and form communities,” he says.
“At Content Club, we are giving history fans a revolutionary new way to express their passion through co-creation rather than just passively watching a documentary.”
Filmmakers also benefit. Under the current set-up, directors of documentaries enjoy little editorial control and zero share of back-end revenues. With Content Club, they get a share of back end and 100 per cent editorial control. It’s why directors – many of them part of Farren’s award-winning BBC Timewatch team and the originators of Digging for Britain
– are queuing up to make films for the Content Club. In pole position is Sarah Jobling, whose credits include the BBC Two series The Crusades (2012), The Real White Queen and her Rivals (2013) and
The Birth of Empire : The East India Company (2014).
Such high-end gigs were, she thought, a thing of the past. “I had become seriously frustrated by the lack of opportunities to make intelligent history documentaries,” she says. “Crippling budgets and timescales and unambitious commissioning mean that directors are now frequently asked to regurgitate familiar stories and churn out substandard programmes. Content Club has reignited my passion for history.”
Her prospective film, Rome’s Forgotten War, is a cracker that
Timewatch would have snapped up if it was still around. Its subject is the long-overlooked but hugely significant 10-year war between the legions of Emperor Augustus and the Celtic tribes of northern Spain. It will use ground-breaking archaeology – including aerial drone photography and satellite imagery, combined with LiDAR scanning and remote sensing technology – to reveal the true identity of the mountain tribes and the tale of their demise from 29-19 BC. The members’ waiting list is now open and funding for the programme goes live on the Content Club’s website on April 3. If it hits its target, production will begin in May. More films will follow, with the first four due for delivery by Christmas 2023.
The Content Club hopes to return quality history programmes to our screens next year. Can it do it? Time will tell, but the success of Dan Snow’s History Hit TV, which now has tens of thousands of subscribers globally, is a good sign. “There is,” Snow insists, “a huge audience out there of passionate history fans who are prepared to contribute to get high-quality content.” Content Club may be just what they’re looking for.
Further details at content-club.xyz