The report on the tragic death of John Balson will be published in “weeks, not months,” said Ian Katz as he revealed that Channel 4 is considering introducing additional social measures for the production of true crime series.
Balson committed suicide in May after working on a true crime series On the trail of the murderers for several months and suffers from vestibular migraines. Since then there has been a wave of outrage and calls for improved welfare measures in the industry, and a Guardian investigation into his death brought Balson back into the spotlight last week.
Katz said Channel 4 was considering how to extend the protections it has introduced for journalists covering the Israel-Gaza conflict to the true crime genre.
“We have created specific protections for people who deal with horrific images and I am open to it if we need similar measures for true crime,” he said. “This would recognise the stress and impact that viewing a lot of disturbing images and witness accounts can have. With the Gaza images, we know how much people are exposed to that, but we need to know more than we currently know (for true crime).”
To gain a better understanding, the independent report into Balson’s death by the law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain will be released in “weeks, not months,” Katz said, and the network will draw its conclusions from it. Balson’s family will be informed of the findings of the investigation, but they will not necessarily be made public. An inquest into his death is pending.
“Whatever this report says, we are very aware of the problems of freelance overwork on productions,” Katz added. “There have been many discussions and some of them were sparked by John’s death.”
Communication problems
Elsewhere during a lengthy meeting, Katz acknowledged that he would “think most deeply about communicating with the indie sector” the next time the network runs into financial difficulties.
Katz this week hyped up Channel 4’s current financial position compared to 12 months ago, when he faced tough questions during an Edinburgh TV Festival session and was criticised by indie circles for saying “perhaps we’ve been a bit more honest” than rivals about the recent slowdown in commissions.
Looking back today and answering a question from Deadline, he said, “Some people said I communicated too much, some said too little, and I think I didn’t do it quite right.”
“Some people think I gave the impression last year that things would be better in about three or six months from Edinburgh,” she added. “We were all looking at the same predictions for the advertising market and they haven’t quite come true.”
Next time, he will “think more carefully about communication and make sure we are transparent with the production companies from the start,” Katz added.
Earlier this week, Katz said the advertising market was “gasping” back to life and that Channel 4’s spending in the first six months of this year would be in line with the year before Covid-19. He declined to give figures on how many shows and how much money were spent in the first half of 2024. “But what I can say is that there are still significant opportunities in the key genres that we need to drive streaming audiences,” he added.
“Illusory” intellectual property
Katz also used his session to express concern that UK intellectual property could become less relevant if broadcasters stop taking risks. This came after MacTaggart lecturer James Graham called on UK TV gatekeepers to create “new universes”.
He said Britain was too dependent on US intellectual property, which had become a serious problem this year as American buyers spent less money due to market contraction.
“There is a bigger problem here: the boom we thought the British film and television industry would have was somewhat illusory because it was based on US money and intellectual property and was based in the US,” he explained. “That’s why it’s more important than ever that we invest in original British ideas and stories.”
Channel 4 also used the session to launch a new documentary series directed by Dan Reed about the recent unrest in the UK, while also showing a clip from the upcoming series Go back to where you came from, A format for a social experiment in which the British experience the reality of crossing dangerous refugee routes to Britain.
Alisa Pomeroy, who is in charge of Channel 4’s reality TV show Factual Entertainment and documentaries, said it was important to “face up to these opinions” and rejected criticism that the channel was giving a platform to people with anti-immigration views.
She added: “The Overton window of what you say in public has changed and I think it’s really important to engage with those opinions rather than pushing them out of the mainstream media where they spread on social media and things like the riots three weeks ago happen.”
Pomeroy pointed out that the original version of the format from ten years ago is now part of the Australian school curriculum. “Every Australian can decide whether to write essays on Shakespeare or Orwell or Go back to where you came from”, she added.
Katz and his commissioners spoke at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Thursday.
