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Current TV Series Pitch

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Current TV Series Pitch at DFG Day at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2010!

Current TV is raising the bar by offering four emerging production companies or producers the opportunity to pitch their ideas for innovative documentary series in a bid to walk away with £2.5k of development funding from Current TV. This is an ideal opportunity for emerging indies and producers to show that they deserve a slice of the broadcasting pie and to get their elbows on the table.

Submissions ware now open for your factual series pitches! The series is intended to air in 2011 on Current TV and what we really want is a 6x 60’ series with an episode price of £33k per hour- however, we don’t want to be too prescriptive, so if you have a great series idea that you can make work with the same amount of money for fewer episodes, that’s ok too - but no less than three episodes is our only hard and fast rule.



Current TV will select four submissions to pitch at the ‘Current TV Series Pitch’ at DocFest 2010 as part of DFG Day on Thursday 4th November, and the finalist will receive £2.5k development funding and support from Current TV with a view to (hopefully) getting them made and on air.

Pitchers will be given a seven-minute slot to pitch their idea and play a taster clip to a judging panel of industry execs who specialise in factual TV series, in front of an audience of esteemed industry folk (panel to be announced shortly).

What Current TV wants


Current TV is looking for exciting and intelligent factual series and want to see inventive new formats and fresh spins on proven formats that are edgy and noisy in a crowded media landscape. We want bold, self-explanatory and entertaining series (we love the spirit of Banged Up Abroad and One Born Every Minute) and are keen to hear ideas from across the factual spectrum; docusoaps, observational doc series, and formatted entertainment. Our programming should be enticing to our 25-44 year old viewers who are intelligent and curious about the world. Your ideas should tap into milestones and emotional touch points relevant to that age group, particularly those in their late twenties and early thirties e.g. friendships, work, health, family, love, sex…

We are not looking for scripted drama, comedy or talk-show formats. As our name suggests, we’re looking at the world as it is today so no history, please. Broadly we are looking for programming that:



  • - Features great characters and personalities, with strong opinions such as Amish: World’s Squarest Teenagers

  • - Shows ordinary people in extraordinary situations/ incredible stories and lives but with a foot firmly in the real world rather than artificial, constructed situations.

  • - Tackles controversial and taboo subjects intelligently through unconventional formats, as is successfully done by Embarrassing Bodies.

  • - Is current, reflecting the issues that are permeating the public consciousness and discussing them in a positive, curious and exciting way

  • - Encourages debate and is illuminating and informative whilst entertaining

  • - Is edgy and ballsy, using humour to entertain and inform for example, Supersize Me! and Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends

  • - Provides a glimpse of the exotic and dangerous. Think BBC’s Tribe andAlone in the Wild

Here’s an example of a recent commission:

‘What Did I Do Last Night?’ - 6 x 30’



With one in four Brits unable to remember how they get home after a night out, it seems we're suffering from a national blackout. In What Did I Do Last Night? a new 30' factual format greenlit by Current TV is shining a very bright light on the drinking habits of seemingly ‘normal’ drinkers by giving them the opportunity to watch themselves drunk the morning after the night before. It is the channel’s first factual entertainment format.

In what could be described as the hangover from hell, presenter Jeff Leach helps young professionals aged 21-35 who regularly drink well above the recommended amount piece together the forgotten hours and confront some uncomfortable home truths about the kind of drunks they really are and what their friends, and strangers, really think about their drunken alter-egos.

How to Apply

Download the pitch form and terms at http://current.com/currenttvseriespitch and email your submission to lprestwood@current.com with ‘Current TV Series Pitch 2010: [YOUR NAME HERE]’ as your subject title. You can submit as many ideas as you wish using the official pitch form.

Submissions for pitches are now open and the deadline for submissions is 5pm GMT, 1st October 2010.