{"id":1172185,"date":"2026-08-27T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1172185\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T12:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:00:19","slug":"channel-5-boss-would-not-have-commissioned-a-sarah-everard-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1172185\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 5 Boss Would Not Have Commissioned a Sarah Everard Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChannel 5<\/a> boss Ben Frow said he would never have commissioned a drama about Sarah Everard for his network.<\/p>\n

\n\tJeff Pope is penning a drama<\/a> about the investigation into Everard\u2019s 2021 murder for the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrow, chief content officer at Paramount-owned public service broadcaster 5, said that while he was sure Pope would do a \u201cgreat job of it\u201d and it\u2019s \u201ca very important story to tell\u201d he would not have commissioned that story.<\/p>\n

\n\tExplaining his touchstones for commissioning, Frow said they consist of \u201cwould I watch it?\u201d then \u201cIs it more trouble than it\u2019s worth?\u201d and finally, \u201cWhy am I doing it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are some things I just wouldn\u2019t do,\u201d he said, pointing to the Everard drama as one of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the BBC show will not dramatize Everard\u2019s kidnap and murder by an off duty policeman during the Covid lockdowns, instead focusing on the investigation, the network has been criticized for selecting a male screenwriter to pen a drama about a murder that was viewed as deeply personal to women across the country and prompted protests at the time (even Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge was spotted laying flowers at a memorial for Everard at the time).<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever Frow has not stayed away from controversial topics, including a drama about Huw Edwards<\/a>, the BBC newsreader convicted for downloading images of child sexual abuse, and another about Madeleine McCann, the toddler who infamously disappeared in 2007 in Portugal during a family holiday. She has never been found.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe McCanns\u2019 press guy\u2026 he was across the whole thing,\u201d Frow said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to take part in it, but they knew we were doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrow went on to say that contributor welfare and privacy is a much more important consideration today than it was ten years ago. \u201cI think the big message that we embrace is that we have to have people on board, and we want to be able to tell their story, and we want to do it in a responsible way, and not in a sneery, jeery, horrible way,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tTouching on a lawsuit filed recently<\/a> by production company Blackbox Media against 5 over a shelved drama series, Frow said he couldn\u2019t take in depth about the legal dispute but added: \u201cWhat I can say is I can reiterate that we take contributor welfare very, very seriously, and if somebody calls and says, \u2018I have a problem with that,\u2019 we listen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd in some cases, that means that you just you decide that you can no longer do that program,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd there are programs that I have written off because it turns out that somebody feels very strongly that we shouldn\u2019t be doing it, or it\u2019s been done in the wrong way. So it\u2019s something to be very mindful of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel 5 boss Ben Frow said he would never have commissioned a drama about Sarah Everard for his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1172186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3937],"tags":[192,1458,102997,77,382,16,15],"class_list":["post-1172185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bbc","tag-channel-5","tag-edinburgh-tv-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117167367942514349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1172186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}