Southern Star’s Janeen Faithfull on making great TV
After 16 years at Seven, Janeen Faithfull joined production company Southern Star in February. The CEO tells Brooke Hemphill how to make shows audiences want to watch.
Between Big Brother, Puberty Blues and Howzat! Southern Star is doing well in the current TV landscape. You must be pleased.
Now Janeen, if some ad person, say, has a neat idea for a show, what do they need to do to get it on your desk?
I have an idea for a show and I wonder if Janeen thinks it’s a show people would watch. It’s based on the insight that is that you can learn anything on Google. The question is how much, how fast? In this show teams are asked to solve a serious problem in an area where they have no expertise. Using information gleaned from the internet, they must land a stricken airbus(simulator) before the fuel runs out. They must take out a pancreas( dead pig?) and stitch up the wound, and so on. All done to a ticking clock.
Very interesting.
Giving the audience what it wants is a very difficult matter, in fact it is often a delusion. The audience must first be identified. Is it the mass of people who currently watch X,Y and Z and therefore will most probably watch more of the same? Is it the mass that makes the ratings look attractive and therefore must be catered for, or rather pandered to?
Is it that huge unknown number of people who are ready to watch and be entertained by a variety of styles?
Most people thought of opera, whenever anyone thought of opera, as a load of agonising screaming in tune, by fat ladies in horned helmets. Along comes a rather baby faced Welsh telephone salesman, who sings, to a pre recorded backing, a couple of verses of Nessun Dorma, which most had heard only at the world cup, and suddenly every cabaret act, talent quest entrant and wannabe star is singing this inappropriate aria in a hundred different guises.
Southern Star is one of the best production companies in my view, but there is great need generally for a professional theatrical approach to the art of production, presentation and programming, in which the standards and the diversity of entertainments will have a chance to expand. In doing so, the entire horizon of the industry will be lifted and expanded to a healthy and prosperous level.
Stop looking over your shoulders and wondering what is coming next, you are in the television industry, and it is television that must prosper and endure in this changing world.
What comedy has Southern Star done?