Brand, Walliams and MAFS - telly's week of reckoning

Hello and welcome to Talking TV, the podcast providing you with the latest insights and analysis from the world of tele. I'm Heather Fallon and I'm Rebecca Cooney. This week I'm chatting to Sean Price, creative director at Yeti about the company's new Amazon Prime documentary, surviving the London nail bombings. But first it's been another busy week in TV. Since our latest episode, the review into the allegations of rape during the production of Married at First Site UK has revealed its findings and the show has been axed. Russell Brand has been found guilty of rape than sexual assault and just before we were due to start recording, ITV news and the Guardian have released their joint investigation into David Wallions, who they alleged preyed on teenage girls and young women for sex. As you can guess from that rundown the start of this episode, it's going to involve discussion of multiple allegations of sexual assault. If you don't feel that something that you're going to be able to listen to, do feel free to skip forward to the show's main interview. We'll add into the show notes, the point that starts. So go ahead and have a look at the show notes and just skip forward. So yeah, what you said Heather, it's been a week and while the circumstances surrounding these stories and the allegations themselves do vary, one thing they have in common is reports of pretty appalling sexual behavior by men happening in and around TV production. And in more than one case, a sense that the complaints were not taken seriously by producers or broadcasters or the action didn't happen as a result of complaints. So it's a week where I think several organisations and individuals should and likely we'll be asking themselves what they could have done better and what they need to do now to ensure it doesn't happen again. Yeah, let's talk about the Married at First Site review first because I think in some ways it's slightly different to the other stories that we'll talk about, mostly because it doesn't involve the behavior by a powerful or famous man. Right, so in May this year BBC Panorama aired an investigation, the dark side of Married at First Site, in which two women alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands while participating in the UK version of the dating format. A third woman said she was the victim of a non-consensual sex act perpetrated by her on-screen husband. The men involved all deny the allegations. Channel 4's Chief Executive Priya Dogga commissioned former BBC One Controller Lorraine Heggacy to evaluate the show's juicier care provisions, alongside a review by the law firm Clydenko into Channel 4 and the production company CPL's handling of the allegations. So what did they find? Well, Lorraine Heggacy said that she actually thought the show could continue if there were a number of format tweaks made. So for example, less of an emphasis on intimacy, she also called for 24-hour CCTV and sound recording to be installed into the apartments and monitored by the welfare team. That's something more akin to what I associate with like Love Island where 24 hours a day they are being recorded and that is something a lot of industry observers we spoke to called for after this story initially broke. She also recommended extra steps for casting and clearer delineation of the welfare team. And that one was interesting because CPL which also makes lovers blind UK is seen as a company that has like gold standard contribute to welfare provisions. And what Heggacy seems to be saying here is that it's partly about ensuring everyone knows who the welfare team members are and what to do with concerns. She also called for the industry to come together and create an industry wide training program for welfare producers. This kind of caught my eye because it chimes with an opinion piece that Emma Pringle wrote for us back in July. She's a welfare producer and she basically said, look there is a lot of very good practice going on in the industry. There are some great ways for looking after people but it's often quite ad hoc. People have developed it for one show they're responding to particular needs. They're often starting from the beginning every time and of course different shows are going to have different needs and different risks but she made the point that shows shouldn't have to start from scratch every time or you know and there's kind of a risk there that you kind of develop blind spots because you don't realize this is a risk in your format. If there was kind of a standardized framework that would be much more helpful. I think what Heggacy is calling for here seems to be a solution to that so I really do hope it does get picked up on and it's also worth noting that Ofcom has strengthened its guidance around protecting participants in these kind of dating formats too. And you mentioned CPL, the other review that was carried out at the same time cleared both CPL and Channel 4 of mishandling the allegations that were made to them. They said there were areas where the contributor care framework could be strengthened but that neither organisation had actually breached Ofcom's code around complaints handling but even with all that Channel 4 has ultimately made the decision to cancel Maths UK and its planned spin-off and it doesn't seem to be planning to future international versions of the format either. Yeah and this is a fairly big and definitive step for the broadcaster that format was huge for them but I also do think it's the only thing they could have done realistically. That said there was some debate in the office the other day about whether or not we'll see it return in the future and I know whether he worked around for him who were having this discussion but John Collier on News Editor was sort