“From Peak TV To Peak Caution”: BBC Drama Boss Says Industry Has Become “Fearful”

BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt has candidly floated the notion that the industry has moved from “peak TV to peak caution,” as she details an ambition to “help reshape the drama landscape at a critical time.”

Addressing producers and press for the first time since taking on the nation’s biggest drama commissioning job, Salt reflected on a decade since the phrase “peak TV” first entered the lexicon, raising concerns over “short-termism” and that “the big bets of the boom era are a thing of the past.”

“We’ve seen buyers retreat into cautious commissioning spaces,” said Salt. “The industry as a whole has become – dare I say it – a little fearful.”

Expanding her point, Salt said “financial pressures and commercial imperatives” have led buyers to “default to safe bets.”

She cited “inflation, content and platform saturation, retrenchment and the writers strike” as the key factors leading to “peak caution,” contrasting to a scenario just five years ago when “everyone was willing to make brave choices, to experiment, to try something a little unorthodox.”

Numerous UK buyers and execs have in recent weeks pointed to risk aversion amidst the broader slowdown and Salt was using her first set-piece – featuring the announcement of 12 new shows including from James Graham, Aimee Lou Wood and Rebecca Hall – to detail the state of play.

She said the BBC can be a beacon in the “peak caution” era.

“In five years’ time I hope we will be able to point to a record of risk-taking at the BBC that has helped reshape the drama landscape at a critical time,” added the former Netflix scripted commissioner, who replaced Piers Wenger 18 months ago when Wenger moved to A24.

“While others might become more cautious, we will go further to take the risks others won’t – to task all the producers and creatives in this room to keep pushing those boundaries, and to venture into the creative unknown. Real risk is a leap of faith. And if the BBC won’t do it in today’s cautious landscape, who will?”

Redefining “state of the nation”

Salt set out her three priorities for drama, namely ‘currency’ – defined as “work that feels alive, that lives in and interrogates the present” – ‘character’ and ’empathy’.

On the first, she said she wants to redefine British “state of the nation drama,” which has become “a little dusty and old-fashioned” or “sometimes associated with shows that are earnest or overloaded with messages.”

Salt said “playful, messy” series such as I May Destroy You or This is Going to Hurt can be “state of the nation” as much as more traditional examples such as Our Friends in the North, and pointed to her new commission of Graham’s Dear England starring Joseph Fiennes as England soccer manager Gareth Southgate, the play of which has just transferred to the West End.

On ‘character,’ Salt criticized the industry for “tipping too far towards flashy concepts over true characterisation in recent years,” saying that she wants to redress the balance and unearth the next [Peaky Blinders star] Tommy Shelby or [Happy Valley’s] Catherine Cawood.

“I want us to create the new generation of iconic characters,” she added, laying down a marker.

“As Director of Drama, the moments that make our team proudest of all are not in our shows themselves, they’re when we hear brilliant creatives say that the support and freedom they get from the BBC is utterly unique.”