What are we looking for?
The Bravo Brand 2009.
We want Bravo to be the perfect blend of our ‘old’ and ‘new’ incarnations – in the main combining the successful, ‘traditional’ street reality of ‘old’ Bravo with our more recently successful action-factual series. However, it’s not just about ‘gritted-jaw’ factual or ‘oi oi!’ street reality – we need to bring back Bravo’s irreverent humour, there’s only so much butch manliness one channel can take before it needs a witty aside.
Proud
We’re still proud to deliver the best in male-targeted factual and fact-ent…and we won’t be too bothered if GQ or the Guardian don’t like it.
This does not mean we’re just lazily returning to football, fighting and f#cking… but we do want to re-assert our reputation as a safe haven for male viewing.
Tone
Bravo’s established tone of straight-talking, honest and witty
communication with our audience is crucial to our brand.
So we’ll stand up and be proud of the programming in our mix
that is regarded as a ‘guilty pleasure’.
Our defining feature will be our delivery of exclusive, British, original and targeted factual and fact-ent series …it’s this that we want to be famous for.
Objectives
1. Re-introduce the humour and wit that Bravo was once known for
through series like Travel Sick or Sin Cities.
2. Develop big, factual and fact-ent ideas that are
ripe for international co-production.
3. Find 3 new series that can rate above 200k
Needs
9pm stripped: 2 slots @ 20/25 x 30’ blue-light/ street-reality. Fast-moving, preferably British.
Low cost/high volume popular factual commissions
We have a series airing this August called ‘Frontline
Crime UK’ (working title) however we need more UK
policing series.
We want 20/25 half hours of blues & two’s to
TX from next May (2009).
Ask yourself:
- How can we revisit and readdress the Street Crime UK brand?
- What new areas of street policing are there or how can we turn this highly successful Bravo brand around so that the viewers feel they are getting something new and exciting again.
What areas of policing can guarantee us the access and action as well as engaging stories/great characters?
- Can we find a pan-discipline emergency services team to follow?
- Could we look at a team of road traffic accident specialists, or just concentrate on a single stretch of Motorway?
Remember great stats and facts again are crucial to the story narratives and to ensure that the Bravo viewer is getting some take-out. The action is central, we don’t want to spend too long on set-ups or character development. Our cameras are in the thick of it. CCTv is also an area that’s worked well for us and our viewers.
We also want a further 20/25 half hours of programming.
‘Boozed Up Brits Abroad’ will air from October 2008 onwards and
we have high hopes this will rate well and return next year. Police crackdowns
and the lack of a 24 drinking culture has meant a lot of people, especially
our Bravo viewers have now chosen to hold a customary knees up abroad. The
series will highlight the real scale of the problem in Europe and ask if as
Brits we can ever clean up our act? This is a great area and genre for
us and has been hugely successful in the past with shows such as ‘Booze
Britain’ and ‘Costa Del Street Crime’ so we don’t
want to stop at just this series. Can we go further with this area? Costa clubbing….Brits
boozing and holidaying in the Canaries? Where are the troubled areas
that we Brits are creating other than the Eastern Bloc which we cover in ‘Booze
Up Brits Abroad’?
We’d need this series to record next summer in time for TX September 2009.
What other areas of the daily life of the British male could we focus on?
Needs
10pm un-stripped: 4 slots available
across 3 areas, durations TBC but assume each is 8 x 60:
- Action-factual, gritty, experiential, dangerous, visceral, international, ideally co-pro friendly.
- Humour/Wit/Irreverence…but as a secondary concern. Starting point could be twisted travelogue or a new-style investigation.
- Noisy, PR generating, boundary-pushing…etc (!). This is the slot that doesn’t necessarily need to be ‘evergreen’ with shelf-life. This is the slot that gives you the freedom to be topical.
Big bold ideas
We have four slots available at 10pm and we want to cover three areas.
Firstly, this is where our shows need to be full of action
and grit. It can have an international appeal (co-pro friendly
as the Bravo contribution is capped) and with that we’d
expect high production values. This needs to have danger
all over it. One recent commission that comes under this
banner would be Chris Ryan’s Special Task Force.
Unapologetically male, the promise of danger, big action
and a talent that is authentic and hugely credible under
such an audacious title. Previous incarnations of
this genre that have worked for us before include ‘Danny
Dyer’s Real Football Factories’ and ‘Brits
Behind Bars’. These shows can also be investigative,
immersive and/or have a journalistic thread. They need
to feel ambitious in both direction and concept. Genres
could be: combat, crime, civil disorder, military or you
tell us.
Also think about big named talent that are instantly recognisable
should the idea warrant a host. We have high expectations.
Secondly, we want to make sure Bravo keeps its core audience amused. We’ve always been known for our irreverence and wit. A good starting point might be a twisted new travelogue (new spin on Bravo stalwarts ‘TravelSick’ or ‘Sin Cities’) or a new-style investigation (always admired Danny Wallace’s Conspiracy Theories). Think more fact/ent for these ideas. Previous shows that have done the trick have been ‘Cops, Cars & Superstars; Bullrun’ and ‘Man’s Work’. Perhaps there is a talent out there waiting to be the new face of Bravo and worth hanging out with? We’ve always been interested in hearing who you think is the next ‘Towers of London’ or ‘Dog The Bounty Hunter’ (family businesses in the extreme!) We’re open to ideas for these so don’t hold back. No panel or sketch shows.
Finally it’s important to make a noise and remind everyone of our channel brand and that we’re true to our audience. We want to extend our reach and bring new viewers in to sample our great schedule over the next year and what better way then a show that has strong talent, is PR generating and is actually not something we’re expecting to repeat forever more. This is the slot that gives you the freedom to be topical. This is wide open. Fash FC really gave the channel a show that people talked about and created PR over a period of six months. I’m not expecting a big reality show, merely using this as an example of what a programme can achieve in multi-channel.
The importance of original productions:
Bravo’s original productions will be the standard-bearer for the brand in 2009. We need them to drive the viewers’ perception of the channel and crucially, re-assert the strength of the Bravo brand.
Although Bravo remains a multi-channel stalwart (in recent research, Bravo ranks in the top 10 of spontaneously recalled channel brands and nearly 10 million individuals still tune in each month) we’ve seen new channels spring up - or existing channels up their game - and we need to respond, it is our originals that will make the difference.
Bravo’s USP in the market is its original programming heritage. Our commissions need to help set us apart from the competition as well as working hard for the channel – obviously in terms of ratings performance (both on premiere and repeat runs) but also in terms of PR generation and brand development.
Contact:
Alana
Martin Commissioning Assistant bravo.commissions@virginmediatv.co.uk with
a covering page and your full contact details. Please also
copy in your commissioning contact.
Rebecca Johnson
Senior Commissioning Editor,
Fact Ent & Entertainment
Lucy Pilkington
Senior Commissioning Editor,
Factual & Fact Ent