of saying you know he thinks it'll be back at such a big show and you know the fact that Heggacy is sort of saying actually with some tweaks the format could return and the international versions are still being made. Channel 4 is just deciding not to show though. He records it could be back. My thing is yes I think so but like probably not for like another five to ten years I think there's going to have to be a gap and a pause that's going to be quite substantial. John seem to think it would be back sooner than that but I think it would be at least five years I think it'd be really uncomfortable before then. I think that's a fair point. I am surprised though that even the international ones that maybe don't have the stigma would also not be returning anytime soon just because they are such a staple of Channel 4 and particularly for Channel 4 streaming they do so well. I suppose there's a logic there of if we're saying we can't safely produce our own version of this how can you say that the other versions are safe that also won't have the format tweaks that Lorraine Heggacy has called for right then they're not going to have these new changes because she doesn't have any power to affect what broadcasters and production companies in other countries do. Right and then we've got the Russell Brand Conviction. As you all know doubt no and will have seen on Monday the former comedian and TV presenter was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for one count of rape and three of sexual assaults all of which occurred between 2004 and 2009. And one of the assaults for which Brand was sentenced to eight months in prison involved him demanding a massage from a woman and putting his head in her gentle area during a production of a Channel 4 project. She raised it with her manager but nothing came of it. In her victim impact statement delivered at Southern Crown Court on Monday she said she felt powerless when it happened and that she felt her working environment wasn't safe as a result. Channel 4 apologized to the woman in 2024 for the distress caused by its handling of her complaint admitting that the allegation wasn't passed up Channel 4's senior management chain nor was it investigated as it ought to have been in accordance with the procedures in place at the time. There's not a lot to add I think there's going a lot of coverage elsewhere. We hope that complaint handling is going to improve that people will pass on complaints that they should do and I don't think there's a lot left to say except that there are lessons to learn in TV but I think as everyone who's reported on this case has said the women who've come forward in this case have been incredibly brave and they deserve to be recognised for that courage. Absolutely and I think kind of following on with that this week also has seen the long awaited publication of the Guardian and ITV News' investigation into the alleged sexual misconduct of former Britain's Got Talent Judge and Comedy Actor David Williams. We've been waiting for this news to come out for a while. Williams had been in a high court legal battle for the last few weeks to maintain an injunction which had prevented his name being published and these allegations until now. This reporting has been so extensive. More than 100 people were contacted over the course of what was a three-year investigation and draws from the first hand experiences of numerous women dating back to 2003. The allegations include multiple accusations of grooming with fans who were young as 15 as well as one woman who described her encounter as sexual assault. Most pertinent perhaps to us and to our industry and just following up on what we were just saying with the Russell Brand are these claims of inappropriate conduct and harassment while Williams is working as a judge on the ITV entertainment show Britain's Got Talent as well as at the publisher Harper Collins. I think there are details of this story that are concerningly similar to Russell Brand's story in terms of young runners being made to feel uncomfortable by Williams' behaviour. One example is a 19-year-old runner who showed colleagues' private messages where he referred to her as gorgeous and another who said that he had made her feel uncomfortable by staring at her chest and she later heard him refer to her as the one with the ass. In response to this, Williams' lawyers, one of their defenses, was that gorgeous is a term commonly used in the entertainment industry and that really stood out to me as something that I've found frequently comes up in conversation when I'm talking to other industry people as this feeling that workplaces tend to feel a lot more informal I think compared with other lines of work and while that can be a good thing and feel like a friendly environment you're all a team working together on a project I think it can also be used to mask or hide inappropriate behaviour. I mean I remember when the Hugh Edwards case some of the initial details were coming out before the try to be images that he was eventually convicted for were revealed. One of the accusations was that he had signed off messages to somebody with kisses in them. Obviously, he was doing stuff he shouldn't have been doing. He was abusing power. Absolutely. The kisses themselves, I was like, yeah, everybody in TV, I have never worked a professional environment where I get kisses from people I have never met, only just met. But I think you're right that on one level, yes, oh, aren't we a lovely industry on another level? That can be used to push people's boundaries in ways that are really, really worrying. And you know, I think another message that we get quite often is how much the industry has changed. But when stories like this continue to emerge, it does make you question just how much things have improved. It's