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F BRITISH
THEMAKEOVERMAN
PETER BAZALGETTE, BAFTA’S NEWEST FELLOW, TALKS TO ASHLEY DAVIES
Baz bursts open the boardroom door, flies in (not unexpected- ly, a tad late) and falls dramat- ically into a chair to catch his breath, eyes all a’sparkle.
The room is a cross between a mini- Versailles salon and a public school meeting room. There are tall mirrors, reflecting the un-Soho greenness of Bedford Square, elegant high ceilings and a trophy cabinet full of chunky broadcasting accolades. Interesting that the Changing Rooms squad hasn’t messed it all up with animal print and stapled-on faux velvet.
GMG Endemol creative director Peter Bazalgette is a tall, enthusiastic and straight-backed former public schoolboy who says “television” and “independent producers” when most would say “TV” and “indies”. (It’s doubtful he ever says anything by acci- dent or without careful consideration). He doesn’t look 46 but his hair is start- ing to feel its age on top.
So far it’s been quite a year for him, but then you could probably say that about each of his 23 years in TV. Two months ago, Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica confirmed plans to buy Dutch entertainment giant Endemol Entertainment which co-owns GMG Endemol with the Guardian Media Group.
Earlier this month, GMG Endemol, the parent company of production companies Bazal and Initial and rights arm Gem, bought half of interactive media specialist Victoria Real. And later this summer, Bazal Productions will take the limelight again when the infamous Big Brother hits the UK.
Further acquisitions, particularly in the new media field, are expected.
Long-running shows like Ready Steady Cook, Ground Force, Changing Rooms and Pet Rescue, not to mention brand exten- sions and international format sales, have made GMG Endemol
one of the biggest
UK independent
producers.
Under existing
broadcasting legis-
lation, the
Telefónica deal will
strip GMG
Endemol of its
independent status
and as a result its
hundreds of hours
of output will no
longer count in fill-
ing broadcasters’
25 per cent indie-
supplied pro-
gramme quota. Burning issues like this ignite the politician in Baz. He has become the “unofficial massive indie spokesman”, having first got a taste for policy when preparing to deliver the McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival two years ago. “That
was a sort of stimulus and eye- opener. Once you’ve done that you can’t leave it alone. You have to get stuck in,” he says.
It’s obvious he’s thought long and hard about finding a solution to the indie status/quota problem. As he talks about finding “a better system, not no system”, in the
“tough on crime and tough on the caus- es of crime” style, you can almost pic- ture him rousing the proletariat to action. He doesn’t have a quick fix but the backbone of his argument is that a system has to be developed in which it
is the responsibili- ty of broadcasters to stimulate the creative economy.
“It is widely accepted that one of the keys to eco- nomic growth in the next 10 years is to have a sys- tem that properly awards creators of ideas,” he says. “The creation of intangible assets in media is key. Intellectual prop- erty is going to
provide wealth, culture, jobs, exports and so on.
“You need something that creates more competition and much more of a level playing field, that is more of a stimulus to creators of intellectual
property.” Intellectual proper- ty, it should be mentioned, is the specialism of his wife, lawyer Hilary Newis.
Because he comes across more as a businessman or politician than a programme- maker, it’s hard to resist asking what he would be doing if he were banned from working in the indie sector.
Two years ago, he says, his answer would have been a scheduler. But now, because he has become more involved in broadcast politics, he says he would probably want a job that is more about being “a force for change in the way broadcasting is organised and regulat- ed.” Does that role exist? He’s not sure, he says, hastily adding that making TV shows still “turns him on.”
So, what does the job title, creative director of GMG Endemol Entertainment, actually mean and is it still an accurate descriptionofhisrole? Heexplains:“A couple of years ago we tried to say, if our business is inventing intellectual property which we need to exploit in a number of ways – one of them being TV – we need to create ideas.”
That creative team includes his deputy Tim Hincks – who came up with the C4 Flatmates idea, a ‘Shallow Grave meets Friends meets real life’ pro- gramme – head of research Nikki Hughes and Bazal managing director Nikki Cheetham, who devised Pet Rescue.
He continues: “Instead of being mostly active TV producers making pro- grammes and hoping to have the odd idea from time to time, we should slight- ly steal the clothes of ad agencies. We try to do it by design, not by accident.” And, sportingly, Baz admits that he’d be lying if he said being creative director didn’t involve a degree of marketing. ■
This is an edited version of an article which first appeared in Broadcast, May 19 Peter Bazalgette’s Six Of The Best is on page 24
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