Discovery boss sends signal to independent Irish producers

WITH AN annual global programming budget exceeding $1 billion, Discovery is a giant in commissioning terms, but it’s a giant that no Irish production company has dared to approach in recent years.

Dee Forbes, the Irish president and managing director of Discovery Networks Western Europe, is now appealing to Irish production companies to pitch programme ideas to the network.

Forbes will make reaching out to independent Irish production houses a key theme in the 2012 Irish Film and Television Academy Annual Television Lecture, which she delivers in Dublin tonight.

“Typically, we are seen maybe as an American company and maybe people thought they had to go to the US to pitch. But we have a very strong production hub in London,” says Forbes, who is from Drimoleague, Co Cork, and now heads up 17 factual and entertainment channels within the Discovery Networks stable.

“I don’t see why the production companies we work with can’t come from Ireland as well,” she says.

Forbes came to Discovery two years ago from another US-owned television company, Turner Broadcasting, where she ran Turner’s business in the UK and Ireland. She started her career in the media planning and buying business at Young and Rubicam in London, having emigrated there in 1989.

At Discovery, the channels for which Forbes is responsible have a footprint of 331 subscribers in 30 countries. The company employs 600 people in London, which is its second biggest location outside its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Forbes identifies the auction genre and body-image programmes, but says the one theme that Discovery always champions is adventure. “The spirit of getting out there and doing things is something that we have always been very excited about,” she says. “Adventure will always be our core.”

Discovery has just commissioned Endurance in the Wake of Shackleton, a three-parter following a team of explorers led by Tim Jarvis as they attempt to recreate Kildare-born Ernest Shackleton’s 1,500km crossing of the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica followed by the South Georgia mountain traverse.

Another programme genre that Discovery has begun to target is fast-turnaround documentaries such as iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World, which was broadcast in the wake of the Apple founder’s death, and its documentary on the environmental impact of volcanic ash clouds, which went out after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010.

“We’re not in the news game, but when something topical happens, we will do a documentary on the subject that will take a different angle.”

These shows are “done in the Discovery way”, which means relaying information and “letting viewers make up their mind”.

Discovery also favours using on-screen faces to front its factual programming – retired sportsmen James Cracknell and Freddie Flintoff are two names to have featured on Discovery UK. “I’m on the hunt for more talent,” says Forbes.

There are 12 Discovery channels on Sky’s packages in Ireland and nine transmitted via UPC. Forbes says there is “room for growth” in its presence in the Irish market.

“I think we can do better.”

Discovery Communications Inc, the parent company, has a philosophy of spending money on content in a recession, and it helps that it’s not strapped for cash – the most recent financial results showed a

7 per cent rise in quarterly revenues. “Investment is very much on the cards,” says Forbes. It is now up to the Irish production sector to see if it can grab a slice of Discovery’s production pie.