worth noting that six are recently officially launched. This is an external whistle-blowing body for those working in film TV music and theatre industries, which aims to uphold and improve standards of behaviour and hopefully having bodies like these are going to help. We should say that while we are drawing comparisons between these two cases, there are similarities. The allegations against David Williams are slightly different to those for which Russell Brown has been convicted. And we should also say that Dennis Williams denies all of the allegations against him. We're likely going to be seeing more updates on this as time goes by. That was an incredibly heavy collection of stories to start the episode with. But I did just want to offer one note of optimism here. Another thing all three of these stories have in common is that they were bought to light by brilliant journalism, which supported all of these brave women who have come forward to make their voices heard. BBC Panorama, ITV News and ITN, The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, Channel 4 Dispatches and Hardcast Productions have all done absolutely vital work here. In a period where there are a lot of concerns about the future journalism and the funding of current affairs content and trust in our broadcasters and our newspapers, this just goes to show how important this work is in addressing wrongdoing and seeking justice. For anybody that has been affected by this, we will put some resources in the show notes as well. This week also saw the publication of The Film and TV Charities by annual Looking Glass Report, which found that the industry's mental health has marginally improved over the past two years, but remains unacceptably poor. The report is based on a survey of 3,394 TV and film workers, and it found that just under a quarter, 23% had experienced suicidal thoughts in the past two years. We should say this is down from 30% two years ago, but it is still three times more than the UK workforce average. Similarly, the proportion of workers who rate their mental health as poor has also fallen from just over a third to just under a third, going from 35% to 31% in 2026. But again, it remains nearly twice the UK average of 16%, and only around one in 10, about 30% of respondents said that the industry is a mentally healthy place to work. And this all sounds pretty damning and you do what it definitely is. There's no way to sugarcoat that. Those are not good figures. That's a very scary reality on the ground, but I just wanted to highlight a point that The Film and TV Charity made, because the size of the sample and the size of the workforce in the industry, it's worth recognising that just one percentage point shifts can represent up to 2,500 people who are experiencing the industry differently. So that is more than 10,000 people who are having a better time at work who are not experiencing things in quite such bleak terms as they were before. So there is a lot of work to do, and I think everybody recognizes that, but I think the fact that we are seeing some improvement does show that things are hopefully changing for the better. Let's hope it doesn't slack off, and that kind of pace of progress continues. We appreciate it's been a heavy week, guys. Thank you for bearing with us. If you want to read any more on the latest developments in any of those stories, or indeed anything else that's happened this week, check out the latest news over on broadcastnow.co.uk. Hello, just interrupting, as I'm delighted to say that this podcast is sponsored by the fabulous team at Multitube Media. Not only are they a joy to work with as a journalist, but they can also help you to make your work famous through their dynamic and cutting-edge publicity campaigns. They've worked with everyone ranging from small production companies to awards organisations and major brands. So if you want to find out more about how Multitube Media can showcase your work, head over to multitubemedia.co.uk. In April 1989, London's Black Asian and LGBTQ communities were targeted through a string of horrific nail bomb attacks across three successive weekends by a neo-Nazi who hoaxed trigger a race war in the UK. A new documentary about these attacks surviving the London nail bombings produced by Yeti Television will launch on Anzhan next week. I sat down with Yeti's creative director, Sham Price, to chat about the process of getting the show made. Why the show needed to be told now, the rise of the dockbuster and why regional indies are increasingly looking to global streamers to sell their projects. I'll hand over to her to introduce the film. It's a feature documentary, a 90-minute documentary for Amazon Prime, and as the title suggests, it's a film which is driven by survivors of the London nail bombings. So these were three horrific nail bombing attacks that were carried out in April 1999 against marginalized communities in London, one in Brixton, one in Brick Lane, and one in the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho. So the documentary is a collection of voices of the people who survived those terrible attacks, what happened and how it changed their lives forever. It's one of those stories that kind of I am sort of vaguely aware of it and I was chatting to some colleagues in the office for a bit younger than me and they haven't really got a lot of awareness. It does feel like it's it is a series of attacks that has kind of faded from public narratives from some of the memory we have. I wondered why it is that you wanted to kind of pick that story up and to tell it now. It's always been one that stuck with me. I think because I moved to London from South Wales in 1999 and I was very aware of the attack in Soho, it feels we live in a time where marginalized communities are under attack