EXCLUSIVE: Whale with Steve Backshall, the latest high-end natural history series out of the UK is racking up international sales, as the Sky Nature show’s executive producer Wendy Darke talked up the importance of distribution and tax credits in getting such programs made.
The ABC in Australia and France’s Ushuaia are the latest to board the blue-chip natural history series from Wendy Darke’s indie True to Nature ahead of its debut on Sky Nature in the UK on December 3.
The series follows conservationist and wildlife expert Backshall as he attempts to challenge preconceptions around the endangered animals. Free-diving in the ocean, he attempts to get the audience closer to the than ever before to whales and dolphins, and showcase rarely-seen behaviours from the little-understood mammals.
Fremantle sells globally after launching it at the London TV Screenings earlier this year, and unveiled deals with the BBC in the MENA region, DokuTV (former Yugoslavia and Albania), Canal+ (Poland), TVI (Portugal) and Movistar Plus+ (Spain) at Mipcom last month. Darke was keen to talk up the companies’ ongoing relationship during a wide-ranging interview that also spanned the state of the genre and TV’s relationship with environmentalism.
She described her business partnership with Fremantle as “second to none,” adding: “What brings us together is a desire for premium content for a global audience. The crucial thing is the idea that we develop gets editorial alignment around what that show is going to look like in its tone. That’s the starting approach because ultimately, it’s all about the shop window.”
She also paid tribute to the likes of BBC Studios, Sky Studios, Blue Ant Media and ZDF Enterprises for backing several of her projects since True to Nature’s launch in 2016, and noted how natural history commissioners were increasingly likely to enter into co-production agreements.
“I did the very first Sky and Netflix coproduction, which was the [2022 series] Predators narrated by Tom Hardy,” she added. “That was really significant because they’ve never managed to get that partnership going before.”
True to Nature also brought together ITV and Nat Geographic International for the first time, in the recently announced Predators in Action (working title). “What affords that is to get the idea right at the get-go, so that all parties feel this is the kind of show that our respective clients and audiences would want to watch,” said Darke.
Tapping into the UK’s tax break system for high-end programs added with streamer/broadcaster investment and distributor backing is driving the natural history genre, she added, calling on the government to keep the process in place. “That added value definitely affords us to take a position of ambition, which gives us that edge in a very competitive global marketplace,” she added.
A new Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit will bring together several credits next year into one payment, which effectively increases the relief from a rebate of 25% to a credit of 34% from next year – a 0.5% real-terms increase. In the Autumn Budget announced yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt addressed concerns over which documentaries qualify for the relief by saying it will now define a doc by “aligning with the guidance used by the BFI.”
Darke noted True to Nature has registered several subsidiary companies, each of which allow the company to access the tax break for individual projects. “I’d say we have been really, proactive,” she added. “You’ve got to work hard for it, but when you unlock it, it can be the piece of the jigsaw that gets you over that tricky commissioning line around the funding. It also brings confidence to the investors and the broadcasters because they’re getting more added value without.”
Fremantle has now struck new deals for Whale and also represents certain territory rights to the program’s predecessor, Shark with Steve Backshall. True to Nature and Sky Studios produced the show, with Ellen Husain and Tom Whitworth attached as directors. Darke, who is among the world’s most experienced natural history TV maker, is the executive producer and Simon Nash is series producer. A first trailer launched on World Earth Day (April 22).
“Steve is utterly brilliant for the storytelling,” said Darke. “He takes you diving with whales and dolphins around the word, and you really feel you’ve got the world’s best guiding you. That is a big USP of the show: Steve ability to hold his breath for over five minutes allows him to get us literally closer to the animals.”
Darke described Whale as a classic natural history “one-third premium blue chip, 30 to 40% a world authority with freediving expertise guiding us first person into that world, and about 20 or 30% of the world’s best conservationists and scientists out there on the frontline doing real science or conservation protection in real places.”
However, it has a more contemporary feel than some British natural history thanks to a music score from Chris Rowe and stories that track developments in environmentalism over several decades, culminating in the dives seen in the show.
Darke, who has a PhD in Marine Science and was head of the BBC Natural History Unit between 2012 and 2016, estimated she has produced more than 1,500 programs in the genre over a TV career now into its fourth decade. “I’ve made hundreds of whale shows, and I would say the crucial thing is that every new project is a new approach and the new content that will be afforded to the audience,” she said. “Something fresh, new and different is absolutely sacrosanct.”
Beyond pure entertainment, natural history TV is tied directly into environmentalism and climate change, highlighting the need for action without preaching. Darke said the younger generation of producers in the genre signalled a positive future for both the genre and the environment, with a large percentage of staff at her Bristol-based, Sky Studios-backed production house between the ages of 20 and 30.
“I put all my trust in them because they’re inheriting the planet and they’re much more in tune with the cultural global shift that is taking place,” she said. “I feel that this generation, largely afforded because of the internet and the ability to build alliances and relationships, are much more global in their perspective. They’re passionate — and rightly so — about the things that are gonna be important to them and they’re inheriting some pretty tough challenges on lots of levels.”
She added that Whale tonally approaches the genre by “not making people feel guilty or helpless” about the environment, and instead highlights the inspirational aspects of Backshall’s presenting and the scientists and conversationists working life.