Radio Documentary Production

Pitch

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Proposal

I plan do a 15-minute length documentary, that is designed to cover the topic of 'loneliness' - namely, what is loneliness?

Through a series of interviews with randomly selected people, I hope to convey what people perceive loneliness as, as well as convey my own thoughts on the subject. I hope to interview some counselors too, given that it may well be a subject they deal with when patients come to them. Of course, no names will be mentioned, so that individual cases cannot be identified.

I plan to make use of silence for the first few seconds, to catch the listener out. Silence makes people feel uncomfortable when it comes onto the radio. I hope that this will entice people to continue listening.

The reason I plan this is because I think a lot of people associate silence with loneliness; the sound of nobody else being there, or how a person may feel in their head when surrounded by people that don't know or associate with.

The program will be broken into two halves - the first half will focus on the definition of loneliness, using parts of the interviews recorded with no narrative between the clips.

The second half will be those interviewed giving examples of times when they may have felt lonely, and how they dealt with it, felt at the time etc. If I can compile a suitable list of songs,

My working title for this is "The Sound Of Silence" - this will obviously be changed by the time the project is completed.

Commissioning process

Radio 4 schedules 13,000 programmes across 14 different genres each year and has a special commissioning process.

Independent Production companies who wish to hear details regarding the Radio 4 or 4 Extra commissioning rounds will need to be part of the Radio Independent Supplier Database, and can find more information on the 'How to Pitch' page of the BBC commissioning website.

All Radio Production companies on the database will receive copies of the guidelines for the main commissioning round, held in the spring, and for special tenders.

These contain guidance on:

• the commissioning process and timetable

• who is eligible to bid for particular slots

• editorial, audience and price requirements

• how to write and submit programme proposals 

The commissioning process is for producers from independent companies and BBC in-house teams to pitch their proposals. How the BBC commissions content and agrees contracts is governed by the Code of practice and the Business framework. 

Twice a year channels and genres reflect on programme performance, what's been commissioned and future needs. This informs the ideas they are most looking for from production companies and in-house: the development priorities. These are updated with any changes throughout the year. When Commissioners have something over and above these priorities they hold briefings for suppliers. These could be online or face to face. Relevant suppliers are informed about these as they come up.

One-to-one meetings with Commissioners will be to discuss ideas in play, not to brief on what they are looking for. This ensures they have time to develop the best ideas. Securing a meeting with a Commissioner will be based on the strength of the ideas submitted.

An idea will be looked at first by the genre. If they think it is a good addition to their mix they may ask the producer to develop it further. When they think it’s ready they will take it to the Channel Controller. The creative dialogue will evolve through conversations with both the channel and genre and will be managed by the Genre Commissioning Editor.

BBC Radio 4 are essentially a commissioning centre, not a production department, and are unable to accept unsolicited programme ideas which have been sent directly to the network. In order to submit an offer to Radio 4, you will need to work with a production department/supplier.

Recording

To get the best out of my interviewees, I didn't want to script anything. This would ensure I got a natural response to my questions.

Primarily, I wanted to find out:

• What young people defined loneliness as;
• What experiences they have had with loneliness;
• How they dealt with the feeling;
• What people could do to avoid feeling lonely

Some responses were more in-depth than others, which proved tricky to pick segments from. I had intended to do a narrative feature, segueing into relevant snippets from each interview. However, because of the varying depth and focus of the responses collected, I decided the best use would be to break each interview up by their answers to pitched questions. I would then edit these sections semi-sequencially; I'd introduce a few responses to question 1, ( interviews A, B, C, D) followed by some of the answers to question 2 (interviews A and D), then repeat. That way, you are introduced to new voices throughout, and can compare the experiences.