again, so the gay community ethnic minorities, the rise of the far right, it felt very timely to be revisiting what led to this attack, how someone can be radicalised enough to carry out these attacks, how they can hate, carry that much hatred to do these attacks. But more than anything, it's given the narrative back to the survivors. We really mentioned the attacker in the documentary, it is all about the survivors, their experiences, their lives, what happened and what they've done since the attack since those bombs you know when they continue to affect their daily lives. So it's important to pay testimony to those who were killed and injured, to the resilience of those communities to bounce back. But really there's a message that we could go back there at any point really, so it's really important to not do that obviously. But in this world of the rise of the right wing, there are real positives, there are real things to remember that we have come a very long way, so we have gay marriage, we've had an Asian Prime Minister, these are things to celebrate. London, in particular, is still a very multicultural city where you know 99% of the time people get on really well. So we've come a very long way and we need to keep going in that direction. So I hope that message of hope and resilience is also something people take away from it. How did this come about? Like how did Jesse first get involved? We work a lot with obviously different broadcasters and distributors and we had already made a survivor-led testimony documentary for Amazon Prime about a year and a half ago surviving the Tunisia Beach attack. So we were developing in that space given the response to the Tunisia film and you know it was nominated for lots of awards, highly commended through crime awards. It was an area we were just very interested in and passionate about exploring, as I say, giving voice to victims and survivors. So it was the same model as that film we worked with a distributor, abacus sphere, who sort of act as a go-between really, between ourselves and Amazon. So abacus put together a slate of films that they take to Amazon broker a deal and you know this time we were lucky enough to get two documentaries and you know they're good budgets, they're branded as Amazon Prime originals, but they're sort of through the back door if you know. Yeah, but obviously you know they get their premier on Amazon Prime and they're good budgets as well. So are you saying this made its well as well as in a sort of, it wasn't a direct commission, it came through with the sort of distribution route. Was that a particularly challenging way for you to get this show made or are there particular challenges to that? Not really, we'd obviously developed it to a certain level and we got certain contributors on board before we pitched it, but it sort of works in the same way as any other pitch, you know you write up an outline, it gets submitted and they say yes and no. I suppose there's there's less of the back and forth maybe and yeah you don't have to do endless development because the proposition is straightforward and as I say you know we have a growing track record in this area of filmmaking, so for us luckily it's been very straightforward. Amazon/Abrakus put an exec on the board. project as well, next journal exec. So Anna Sadouy has worked with us on on all of our surviving films and it's been brilliant to work with as well. So you know in terms of the creative process, it's fairly hands-off which gives you a lot of creative freedom. Obviously it comes with all the same considerations of contributing to welfare and all of that as well. So we really enjoy making these documentaries this way. And was the getting the access and sort of looking after the contributions was that particularly tricky with this one or was it something that people were quite willing to come forward and talk about their experiences? It's always different per project and I think you know one of the biggest challenges always for these films for production is bringing people on board. It's not a quick phone call. Do you fancy doing this? You know it's it's a properly trauma-informed approach. So we work with a lot of charities and a lot of advisory bodies that the team are all trained in trauma-informed approach. Some people come on board quickly, some take a bit more persuading, you know we don't pressure anyone, you know it literally starts with a phone conversation and if they decide they don't want to take part that's obviously absolutely fine. Everyone's different and I suppose you know getting certain charities on board with films like this. So there's a charity called 172430 which is the National Hate Crime Awareness Charity, specifically set up in response to these bombings. So once they were on board with what we were doing they could obviously outreach to people. One contributor, Mark Taylor, who was the manager of the Admiral Duncan pub that was bombed, he came on board because the director Tom Peppierte had a mutual friend who could vouch for us and for him. So you know it's a little bit of luck, lots of perseverance and let's say a very sensitive, considered kind approach that's maintained you know all the way through production then. Yeah I was going to say what are some of the things you're having to be really conscious of when you're working with people in this way? There's no one-size-fits-all response to having survived a traumatic event. So it's very much led by the survivor, by the contributor, how do they want to do it? It's giving them agency to tell their story in the way that is best for them. So it's a lot of conversations beforehand during and obviously our aftercare goes right through beyond TX as well. So we gather a lot of testimonials at the end of these as well and you know makes me really proud as the head of Yeti that the responses we get in that people have felt incredibly well looked after and supported and they found the whole process very daunting but actually when they're stepped through it and hand held through it a very kind of cathartic and positive experience in almost every case. In terms of the sort of market for these kind of documentaries at the moment is it particularly challenging to get these made or is there a desire and a hunger in the market for these kinds of stories do you think? Yeah it's difficult to say I think when there's an anniversary there's always an appetite I would say we've made another one of these which is about the Manchester arena bombing so believe it or not that it'll be ten years next year that that happened. Oh my gosh. Yeah so there was an obvious reason to revisit that but the Tunisia film I think was a first for Amazon and it did very well for them it sat in their top five for several months so I think that probably gave them confidence that there's an audience for these films but as you'll know the landscape is pretty squeezed at the moment so there's no one with an open door to these documentaries I think the key is obviously the access your approach and your reputation and budget is really going to sort of get you through the door with them. Yeah no that makes no sense and obviously Yeti you're a kind of relatively young company you are our digital indie of the year a few years ago at the broadcast digital awards what does it mean for you guys to be getting these documentaries onto a big streamer like Amazon does it have an impact on how you work and what your prospects are going forward. It's a huge deal for us because as I say you know we're a small company based in Wales you know we have to fight for every commission that we get these documentaries going on global streaming platforms reputationally a brilliant for Yeti and our proof that we can make very very good documentaries as well as you know maybe the better known companies that are out there and I was you know equally win lots of awards so for us it's definitely reputational and it opens doors and it has given us a sort of a change of emphasis as a company so strategically now we're probably 70% focused on global streamers and the US market going forward so that's I suppose the success of these documentaries has given us the confidence to sort of go down that route and we've got other projects in the pipeline with US broadcasters and another streamer as well so you know it's it's working yeah that makes no sense and I wondered as a regional indie are streamers of richer ground for you than PSBs at the moment. Definitely for us I think you know this year in particular it's felt that the PSBs have really been in Stasis you know that there's not been much commissioning going on at all and obviously you know a lot of changes and cuts going on at lots of different broadcasters so we feel that the opportunity lies in bigger projects for the streamers and for the US market not to say you know we are still obviously pitching and developing ideas for the UK but whilst that all seems to be on pause we're putting more resource into more sort of global facing ideas and you know we'll see how things pan out next year but for us yeah that definitely feels like the most fruitful way of winning business at the moment. Brilliant and what's next for Yeti? We are in production on a big US doc buster as they call them for a big platform in the in the States. I can't say much about that at the moment but it's very exciting and we are doing a lovely Christmas doc for Sky Arts which is off the back of another big premium doc series we did for Sky Arts this year and lots of things in quite advanced development for different broadcasters we're just finishing off a BBC Arts doc which will TX in December early December. The other end of the scale is that we've got our pro-leath Cotswold kitchen cookery series for ITV so we've just finished filming the second block of that and we'll have another block that we film March I think next year so that's still ongoing and the cookery is a nice light relief from all the true crime that we do so yeah and obviously you know we've got an eye on YouTube digital platforms as well but as I say the main focus for us as a company is bigger documentary projects for streamers and the US until the UK gets back on some kind of even kill whether that happens who knows. I'm about to find the idea of like a doc buster a really interesting kind of that portamento because it sort of almost suggests that people are like surprised that people want to watch documentaries on a big scale do you know what I mean it's like oh it's it's a blockbuster but it's a documentary do you know what I mean and it sort of feels interesting that there has been this move towards big scale documentaries in recent years. I mean part of it I think is just the saturation of the market that if they're going to put a lot of money into a doc it's really got to punch through for that platform because that you know I guess people may be subscribed to stuff on the strength of you know something they want to see so it's partly that and I know you know just the very word creates a bit of a buzz around it. This will definitely make a big splash when it's released it's a juicy very dark US story but you know it's it's exciting and I like the word doc buster it's any matter of time before we start using that in the UK I'm sure and it's so. Surviving the London nail bombings lands on Amazon Prime video on 17th of November. That's all for us today I'm talking TV thank you so much for joining us and thank you to Sharon Price and as always we'd like to thank our brilliant sponsor multi-tube media and Oli Piot and Daisy Chaku at Rethink Audio. We'll see you next week.